One Little Secret (ARC) by Cate Holahan

Author:Cate Holahan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

THE DAY OF

Jenny woke, surrounded by a dark, heavy damp. She thrashed against it, unsure of what it was or where she was. Oxygen streamed into her airways, bonded with the memory of her husband squeezing her neck until she’d passed out. She pushed herself upright under the sweat-drenched duvet and checked the moon’s position through the balcony doors. It hung just above the horizon, a broken spotlight dangling far too low from the scaffolding. She hadn’t been out long. Louis, however, was no longer in the room.

She lay there, forcing saliva down her raw throat, listening to the crashing waves still audible through the shut balcony door. A memory seeped into her swimming brain. She saw Louis, bent over scented candles in the small apartment they’d shared in med school. He lit them with short matches they’d confiscated weeks earlier from a corner bar. Each strike against the carbon strip illuminated, for a moment, the man she’d fallen for. The boyish face topped with ginger hair. The piercing blue-gray eyes beneath a preternaturally concerned brow.

Jenny remembered how Louis had cupped his hand around each flame, shielding it from the howling outside that had seemed to penetrate the thin walls of their high-rise apartment. Growing up in landlocked West Virginia, she’d never seen a hurricane or a superstorm or whatever the meteorologists had named the vortex of clouds closing in on them. She’d watched the news, awed and horrified by footage of wind ripping willows from the ground and wielding them like battering rams against cars and streetlamps. When the power had gone out, she’d screamed, sure nature’s strike force had finally arrived at their doorstep.

Louis’s chivalry had gone into overdrive that weekend. He’d made certain she would want for nothing, loading the pantry days beforehand and clearing out the local liquor store of her favorite cabernet. He’d duct-taped the windows and filled the defunct fireplace with scented candles. He’d charged the electronics and rented her favorite films on DVD.

She remembered snuggling with him beneath musty extra blankets and munching on almond-butter sandwiches washed down with wine while the floodwaters blocked their building’s egress. If she closed her eyes, she could almost feel the warmth of his skin, the way his body had radiated care and concern for her. The way it often still did.

She’d loved him then. Maybe she still loved him. But Louis had violated the unspoken rule that allowed their marriage to survive his “outbursts.” If he hit her, he had to be flagrantly sorry for a very, very long time. Months, at least. Contrition and promises of reform had to follow his combustion, enabling Jenny to regain her power and remember the good times.

Their better days far outnumbered the bad. Louis had become abusive only in the past five years, since she’d taken the high-profile sports anchor position. A couple’s therapist they’d seen briefly had suggested that Louis’s anger stemmed from unresolved parental issues about money that made him feel threatened whenever it seemed like he was losing the traditional “male” provider role to Jenny.

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