Chapter 4

“Lewis, I'm dizzy.”

Yolanda swayed behind him, one hand pressed to her forehead.

“I think I've lost too much blood.”

Her knees buckled. Lewis turned just in time to catch her, and she sagged against his chest with her eyes closed.

For a moment, he looked at me.

I was on the floor with Althea's arm around my shoulders, both hands clamped over my stomach. There was blood beneath me. He could see it.

“Lewis,” Althea said. “She needs an ambulance.”

He looked down at Yolanda.

Then he lifted her into his arms.

“Get the car.”

One of his guards hurried ahead to clear the entrance. The other held the door while Lewis carried her outside.

He never looked back.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Althea screamed after him.

The door swung shut.

She fumbled for her phone, nearly dropping it before she managed to dial 911.

“My friend's pregnant. Someone pushed her into a table, and she's bleeding.”

Her voice shook as she gave the address.

I wanted to tell her about the twins. I wanted her to tell the paramedics there were two of them, that they needed to save both.

But the room kept slipping out of focus.

Althea pressed her forehead to mine.

“Stay with me, Letty. Help's coming.”

I remember the paramedics kneeling beside me. A question I couldn't answer. The straps across the stretcher.

Then nothing.

I woke to the smell of antiseptic and the soft squeak of shoes beside my bed.

My hand went straight to my stomach.

“The babies are all right.”

I turned toward the voice so quickly that the room tilted.

A nurse stood beside the monitor.

“Both of them?” I whispered.

“Both,” she said gently. “The doctor will explain everything when she comes back.”

I closed my eyes.

For several seconds, all I could do was breathe. Then the tears slipped down my temples and into my hair.

“Thank you.”

The nurse passed me a tissue and waited while I tried to collect myself.

A thought surfaced through the exhaustion.

“Does Dr. Pruitt work here?”

“Frederick Pruitt?”

I nodded.

Her expression warmed.

“He does, but he's on leave. Apparently, his girlfriend's pregnant. He went home to make arrangements for their wedding.”

I looked down at my hand resting on the blanket.

“He did?”

“That's what everyone says. The man barely talks about his personal life, and then suddenly there's a baby and a wedding.” She smiled. “Quite a few disappointed people around here.”

I smiled, too, though my face was still wet.

Somewhere beyond this room, Frederick was making space for us.

I held on to that thought while the nurse checked my blood pressure.

“Your friend stepped out to make a call,” she told me. “She left her number with the desk.”

Of course Althea had stayed.

I nodded, too tired to speak.

Before the nurse left, she drew the blanket back over my legs.

“When you're discharged, follow the doctor's instructions. Take things slowly, and let someone help you.”

This time, I intended to.

By the time the doctor cleared me to leave, I wanted only to collect Edamame and go somewhere Lewis couldn't reach me without being invited.

I hadn't seen my dog in days.

The boarding facility was a short cab ride away. All through the journey, I pictured his ridiculous excitement, the frantic little dance he did whenever I came back for him.

At the reception desk, the attendant recognized me.

“Oh. Your husband already picked him up.”

I stopped with my hand inside my bag.

“When?”

“About half an hour ago.”

She must have noticed my expression, because her smile faltered.

“You'd brought him in together before. And Mr. James knew his name, so I didn't think there was a problem.”

There was no point frightening her.

“Thank you,” I said.

Outside, I opened Lewis's messages.

Do you have Edamame? I'm coming to get him.

The answer arrived almost immediately.

Come to the house. I'm here.

I stared at it.

His bed was still there. His food, his toys, the worn blue blanket he refused to sleep without.

One trip, I told myself.

Then there would be nothing left for me in that house.

The guards let my cab through the gates without a word.

At the entrance, the front door stood open. I paid the driver and walked inside, calling Edamame's name.

He didn't come.

His bed lay overturned near the doors to the terrace. The cushion had been ripped open, stuffing scattered across the tiles.

At first, that was all I understood.

Then I saw the blood.

It had spread beneath the cushion and dried along the edges. Small clumps of familiar brown fur lay among the stuffing.

Beyond the doorway, on the terrace, was what remained of my dog.

I stopped breathing.

My mind refused to make sense of it. I kept waiting for something to move, for him to scramble out from behind a chair and come running toward me.

A scrap of brown fur landed beside my shoe.

“God, that took forever.”

Yolanda stepped through the terrace doors.

There was blood on her hands.

She glanced at what she'd dropped, then at me, as casually as though I'd interrupted her cleaning out a cupboard.

My lips moved before any sound came out.

“You killed him?”

She shrugged.

“He bit me.”

I stared at her hands.

“Lewis said I could. He knows I'm studying veterinary medicine. I need the dissection practice.”

She said it without hesitation. Without even lowering her voice.

Practice.

Edamame had slept beside me on the nights Lewis didn't come home. He'd followed me from room to room when I couldn't bear the silence, settling at my feet wherever I stopped.

And she'd used him for practice.

There was a wooden plant stake beside an overturned pot.

I picked it up.

“You killed my dog.”

Yolanda's smile slipped as I went toward her.

“I'll kill you.”

I swung.

A hand caught the stake before it reached her.

“Enough, Letitia.”

Lewis stood between us.

I pulled against his grip, but he held the wood steady.

“Let go.”

“Calm down.”

I looked at him, searching his face for something that might make this less impossible.

“You let her do this?”

He said nothing.

“You brought him here. You took him from the boarding facility and gave him to her?”

Behind him, Yolanda stepped closer to his shoulder.

“He bit me,” she repeated.

Lewis glanced toward the terrace.

For a second, his grip loosened. His eyes caught on the overturned bed, and something in his expression faltered.

Then he looked back at me.

“It was a dog, Letty.”

I couldn't speak.

He pulled the stake from my hand.

“Don't turn this into something it isn't.”

“A dog?”

My voice sounded thin and strange.

“He was fourteen years old. You gave him to me when we first got together. We had him for ten years.”

Lewis looked away.

“Ten years,” I said again. “He used to wait by the door for you.”

His jaw tightened.

“I'll get you another one.”

I stared at him.

“The same breed,” he added. “Whatever you want.”

A broken sound escaped me.

“You think I want another dog?”

He shifted, impatient now, as though I were refusing a reasonable offer.

I looked past him to the terrace.

“Even if you found one that looked exactly like him, it wouldn't be Edamame.”

Lewis had no answer.

I went around him and knelt beside the ruined bed.

My hands shook so badly I could barely undo my coat. I spread it across the tiles and began gathering what I could, moving carefully, though there was nothing left I could hurt.

When my fingers brushed the soft fur between his ears, I started crying.

“I'm sorry.”

I kept saying it while I wrapped him up.

I should have collected him sooner. I should have told the boarding facility not to release him to anyone else. I should have understood that Lewis could no longer be trusted with anything I loved.

The bundle was too small in my arms.

I held it against my chest and stood slowly.

“Come on, sweetheart,” I whispered. “Mama's taking you home.”

Neither of them spoke.

I walked through the foyer, past the staircase and the study where the unsigned divorce papers still waited.

At the door, I lowered my face toward the bundle.

“We're never coming back.”

Behind me, Lewis stayed where he was.

He watched until I disappeared beyond the open door. Only then did his gaze return to the empty space where Edamame's bed had been.

His chest tightened.

He waited for the feeling to pass.

It didn't.