Chapter 30

CHAPTER THIRTY

HER — PRESENT DAY

My ears ring, my head pulsing with heaviness. The second Cal’s hand leaves my throat, I gasp for air as if I might not get another chance. I don’t have time to process anything else except that I need oxygen, and I don’t have it. My lungs burn, skin aflame from the memory of his hand crushing my windpipe.

If I hadn’t just experienced it, if I couldn’t still feel the indentations from his fingers on my skin, I might think I imagined it. Cal loves me. Cal wanted to marry me. But now, none of that is true. Now, Cal is married. Now, Cal lied to me about everything. Now, Cal looked me in the eyes and tried to kill me. To kill our daughter.

What have I ever done that was so wrong?

What have I ever done but love him? But try?

If I hadn’t come here, where would we be? I would still be home, playing the role of the doting, ignorant fiancée, waiting for him to return to me. No idea that his return would not have been a happy one. That eventually he would try to take our daughter. That he would ruin my life, my future, everything.

The baby rolls over in my stomach, probably sensing my distress, and I gasp with pain. I’m still trying to draw all the air I possibly can into my lungs with long, deep breaths—one hand on my chest and the other on my stomach—when my eyes find Cal on the floor. He’s lying there, eyes closed, blood spilling out across the gray grain of the faux wood floor. The contents of my stomach roil, my reality flipping on its axis. I glance up, my eyes finding their focus on Janelle for the first time. I still can’t breathe, and each breath is painful, like I’m already bruising inside and out from what happened.

From when Cal tried to kill me.

It doesn’t feel real. My hands slide to my neck, covering the space where his rested as I stare at her. “What did you do?” I demand. My voice doesn’t sound like mine anymore. It’s hoarse and gravelly. Feral.

I don’t know if I’m asking her what she did just now to Cal or in general to me. There’s so much I want to know and so much I may never know. I take a step backward away from her.

In her hand, she’s holding a lamp, the shade missing, bulb shattered. Vaguely, I remember the way it sounded—the dull thud—as it cracked into Cal’s skull moments ago. I remember that it happened—replaying it in my mind for the first time. The memory is hazy and oxygen-deprived, hidden behind a thin veil, but it’s there.

“ I—I didn’t have a choice! He was—he was going to kill you.” Her eyes go wide as she cuts a glance to the lamp in her hand. At once, it drops from her palm as if it’s on fire. “I didn’t know what to do!”

“Is he dead?” I ask. I feel as if I’m going to faint.

“No,” she says quickly, then adds, “I don’t think so.” She bends down closer to him, studying him. Gently, she puts a hand on his chest, closes her eyes for a beat, then looks back at me. “He’s breathing.”

“We need to call the police,” I say.

She’s still. Unmoving.

“What are you waiting for?”

“He tried to kill you,” she repeats again, trying to let it sink in for me.

“I know that.”

She stands up in front of me, hands clasped together. “I don’t think you do. I don’t think you’ve actually processed what just happened. You have to run, Sadie. And not just out of here, but out of this town. Out of the state if you can. He won’t stop coming for you. For her.” She gestures toward my stomach.

For the first time, it clicks for me that every horrible thing Janelle has ever told me about her husband was about Cal. One by one, I replay the conversations, then connect them to moments in Cal’s and my relationship. How controlling he was with my meals after we found out I was pregnant. How he had to know everywhere I was going and why. How he researched and monitored every vitamin I could possibly need, then found ways to make sure I got it, either through diet or supplements.

He maintained me like a plant, and I called it love.

“ He will not stop, ” she repeats again, slower this time. “He wanted a baby, and when I couldn’t give him one, he went after you. He will stop at nothing to have that child.”

When I couldn’t give him one, he went after you. Her words replay in my head, the truth of them slamming into my chest. “He lied to me.” It’s not really even a shock, as devastating as it is. He planned everything. Of course he did. He’s always been the planner, so why would I expect anything less?

She nods, licking her lips. “I’m so sorry. When I met you, I wanted to warn you, but I knew if I just came right out with it, you’d never believe me. I worried you’d think I was lying because I was jealous or bitter. And…and I thought we had more time, and then…” She puts her head down. “I should’ve stopped him, but I trusted him. I believed he loved me.”

“Why are you helping me now? Don’t you want the baby, too? Why wouldn’t you want him to win?”

She sniffles. “I’ve always wanted to be a mom, yes, but not like this. In the beginning, maybe I did want it, but then it got all screwed up. He swore to me you didn’t want her. He told me you were coming around to the idea of giving her up, but that it was hard for you. I believed him over and over and over because…god, I don’t even know why. Because he’s a man, I guess. Because he was older. Smarter. Because I thought he would take care of me.”

