A. Want to save the world but don’t know how? Isla Campbell can relate. As her small Maine city’s new business liaison, she once dreamed that she’d be able to help lift people out of poverty and into their dreams; now she’s just relieved to make it through another mind-numbing day at the office. Enter Dave Abbatescianni, would be owner of a new yoga studio who just wants to make a difference today for one person, every day for every person he meets. Isla says he’s a radical. . .but could he be right? And if he is, what does it cost to actually live that way? Isla is forced to redefine love, justice, loyalty, pride, and success as she finally admits that mercy is something she might need to receive before she can really give it to others.

B. Eyesores! Isla Campbell, Scottsville’s new business liaison, clenches her jaw every time the word comes up in a meeting with the town fathers. Talk of building community rings false to her every time she hears it in tandem with criticism of the working-class poor that she counts among her family and friends. Scottsville’s town fathers think a dab of paint here and potted plant there will build civic pride, but Isla believes the town’s problems are more than a few parades and a fancy clock in the center of town can fix, and she’s out to prove it by protecting the dignity and humanity of everyone as they are rather than forcing them into some cookie cutter mold.

But then she meets Lacey, the homeless addict who reminds Isla of a deep, always aching personal loss; she meets Danny, a successful mechanic whose flouting of the law scares her and tests her allegiances; she meets Dave, a dreamer, a failure, whose tenacity in every kind of doomed love seems almost miraculous. And she meets herself, and finds not a hero or a hick, but a mass of flaws and prejudices that hinder every good thing she wishes to accomplish. Can she learn from her mistakes? Are there places too dark for mercy to go?

C. Isla Campbell; Scottsville’s new business liaison, knows all the answers as long as she gets to ask the questions. For example, she knows there is no shame in doing the best that you can, even if people with more money say your home is an eyesore. She knows that people with substance dependence are still people; she believes that those running the city are rich snobs; she believes in civil disobedience when laws are unjust. She believes that Isla Campbell is confident and competent, the voice of reason in City Hall.

But suddenly the questions and answers don’t make sense anymore when theories are confronted with reality, when people with substance dependence are throwing up on her best friend’s couch and constantly reminding Isla of deep loss; when civil disobedience turns into personal embarrassment, instability, and helplessness; when rich snobs show real compassion. Her pride takes a blow when the eyesores belong to her family, even if they are doing their best and, most shattering of all, her belief in herself is shaken as she discovers that she is flawed and confused, inconsistent and even at times cruel. Can Isla recover meaning and purpose in a world that no longer makes sense to her? Is there anything after remorse?

Is there mercy?

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Previous Chapter: A Very Important Person

“Isla, I don’t know if you should . . .” Dave said.

But Isla had already shoved the sign’s spike deep into the ground below the flowers rooted there in the park overlooking the mill pond. Danny had, in his typical style, overbuilt the sign. It read: “In memory of Lacey Abbatescianni, citizen of Scottsville, who watered this garden.”

Dave read the sign and laughed a little. “She dumped her soda here.”

“Yes,” Isla said, “and look how they loved it.” The flowers were, it’s true, flourishing, although that might have been due to Aunt Dot and Austin’s care more than the soda, especially since it had been mostly weeds in Lacey’s day.

“She’d always get the biggest size at Cumbies and then she could never drink it all and complained about how big they were.” Dave shook his head.

“Make sure Clara sees the sign, ok? She was upset when they repainted the bench.”

“I will.” Dave’s face grew absolutely serious. “This is the right place, isn’t it?” he said as he pulled a plastic urn out of his backpack. “I thought about the ocean. She only went there a few times, but she loved it.”

“But this is where she lived, and she loved it, too.”

Dave nodded and began to open the urn. “It’s legal, isn’t it?”

Isla shrugged. Just as he tipped out the contents, the background noise on the park’s new playground suddenly escalated sharply with shouting and cheers, drawing their attention away from the solemnity of the moment. Dave’s head snapped up, brow furrowed, but he put up his hand to quiet her when Isla began to say, “I’m sorry Dave . . .”

The noise and tension continued to rise as a schoolyard game took place, a handful of kids observing as one boy, bigger, stronger, leering, his eyes crazed with the pleasure of bloodlust, wrenched the arms of a smaller boy, who writhed and occasionally yelped with pain. His bravery wasn’t lessened by the brevity of his battle.

“Mercy!” he screamed, the words tearing from his throat, desperate, shrill, and, “Mercy!” again.

The older boy pushed him to the ground as he released him, then put his fisted hands on his hips in a stance of triumph as Dave sprinted towards them. By the time he got there, the older boy and his cronies had moved on, leaving the smaller child sobbing alone on the ground, rubbing his wrist. Isla saw Dave inspect it, ask the boy to open and close his fingers. She moved towards them as Dave settled cross-legged on the grass beside the boy, but something held her back. She just watched as Dave picked three buttercups and held them under his own chin, then passed them to the boy.

The boy smiled as the tears on his cheeks began to dry.

Copyright 2026 Jennie Robertson

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Previous Chapter: A Long Night

Dave wasn’t answering texts or calls except in the tersest terms. Just enough to know that he was still ok. Or not ok, certainly, but alive at any rate. Then one day Isla received a text at work.

<<Can you come over?>>

Isla looked around at the work on her desk and wanted to reply, <<What, now?>> Old snarkiness dies hard. But she checked herself and tried to soften it. <<I’d love to! I’m going to have to finish up some work but I’ll come right over when I’m done. 5:15?>>

<<Ok.>>

She stopped in at Kim’s kitchen first. On the table was a large porcelain doll dressed in white satin with a fat baby face and wings. One of Lacey’s angels, the largest. She was still looking at it curiously when Kim came in. “Been up to see Dave yet?”

Isla shook her head and Kim smiled. “Better go up.”

She knocked on the door at the base of Dave’s stairs and heard him bounding down them. It sounded like some of his old energy had been restored, so that was good.

“How you been?” she asked as he opened it.

“Ok,” he said. “Ok.” He sat down on the middle of the floor in his tiny living room, angels spread out in concentric circles around him.

“Wow, what’s all this?”

“A gift.”

“A gift?”

“Yes, from Lacey to me. And you!”

“Me!” Dave smiled and handed her the little blue and white beaded angel. A piece of paper with her name written on it in bubbly cursive with hearts dotting the i’s was dangling from it on a paper clip that had been forced through one corner. There was a note on the other side: “Dear Isla, thank you for being a good friend to Dave and me. Thank you for letting us live in your house. I’m sorry that it didn’t work out. I hope that you and Danny can fix things. Love, Lacey.”

“Oh,” Isla bit her suddenly shaking lower lip. “Oh, Dave. Did she do this with all of them?”

“Every one. I don’t know when she did it. Isla, it’s the most amazing gift.” He took off his wire rimmed glasses and wiped his own eyes. “I have to talk to every single person that she loved. She even left me phone numbers for the people I don’t know personally, or told me the best way to contact them online. SHE’S healing ME, that’s what people don’t understand. They just think she hurt me. But she was sick, you know? ‘In sickness and health.’ Sometimes it hurts.”

“I know.”

“She hated herself every time she . . . every time she gave in. Hated herself because she knew that she hurt people she loved, and she loved so much. And I wish she hadn’t hated herself, even though it did hurt me.”

“We all mess up so much. Except maybe you.” Isla smiled gently at him.

He laughed scornfully. “Oh, I mess up plenty. I told you I wasn’t a hero the first time I met you. Remember?”

“I remember. But I think you’re wrong.” Dave just shook his head ruefully. Isla played with the angels for a while, picking up this one and that.

“What now, Dave?”

He sighed. “That’s the other thing I’m doing when I give these angels out. Telling people that we’re going to have a memorial service for her next Saturday at the studio. Can you make it?”

“Of course,” Isla said gently. “Can I help you with anything? Maybe organize a lunch afterwards or something?”

Dave nodded. “Is that what people do for funerals? That would be helpful.”

“My pleasure . . . but after the service . . . what will you do then?”

Dave hesitated. “Go back home with Dad, probably. So, that will be one less Mass . . . person from Mass for you to worry about.” She made a face at him. “I let things go at the studio a bit while all this was going on. I don’t think I can build it back up. I just don’t think I have it in me. Anyway, it never really got much steam behind it. It’s almost time to renew the lease again. I’ll let it lapse. Maybe apply at Domino’s, like you suggested.” They chuckled, but he added, “No, I think I’d like to do something more. Something that would honor Lacey, like work with a treatment center or maybe with kids—she liked kids. Maybe Dad and I can do something together. I could go back to school. In the meantime, I’ll probably stand beside him at the checkout stand. We should be able to save up, sharing living expenses.”

Isla smiled slightly, picking at the carpet idly before saying, “I heard that the town’s business liaison had some personal problems. I hope a lack of support didn’t do the studio in.”

“That’s life, though, isn’t it?”

“Remember that first time we met? I was going to save the world, I just hadn’t figured out how. And you said that maybe what mattered was helping one person when you could, even if it was just a little bit. What do you think now?”

“Do you mean because I couldn’t help Lacey?” There was worry in his eyes.

“You did help Lacey, you know? You shared many happy days with her. You know that still ‘counts,’ don’t you?”

“Somewhere deep inside . . . I guess. Actually, I told her that very thing, over and over. That whatever the ending, the middle matters. I know it’s still true, but it’s so hard.”

“You know what you said when I met you? You said that maybe there weren’t any good answers, that life was too messy for that.”

“Did I? You have an impressive memory.”

“I was so frustrated by it that it stuck. But I guess you were right. And what world saving plans have I managed to carry out in that time? Convinced the town to look under rocks for a gardener.” She laughed.

“Did they find one?”

“Get this—they gave it to Aunt Dot. I never even knew she applied. She’s ancient, for gawd’s sake. So I guess the joke’s on me. She’s making Austin her minion. Maybe it will be good for him.”

“She’ll do a great job. Look at her window boxes.”

“The funny thing is, I think you’re right.” She shook her head, saying, “It won’t save the world, though.”

“Could it get Dottie a new roof? Could it help Austin get back on his feet?”

“Maybe. Maybe.”

“What’s better, an abstract, impossible ‘save the world’ dream or getting one real roof over one real pneumonia-prone senior citizen at a time?”

“Point taken, Dave. I hope that you take it, too.” She gestured towards Lacey’s angels.

“Lacey gave me as much as I gave her. Lord knows I could give her precious little in this world.”

“You loved her.”

“Yes.”

“In an other-worldly, uncomplicated, unselfish way. What kind of miracle was that to perform?”

“I hope you’re right.”

“I am.” Isla’s bravado served them well for once.

______________________________________________________________

When Isla told Mum and Aunt Dot about the funeral lunch and asked if they could make a few sandwiches, the matter was taken right out of her hands. Truthfully, that is exactly what she hoped would happen. They set about making their fanciest menu—cream horns with a piece of strawberry on top, wraps rolled with ham and cheese and sliced à la sushi. “Only the best for our girl,” Aunt Dottie said.

Isla helped Dave set up the studio with rows of folding chairs that Perry had picked up from the surplus office supply place in the basement of the mill next door, part of his “event venue” plan that had never gotten off the ground. Dave had managed to find a place to put their framed wedding photo on the table jam packed with sandwiches and no-bake cookies. He had printed out pictures from his phone, taping them to the outside of the changing room—Lacey smiling at a toddler over coffee; Lacey beaming at the end of the jetty; Lacey painting a wall at the old house; a selfie of Lacey in the changing room mirror in a new outfit. The photo quality might have been poor at that resolution, but the best of Lacey shone through. Lacey’s mom had brought pictures of her as a child, even more heart wringing—Lacey holding hands with a young cousin, helping them walk; Lacey cradling a kitten ever so gently; Lacey surrounded by baby dolls.

Isla didn’t know most of the people there. It wasn’t a large crowd, but it was a good turn-out of 30 or 40 people. Danny came in shortly before it started and somewhat nervously asked if the seat next to her was taken.

