Chapter 3

There were only two messages on the screen.

Tabitha, if you’ve changed your mind, my offer still stands. Say the word and we can get married next Saturday.

Okay. I’ll marry you.

I covered the sender’s name with my thumb and held the screen out to Nelson. He read both messages twice. The captain came down from the steps to look over his shoulder.

“Holy shit, you’re serious?” Nelson looked up at me. “You didn’t arrange this with somebody ahead of time, did you?”

“The wedding’s next week,” I said. “You’re all invited. Come see for yourselves.”

Jean gave a little gasp. “Hudson. You’re hurting me.”

He let go of her hand. There were marks where his fingers had been. When he turned to me, he looked angrier than he had any right to be.

“Enough, Tabitha. Quit playing games. Jean just got back, and I’m taking her home. See to the guests.”

I waited for him to ask if I had a way home myself.

“We’ll talk when I get back,” he added.

Then he reached into his jacket and took out two Band-Aids.

He crouched in front of Jean, eased off her shoes, and pressed a bandage to the raw skin at the back of each heel. He held each one in place for a few seconds so it would stick. I’d shown him how to do that.

“Every time you wear these things, you tear up your feet,” he said. “When are you going to learn?”

Jean made a face at him, then put both arms around his neck.

“What do I need to learn for? I’ve got you. Carry me to the car.”

He did. One of his men whistled as Hudson passed, and someone called out, “Look at Farley. Nobody spoils a woman like he does.”

I looked down at the empty wrappers he’d left on the stone bench.

I’d started carrying Band-Aids when Hudson was in prison. He used to come into the visiting room with split knuckles and tell me he’d scraped them on a door. I couldn’t give him anything across the table. The day he got out, I slipped a few into the coat I’d brought him. After that, whenever I found a wrapper in the laundry, I put another one in his pocket.

For years, I’d thought of it as one of those little things you did when you loved somebody.

When he came home, he could barely get through dinner with two other people at the table. I introduced him to the men who still took my calls. I got him back into rooms the Farleys had stopped inviting him into. At first, he’d ask me to stay beside him until the last man left.

Once he had a crew again, he started leaving halfway through dinner. He’d stick me with a club owner or a trucking contractor and expect me to come home with a deal. More than once, I lost track of how much I’d had to drink because the man across from me kept ordering another round. A couple of them put their hands on me under the table. I’d lock myself in a bathroom stall until I could stop crying, then go back and finish what Hudson had sent me there to do.

I told him once. He asked if the man had signed.

Another night I couldn’t get a cab and walked home at two in the morning. The backs of my heels were bleeding by the time I made it through the door. Hudson saw me brace myself against the wall to take off my shoes. He had Band-Aids in his pocket that night, too.

Until I watched him kneel in front of Jean, I’d never let myself ask how easy it would have been for him to do that for me.

A car door shut. Hudson pulled out with Jean beside him. He hadn’t said a word to me about what had happened at the altar.

The guests gave me careful little smiles. Some of them had just been telling Hudson he belonged with Jean. Now they looked sorry for me and waited for me to make the rest of the afternoon easy on them.

Nelson took me aside.

“He went to prison for her, Tabitha. Even back in college, if somebody laid a hand on Jean, Hudson would go after him. You’ve seen what he’s like when it comes to her.”

“I have now.”

“Do yourself a favor, then. Let him go. Even if you talked him into staying, what kind of life would that be?”

I hated that it was Nelson saying it. I hated more that he was right.

I saw the last guests off and went home to pack.

I thought I could be out in an hour. Then I opened the first drawer. I’d spent eight years holding on to things because Hudson had given them to me. I didn’t know where to start.

There was a knockoff purse from a street vendor and a perfume sample Hudson had brought back from a hotel. A bracelet that had cost $9.99 still sat on the little velvet stand I’d bought for it.

The most expensive gift he’d ever given me was a gold bangle I’d asked for after he proposed. Ten grams. Just over a thousand dollars. Even after he’d taken out his wallet, I’d told him twice that he didn’t have to buy it.

I put the bangle in the same bag as the bracelet. By dawn, I’d taken the last bag of gifts out to the trash.

Hudson hadn’t sent a message all night. I hadn’t called him once.

I was zipping up my last suitcase when his key turned in the lock.