“Perfect timing, huh?” I ask the empty garage. “Looks like the game is coming to me, Dad. We’ll see if I get to take the shot.”
Iris
We’ve found a new normal, Caleb and me.
I’ve learned to negotiate the terrain of the hell in which I’m trapped. There is this strange balancing act of compliance and strategic resistance. Caleb is a sleeping volcano, always primed to erupt. I’ve learned his cycles. He’s a pendulum that swings from Jekyll to Hyde. I try to anticipate his triggers as much as I can, but sometimes they don’t follow the pattern they should.
He doesn’t attack every day. In some ways, the unpredictability of it makes it even worse. He’ll go weeks being perfectly well-behaved. He’s still repulsive because I know what he’s capable of, but he manages his behavior—and I manage to ignore it. And then something will set him off, a straw I didn’t even know had landed on the camel’s back. His steak is too rare. He’s lost a game. His favorite show has been cancelled. There’s no rhyme or reason to his viciousness.
“We’re really looking forward to next week, Iris.”
I glance up from my plate of chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans, to the source of that statement.
Sylvia.
Sylvia’s one of the eight or so people at our table. The Stingers are celebrating the end of a successful season with this dinner. They made it to the second round of the playoffs.
Whoop-dee-doo.
“I’m sorry.” I bring Sylvia’s face into focus. “What did you say about next week?”
“Yeah.” Caleb slumps a little in his seat beside me, then leans back and rests his elbow on the back of my chair. “What’s next week?”
He shifts to caress my neck under my hair. I force myself not to flinch at his touch. That infuriates him, seeing me flinch.
At least it infuriates him when I do it in public.
When we’re alone, it feeds him. It empowers him to see the fear he has carefully cultivated over the last few weeks thriving and growing inside of me. My fear is a plant he nurtures in the dark.
“Oh.” Sylvia’s dishwater blond eyebrows snap together. “The community center? Iris is scheduled to volunteer there next week.”
Thank God.
Give me something. Something outside of that house and the open-air prison of my life with Caleb.
“I don’t know if she’ll still be able to do that,” Caleb cuts in with a frown.
His hand at the curve of my neck probably looks like affection from the outside—like the hand of a rich, powerful man stroking his pet. He displays a possessiveness that might send a thrill of excitement through someone else. Most women have a bit of a crush on Caleb when they first meet him. They don’t know him the way I do. Only I feel his fingers tighten. Only I know his hand at my neck is not love. It’s a warning. It’s a shackle.
Only I know the real Caleb, and it’s a violent intimacy I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
“Really? That’s a shame.” Sylvia flicks a glance between the two of us, like she’s unsure where to direct her dismay. Instinctively, she knows that I have little say.
“It’s all arranged, though,” Sylvia continues . . . nervously? Yes, nervously. She doesn’tknowCaleb is a predator, but on some cellular level, maybe atavistically, her body knows, and it makes her nervous.
The heart speaks in whispers.
I heard too late.
“The kids are looking forward to seeing your family, even though you can’t be there,” she says. “We have signed jerseys and autographed photos for Iris to pass out, and we thought the kids could meet your daughter. You’re one of the Stingers’ star players. That would go a long way with them.”
Sylvia looks to me like she expects me to advocate for myself. She has no idea that her request will earn me a slap or worse when I get home. Maybe a hard pinch under the table. Caleb is usually careful with my face—with all the parts people see. Only when he knows he can keep me home long enough to heal does he hit my face. If I have my phone with me, he’ll make sure I have no real evidence to display. And when I have real evidence of his brutality, my phone will go ‘missing’ for days. He and Ramone have my captivity down to a science.
“I’m away next week,” Caleb says, picking up a glass of wine and taking a sip. He looks casual, but I’m so tuned into him now, to his moods, that I know there’s nothing casual about him. He’s tense at my side, a predator feeling threatened—like he might lose his prey if she gets out of her cage. “I’m away for the next two weeks actually, in China.”
Basketball is exploding there, and the market is so ripe Caleb and his agent are exploring endorsement opportunities. Thank God Sarai has been sick and couldn’t get the necessary shots. The pediatrician didn’t clear her to travel, so I get two weeks without Caleb. Ramone will still be there, but Ramone doesn’t hit me. Doesn’t rape me. He just makes sure I never get away.
Complicit bastard.