Phil had fetched Dave’s dad again. “I’ve been driving to Mass so much lately that I could do it in my sleep,” he quipped, “which would explain the nightmares.” Now Dave’s dad was sitting next to Lacey’s mother, Kayla, in the first row. His hands were clasped across his middle, and the cuffs of his gray, pilling sweater had threads coming loose here and there. He was nodding respectfully as Kayla talked with great vigor, shaking her head, pointing, perhaps trying to pull herself away from the grief she must be feeling. Kim sat with her children in front of Isla. Clara held an angel Barbie doll that Isla assumed must have been her gift from Lacey. Miles held a teddy bear with wings.

The program was mostly one of memory sharing. Isla had tried and tried to come up with words for this day—how Lacey had challenged all of her assumptions, had forced her to see the real person behind the addiction, had, in partnership with Dave, shown her what love could look like. But she couldn’t capture that strange, potent mixture of naivety and matter-of-fact observation, wisdom and ignorance. She hadn’t ruled out speaking, but only if the words somehow suddenly came to her.

As it happened, shortly after the funeral started, Clara slipped from her seat and out the door into the stairwell. Kim was focused on the speaker and crying quite profusely; Isla caught her eye and indicated that she would corral the young wanderer. She stepped quietly through the door just as Clara threw the angel doll hard over the stairs and against the opposite wall.

“Oh!” Isla said.

The surprised child looked up, unphased, and said, “I hate her.”

“The Barbie doll?”

“Auntie Lacey.” Clara’s face was contorted and fierce.

“Hate her? Tell me about it.”

“You won’t think I’m bad?” Isla shook her head sadly. “She hurt my mom. She made my mom cry. She stole things from her and sometimes she said really mean things. Really mean, and my mom was really, really nice to her.” Her eyes widened as she continued, “She used bad words that my mom won’t even let me use, and sometimes I could even hear her through my mom’s phone. And I hate it that people are in there acting like she was a nice person.”

Isla nodded. “I can understand why you would feel that way.”

“Do you think she was a nice person? Did she trick you, too?” Before Isla could answer, the girl started talking again, “Because she was a LIAR. And that’s why I hate her the most. She acted like she was nice for a really long time, and she came to my birthday parties and she took me for ice cream and she played Sorry with me and she even played Minecraft with me. But she was just lying because really she just loved drugs, not me.”

Isla sat on the step beside the frighteningly angry child. She hoped that words would come. She had to try. “I think I know what you mean. But let me ask you something. Have you ever gotten angry at your mom? Have you ever broken a rule or told her a lie or stolen a cookie?”

The girl pursed her lips. “I suppose. MAYbe.”

“But did you still love her?”

“Yeah.”

“Auntie Lacey loved you, too. She didn’t do those things to hurt you or your mom.”

“But she did them because she was selfish, and it did hurt.”

“Yes—it was not ok. But we all are selfish sometimes, aren’t we, and it usually hurts someone. There are consequences to being selfish. But you know that she was also sick, that the drugs were hurting her body and her mind, right? The drugs told her mind that she HAD to have them, and maybe sometimes they were just so LOUD that she couldn’t hear anything else.” Isla hesitated. “You know, I didn’t like her at first . . . no, I really didn’t. But that Auntie Lacey that did all the nice and fun things with you . . . she was real. She was not pretending or lying. I know that for a fact. And nothing can take those times or that love away.”

“But I’m still angry, because she’s gone, and she didn’t have to be gone, and I loved her.” Clara slammed the Barbie against the stairs again. Isla gently held Clara’s hand back from doing it again.

“Don’t. Anger can take things away that you can never get back. You might want that doll someday.”

“But you don’t understand.”

“I do understand. I cared about Lacey, too. And I’ve lost other people I loved.” She thought of Robbie and wondered, yet again, if he’d ever return. “It makes sense to feel angry and sad. But Lacey loved you; that was real and you need to know it. I think you do know it.”

The anger began draining from Clara’s face and tears followed as she nodded. Without saying anything more, she got up and went back into the studio, and after a few moments, Isla followed. She handed the Barbie back to Clara, who cradled it to her cheek and cried into its hair, as Isla marveled that a humble piece of plastic molded in a factory could carry love from one person to another.

Several members of Lacey’s family lingered after having eaten their fill and more at the urging of Mum and Aunt Dot. Dave showed them around the studio and then said if they’d come back to the apartment, some of them might be able to make use of her clothes and other things. His face was a bit rigid as if he was working hard to keep his composure, but he was succeeding, as long as he didn’t make eye contact with his father. The one time outside of the service itself that Isla saw it slip was as he and Dad were standing near his desk and Dad picked up the “Mom” mug that Dave had brought back after one of his visits. He said a few quiet words and put a hand on Dave’s shoulder as Dave’s face crumpled.

Danny stood at her elbow, talking very little but bringing her food. “I didn’t realize that Dave’s dad had paid for her rehab.”

“What? Where did you hear that?”

“Lacey’s mom said while you were out.”

“Wow.” Isla was speechless. She wouldn’t have thought that he had the resources.

“Dave’s dad spoke and called her his daughter.”

“I know, I was back for that.”

“Looks like they’re headed out.” Danny nodded towards a group gathering near the door. Dave came over.

“Isla, want to come along? There’s a few things you might be interested in. Not that she had a lot.”

“I don’t need anything. Her family should have it. But I’ll come for the stroll.”

Dave led the handful of people across the street to the park, explaining that Lacey had loved to sit and watch the waterfall over the dam. Aunt Dot was explaining to Lacey’s elderly aunt that the town had liked her work on Main Street and was going to have her care for the flowerbeds here, too. Clara was sitting on her favorite bench and motioned Isla over.

“What’s this?” Her fingers traced a memorial plaque screwed into the wood painted shiny green.

“It’s put there in someone’s memory . . . to help people remember someone. Sometimes the family donates a bench and the plaque, or sometimes the town even does.”

“The whole town?”

“The people in charge of the town.”

“Will they put one here for Auntie Lacey?”

Isla looked into her earnest, grieving face and believed she needed the truth.

“I’m afraid the town doesn’t know how important she was.”

“But she was important.”

“Tell you what . . . ” Isla said, as she pulled out her pocket knife. “We don’t want the town to paint over it, so . . . here . . .” She chose a spot on the end of the bench near the armrest and began to carve: “In memoriam, Lacey Abbatescianni . . .”

“Isla,” Mum said suddenly and sharply behind her, at which Isla grinned mischievously.

“. . . Gone but not forgotten. There.” She brushed off the sawdust and paint chips and exchanged a satisfied grin with the child.

“But you didn’t say she was important.”

“Ah,” Isla took her knife out again and added: “A very important person.”

Next Chapter: Mercy

Copyright 2025 Jennie Robertson

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Previous Chapter: If the Dark Always Wins

“I was only gone for a little bit.” This was the phrase Dave kept returning to in his ramblings. “It was less than an hour.”

Danny and Isla hurried down the shiny hallways of the hospital and found Kim and Phil already there in a small waiting area with Dave, sitting in austere gray armchairs clustered around a table topped with a few issues of boring doctor magazines. Dave was beyond niceties but they were a comfort to Kim who embraced them both and said, “Thank you for coming” as she showed them to chairs.

“I was just gone for a little bit. She’d been doing so well. But I knew better, I knew better. I thought I had to have class. I’ve been missing so many classes lately. I never should have gone, or I should have brought her, we would have found a way. But it was just for a little while. I never should have gone.” His face was drawn as though all the sorrow of the world were entering his soul. When his phone rang, he jumped up.

“Dad, Dad! I was trying to get you, it’s Lacey! She was barely breathing, Dad!” With his father on the phone, tears started flowing and, though he paced up and down the hallway and they only caught snatches of what he said, his voice pitched higher and higher in desperation. “Don’t know what to do . . . I don’t know, I don’t know . . . I was only gone for a minute . . . I should have known, I should have known . . . I wish you could too, Dad. I just can’t leave her here alone . . .”

Phil looked meaningfully at Kim. “Do you remember how to get there?” she asked.

Phil nodded with complete assurance. He picked up his jacket and, key in hand, asked Danny, “Will you get Kim home if she needs to go?”

“Of course.” Danny nodded soberly, hands on his knees.

Phil kissed Kim on the top of her head and hurried down the hallway, his boots squeaking on the pristine linoleum. “It helps him to have something to do,” Kim said as they watched him go.

After a few moments of silence, Danny said, “About that . . . is there anything else we can do?” They looked around at each other helplessly.

Isla patted his hand. “Thanks for being here for me.”

He nodded. “You too.”

“I’m just going to let Dave know that Phil’s gone for his dad,” Kim said gently as she followed the anxious murmur down the hallway in the other direction. When she came back, Dave was with her, saying to the phone, “. . . should be there in about two hours.”

“Maybe faster.” Kim smiled knowingly at all of them.

“Ok, ok. Thanks Dad. I know. Dad . . . I was only gone for a short time . . . she was asleep . . .” His pitch began to rise again, then fell. “I know . . . I know . . . ok, I will see you then . . . love you too.” His voice caught.

He fell into the upholstered chair as if he were tired of fighting gravity. After a while, he said to Kim, “Did you hear anything? Did you see her go out?”

Kim shook her head sadly and said gently, as if it were an exchange they had gone through several times, “No, I didn’t. I wish I had. It must have been while I was at the store.”

“Somebody must have seen her!”

Before anyone could respond, a doctor came through the swinging doors. The hallway seemed longer than ever as he approached. Isla partly wished that he wouldn’t ever get there.

“Mr. Abat . . . Abbatescianni?” Dave lifted his head. “We have your wife on a ventilator. Please come with me.” Dave jumped up and the others stirred. “Just the husband for now,” the doctor said. “Thank you.” He was hard pressed to keep up with Dave’s sprint down the hallway. When the doors swung shut behind them, Kim answered Dave’s implied question.

“After they left in the ambulance, the man next door came over. You know, they just moved in? He said that a woman had come up to him, asked him for money. Said she was hungry. She was crying and said she was just so hungry. But when he offered to make her a sandwich, she went away, up towards the market.”

Isla shook her head violently. “Why? I just don’t understand why.” As usual, Isla experienced sorrow as rage. “I mean . . . I know money was tight . . . I’m sure there were other things . . . but . . . I mean, they had each other.” Danny studied a crack near the baseboard hard.

Kim was thoughtful. “I read one time that a heroin high was like being under a cozy warm blanket, like a blanket for your brain. A security blanket. She couldn’t let go of it, I guess. She needed that comfort. Of course, there was physical addiction, too . . .”

“But she’d kicked that . . .”

“Yeah, for a long time. I guess it was just too much. She just wanted to feel a little bit better. To not worry for a while. Maybe? I don’t know how it is. I’m just guessing. Maybe she just wanted to feel that comfort one more time. It’s so hard.”

“How could such a good person end up like this?” Isla wondered. Kim looked at her thoughtfully, so Isla said, “What?”

“I remember when you didn’t think she was such a good person.”

“I didn’t know her. I didn’t know how to see beyond the addiction. I didn’t know . . . people. I didn’t know myself, really. I just wish there wasn’t so much hurting in the world. I wish we didn’t hurt ourselves and each other.” Danny continued staring at the baseboard.

Soon, the doctor was back. He sat down in the seat Dave had occupied, but on the edge. He spread out his hands, hesitated, and then said, “You said you’re trying to get in touch with her mother?” He looked at Kim, who nodded, and the doctor took a deep breath. “Please let the nurses know when she gets here. Mrs. Abbatescianni is not going to make it. For all intents and purposes, she was gone when she got here. I’m so sorry. I think we should give them some time, but if you’d like to go say good-bye, I’ll take you down in 15 or 20 minutes.”

“Shouldn’t we go now?” Isla was ready for action; action was comfort.

“She’s on life support.” He compressed his lips and nodded in resignation. “I’ll come get you.”

The hallway beyond the doors, when they finally passed through, was dimly lit. The doctor showed Isla and Kim to the second doorway.