The words are eerily reminiscent of my own thoughts. I think back to the impatient and dismissive nurse not believing me when I said the room we were in wasn’t mine, and to everything I told Calvin recently—my fears and concerns about the couple at the cabin and the intruder in our house. Instances where I wasn’t believed over the smallest of things. Meanwhile, Cal was able to control and manipulate and hurt us over and over, purely because we believed him.

She sniffles. “I tried to call you so many times. To visit you and warn you, but I worried about what would happen if he found out. He has a tracking app set up on my phone, so I could never go anywhere but work or home without him asking questions. I…I should’ve done more, but I couldn’t. And then, recently, I found some research in his search history about surgically removing a baby via cesarean section.” The words wash over me like cold water as she grimaces. “Detailed research. Notes. Supply lists. And it scared me. When I found out he was taking you away for a vacation, I suggested you stay at a place a woman from my spin class owns. I had her send me a link to her cabin and then showed it to him. Cal didn’t realize we knew each other, and I told her I couldn’t explain it, but I needed her to watch out for you. That you were dating a bad guy, and I was worried for you.”

Suddenly, it clicks for me. “Norma?” Now I understand why they were constantly around, why they came running when they thought they heard me scream, why she kept watching me so closely.

Janelle nods. “She takes my spin class, and they had the place. I knew because they go up there for a couple weeks every few months, and she misses class. I was so worried he’d try to hurt you there, but I thought if I called the police, he’d just call me crazy. Without proof, I knew they wouldn’t believe me, and it would be my word against his. They’d just think I was a crazy, angry wife. I needed someone there to protect you when I couldn’t be. Her husband, George, is a retired cop. I knew if anyone could protect you, it was them.”

I swallow. I don’t know what to make of any of this. It’s too much to handle.

I take a deep breath, and as I do, my entire stomach tenses, like the baby is adjusting in my stomach again, rolling from one side to the other.

“How could he do this to me?” I cry, my body weak.

She looks at my neck, and I sense that there’s probably proof of his actions on my skin. Purpled fingerprints, evidence that his love for me was always a lie. I was simply a vessel.

Again, my stomach tightens. The baby must know something is wrong here. She can sense my stress. I’m certain my blood pressure is dangerously high.

Janelle looks at me, eyes wide. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” I wave her off, breathing through the discomfort. “We need to decide what to do about him.”

“I’m going to call the police once you leave. I’ll tell them what happened, but you need to be long gone by then.”

“No way. There’s proof of what he did on my skin. I’m staying here to make sure he goes down for it.”

She stares at me, mouth open. “Why?”

“I’m not saying I forgive you,” I admit, “but Cal tried to kill me. I’m not going to stand around and let it happen. Neither of us can risk them not believing us. For your freedom and my baby’s sake. We can’t let him get away with this. I refuse to let him win.”

My stomach tenses once more, the sensation so uncomfortable I feel like she must be completely stretched out in there. This time, the ache of it steals my breath. I lean back against the wall. “Oh.” I breathe out slowly, gritting my teeth as the waves of pain move through me. “Oohhh.”

“What’s going on?” she asks.

“Nothing. She’s just really active right now.”

“She must sense your stress.”

I nod. “We need to call the police.” I don’t add, Before I chicken out.

Later, when the police arrive, Janelle and I are separated in order to give our statements. During mine, a pair of EMTs check me over, examining the wounds on my neck and taking my blood pressure.

“Had Janelle Moon hit Calvin on the head before or after he choked you?” the officer asks, looking pointedly at his partner.

“After. I told you that,” I say.

“And what were you doing here in the first place? Did you follow Mr. Moon to confront his wife?”

“Of course not.”

“Had the two of you ever met before?”

I swallow. There’s no way to lie about this. “Yes. A few times. But I didn’t know who she was. I didn’t know they were married.”

If they look into it, if they see we were involved in the same classes, if they somehow find out she was at the cabin with us this weekend, or that the two of us were texting daily in the weeks before I found out I was pregnant, I don’t know what it will mean. I don’t know if they’ll take our word over his.

The officers exchange looks again.

The EMT lowers the stethoscope. “Your blood pressure is way too high, which is putting you and your baby in danger. We are going to have to take you to the hospital.”

“Okay,” I mutter, fear trickling through my veins, overriding the discomfort in my stomach.

“We have to take her in,” the EMT says again, this time to the officers, not wasting any time as she helps me to my feet. “The rest of this will have to wait.” She places her hand on my stomach as it tenses again. “Oh. Did you feel that?”

“Yeah.” I wince. “She’s been rolling around a lot today. I don’t know what’s going on.”

“It’s happened a lot, then?” she asks, placing the stethoscope on my stomach, the other hand flat next to it.

“Yeah, it’s just random,” I say, but just as I say it, it happens again. I nearly double over, holding my breath. It’s not painful so much as uncomfortable. She’s getting too big for my stomach or something.

The EMT smiles at me sadly, drawing me out of my thoughts. “Sweetie, what you’re feeling isn’t her moving around. You’re in labor. Your baby is ready to meet you.”