Chapter 1 - The garage floor
My pregnant wife was lying on my father’s garage floor when I came home two days early.
For the first second, I thought she had fallen.
Then I saw the suitcase pressed against her shins.
My stepmother, Lenora, stood three feet away.
My father stood beside the car.
Kerensa had both arms wrapped around her stomach.
Seven months pregnant.
Face white.
Breathing too fast.
“Kerensa.”
Her head snapped toward me.
“Hadrian.”
My suitcase fell from my hand.
I crossed the garage.
“Don’t move.”
“They threw me out.”
I crouched beside her.
“Did you hit your stomach?”
“My back hit the car. Then I fell.”
“Any bleeding?”
“No.”
“Pain?”
“My legs. My back. I don’t know.”
I looked at Lenora.
“What happened?”
She did not flinch.
“She was told to leave.”
My father, Graham, bent and picked up Kerensa’s house key.
Then tossed it onto the concrete.
It landed near my shoe.
“Deliver the baby and leave.”
I stared at him.
He had said terrible things during arguments before.
Never that.
Never to my wife.
Kerensa started crying.
Not loudly.
That made it worse.
Lenora said:
“She has spent eight months turning you against this family.”
“I’ve been married to her for four years.”
“And you’ve become weaker every year.”
I looked at the suitcase.
“What did you do?”
Lenora folded her arms.
“She refused to go.”
“Did you kick that into her?”
“She was standing in the way.”
I stood.
The fury came so cleanly that I almost mistook it for control.
Then Lenora’s own packed suitcase caught my eye.
She and my father were supposed to move that week.
That had been arranged.
Scheduled.
Signed.
Apparently they had decided to make Kerensa leave instead.
I picked up Lenora’s suitcase.
She said:
“Don’t you dare.”
I threw it.
The suitcase hit her across the torso.
The zipper failed.
Clothes burst onto the concrete.
A shoe struck the wall.
Lenora staggered backward and fell.
My father shouted:
“Hadrian!”
I stopped.
The second the suitcase left my hands, I knew I had created another problem.
Kerensa needed medical attention.
I had answered violence with violence after she was already out of immediate danger.
Lenora pushed herself upright.
“You’ll get zero inheritance tonight!”
I bent.
Picked up Kerensa’s key.
Pressed the garage remote.
The door rose.
A moving truck waited outside.
Three movers stood beside labeled boxes.
GRAHAM OFFICE
LENORA CLOSET
DINING ROOM
My father went silent.
I looked at him.
Then Lenora.
“Keep the company. I bought your house.”
Kerensa stared at me.
So did my father.
May you like
There were several truths in that garage nobody had told each other.
The first one was mine.