Dave was holding Lacey’s hand, eyes fixed on her face, no attention to spare for them. They had decided to make it quick. Danny had stayed behind, feeling awkward and unable to deal with sorrow and awkwardness at the same time.

When had Isla last seen her alive? Could Isla have done something for her? Why didn’t she even know what to do? Why couldn’t people save each other?

Kim was brushing Lacey’s hair back. “Good-bye sweetie. This is from Clara for Auntie Lacey.” She nestled a tiny, purple platypus next to Lacey. “Rest well.” She kissed her forehead and backed tearfully away to make room for Isla.

Isla felt foolish, but after she forced the first few choked words out, they flowed easier. “Thank you,” she said, “I’m sorry. I . . . I don’t know why the world still has me when it needs you. It’s not fair to anyone. I . . . I’ll miss you. I should have been a better friend, I should have been the good friend that you saw in me. Damn it! Would to God I could see people the way you do . . .” She checked herself. “Good-bye, Lacey. We will miss you.”

Dave didn’t stir as they left the room. She and Kim whispered in the hallway. “Should we stay?”

“I don’t think so,” Kim said, “Phil will wait and bring Dave home.”

“I hate to leave him alone.”

“I know but it’s a private time. His dad will be here soon.”

“I feel like I’m letting him down.”

“No, no.” Kim patted her arm. “It’s what we need to do right now.”

They found Danny smoking and pacing on a sidewalk at the far edge of the parking lot. He came towards them apologetically. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I couldn’t.”

“I know,” Kim said, “it’s ok.”

“I guess.” He ground out his cigarette on the sidewalk and they walked to his car.

“Do you want me to stay with you?” Isla asked Kim. They drove through empty streets, the lights of town flashing across their faces.

“Do you want to stay?”

“I don’t know.”

“Stay, then. That would be good. It might be a long night.”

And in the middle of it, they knew, or the end of it, or when dawn was stretching across the east, Dave would come home, bereaved, and there would be nothing they could do to heal him, or Lacey, or the world, Isla thought. And yet, being there for each other, brokenly, powerlessly . . . wasn’t nothing. It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t nothing.

“Are you still sleeping at the studio?” Kim asked Danny, who nodded.

“Oh,” Isla said hesitantly, “why don’t you . . . why don’t you sleep at the house?”

Hope crossed Danny’s face but kept on going by. “I don’t know . . . my stuff is at the studio.”

“There’s a new toothbrush in the linen closet,” Isla said. “You could even wash your clothes for tomorrow if you really want to. No one will be there.” She looked out the window. “Get a good night’s sleep in a real bed.” She glanced at him. How can eyes communicate confusion and hope and fear and concern in a quarter of a second?

“Ok,” he said finally. “It would be good to get a good night’s sleep.”

Kim offered her tea at the house, but the kitchen felt too bright for how they were feeling. “Want to watch something?”

“It’s better than thinking,” Isla said. So they drifted off in front of black and white re-runs, Kim in the recliner and Isla on the couch under fuzzy blankets.

________________________________________________________________________

Dave was in his own world until Dad finally got there and put a hand on his shoulder. He looked up, and then stood up to embrace his father, letting go of Lacey’s hand for the first time since they let him come in.

Then Dad looked into Lacey’s still face for a long moment. He cupped her cheek in his hand. “Child,” he said in his gentle high voice, bending over her, his breath on her. “It’s ok. It’s all ok now. It’s over.” Dave began sobbing audibly, then he pushed the old man.

“It’s not ok,” he said, his face contorted.

“I know,” Dad said, eyes sad, “I know. It’s not ok for you.” He gestured to the nurses’ station to indicate their need for privacy and closed the glass door quickly as Dave’s voice rose.

“I would do anything, anything, if I could stop this from happening. I don’t want this to happen, Dad! I don’t want it!” He put his arms around his son. “I would do anything to keep this from happening! I’d put all of my blood in her veins if I could!”

“She’s gone, son.”

“No.”

“You know she is.”

“No!”

“You know what you have to do.”

“Never. No.”

“Son. Son.” Dad moved his face until Dave’s eyes were forced to meet his. “Son, it doesn’t mean you don’t love her. It means you do.”

“No!” Dave howled in pain. He sat beside Lacey and leaned over her, crying into her chest. “Dad, I would rather do ANYTHING than this. Isn’t there any other way?” Dad put his hand on Dave’s shoulders wordlessly.

Dave cried until he was empty, pulling sobs from the deepest part of his soul. He cried until he slept for a few moments, exhausted. Then he raised his head, bleary-eyed, and said, “I wanted so badly to be what she needed.”

“You were, son. You were.”

Dave’s grief was outside of time. Was it moments or hours of agony before he said in a cracking voice, “But she was what I needed.”

“Son,” Dad said, pausing until Dave looked him in the eye, “she is.”

Next Chapter: A Very Important Person

Copyright 2025 Jennie Robertson

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Previous Post: Five Words

Work had been a meaningless, mechanized ritual for months and months now, while things spiraled out of control at home. Isla had gone in, numbly completed her tasks and assignments, and clocked out, with none of her former spark or creativity or drive. All of her noble ideas had shattered. Everyone else seemed so confident, so assertive, at a time when everything she did seemed so futile.

In her disinterest, she had sat through meetings where the town council decided to pay for awnings for several storefronts, to buy new flags for all the light posts, and she remained listless during Bill’s enthused ravings about how much these moves would do for general morale. She had done what was asked of her. Then she had flicked off her computer.

Recently, though, there had been a change. It must have had something to do with hitting rock bottom. The town didn’t cause her and Danny’s problems. She knew that. The town was made up of people and couples and families with their own problems, and neither awnings nor anything else the town did would fix them. Maybe the town could reduce the burden, and it was gradually dawning on her that the goodwill of those who wanted to help but didn’t understand how made them her allies, not her adversaries. The town could be smarter. There was room for growth. She was beginning to believe that again. And even though there would always be the possibility of human lust for power and money, perhaps she shouldn’t assume so readily that that was everyone’s motive. Maybe some people really did mean well. The tools of the town—taxation, regulation—were imperfect. She could dislike them, she could try to reform them, and she could, at the same time, appreciate their imperfect benefits, appreciate that human solutions have limits and that we still have to try them.

At Bill’s next all hands meeting, she was prepared with a suggestion. When he opened the floor, she said, “Hey, whatever happened to those flower boxes that we were going to put in midtown?”

Bill sucked his lower lip and looked at the far wall thoughtfully. “Hmmm. I’m not sure. Andrea?”

“It wasn’t in the budget at the time. Then we moved on to other things, and it just hasn’t come up again. I thought you hated that idea, Isla?” Andrea furrowed her brow in confusion and perhaps mild irritation.

“I never hated it. I objected to the idea that it was the solution to the real problems facing people in town, and I still think that’s true. But maybe it was never meant to be a solution. Anyway, I had an idea.”

“What’s your idea?” Bill looked at her earnestly. She’d worried lately that maybe word of her dying marriage had begun to make him hope again that she’d take an interest in him. But she wouldn’t let that intrude on her work.

“Maybe we can add a little beauty and help with some underlying problems. We have more than our share of the chronically underemployed in town. I bet some of them are great gardeners. What if instead of seeking bids from bigger companies, we put up flyers at, say, the bingo hall and the career center? Give someone local that much-needed boost?”

Andrea shuffled some papers and tapped them on the table. She cleared her throat. “I think it’s important to remember that ‘companies’ aren’t the bad guys. They’re important for sustaining the economy of this town. I mean, what’s better, giving money to some random individual for a one-time job, or investing it in a company that will then thrive and grow and employ people?”

The urge to lock horns rose up in Isla, but she pushed it back down. She did not, after all, disagree with Andrea. What she was saying was true. Maybe Andrea wanted to argue . . . or maybe she just wanted what was best for people and didn’t see things the same way. Isla took a deep breath.

“Thanks, Andrea, that’s a good reminder and a perfectly valid point. We do give businesses that kind of attention and should continue to do so. But I see people with the capital to invest in businesses start successful ventures and then, because they look all slick and pretty, they get all of our resources. They already have their own resources. And then I see people with a good idea but without the breadth of experience and background and, well, finesse . . . put every last penny into a venture that needs more than they have to give it. Aren’t they the ones that need our help?”

Bill smirked knowingly. “Not all ventures can succeed. Of course, it’s admirable that people put so much effort into things, but we can’t rescue every, say . . . would-be landlord while their ‘venture’ presents a hazard.”

Isla’s heart beat faster and she clenched her fists, but after a moment to collect herself, she said, “Of course. But that’s a little off topic. Just to clarify, I am not suggesting that we never support going concerns,” she glanced at Andrea, “or that we can save every floundering dream.” She tried not to glare at Bill, then swallowed a sudden lump in her throat. She would not cry. “Frankly, I’d be the last one to be optimistic about that. I’m just proposing that this particular project, which is rather small and low-risk, at least in the grand scope of our responsibilities, might be a nice place to test out whether we could benefit the demographic that, well, doesn’t know how to market themselves to us. That have abilities but don’t have connections and don’t have confidence. Look,” she said, trying to remain calm, “I don’t pretend to know if this will work. I don’t pretend to know if this has been tried and found wanting elsewhere. I don’t know. And I could spend weeks researching it or we could just try it.”

“So let me make sure I understand your concept,” Andrea said. Doreen was feverishly taking notes while the others around the table looked on thoughtfully or doodled in disinterest, waiting for the agenda items to roll around that involved their department. “You want us to print up flyers for this job, open to everyone, and specifically post them in . . . I don’t know the bingo hall, Mark’s Meat Market, Dollar General, outside DHHS?”

“Yes, and take bids, do interviews, introduce the process to people that haven’t the first clue how to get connected to a town contract. I should state,” Isla rocked back in her chair, “or maybe I shouldn’t, but I guess I’m going to . . . I don’t love the process. I wish I could just walk up to, say, the mom of my best friend from high school and say, ‘you’ve always had pretty plants, would you like to do this for the town? It pays!’”

“I believe you’ve made your position pretty clear in the past,” Andrea interrupted. Isla held up her hand and went on.

“. . . but I understand that that’s not how it works, and even why . . . people ask questions, demand answers, suspect favoritism, want a paper trail, etc. I get it. Anyway, yes, what you described, Andrea, is basically what I’m suggesting.”

“Who’s to say that this money we’re ‘investing’ will ever turn into anything? What’s to stop it from going into more bingo games?”

“I mean, maybe that bingo money plays a valid part in the town economy, first of all . . . that’s something we haven’t looked into a lot. But ultimately, it may not turn into future prospects. It may not be the seed of someone’s business. Our job is to do the best we can with our own responsibilities. We can’t consider ourselves responsible for every outcome. We have to let people be people, make mistakes, get second chances. Don’t we?”

Andrea was still hesitant. “That’s no way to run a business, Isla, and the town is a business, at least in an administrative sense. We have to make the numbers work or the ship sinks.”

“A business? We’ve spent the last five years talking non-stop about making this into a true community, where people help each other and care about each other. That’s how the flower box idea even came up—a way to offer beauty to everyone. For everyone. A way to redeem something ugly, those stupid concrete buildings in the middle of town. I was skeptical at first of things like that—cosmetic changes—but then I thought, what if they could be tied to deeper connections? Then they might actually work. Again, I have no idea if all this has any real relevance. It’s just some crazy idea I had. Still, it’s low risk; I propose that we give it a shot.” Isla’s chair bounced as she threw herself back, finished.

Bill had been looking on with his neutral, vaguely positive expression. Now, as both Andrea and Isla seemed to have retreated, he smiled and chirped, “Anyone else have any thoughts? I say we try Isla’s idea. As she says, no harm trying.”

Murmurs and nods passed around the table. Bill turned to Andrea questioningly, who answered his look with, “I hope you know that I do want us to build true community, Isla. I just like to be really sure of things. We can give it a try. Why not?” Did Andrea actually smile a little at Isla?

