Chapter 2 - She Became Difficult
I ran.
There are moments when the mind becomes strangely efficient.
No confusion.
No debate.
No emotion you can afford to examine.
Only the next thing that has to be done.
Find Caleb.
I checked the upstairs guest rooms one by one.
“Caleb!”
I knew he couldn't answer.
I called his name anyway.
The third room was empty.
So was the fourth.
Then I reached the smaller guest nursery at the opposite end of the hall.
The door was partly open.
Cold air moved through it.
I pushed inside.
The window was open.
Snow had blown across the sill and dusted the hardwood beneath it.
And there was my son.
Caleb lay in the crib beneath a light blanket.
Too quiet.
I crossed the room in three strides and lifted him.
His hands felt colder than they should have.
“Hey.”
My voice cracked.
“Hey, buddy. Dad's here.”
I opened my coat and held him against my chest, wrapping the wool around him.
He moved.
A tiny sound escaped him.
That sound nearly took my legs out from under me.
Audrey appeared in the doorway.
“Oh, God.”
“I've got him.”
She rushed toward us.
“Is he okay?”
“We're getting him checked.”
She touched Caleb's cheek.
Then footsteps came down the hall.
Mother appeared first.
Paige followed.
My sister wore a silver cocktail dress, her hair pinned perfectly behind her head.
Her face changed when she saw me holding Caleb.
Mother's didn't.
“Could you keep your voices down?” she asked. “Everyone downstairs can hear you.”
I stared at her.
My wife had been locked in a storage room.
My infant son had been left in a cold guest nursery.
And my mother was worried about volume.
“Why was the window open?”
She sighed.
“The room became stuffy earlier.”
“Why was Caleb in here?”
“Audrey was becoming overwhelmed.”
Audrey stepped forward.
“I asked you to give him back.”
Mother ignored her.
I looked at Paige.
“Did you lock Audrey in that room?”
Her eyes went immediately to Mother.
That was answer enough.
“Paige.”
“I—”
“Did you?”
“Grant, it wasn't—”
“Yes or no.”
Her face collapsed.
“Yes.”
Audrey flinched beside me.
I turned to Mother.
“Why?”
She lifted her chin.
“Because the situation had become impossible.”
“What situation?”
“Your wife.”
“My wife what?”
Mother looked annoyed now.
Not ashamed.
Not frightened.
Annoyed.
“She became difficult.”
Three words.
That was all.
No apology.
No explanation that could possibly justify what I had found.
Just a verdict.
She became difficult.
I had heard versions of that sentence my entire childhood.
A housekeeper who objected to Mother's schedule had become unreliable.
An aunt who questioned a trust decision had become emotional.
A family friend who refused to host a fundraiser had become ungrateful.
My mother had a language for people who stopped cooperating.
And suddenly she had used it on my wife.
I looked at Audrey.
Her eyes were lowered.
Not because she agreed.
Because she had heard those words too many times.
Something inside me changed.
Not explosively.
Quietly.
The way a lock turns.
I took Audrey's hand.
“We're leaving.”
Mother blinked.
“Don't be ridiculous.”
“We're leaving.”
“Grant, Caleb needs to be settled.”
“He will be.”
“Where exactly do you intend to go?”
“Away from here.”
Her eyes sharpened.
“This is your home.”
I looked around the cold room.
“No.”
Then I turned to Audrey.
“Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
“You don't have to prove anything.”
“I can walk.”
I nodded.
We went downstairs.
The party quieted gradually.
First the people nearest the staircase noticed us.
Then conversations stopped farther across the room.
I carried Caleb inside my coat.
Audrey walked beside me in her thin robe.
She suddenly slowed.
“Everyone's staring.”
I looked at her.
“Let them.”
“I look—”
“You look like someone who was treated badly in her own home.”
Her eyes met mine.
“You have nothing to be embarrassed about.”
We kept walking.
Mother followed.
“Grant.”
I didn't stop.
“Grant Whitmore.”
That made several guests turn.
I reached the front door.
“Think carefully about what you're doing.”
I opened it.
Cold air rushed inside.
I looked back at her.
“For once, Mother, that is exactly what I'm doing.”
Then I walked out.
I called our pediatrician from the car.
Twenty minutes later, we were heading toward a private emergency clinic.
Caleb was examined first.
The doctor listened to his lungs, checked his temperature, monitored him, and eventually gave us the words I desperately needed.
“He's going to be all right.”
Audrey started crying.
Not loudly.
She simply covered her face.
I sat beside her and realized I didn't know whether I had earned the right to put my arm around her.
So I asked.
“Can I?”
She nodded.
I held her.
Later, after Audrey had also been checked and we were finally alone, I booked a suite at a quiet hotel fifteen minutes away.
It was nearly two in the morning when we arrived.
I put Caleb in the portable bassinet the hotel provided.
Audrey stood near the window.
Her reflection looked like a stranger.
I came up behind her but stopped several feet away.
“We'll get your things tomorrow.”
She didn't respond.
“And Caleb's.”
Still nothing.
Then she asked, “Are you taking us back there afterward?”
I understood the question beneath the question.
Was tonight just another argument?
Would I calm down?
Would Mother call?
Would I eventually explain that family was complicated?
Would Audrey be expected to return and pretend nothing had happened?
I looked through the glass at the distant lights of Greenwich.
“No.”
Audrey turned.
“No?”
“We're not going back.”
Her face changed.
Not relief.
Not yet.
She had heard promises before.
I looked at my sleeping son.
Then at my wife.
“No,” I repeated. “Not tomorrow. Not after everyone calms down. Not after Mother apologizes. We're done living there.”
Audrey stared at me for a long moment.
Then she asked the question I wasn't prepared for.
May you like
“Do you know how long I've been asking you to say that?”
And suddenly leaving the mansion seemed like the easiest thing I was going to have to do.
