So, I raised my chin. I looked my mother dead in her pleading, panicked eyes.
“Fine,” I said.
It was a single, flat syllable. It landed like a lit match in a field of dry, dead grass.
An immediate, visible wave of relief washed over Helen’s face. Arthur exhaled deeply, patting my shoulder twice as if I were a golden retriever who had finally learned to sit on command. Down the hall, I saw my mother catch Rosalind’s
eye and give a tiny, subtle nod. Rosalind slumped against the wall, exhaling as if she’d been holding her breath since the day she first unbuttoned my husband’s shirt.
They smiled. They actually smiled at each other. They believed the crisis had been quietly neutralized before it could spill into the public record. They thought I had surrendered the war to avoid a battle.
They had absolutely no idea that I hadn’t surrendered. I had simply locked the doors to the slaughterhouse.