Bill nodded. “Alright, then . . . Isla, will you make these flyers and get them out? How long shall we allow for some bids to come in?” The meeting moved on around her as Isla nodded and jotted some notes. She daydreamed about how much less stressful life would be if she and Andrea didn’t lock horns so much. Likely they didn’t have to; it was a matter of perspective, i.e., that Andrea had a different and, dare she say, needed one? She tucked that thought away for later.

She had the flyers printed in half an hour—overthinking would ruin it, she thought. Just text on paper. Clip art maybe? No. Certainly not the town seal. That would be sure to get it ignored. Just nice big text. After lunch, she headed out to hang them up.

It was rainy on the way home and even though the thermometer said it was in the mid-fifties, she felt chilled. Time after time, she pulled her car up to a curb and dashed out into the rain, shoving a tack into a bulletin board before dashing back.

She pulled up to Perry’s mill. She had planned to post and dash on all three floors, but Perry was presiding in his office by the door, playing Solitaire on his computer. Evidence of a recent Twinkie was on his desk and mouth. She knocked and he looked up with an expression meant to imply she was interrupting important work.

“Mind if I toss these up at your businesses?”

Perry extended his big paw wordlessly and read the brief flyer over before nodding his assent. When she turned to go, he said, “Wait.” He screeched open a drawer in his metal desk and handed her a package of Sticky Tack. “Don’t want tape taking off the paint.”

“Sure,” she said, “no problem,” but laughing a little inside at the idea that tape would harm the derelict old building.

She headed straight up to Dave’s first and was puzzled to find the door locked. He should be getting ready for classes now. Maybe he’d changed the schedule. She stuck a flyer on the door with some Sticky Tack and mentally noted to text him when she got back to the car.

On the second landing, she met a couple of women headed out for a smoke break, their steel-toed boots clanging as they shook the metal stairs. “Well, I’ll be damned,” one of them said, “Isla?”

“Patty!” she said, recognizing the sister of a childhood friend. “I didn’t know you were working here!”

“Not for long,” Patty said, waving her friend to go on without her. “I started here a couple months ago, but I’m just filling in while I look for something better. What are you here for? Are you applying? They’re taking in an awful lot of help right now. Big orders.”

“No, but I am here for work. I work for the city and they’re looking for interested applicants to put in some flower boxes mid-town.”

“Flower boxes! Is that what my tax money is going to? I’d rather keep it for my own flower box, thanks. No offense.”

Isla nodded. “None taken. I totally hear that. But the town thinks beautification is the way up for us, and the best I could do was try to get some bids from local gardeners. Know anyone?”

Patty studied the flyer. “Maybe, maybe. I’ll pass the word.”

“It’s a fairly small job,” Isla said apologetically, “but it could give someone the little boost that they need.”

“Money’s money,” Patty said, sagely.

“Exactly.”

“Good to see you,” Patty said, “I’ll tell Amanda I ran into you.”

“Thanks,” Isla replied, then added, “hey . . . I noticed the yoga studio upstairs is closed. Seems like it’s usually open this time of day, do you know anything about that?”

Patty shook her head. “Oh, I wouldn’t know anything about the hours, but I think I saw him when I came for my shift awhile ago. But I don’t really remember.”

“Ok, thanks,” Isla said. “Good to see you!” Patty nodded and went on as Isla stopped to hang her last flyer.

She stuck her head in again at Perry’s door, and he looked up at her wearily from beneath his bushy gray eyebrows. “Know where Dave is?”

Perry shook his head. “He’s in and out a lot these days. I’m not sure what’s going on up there. Got his wife up there with him most of the time, sometimes some other guy. Think I did see him in here alone for a little bit this afternoon. ‘S long as he pays his rent . . .” Perry turned his attention back to his screen.

She knew it was silly, but Isla felt nervous as she got back in her car. She turned toward Kim and Phil’s, telling herself that she needed to hang a flyer at the liquor store anyway.

But she didn’t stop there, because from the store’s entrance she could see the Bilodeaus’ driveway, and there was an ambulance in it, the flashing of its lights soft and blurry in the rain on her windshield. Her nervousness turned to dread. For a brief moment, she let herself hope that it was just turning around, but then the door opened and she saw a stretcher coming out, Dave jogging alongside it anxiously, his ponytail bouncing against his shoulders, as the paramedics hurried it to the back of the waiting vehicle. The ambulance passed Isla just before she reached the driveway, siren suddenly slicing the air. Kim was peering out the door anxiously, then waved quickly as she saw Isla. No, no, no, no, no.

“Oh, Isla, it’s Lacey,” she said, tears on her face, as Isla came in.

Isla nodded. She’d assumed. “What happened?” she asked, though she had assumptions about that, too.

“Dave found her on the futon upstairs. Barely breathing, lips blue.”

“Is she . . .”

“I think she’s still breathing,” Kim said, but her tone did not sound hopeful as she added, “sometimes.”

“Poor Dave.” Isla threw herself onto the bench at the kitchen table limply.

“Poor all of us.” Isla let her eyes meet Kim’s and they both started tearing up.

“Maybe it will be ok.”

Kim put the tea kettle on, preparing for a vigil. “I’m glad the kids weren’t home . . . I’ll see if Mum can take them. This might be a long night.” Isla thought that was the best- case scenario, in a way. Kim left the room, cell phone in hand, and Isla picked up hers. She hesitated, then texted Danny. She was still treating their truce as a fragile thing, unsure it could bear the weight of everyday life. But now . . .

<<Are you busy? I’m at Kim’s.>>

His response was almost immediate. <<Is everything ok?>>

She blinked back tears quickly before typing. <<No. Not really. It’s Lacey.>>

<<Do you want me to come?>>

If he had flown to her side, she might have pushed him away. But he asked. He asked. After a moment’s hesitation, she typed <<Yes.>> Then sent another short text. <<Please.>> And then another. <<Thank you.>> And finally. <<Wait. Meet me at home?>>

<<Ok. 15 minutes.>>

“Let me know the second you hear anything, please,” she told Kim as she came back in the room, “I need to run home, but I’ll be back.” Kim nodded, and Isla added, “I don’t want to leave you alone, though.”

“Phil will be here shortly. It’s ok. I wouldn’t mind having a moment.” Quiet tears were on their cheeks as they wordlessly acknowledged the need to ugly cry, which was just what Isla was doing when Danny knocked on their door.

They hadn’t both been there since she’d taken him to the hospital on that terrible night. At one time, she’d vowed that he’d never cross their threshold again. That was before she’d taken a hard look at herself, of course. But she couldn’t think about that now. She opened the door and let him in and pressed her face to the slightly sticky New England Patriots logo on his hoodie.

“Hey, hey,” he said. “Ok, it’s ok.” They held each other as she cried and cried. Eventually he guided her to the couch.

Finally, in the gray twilight that had begun to fall, she said, “People don’t change, do they? They can’t. I wanted to believe they can, but they don’t. The dark wins, every time. Doesn’t it?”

“Do you believe that?” he asked into her hair.

“No,” she said, “I don’t. I can’t. But I think I should. That’s what I see all around me. It’s what I see inside me.”

“It’s what you see right now all around you.”

Isla was silent. Then she said, “If the dark always wins, we shouldn’t be here. We shouldn’t see each other.”

“It wins a lot,” he said. “We’ve let it win, way, way too often. I’ve let it win too often. But it doesn’t have to win, you know.” He paused, then pointedly reached over and switched on a lamp.

“But what if she dies, Danny? What if she dies?” He didn’t answer for a long time.

“I don’t know, but . . . it is beautiful how they love each other, isn’t it? That won’t die. And we know all too well what a miracle love like that is.”

After another pause, Isla drew a deep breath and said, “I’d like to go to the hospital. Do you think that’s ok?”

“I’ll take you . . . if you want?”

“Thank you.”

Chapter 56: A Long Night

Copyright 2025 Jennie Robertson

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Previous Chapter: Broken Things

There was a time when Isla would have dismissed Dave as a starry-eyed romantic. And perhaps she still saw him as a starry-eyed romantic, but having seen his strength with Lacey, his loyalty, the way he carried hurts that should have destroyed him, that should have destroyed their love, and somehow exchanged those hurts for hope and even, at times, flashes of joy . . . she couldn’t quite dismiss his words. She didn’t know if she could use them for anything, but she couldn’t quite dismiss them.

She had waited awhile, building her courage and letting the dust of change settle yet again. But one morning she woke up knowing it was time. “Come to the studio anytime,” Dave had told her. “Danny wants to talk when you’re ready.” Until now she hadn’t even been able to bring herself to text Danny, and how were they going to talk if she couldn’t even do that? So awkwardly, at first light, she had picked up her phone.

<<I’m sorry it’s so early, but can I come over before I lose my nerve?>> She had waited an agonizing half hour for his response.

<<Sorry, I was asleep. You can come over.>> And that was that. She was committed now.

The rusty brown door of Dave’s studio rattled when Isla opened it and it continued complaining until it had swung shut behind her. She stood shivering a little bit; it wasn’t exactly cold, but the huge room made her feel small and vulnerable. Not unhappy, though, not unsafe, just aware that she wasn’t in charge.

Morning was coming, lemon light and bright through the windows on the dawn side of the building. One pane was broken, and although Dave knew the kid who did it, he wouldn’t call the police on him. When Isla asked if he thought guilt would overwhelm the kid and he’d fix it voluntarily, Dave said he doubted it. When she asked if Dave’s insurance would cover the cost, he’d said he doubted that, too. When she asked if his current income would cover it, he’d smiled and tacked an old flannel shirt in front of it. “This will cover it.”

“Good luck come winter,” she’d said, and then, “Don’t you believe in justice?”

“Sure. But is justice giving a kid a police record just for doing what he’s done 100 times when it didn’t bother anyone?” Isla had shrugged.

The room wasn’t beautiful. The floor was covered with an irregular pattern of holes and scars where giant looms and other machines had been bolted or dragged or . . . well, who knew the stories of all those scars? The walls were unadorned, utilitarian. Dave’s desk was a patched- together ogre in the corner, a well-kept ogre, but a heap nonetheless. The only color was a row of rolled yoga mats that stood neatly on end against one wall. Isla plugged in the fairy lights. Her eyes said the space wasn’t beautiful, but her soul said it was, perhaps because of the quiet or the morning light, or the clear, wide-open expanse, or the handful of clients that came here for an hour of calm once a week. Perhaps because of what she had come here to do. It shared something with the cathedrals she had visited and, since it wasn’t ornamentation, it must have been the way a huge enclosed space stood in for the universe, for infinity, reminded one of the incomprehensible.

Isla looked at the plywood box of the changing room. He was in there, she supposed. She stared for a few moments, working up the nerve to enter.

The room was 12’ x 8’ and 8’ tall because Dave had used exactly 10 sheets of plywood. Instead of a door, he’d just left out one piece of plywood in the long side facing the room. He had originally hung a curtain of doubled-over unbleached muslin across it for privacy, but Lacey had replaced it with a chintzy Goodwill special of red flowers and green leaves against a lavender background. She never even took out the yellow “half-price on Tuesday” barb.

“Did you rob my great-grandmother?” Isla had scoffed to herself when she saw it the first time. Lacey had just said that she wanted something pretty and added something stupid about a woman’s touch. Something stupid, Isla thought now, why was I so mean, even if I only thought it? Why couldn’t I just let her be happy? Happiness now seemed too rare a thing to trifle with.

Isla took a deep breath for courage and then crossed the hushed sanctuary of the factory floor to Danny’s quiet refuge. The curtain had been replaced with a French door since the last time she’d seen it. She recognized it as one that Danny had bought for the rental house and wondered how or when he had fetched it from their basement. It was incongruous from the outside, against the plain plywood, but she knew it would be perfect from the inside, and it made the structure more stable.

Isla took off her black ballet flats and left them outside as she opened the door almost soundlessly. She sat cross-legged in the corner across from the mirror, which reflected her only darkly in the dim light that fell through the frosted glass of the door. She stretched herself forward instinctively; maybe Dave had taught her a thing or two about being flexible.

Danny’s back was to her. He’d fallen back asleep. A rough wool army blanket fell away from his slightly hunched shoulders and his strong back.

