Chapter 1 - THREE STEPS
My husband pushed me before he noticed my father standing at the bottom of the stairs.
“Get out of my life!”
His palms struck my shoulders.
For one awful second, there was nothing beneath my feet.
I was seven months pregnant. I remember reaching for the railing, missing it, and thinking something so small and stupid it still breaks my heart:
I hadn’t finished painting the nursery.
“No—please!”
Someone caught me hard beneath the arms. My heels scraped stone. Pain pulled across my stomach, and a familiar voice cut through the noise.
“Hold on. I’ve got you.”
My father.
The man I hadn’t spoken to in eleven months.
He lowered me onto the bottom step, one hand supporting my back.
“Claire. Look at me. Are you hurt?”
I couldn’t answer. Both hands were on my belly.
Our daughter had been moving a minute earlier.
Now I couldn’t feel anything.
“Hey!” Ryan shouted from above us. “What are you doing to her?”
Dad looked up.
I had seen my father angry before. I had never seen him this still.
Ryan stood beneath the entrance lights of the hotel, his tuxedo jacket open, his handsome face already rearranging itself into concern.
“Claire tripped,” he said. “I was trying to catch her.”
Dad pulled out his phone.
“Send an ambulance to the Bellwether Hotel. West entrance. Pregnant woman, physical assault.”
“Jesus, Robert. Put the phone down.”
“Stay where you are.”
“Is our baby okay?” I whispered. “Dad, please tell me.”
His eyes came back to mine.
“We’re getting you help.”
He didn’t promise what he couldn’t know.
That frightened me more than anything.
A hotel security officer hurried through the doors.
Dad pointed toward Ryan.
“Call the police. My son-in-law just pushed my pregnant daughter.”
Ryan laughed once, sharp and ugly.
“You’re listening to her lies?”
“I watched you do it.”
Guests had begun gathering behind the glass. Inside the ballroom, music kept playing. People were drinking champagne at the charity gala while I sat on cold stone, trying to feel my child.
Ryan came down one step.
Dad stood.
“Stay away from her.”
“Move. That’s my wife.”
“And she said stay away.”
I hadn’t said it yet.
My father looked down at me, waiting.
For the first time in months, someone was letting me choose.
“Stay away,” I said.
Ryan’s face changed.
Not much. Just enough.
Then his eyes dropped to the small black purse beside my knee.
May you like
And I remembered why he had pushed me.
The phone inside it held something he couldn’t afford to let me keep.
