Family Law by Gin Phillips (phonics reading books .txt) 📕

“You’re going through your day? So the past two mornings when you went to work, you just walked to your car, pulled out of the driveway, not worried at all?”

“As much as possible,” she said.

“Well, I think about it,” he said. “I think about it plenty. Did you even notice that I was at the door on Thursday and Friday, watching you pull out? Trying to look for some man hiding with a gun, hoping that if you did get shot, I could at least get to you quickly. I’m beginning to think that I might do that every morning forever. Wait for bullets. Wait for a phone call from the hospital.”

He lifted his hands, flexing them in the air, like he was going to catch something that never came. He turned his face away from her.

Moxie finally spotted the cardinal and threw herself at the glass door, leaving a swathe of drool. She barked, insistent, and the cardinal twitched. Lucia laid a hand on the dog, buying a few seconds of quiet. The barking and the wind chimes and Evan would start again any second.

“I worry about you,” Lucia said. “Of course, I worry about you.”

“Me?”

“You or Rachel could have been hurt just as easily as me. It’s not like it was a precise sort of attack. But, Evan—there’s no point to it. There’s no end to it. If we start—”

Moxie growled, low in her throat. Evan thumped on the glass, scaring away the bird.

“You know very well that there are steps we could take,” he said to the patio. “But you don’t want to discuss them. Here’s the thing: you don’t get to out-argue me. This isn’t court. There’s no winning. No one wins if we’re both miserable, and you know that better than me.”

IV.

Lucia pulled into Rachel’s driveway, stopping just past the sidewalk. The front curtains were drawn, and she couldn’t see any lights, but both cars were parked in the garage. Her watch confirmed that it wasn’t quite 6:00 p.m., so unless Rachel and her mother ate early—which seemed unlikely given Rachel’s leisurely evening visits—she wouldn’t be interrupting supper. She wouldn’t have been forced to stop by unexpectedly if only someone would have answered the phone. She’d called half a dozen times since Rachel had left her house, and no one ever picked up. Weren’t they ever home?

Well, they were home now.

She walked up the cobblestones toward the front door, the rosebushes snagging her skirt. Ivy clung to the stonework, and she had to nudge the leaves aside to ring the doorbell. As she waited, she pulled a soggy advertisement for lawn service from the storm door. She was reaching for the doorbell again when the doorknob turned. The door made an unsettling sucking sound as it swung partially open. As Lucia was wondering whether anyone ever used this entrance, Margaret stepped into view, a ring of keys in her hand. She kept hold of the door, blocking the view of the room behind her.

“Hello, Lucia,” she said.

She did not offer any invitations.

“Margaret,” Lucia said, “I’m sorry to bother you. But I was wondering about Rachel. I wanted to make sure she was all right. I’ve called—”

“When?”

“Excuse me?”

“When did you call?”

“Today. Yesterday. The day before.”

Margaret let her hand fall and the door inched open. Lucia could see white carpet and stiff-backed chairs covered in pale green velvet. Figurines on a glossy end table. It seemed like the sort of living room that no one ever sat in.

“I see,” Margaret said, and her voice was like a stranger’s. Formal. “We’ve been having dinner with my sister these last few nights. I’m sorry you went out of your way to stop by, but this saves me a phone call myself, really. I’d prefer you not see Rachel anymore.”

“What?” Lucia asked. “Is she okay? She said nothing was—”

Margaret shifted her keys, rattling them against her thigh.

“She’s not hurt. But she’s a mess. Poor thing, she stayed in the shower for nearly an hour last night, just paralyzed. She does that when she’s scared.”

No, thought Lucia. You do that when you’re scared, like when you thought Rachel’s Key Club adviser had invited your ex-husband to the Christmas party. Rachel stays in the shower when she’s pissed off at you, and she collects all the stray hairs and stuffs them down the drain and hopes that the pipes will back up, and it worked at least once after you told her she was getting heavy through the hips, because you had to call the plumber.

“I hate that she was at the house when it happened,” Lucia said. “I hate that it happened, but I especially hate that she was there.”

“Someone shoots a gun into your house,” Margaret said, “a millimeter from her head, nearly killing her, and you don’t even call me to explain? You can’t show that much consideration for me? For her?”

Lucia considered that. A millimeter from her head seemed overly dramatic.

“I did call,” she said.

“You called after days had gone by,” Margaret said. “You left it up to her to tell me everything.”

This Margaret bore no resemblance to the eager-to-please woman who spoke in question marks and structured entire conversations around department stores. Her confidence rattled Lucia.

She had known from the moment Rachel drove away that she’d made a mistake. Of course she should have taken her home. Of course she should have called that night, in part to check on Rachel, but also to flatter her mother’s ego. No, that was unfair. She should have called and talked to Margaret because it was the right thing to do. But she hadn’t been able to face that conversation, and so she would pay for it now.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have called earlier.”

“As I said, I’d prefer you not to have any more contact with her,” Margaret repeated. “I’ve told her not to go by your house. I’ve told her not to call you. Surely you don’t want her to