She sat silently in the corner for a long time, waiting, watching, aware of his vulnerability and sad that she was aware of it. She imagined him waking, him turning to her with a smile and, after everything, saying something flippant like, “What? You didn’t bring coffee?” But she knew he wouldn’t. It had been a long, long time or rather, the distance between them was a long, long space.

Eventually, her mind wandered. She stared at her reflection in the strange, dim mirror, more aware of it as the day grew brighter. Her thin black zip-up hoodie, her black yoga pants and her gray t-shirt were still almost invisible, but she could see her face and her bare feet. The antique glass, with its permanent black spots and speckles, had the peculiar quality of making you look, in addition to yourself as you really were, like a person important to history and preserved for the ages. In the past, Isla had liked to make faces in it to dispel that aura. Now she just thought how normal she looked. How very average. Not like someone whose superpower was anger, who had dragged a grown man across the floor to a hot stove. She moved a bit, restless, without realizing it.

“Unh. . . I guess I fell asleep again. Sorry.” Danny sat up and pulled the blanket around his shoulders, shyly, as if they were not a married couple. The tension that had always animated his movements was gone, though, Isla thought, not entirely in a good way. She realized too late that his tension had been hope, in a way, the visible sign of believing that if he could get everything right and hold himself and the world together, things would go well and dreams would be possible. It hadn’t worked. He didn’t seem depressed or despondent, but he did seem passive, waiting without expectation.

She drew a long breath as a way to delay. Yet here she was—she couldn’t think of a way out of this.

“I truly, truly thought that you deserved anything I could do to you,” she began. “I was never going to say I was sorry, because . . . well, we’ll get to that, I suppose. But the first thing has to be that I am sorry. Nothing that could have happened, nothing that you did, made the way that I treated you right. I thought it was justice, but it was only anger. I was wrong to treat you that way. And,” she saw her face in the mirror, her lips speaking the terrible, ugly words as her voice sank to almost a whisper, “I enjoyed it. It makes me sick to say it, but I enjoyed the drama of it and I loved feeling like I still had control of something. The crazier things got, the more I wanted that feeling of control. But it was hideously, gruesomely wrong. I am sorry. I know it’s absurd and that five words can’t fix everything, but know that I mean them: will you please forgive me? I have wronged you terribly.”

Danny groaned, “Isla, don’t.”

“No, I mean it. Please forgive me. There’s no other way out.” He started to speak and she said, “Wait. I need to say the words. I hit you. I burned you. I tried to hurt you in every way I could. That is what I am asking forgiveness for. And I tried to control you. Please forgive me.” She bowed her head, waiting.

“Isla, I was bad to you. I was rough with you and I was mean to you. I was stupid and thoughtless and impulsive and stubborn. I’ve had nothing to do but think about it. I was like a kid; I couldn’t see beyond what I wanted, beyond my little house of cards. I’m ready to be an adult. Imagine that—38 years old and ready to be a man.”

“Me too.” Isla had been tearing up, but they both laughed then, briefly, “I’m ready to be an adult, I mean.”

Danny went on, “I was always sorry, you know. Every time I did some stupid thing, yelling at you for losing a sock or for humming in the morning or for serving me peas or whatever. I was angry at myself almost right away for not treating you right when I loved you so much, but that anger at myself just made me more blind and stressed and impatient, and I ended up hurting you more. It’s not an excuse; it was inexcusable. But it’s the truth. I know that now. It’s me that needs your forgiveness.”

She wanted to sit next to him, lay her head on his shoulder, lock their fingers together. But she couldn’t. The wall between them would have to be brought down brick by brick. Yet, she could see over it now, finally, on tiptoe.

“I forgive you,” she said, “but now you have to forgive me. It’s not fair if you don’t. . .no. No, I’m sorry. Those are controlling words. It’s entirely up to you whether you forgive me. . .but I hope you will.”

“I forgive you.”

“I’m sorry for not seeing your hurt,” she said, “about the garage and the house, I mean. About your dreams. All I could see was your stubbornness. That should be something I love about you; it is something I love about you, I suppose. But it made things hard, and out of my control, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t have your back. I didn’t try to help you heal. I’m sorry.”

Danny had tears on his face. “I should have respected your concerns more, Isla. I didn’t know what I was doing, but it’s no excuse. I should have given you a fair hearing.” Isla nodded in acknowledgment.

They didn’t know what to do next or what came next.

Danny broke the silence. “Now what? Can we go back home, Isla?” His hope broke her heart.

“Danny . . . I went to a therapist. Kim saw some burns and bruises and got the wrong idea. She thought you were hurting me—there’s another apology I need to make. Anyway, she made me an appointment. I heard some things there that upset me, but one thing . . . well, there was a woman whose boyfriend was so awful to her, all the time, and then he’d say, ‘I’m sorry, sorry, sorry.’ Everyone there seemed to think that was just another way to control her. And it probably was.” She bit her lip. “They say it’s common. I believe it. I’m not sure that’s it’s conscious manipulation—probably sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t—but that doesn’t invalidate the control angle. I want to make sure I’m not doing that. Some people say there’s no healing for relationships that are broken like ours; some say the only hope is for the abuser to truly admit to the problem and Danny . . . I do truly admit to it. And you’ve admitted to things, too. But the thing is . . .whatever other people mean when they say they’re sorry, I meant it every time I ever said I was sorry. Every time. I was always going to never do it again. And even if it was a way to feel like I was in control of the situation, there was sadness and desperation in it, too. I never wanted to lose you. I was always scared. Even though I know I would never do it again now . . . I knew that every other time, too.” Isla slumped, defeated, against the wall. “And I still kept doing it. So I know that I can’t know. I’m not sure how I could ever be sure.”

“What then? Is this good-bye?” His heart was in his eyes and it broke Isla’s.

“I don’t know. How can I know, when every source I consult says that either there’s no way forward for us or we aren’t the kind of case they’ve studied? The partners of the women at the therapist’s office were . . . I saw and heard scary things there, and I want to believe that’s not me, not us. But the anger, Danny, the fear of loss and the need to be in control, and . . . well, again, the anger. It’s too much the same.” She shook her head. “I know the problems and the warning signs. I am truly sorry because I’ve wronged you and not just because I want to control you. That’s good, and maybe unusual, and hopeful. But I’m scared that anger will possess me again, because there have been moments throughout my whole life when it has taken me over. Not just with you. I don’t know how to be sure it won’t.”

“Do you love me, Isla? I love you.” His bearded face drooped.

“Danny,” she said, putting her hand on his, “I am just beginning to learn how to love you.”

“Can we start over? Really listen to each other, really look out for each other?”

“I think so. But only as new people. Only with time and hard work. This conversation is just the first step in forgiveness, let alone healing. Only because we’ve changed and truly admitted our wrongs. Only taking it slow. Only with some space.”

“Space. You mean you won’t be coming home.” His shoulders sagged again.

“Let’s sell the house, Danny. Let’s start over. Find somewhere where you can really open the garage back up, legally. I can help you, you know. Only if you want me to.”

“It will be a house you’ll like. And I won’t decide without you.”

“I can’t promise anything. I may not ever live there. I want to, Danny, I really do. I’m sorry, but I’ve given up thinking that I can force things to be the way I want them to be.”

“Just for me then; find something you like. So it’s there if we’re ever ready.”

“Yes. Ok.” She squeezed his hand.

They sat quietly for a while, until Danny said, “This sounds stupid at a time like this, but I’m starving. Mind if I go see what Dave and Lacey left lying around?”

Isla smiled reassuringly, remembering past episodes of hunger-fueled distraction. “Sure. Go.”

After several minutes, he was back with a bag of hot dog rolls and juice boxes. “Better than nothing?” He took out a roll, and tore it in half with his teeth.

Isla smiled and reached out her hand for a juice box and they sat side by side watching themselves in the mirror, not quite ready to be face to face.

Next Chapter: If the Dark Always Wins

Copyright 2025 Jennie Robertson

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Previous Chapter: Next Steps

“Hey!” the large young man called suddenly from the cash register at Cumbies. “Hey, I told you not to come in here again or I’d call the police!”

Dave and Lacey looked up, alarmed, from the chip aisle they had been perusing. The kid pointed at Lacey and she quivered against Dave as the cashier and a handful of customers stared in their direction.

“Get out of here! Now!” The man spoke as he would to a nuisance animal, but Dave noticed he didn’t pick up a phone. Maybe he had an emergency button.

Although he wanted to get away from the attention as soon as possible, Dave also wanted to defend Lacey. He approached the counter, Lacey always beside him. “Why are you talking to my wife that way?” he said quietly, hoping the guy would follow suit. He did not.

“Your wife? I’m sorry.” There was something nasty in his tone.

“Let’s go,” Lacey whispered, taking his hand.

“No, I don’t want you to be treated this way. Why are you talking to her this way?” Dave didn’t notice the misery on Lacey’s face.

“Because she’s a thief, that’s why. And I’m done with it. She gets desperate enough, someday she’ll have a knife at my throat. No thank you.”

“Well, I’m here with her now and she’s not hurting anyone.”

“Oh yeah? Let’s see what’s in her pockets?”

Dave turned to her expecting vindication; he’d been with her the whole time. Shaking and teary, she pulled a small bottle of wine from the pocket of her hoodie.

“See?” The cashier folded his arms over his chest.

Dave was speechless and embarrassed. He placed the wine bottle on the counter and then put his hand on Lacey’s back and hurried her homeward. After a couple of blocks, he said, “How did you steal that with me right there? Why did you do that?”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.” She was twitching. “You’re ashamed of me, now, Dave? You’re done with me?”

“Of course I forgive you,” he embraced her fiercely. “And no, I’m not done with you. But why did you steal?”

“I have to steal so I can get drugs so I can forget that I’m a thief and a junkie and a disappointment to the man I love.” Her frankness was, as always, startling.

He pulled her to a park bench with his arm around her as tight as it could go while still being gentle. “But why did you start again? When you weren’t a thief and a junkie anymore?”

Lacey looked at him sadly. “There will always be things I need to forget. There will always be hurt I can’t deal with. Always.”

“Not always, Lacey. I promise you it is not forever. Do you believe me?”

Lacey relaxed into his shoulder. “I believe you. Thank you. But I’m sorry, because you don’t deserve all this. Everyone said it wasn’t smart of you to be with me.”

“What would smart have been? Only loving a perfect person? Only loving someone who couldn’t possibly break my heart? That’s not how people are.”

“But Dave . . .” she paused as if uncertain how to go on.

“You took a risk, too, and I haven’t been able to be everything I wanted to be for you, either. But we have each other and it’s a beautiful day and you didn’t steal that bottle of wine and there’s no reason not to be happy, now, for this moment.”

She looked at him with peace and pity and they began to walk home again, slowly. It was a spring day that felt almost hot when the breeze stopped but cold when it blew, and it blew most of the time. When they got home, Lacey mixed herself a tall glass of lemonade.

“Dave,” she said, her spoon jingling against her cup, “you know . . . it’s like there’s a war in me. My body wants one thing, the drugs, and my heart wants something else.”

“What does your heart want?” Dave said, leaning on the counter.

“To be clean, and to enjoy life with you. It’s so, so tiring to have my body fighting my heart all the time. It lies to me, Dave.”

He put his hands on her shoulders and looked at her seriously. “What does it say?”

“That the drugs will feel good, that they won’t kill me, that they are the real me.”

“It’s temptation, love, don’t blame your body.” He ran his fingers lightly down her back, “But I know, I know . . . there are physical causes.”

“Why do I do something I hate? It’s terrible.” She looked deeply unhappy, but then she peered into his face and said, “But it’s not as terrible as it was when I had no reason to fight it. I’d rather have this war inside me than believe that putting poison inside me was the only joy I could hope for.”

Dave kissed her forehead. “We’re going to use all the resources we can get to fight this war together.” Lacey smiled and nodded, even though neither of them was ever under the illusion that everything was suddenly all better or fixed.

