Stealing Home (Callahan Family #2) - Carrie Aarons Page 0,2
Callahan hadn’t seen that bruise on my wrist, if Walker hadn’t questioned me in the hallway at the stadium that one day, if my sister hadn’t come to visit and seen how tense things were … these were the events that set the ultimate climax of the situation in motion. Shane grew angrier and angrier by the month, and I felt like all the walls were closing in.
If he hadn’t attacked me in the parking lot of the Pistons’ ballpark that night, there would be no evidence. I’d never reported his abuse, too scared by my own poisonous thoughts and his threatening and conditioning, and now that’s working against me in the court system. Since they view Shane as a first-time offender, it’s only making things more difficult for me, and my girls.
But Noelle, my five-year-old, and Breanna, my two-year-old, are the reasons I’m not dropping the charges. They are the ones who gave me strength when my lawyer called and told me more bad news. Just seeing their faces, knowing that someday they were going to read the articles and watch the videos about what their father did to their mother …
I want to be better for them. I want to get out for them.
Now that millions of people have seen the pictures of my battered cheeks, my bleeding forehead, and the marks and scrapes Shane left, I can’t escape it. Two nights ago, I finally slipped and let myself google the articles. They ranged from bad to worse, all speculating about our marriage and my husband’s temper, or what we’d fought over. I almost threw my laptop against the wall when I read one that claimed I was an unfit mother for staying in a relationship where my daughters were clearly in danger.
But when I looked at those pictures, the ones the police snapped in the interview room and some media outlet had hacked or leaked, I didn’t even recognize that woman. Sure, I’ve looked in the mirror too many times to count after his fists would ignite fury on my skin. I’ve seen the bruises and blood, the fractures that I never had a doctor look at, even a broken finger I splinted myself.
What struck me the most when looking at those pictures, though, was how dead my eyes were. My mother tells my sister and I every time she sees us that we have the most brilliant blue eyes, brighter than the ocean our grandfather grew up on in Hawaii. The eyes looking back at me in those police photos were void of life, sucked of energy, ready to quit.
I couldn’t do that to the little girls I promised to protect with every part of me. And I could no longer disrespect the family who had sacrificed so much to make it on the mainland, putting their brilliant genes to shame.
As much as it terrifies me, as much as I quake in my boots every time I think of trials and divorce and custody battles I have to press on. If I don’t I know I will end up dead.
The chilling realization steals every inch of safety from my soul, which I know is just how Shane plans to fight me through this thing.
My mind flashes back to the last time I felt truly safe. Before that night in the parking lot, I would have said five years ago or so, in the month leading up to Noelle’s birth. Something about the arrival of our daughter brought out the devil in Shane, although it was escalating verbally even before then.
But five years is the benchmark. The first time he slapped me across the face was after Noelle screamed her colicky way through an entire night before a playoff game. I would have told you that was the last time I felt truly safe.
Except now, I’d be lying. Because the last time I felt safe was the very night that my entire life changed before my eyes.
The last time I felt safe was when Walker Callahan cradled me against his chest and pressed kisses to each bloody cut on my forehead.
And it’s only when I give into that sensation, imagining his arms around me, that I can finally fall asleep.
2
Walker
It may be World Series media week, the five days leading up to baseball’s biggest championship where thousands of reporters stick microphones in your face and ask you everything from the professional to the inappropriate, but it sure as hell doesn’t feel like it.