Chapter 5 - The Driveway and the Cold
The front door clicked shut behind her, sealing away the warm, amber-lit nightmare of the Mason dining room.
The December air hit Hannah like a physical wall. Twenty-nine degrees. Frost coated the manicured lawn, sparkling cruelly under the decorative white lights wrapped around the porch columns. Ellie was still sobbing into Hannah’s neck, her light green velvet dress completely inadequate for the freezing night, her thin tights doing nothing against the biting wind.
Hannah’s heavy winter coat was still hanging in the foyer closet. She hadn’t even thought to grab it.
She carried Ellie down the brick walkway, her breath pluming white in the dark. Every step felt heavy, like walking through wet cement. When she reached their silver sedan, she fumbled in her purse with shaking, freezing fingers for the key fob, unlocked the doors, and placed Ellie gently in her car seat.
“It’s okay, baby, I’ve got you,” Hannah murmured, her voice cracking as she stripped off her own cardigan and wrapped it around Ellie’s shivering legs. “Mommy’s right here. We’re going to be warm in a second.”
She strapped Ellie in, slammed the rear door, and got into the driver’s seat, slamming her own door shut. The car heater blasted to life, blowing lukewarm air that did little to thaw the bone-deep chill that had settled into her chest.
She looked up through the frosted windshield at the house.
The windows glowed with warm, festive light. Through the leaded glass of the front sidelights, she could see shadows moving in the hallway. Ryan was in there. Right now, standing in the foyer or the living room, smoothing things over, explaining things away, trying to find a way to make everyone comfortable again.
He was inside talking.
A hot tear broke free from Hannah’s stinging left eye and tracked down her burning cheek, cutting through the red welt left by Judith’s hand.
How long had she excused it? How many small humiliations had she swallowed to keep the peace? The snide remarks about her clothes, her background, her career, her parenting? She had traded her dignity piece by piece, transaction by transaction, believing that if she just smiled enough, worked hard enough, and fit into the mold well enough, she would eventually earn her place at the table.
Instead, she had earned a slap across the face and a command to leave like an unwanted stray.
And her husband—the man who had promised before God and family to forsake all others and cleave only to her—had chosen to stay behind to “calm everyone down.”
Hannah’s hand hovered over the steering wheel, trembling violently. Then, slowly, the trembling stopped. Her fingers curled into tight fists. The grief and shock vanished, replaced by an absolute, terrifying clarity.
She looked at her reflection in the rearview mirror. The red mark on her cheek looked like a brand.
“We are never coming back here,” Hannah whispered to the empty car.
May you like
Just as she reached for her phone to call a hotel in downtown Cincinnati, the cell screen lit up with an incoming call.
Caller ID: Frank Mason.