Kim’s porch had an old clothesline strung beneath its roof and Dave always said that sun and wind were the cleanest, simplest energy there was. He now grabbed a basket of wet laundry that he’d left by the sink. As he passed through the screen door that Lacey held for him, he paused and said, “Oh! Hello!”

Isla was sitting on a plastic Adirondack chair at the end of the porch. “Hi,” she said. Dave wondered whether she’d heard their conversation and was concerned when Lacey disappeared back into the house, until she reappeared shortly with another cup of lemonade for Isla, who thanked her.

“To what do we owe the pleasure?” Dave asked as he hung a blanket that was old but soft, a gentle pink, and frayed at the edges.

“Just thought I’d come by, see what was up,” Isla said. “Is Danny still staying at the studio?” Weeks were turning into months of quiet introspection. Isla felt that a conversation must happen soon, somehow.

“Mm-hmm,” Dave nodded, then took the clothespin out of his mouth. “He’s working at Prompto now.” He hung an elderly stuffed rabbit by its satin-lined ears, then thought better of it and put the fragile toy back in the basket. Isla looked sad, and Dave wondered if it was because she no longer knew what was going on in Danny’s life, or maybe because she knew he could not use the full range of his skills in changing oil.

Dave hung a white sundress up. Lacey reached out and touched it. “It looks pretty,” she said. “How did you get the stains out?”

“Magic,” Dave waved his callused hands, smiling. Then he noticed that Isla was crying. “Isla!” he said. “What’s wrong?” Lacey instinctively started rubbing Isla’s back like a mother with a child.

“I’ve come,” she said when she’d composed herself a little, “for you to hear my confession.”

“Hey, now,” Dave said, hands up, “I’m no priest.”

“And I’m no Catholic, so I guess it’s alright. I’ve done badly, Dave, very badly, and I think you know it already.”

Dave tossed the clothespins in the laundry basket and sat down near Isla and Lacey, his legs dangling off the side of the porch. Isla went on.

“It wasn’t all Danny. It wasn’t mostly Danny. Danny didn’t have power and control in our relationship; he might have wanted it. But I started with it and I was determined to keep it. I broke the physical barrier. I would,” she swallowed hard, feeling sick, “hit him lightly at the beginning of a fight, pretend to myself and to him that it was playful. But he would be mad and then I’d be madder and I’d hit him for real. He wouldn’t listen! Do you understand, he wouldn’t listen? I had good things to say, I had to make him respect me and hear what I had to say! I could have helped him. And of course, he just respected me less every time. Anyway, I couldn’t hurt him, could I? So it didn’t seem like it mattered. It wasn’t like him threatening me. Except it was like that, and I did hurt him. Not just emotionally. With my shoe, with my feet, with my teeth, with the woodstove, with hot coffee. Back when he wasn’t leaving the house much, when things were so bad with us, when he bought the new house and he wasn’t working. It was only a few times. I think. It doesn’t matter how many times. I did it. And I want to think now that I’d never do it again, but that’s exactly what I did think every. Single. Time. But the anger made me blind, I was desperate. How can it be my fault when this thing takes me over, controls me? I’m blind when that anger comes. I’m totally out of my senses. How can I control it? It’s like Lacey said—yes, I heard you, I’m sorry, it was just the screen door—Why do I do the things I don’t want to do? Why? It’s like there’s a monster inside me.”

“Because people mess things up. It’s what we do,” he said gently. “It doesn’t look the same from person to person . . . and I can’t honestly say that some things aren’t worse than others, more damaging. But it always hurts people, both the little stuff and the big stuff. You feel like there’s a monster inside you because there is.”

“Do you know, I once told Danny that there were no bad people. Remember? That Thanksgiving night at Kim’s. That people probably thought I was bad, because I came across a little brusque, but I wished they’d give me a chance, get to know me, know that I wanted good for people. It’s so ironic.” She shook her head.

“What’s ironic?”

She snorted quietly, then said in a hoarse whisper, “I didn’t know me then. But now that I’ve gotten to know me, I know that . . . I’m a terrible person. There are terrible people after all. And there are terrible lives and terrible loves and I am everything, everything, the worst that anyone ever accused me of being and more. I never, ever thought this could be my life, but here it is.” She shook her head, saying, “Here it is, no way out.”

“It’s not all your . . .”

Isla interrupted, “No, it’s not all my fault. I’m talking about the parts that are. Somebody, sometime, has to take responsibility for the parts that are their fault. And it was a lot, Dave. You know that. You . . . you saw. Didn’t you? When you told me to get out . . . you were protecting Danny, not me. Why haven’t you confronted me?”

Dave rubbed his chin. “Triage, partly. Getting Danny safe and cared for, taking care of Lacey. I thought you knew I’d seen you. I tried to communicate that subtly. Perhaps if I’m honest there was an element of cowardice about it, and an element of exhaustion. I also hoped that, given a little space, you’d see the truth on your own. That doesn’t always happen, but when it does, it often sticks better.”

“The truth? You mean that I was an angry, controlling jerk, not a champion of domestic justice?”

“Well, I suppose you could put it that way.”

“What am I going to do, Dave?” Isla’s voice was moderated now. Dave looked off towards the factory and the pond for several long moments, the breeze lifting and dropping his ponytail.

Finally, he spoke, gazing intently into her eyes. “Isla, if there is one thing I believe deeply, it is this: there is beauty even in broken things.”

She drew a ragged breath and said words that must have bankrupted what was left of her pride. “But . . . how . . . where is there any beauty in this?”

“Look for it. You’ll find it. Or you’ll make it. Might I suggest . . . righting a wrong is a beautiful place to start.”

“Say you’re sorry,” Lacey chimed in softly. “Just try it.”

Next Chapter: Five Words

Copyright 2025 Jennie Robertson

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Previous Chapter: Responsibility

The house was still there. Maybe Danny and Isla’s home had broken up, but the vessel that once tried to hold it was intact.

The three of them had made their way back to Maine. Lacey settled in her back seat nest again, wan and quiet. Dad tucked the box with the rest of the Funny Bones beside her on the floor and kissed her forehead. “Promise to come see me soon, daughter,” he said. She smiled slightly and nodded.

Danny dropped them off at the studio. Dave draped Lacey in all of the blankets while she hugged a pillow. He shouldered their bags and said good-bye and Danny watched them walk slowly to the old mill entrance, Dave’s arm around Lacey’s shoulders.

Then he’d had no choice but to drive home. He tried to think of an alternative, but was tired, too tired to decide on something else. Was Isla there? He believed she wasn’t; the latest intel from Kim was that Isla was staying with her.

How did the house know it was lonely? The key in the lock, the action of the bolt, the creak of the hinges, his step in the hall, all echoed back to him. The kitchen was unchanged. Had Isla been there at all? It was cold; it was rainy outside, so that you couldn’t guess the time by looking out the window. In the one kitchen chair that was still standing, he sat looking at the hole in the wall. He saw the blood from his knuckles on the Sheetrock where he had punched it.

Danny was not usually a reflective man. There was one thing he knew: he could not sit here forever. So, what could he do?

He could stand up the chairs.

One chair’s leg was broken. He could bring it downstairs to the shop and mend it. There was so much that he could not mend, but this he could do.

While the glue dried on the chair, he went back to the kitchen. What was the next step? He could sweep up the mess.

And then what? He could patch up the wall. He went to the hardware store for supplies. He was soothed by the cutting, the trimming, the smoothing of the compound, and he would be further soothed by sanding it down, by painting it over. He was soothed by the building, the mending, the making whole. He was soothed by finding something that needed fixing that he knew how to fix.

When he went upstairs and Isla’s pillow was missing, and her toothbrush and her robe, he was rattled. But not completely, because he would take the next step, and the next step, and the next step, and see if it led him out of this chasm.

____________________________________________________________________________

For once, Isla dragged her feet at the end of the work day. She didn’t want to see a happy family around the supper table at Kim’s. Kim had told her there would be guests, and she didn’t want to see Lacey’s obscure pain and Dave’s worry. She wanted to do whatever was most mind-numbing.

She felt naked, now that she knew who she was, now that she saw how far from righteous all her indignation had been, how far from justice, how detrimental to healing. Surely Doreen, Bill, and Andrea had seen the guilt all over her at work, and if not them, then Kim who saw everything and had even talked to Dave. In a moment of panic, she wondered if they had always recognized who she really was, not a hero but a show-off, not a person of skill and finesse but a demanding, controlling perfectionist. Had she been naked this whole time, and everyone knew except her?

Isla was as cool as stainless steel on the outside, but her heart was pounding as she got into her car at the end of the day. She drove to Kim’s and took a deep breath. To her relief, Kim was alone in the kitchen, and when Isla walked into the room, she set down the potato she was peeling, put Isla’s backpack on a chair, hugged her, and indicated another chair. Wordlessly, she put a cup of coffee in front of her with just the right amount of hazelnut creamer, then finally sat down across from her, potato in hand again. Isla rested her head on her arms. She hadn’t meant to fall apart, hadn’t known that she would. When she looked up with a puffy, red face, she said, “How did it come to this? How did we get here?” She wanted to tell Kim everything, including who she really was, even if meant losing her. She knew this wouldn’t happen—Kim wasn’t that way. But why? Why did a good person like Kim love a person like her?

“It’s always the little things, for all of us. Piles and piles of them, good or bad. But,” Kim patted her arm. “Let’s worry about how we leave here.”

“Will you drive the getaway car?”

“Sure. That’s what friends are for.”

Isla sipped her coffee quietly while Kim peeled potatoes for a while, trying to calm down, unable to think of small talk. Finally, she said, “Where are the kids?”

“Phil took them out.”

“It seems like a lot of potatoes? Who’s coming?”

Kim noticed the twelfth potato in her hand in surprise and then shook her head, “Just Lacey and Dave. I hope you’re hungry.”

Just then the doorknob jangled and, with a push, Lacey and Dave came in. She looked rough, Isla thought, and her heavy heart felt heavier. Lacey, too, was a good person, one who saw only the flaws in herself. She’d had every reason to be cynical yet she’d always seen Isla as a friend, when really Isla was mostly just a critic. Kim was wise and insightful and Lacey wasn’t . . . but dammit, did she know how to love unconditionally. It would probably be her undoing.

Lacey smiled and addressed Kim, “Does she know yet?”

“Oh no,” Isla groaned, though she wasn’t sure why.

“Oh no, it’s good!” Lacey said. “Can we tell her?”

“Soon.” Dave smiled.

Isla looked at Lacey warily and rose to set the table. “So just four?” Kim nodded.

The mashed potatoes were good, buttery, and salty. Kim served some scrambled hamburger alongside of them. No one was very talkative, although Lacey was sneaking looks at Dave, who always smiled in return. It was good to see them happy. Confusing, but good.

After a long sigh, Isla said, “I’ve left a message at Mum and Dad’s. I’m going to stay over there for now.”

“You don’t want to go home?” Lacey seemed a little crestfallen.

“I guess I kinda feel like that is home.”

“Oh. So not to your house?”

“That house . . . that house has a lot of sadness associated with it.”

Glances went all around the table at that. Lacey still looked disappointed, but said softly, “I understand,” and Isla was certain that she did.

“Do you need anything there before you go to your parents’?” Dave asked, furtively glancing at Lacey.

“There are some things it would be nice to have, but I’ll live.”

“You’ll have to go back sometime. The first time will be hardest. Why not just get it over with? Lacey and I will go over with you so you’re not alone,” Dave urged.

“Well . . . I suppose it would make sense. I’ll drive,” Isla said, rising and grabbing her keys and bags. “Thanks for letting me stay here for a while.” She squeezed Kim’s shoulders and wondered to herself how long she would be on the run, unable to stay in one place with people who might see her for what she really was.

“Of course!” Kim said. “Anytime.”

It was a quiet drive to the house she and Danny had shared. Isla sat in the driveway with her headlights on for a few moments, staring at the peeling white paint. Then she flicked the lights off, straightened her shoulders and got out, Dave and Lacey following.

The porch door creaked behind them; they wiped their feet on a small worn braided rug and walked past the pile of boxes that Isla and Danny had never gotten around to unpacking.

When they went into the kitchen, Isla surveyed it with her hands on her hips. It was perfectly clean, as good as or better than before the fight, wall patched and everything.

“Do you like it?” Lacey said softly when they’d barely entered the room. Isla hadn’t seen her so happy for a long time.

“You did this,” she said accusingly at Dave. “Is that why you wanted me to come over here?”

“Danny did most of it. He asked me to tell you that you could come home and not worry about seeing him and told me where the hide-a-key was to make sure it was ready.”

Isla shrugged. “I don’t know what to do with that information.”

Dave shrugged back. “Save it in case you need it someday. There may be a time for mercy.” And he looked at her again in a way that pierced her. He saw her naked soul, she was sure of it, and he had seen who harmed who that night.

“Ok, I don’t know what you guys are talking about but do you like it? I swept up and did this.” Lacey broke the spell, pointing to a vase of daffodils on the kitchen table.

For once, Isla didn’t respond to Lacey’s girlish enthusiasm with an eyeroll. “Thank you, Lacey. Really. It means a lot to me.” Lacey squeezed Dave’s hand, smiling up into his eyes. He kissed her on the nose. Isla had to look away.

Isla busied herself to the task at hand, grabbing things she needed for work, clothes, a few things from the bathroom. While she was packing, her phone started vibrating.

“You want me to get it? It’s your mom.” Dave picked the phone up from the counter.

“Just put it on speaker.”

“You sure?”

Isla nodded, sticking her head out of the bathroom, “Hey, ma?”

“Hi, Isla! I got your message. Of course, you can stay here for a few days. Is Danny going somewhere? We’re going to Aunt Dot’s for supper Saturday night. Maybe you can beat her at Scrabble again!”

Isla bit her lip. Mum’s unsuspecting voice sounded like the voice of a different era, a voice out of last week or last year, before things fell apart, before Danny lost his shop, before Isla married him. Mum’s good cheer and loving hospitality hurt Isla, shredded bits of herself that she hadn’t known were still whole.

“Ah, ok, Mum . . . yeah, Danny’s uh . . . away.” She couldn’t go on. Dave’s eyes urged her not to lie, though she did her best to avoid looking at him. “I’ll tell you about it when I get there.”

“Everything ok?”

Isla winced. “I’m ok,” Isla evasively reassured her. “Is it too late to come over tonight? I’m grabbing a few things now.”

“No, it’s fine. Dad’s asleep on the couch with the ballgame on. I’m about to switch it to Miss Marple. How long will you be? You know what, it doesn’t matter. You have a key. Just let yourself in.”

“Thanks, Mum. I’ll see you soon.”

“Ok, see you!”

Dave put the phone down and waited for Isla to speak. Finally, she did.

“They’re always so good to me. Always so happy to see me. I don’t understand it. And then they frustrate me and I get mad or I lecture them, and the next time I see them . . . they’re still so happy to see me. I don’t understand it, Dave. I don’t deserve it.”

“You don’t deserve something so good or . . .?” He couldn’t tell from the look on her face.

“I don’t deserve someone to treat me so well, but I wish I was the nice one at least some of the time.”

Dave smiled. “They’ve had more time to practice.”

“They were never like me.”

“How do you know?”

“I just can’t imagine.”

“We all have things we need to work on. Your parents, too. And we all have something good to offer the world.”

“He’s always like this,” Lacey said, rolling her eyes over his shoulder, smiling big. “Isn’t he crazy?”

“Crazy about you,” he said, turning to kiss her cheek.

Isla winced slightly. She no longer thought their love foolish, but it felt more unbelievable than ever. “I guess I’m ready to go.”

Isla sat with her hands on the steering wheel for a few minutes when they got in the car.

Finally, Dave interrupted. “Not ready to go yet?”

“I’m ready to leave here,” Isla said, “I’m not sure I’m ready to go to my parents’ yet. Maybe I’ll take a drive.”

“Want company?”

Isla’s face said no but for some reason her mouth said, “Ok.”

“I promised the kids a bedtime story,” Lacey said.

“Ok, I’ll drop you off.” Lacey thanked her.

Isla started to pull out of Kim’s driveway as Lacey climbed the steps to the kitchen door. Dave put up a hand. “Wait,” he whispered, “wait until she goes in.” His eyes were sad. After the door had closed, Isla finished pulling out and headed towards the beach.

“Can I ask you something personal?” Dave said after a long silence. The darkness of the car and Isla’s preoccupation with driving made him bold.

After a pause, Isla said, heart pounding, “I guess. Do I get to ask something personal later?”

“Um, sure. Ask first if you want.”

“Nah, I haven’t thought of a question yet.” She tried to sound casual and jokey. Dave humored her.

“Haha, ok. Well, uh . . . so I was just wondering . . . why did you marry Danny?”

Dave thought she wasn’t going to answer and was startled when she finally did. “Do people know the answer to things like that?”

“Fair point. I’m not sure people necessarily ever think it through, but when they do, I think they find an answer a lot of times.”

“It wasn’t for his money, that’s for sure.” Dave didn’t take the bait. He waited. “Freud would say it was purely sexual, I guess. That’s all anything ever is.”

“Is that what you say?” The vast dark ocean extended endlessly behind Dave’s silhouette in the passenger side window.

Habit made Isla want to say something cruel about Danny’s appearance or performance, an insult that would give her power, but she pushed the urge aside. Those jokes weren’t right or true; somehow, she saw that now. So she said simply, “No.” After another thoughtful pause, she said, “He’s not particularly funny or smart.”

“He’s run a successful business for years.”

“Ok . . . I’m sorry. He’s smart. I used to think he was kind. He’s a hard worker. Still, that’s true of a lot of guys I didn’t marry . . . Sometimes I’m afraid I just felt bad for him, honestly. What a stupid reason to get married. The only thing I’ve ever needed from him was for him to need me. I suppose he sensed that eventually. But even that . . . I don’t know if that’s it. Maybe I should have known the answer to this before I got married. There’s something about him that grabs me by the heart.” She shook her head.

“Is there still?”

She moved restlessly. “Yeah . . . still. Of course. He wanted to fix things right away at the house—I know that was for me, and I’m not making excuses for some of what he said to me, but . . .” Her glance caught Dave’s sad, knowing expression, but she was a coward. “Well, it wasn’t all his fault.” She wanted to tell him everything and she wanted to know what he knew.

Dave declined to save her from the silence, so finally she said, “Why did you marry Lacey?”

“I love her,” he said right away. “She’s funny and brave and thoughtful and beautiful. Loyal. I like how she sees the world and how she helps me to see it. I like how she doesn’t overcomplicate things. She’s honest. In fact, that’s one of the biggest things the drugs steal from her. She’s one of the most honest people I know, and the drugs make her untrue to her own nature.”

“Show off,” Isla said.

“It’s not that different from your answer.”

“Then why are you happy and we’re not?” Dave looked away. “Ok, I know there is always the threat of sadness, but why do you love each other and we . . . don’t?”

“I’m not sure if that’s true, or if I can answer that for you.”

The road home was dark and empty. “Where am I taking you?” Isla finally asked.

“We’re moving back into the apartment at Kim’s. I can’t . . . I can’t leave Lacey alone. She’s asked me not to. It’s helpful to have Kim and Phil around, too. But also . . . Danny’s at the studio.”

“Oh.”

“You don’t mind, do you?”

“He can go back to the house. I’m not there now.”

“Well, I . . . I’ll let him know. I’m not sure what he wants to do, to be honest. He’s still figuring stuff out.”

It was weird to have someone else know more about what Danny was doing than she did. But Isla just said, “Yeah. Me too.”

Isla let herself in at her parents’ house. She paused in the kitchen out of habit to ponder the stack of mail on the table. St. Jude’s asking for a donation. The AARP wanting a membership. Reader’s Digest had sent a large print edition. She was killing time. She looked up and saw her parents’ two gray heads over the top of the couch, close together. Then the Miss Marple theme song started and Mum was stirring.

“Nice nap?” Isla joked as she took a seat on the loveseat as the credits rolled and Mum searched for the remote. Her casual manner was part habit and part cover-up for her hammering heart.

“Oh, haha, sorry you missed it. So did we! I guess you can watch it with us again tomorrow!”

Isla smiled, but she felt like a little girl in trouble, like she was confessing a sin for which penance could never be paid, not in her parents’ eyes, anyway. Her marriage had failed.

Mum found the remote and clicked off the TV. “So what’s Danny off to this weekend? Car show?”

Isla took a deep breath. “Ah, no . . . nope. To tell you the truth, I think we’re splitting up.” Mum elbowed Dad to wake him up.

“Wha . . . what?!” Mum looked to Isla.

“I think Danny and I are splitting up. We’ve had problems for a long time and,” she put her palms out and said, “I just don’t think we’re going to make it.” Her parents exchanged significant but perhaps not surprised glances and waited for her to go on. “I don’t actually know if we will ever live together again or not.” This, she thought, was a bold-faced lie; she knew perfectly well that they would never be together again. But she couldn’t bear to tell them too much bad news at once.

It was bad enough. They now knew that one of their great hopes for her, a happy and fulfilling home life, was gone. She had her job, she thought—hadn’t it always been enough? Hadn’t it been enough living here with them? Why had she ever felt the need to change that?

She thought they’d look stricken, but they didn’t. They seemed placid, and she groaned within herself because she knew what it meant—they were holding out hope. Isla disliked this because she was sure that it meant having this conversation over and over until they accepted it as fact, and that would be torture, opening the wound again and again.

She wanted to be a little girl and cry, “I’m sorry for failing at marriage.” Despite everything she’d realized about her role in their problems, Isla suddenly wanted to say that it was Danny’s fault, mostly. She wanted to tell them how he’d been mean to her, hear her fragile Daddy make the impossible boast that he’d beat the villain senseless. But it wasn’t the truth, was it? And she could never tell them the truth. Dave, maybe. Kim, maybe. Her parents, never. She couldn’t bear to have them know who she really was, couldn’t bear to think they might not think well of her, despite a lifetime of receiving their forgiveness.

“I just need to get some rest,” she said. “I love you. Thanks for letting me stay.” She headed for her old room. Mum had filled it up with racks of drying laundry. Isla listened to her parents murmuring downstairs as she folded it. She knew it was probably about her, might even be praying, might have included tears, but the sound was comforting, as was the sound of the stairs creaking as they came up to bed, the water in the pipes as they brushed their teeth.

Isla lay in her bed and thought about Danny and about Dave’s question. She remembered the first time she had visited his garage, old but well-cared for, and how she had immediately become his champion at City Hall. He was the perfect mascot for her cause, proof that working-class people could be happy, could have fulfilling lives and families. Proof that people without degrees could be smart and competent. She had never wanted to stop people from getting ahead, she’d just wanted an admission first that shinier or easier lives weren’t innately superior ones. And she’d built the perfect model home to prove it when she’d married him.

But here was Danny now—the poster child for all that the city council members claimed was true about people like him, broke, a failure, unable to understand how to work the system. Here was she—tearing down her life with her own hands, proof that you couldn’t rise above your station.

Still, she sighed—all of that was true, but it wasn’t really why she had married Danny, just to make him her ultimate cause to champion.

She thought about him at Kim’s dinner party, and how he’d made her uncomfortable by being frank and lacking social niceties, even as part of her admired his frankness. But that wasn’t why she married him.

She thought about meeting him at the pub, and noticing the tension that always seemed to run through him. He’d seemed on edge to her, like he was afraid all the time of misstepping, of going out of a character he’d deliberately put on. Perhaps his vulnerability made her think he was precious, something to protect and treasure. His eyes had been so grateful when she and Dave sat with him. Had it only been his neediness that had drawn her?

Yet, it all fell short of the mark. It wasn’t any of these things, or any of the other things people usually said. Trying to dissect and label and quantify love seemed stupid and useless all of a sudden.

She texted Dave at 1:21 a.m. <<I think I just decided to love him. That’s why I married him.>>

<<Will you ever decide that again?>> he responded immediately.

<<You know it’s more complicated than that.>>

It was as close to admitting the unspeakable as she had been able to do so far.

Next Chapter: Broken Things

Copyright 2025 Jennie Robertson

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Previous Chapter: No One Has Clean Hands

Isla could barely handle the attention from the kids at Kim and Phil’s, but she knew the distraction was good. For one thing, it kept Kim from asking any pointed questions, at least as long as the kids were up. After bedtime stories were over and the grown-ups were sitting in the living room, Isla suggested she might make an early night of it.

“It’s 7:30.” Kim’s look saw right through her.

“I’m tired. Can you blame me if I’m tired?”

“No, of course not. I’m sorry.” She patted Isla’s shoulder. “I’ll bring some clean sheets.”

Isla grabbed her bag. “Good-night, Phil.”

“Good-night,” Phil said, and then added, “Listen, Isla. If any justice needs to be served . . .”

Isla half-smiled. “Thanks, Phil. I don’t know what justice is anymore.” They exchanged sober looks.

Kim was quiet as she smoothed the sheets meticulously over the bed in the guest room. Isla didn’t think to help; she sat limply in a chair, soothed by Kim’s ritual. Fitted sheet, flat sheet, pillowcases. Blanket, quilt, fuzzy throw blanket at the foot. Isla could smell the freshness. Kim turned down a corner.

“Want a bedtime story?” She smiled.

“No monsters. I’ve had enough monsters.”

Kim sat on the edge of the bed and looked at her hands. “Isla, did he . . . did . . . did things turn violent?”

Isla snorted. “Yeah . . . yeah, they did.” A visceral memory zapped through Isla’s teeth, her fists; she pushed it away.

“I’m so sorry.” Isla didn’t say anything. “And I’m so angry with that man,” Kim said. The contrast between her passionate words and her mild manner drew a slight smile from Isla. “Who would ever have believed? I never thought he could be like that, Isla, never.” She put an arm around Isla’s shoulder, yet Isla remained a bit rigid. “How can I help?”

Isla laughed ruefully and flopped on the bed, kicking off her shoes. “How about a pint of Ben & Jerry’s for each of us and a romcom on my laptop?”

Kim nodded. “I’ll send Phil out and get two spoons.”

“Thanks.” Isla wondered if she could squeeze in a tiny cry while Kim was out of the room; suddenly simply being loved was so beautiful that she couldn’t bear it.

____________________________________________________________________________

Kim must have quietly left when the movie finished; Isla had dozed off near the end and missed the big finale. The room was dark when she woke up under the fuzzy blanket that Kim must have pulled up over her shoulders. The door was slightly ajar and Kim had left the light on in the bathroom across the hall. By its dim light, Isla rummaged in her hastily packed big purse for her toothbrush and contact solution, then finally gave up and snapped on the bedside lamp. Its low wattage was cozy and homey, but she still couldn’t find her things. She hauled the bag up onto the bed to rummage properly and ended up removing the contents. Ah. There they were.

Teeth clean and glasses on, Isla tried to reorganize the pile. It was late. The house was quiet. She folded her change of clothes and put all her toiletries to one side. There remained some wadded up papers and other small bits of purse debris. Ugh . . . the papers were from the therapist visit. Now she remembered stuffing them down in there, feeling obliged to read them yet secretly hoping they’d disintegrate.

She’d tried to tell herself that it was late, she was tired. And it was, and she was. But the words “power and control” drew her eye to one pamphlet. Yes, that was what she was looking for. She was sick of being powerless, she was sick of her life careening out of control.

But as she read it, she realized it wasn’t offering power and control, but calling out the abuse of them. Still. This should be good. It would make her angry at Danny, and she wanted to be angry at Danny.

It worked. Nearly every thing mentioned related to her so-called marriage. Yes, he had called her names. One did not call Isla Campbell a “freaking idiot” or a “stupid cow” without consequences. He had made her feel shame--ashamed of him, ashamed of their trailer park marriage. She’d wanted to tell the world that this isn’t who she was, that this had happened by accident, that she’d just married him because she felt bad for him but she wasn’t really like him, she didn’t belong there, it wasn’t what she thought it would be.

Had he pretended that their relationship was fine, that nothing bad was happening? She wasn’t sure if he’d done that exactly—the memory of him groveling on the couch—so sorry, sorry, sorry, much too late—floated to the surface. But then there were times he didn’t take responsibility. Like how it was wrong to buy the house without asking and he never said he was sorry, and it was stupid to keep backing into the road and not to pay his fines. Stupid, stupid, stupid. And he dragged her down with him—had he ever apologized for that? Had he ever accepted responsibility? He’d blamed her, he’d blamed her plenty, sure she was behind the fines and citations, and she wasn’t. He wouldn’t listen to her. He deserved everything that had happened.

Isla felt uneasy. She shoved the paper back in her bag and lay down for a restless night. It was just dawn when she stuck her hand in her bag for some Tylenol and found the paper again instead. Her eye fell on it again, drawing her back in. In bold letters, it said that abusers fail to take responsibility. She tried to close her eyes, go back to sleep, but the bold letters were imprinted on her eyelids. Abusers make people feel guilty, insecure, ashamed.

Was it her fault if he felt bad about himself? Could you really make someone feel a way? Wasn’t it his choice to be insecure? Maybe she hadn’t bolstered his ego, but wouldn’t that have been a lie? He was guilty of things. He had reason to be ashamed. She hadn’t done it.

But he thought she had, didn’t he? He thought she had humiliated him on purpose.

A thought struck Isla that made her sick to her stomach. What would Danny think if he was reading these materials? Who would he think was the abuser?

She glanced at it again to reassure herself, and as she read, she became more confident that she was off the hook.

Now that, she had never done, tried to tell him who he could see or where he could go or what he could do. The odd question now and then about what he had done during the day or whether he had fixed anyone’s cars or when was he going to get a job or where did the money come from or why was there a new oil spot in the garage or how much time had he spent playing video games or why didn’t he take that rare game down to the pawn shop because he certainly wasn’t making money sitting on his butt all day . . .

You wouldn’t call that control. Those were normal questions to ask a spouse.

She was the breadwinner. It was perfectly natural for her to make the big decisions, when she brought in almost all the money and his track record had been one of ruinous decisions. Why would she consult someone like that? And anyway, he’d made big decisions without asking her; he had. Maybe she had occasionally hinted that his “macho” ideas about being a “real man” caused their problems. She couldn’t remember. Certainly, she had never said that the reason he was bad at handling money or making business decisions was because he grew up poor in a home with uneducated parents. Even if she had thought it.

She had not prevented him from working. His own stupid decisions did that. But if you were to ask him, what would he say . . . but anyway, it was his own fault that he couldn’t run his garage and wouldn’t apply elsewhere. It was his own fault that the landlord thing fell through. If he could just be more organized. And the same with the money. He just didn’t have the acumen to handle it and anyway it was her money. She did all the work. Of course she should handle it. This was just stupid.

She had never done anything premeditated. Striking out in the adrenaline of the moment was understandable; it wasn’t a mind game like threats were. Sure, she’d had to tell him she’d report his legal violations if City Hall put on too much pressure. And she may have encouraged him at other times to just go ahead with it regardless of the law, but that wasn’t pressuring him to commit illegal activities. Anyway, how could it be abuse to both encourage compliance with the law and rebel against it? Damned if you do, damned if you don’t?

She hadn’t left him or threatened to leave him, just told him he had to leave. There was a difference.

He had broken things, too. His laptop? What about his laptop? What about his toolbox and his rental house and their own house?

“Refuses to accept responsibility.”

Well? See if she were abusive, that’s what she’d do, refuse responsibility. So she had to NOT do it, had to look hard at her own part. Ok. No problem.

She had thrown things, yes. But not usually at him. He was so irritating, so hurtful, so thoughtless, so inconsiderate. Always so deaf to what she said she needed. She had to do something with that frustration. But she hadn’t thrown things at him. Dumping his laundry, breaking the stupid mug she’d brought him—those were just little releases of tension, releasing everything inside of her into the crash, the chaos.

Except for the coffee she had thrown right in his face. But that wouldn’t have hurt. That was more humiliating than anything.

Although . . . humiliating was on the list, she unwillingly remembered.

There was just that one time.

Except for the red-hot woodstove lid. She’d burned her hand in the process, grabbing the cast-iron lid lifter bare-handed. The lid was hot; it was heavy. But she missed. Maybe she never intended to hit him, really.

So, just “threatened”? Still an abusive trait.

Oh.

Did he feel unsafe? She couldn’t or wouldn’t do any real damage. She had ripped things from his hands, maybe, but he had exaggerated how violently she had done it. She had pushed him hard into the wall with her body as she passed by, pretending it was an accident, and never with her hands, as if it didn’t count if it wasn’t her hands. He hadn’t really felt unsafe, had he?

Was home a safe place? Was she a safe place?

That wasn’t the question.

Had she threatened him?

It was self-defense back there at the house yesterday. He had threatened her, standing close to her like that, cornering her. That was her story; that’s how she remembered it.

But no.

Suddenly, she truly remembered the way it had happened, the thing she had not wanted to look at.

She had been glad when he stood up. She had wanted to hurt him, to tear into him, to finally give him what he deserved for trapping her, destroying her, embarrassing her, disappointing her.

Refuses to accept responsibility.

Refuses to accept responsibility.

Refuses to accept responsibility.

Isla knew that Carmen was wrong when she said that abuse was one-sided. Isla herself saw Danny’s missteps all too clearly. But she knew, too, that he would genuinely see himself as the one on the defensive, as the one merely reacting to trauma. And would he be right?

She had wanted good things for him once; she had seen vulnerability, yes, but also value in him, long ago. She had fought for him back in the early days, even when he hadn’t always been good to her.

But in the end . . . it was grotesque to say it.

Hurting him had given her pleasure.

She was the monster.

Next Chapter: Next Steps

Copyright 2025 Jennie Robertson

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Previous Chapter: The Hands of the Monster

“I didn’t really need to go to the doc, you know,” Danny said to Dave, opening and closing his stiff fingers.

“They said you could have lost your eye without treatment.”

“Oh . . . yeah.”

“I think you still have a concussion. Mind if I drive?” Dave prepared to haul himself up into the cab of Danny’s F-350.

“Drive my truck?” Danny was skeptical.

“Well, you know my car wouldn’t start this morning . . . You wouldn’t want to hurt the truck if you black out or something . . .”

Danny’s eyes ran lovingly along the lines of his truck and he reluctantly handed Dave the keys.

“It’ll be nice to see Dad,” Lacey murmured sleepily from the back where Dave had made her a cozy nest of blankets, pillows, and luggage.

Danny wondered how hard it had been for Dave to convince her to go on this little trip. He’d gone along with it pretty easily himself. Dave had caught both of them at just the right time, he guessed.

It had been morning by the time the hospital had treated and released Danny. Dave had taken him home, assuring him that Isla had left for work. The quiet was acute and the mess in the kitchen painful. Worst of all was his bag sitting on the table, all packed, courtesy of Isla. He couldn’t move without wincing and his eyes were crusty. The fire was out, of course, and the woodstove cold. Danny thought he was dead inside. He didn’t wrestle with regret now, he just hoped to fall asleep again. He couldn’t find anything that he wanted to eat. Sometimes he turned on the TV for company and the blue light flickered over his inert form on the couch. He turned off the sound because laughter hurt and drama hurt and everything hurt. Everything was too loud. And Isla was gone.

He knew he’d been stupid, stupid. Stupid about the garage and the parking tickets and buying the house and ignoring the citations and destroying the kitchen and fighting with Isla. He knew it, but he didn’t feel it. He felt . . . there was a word for it: Emasculated. He thought that was it. He bet Isla didn’t think he knew a big word like that. Isla thought he was a big stupid clod, and maybe she was even right, but it hurt to have her think it. He didn’t have energy to hurt right now, so he rolled over on the couch, hitching the afghan higher over his shoulders. And he didn’t feel much of anything, except the cold hollow cavern in his chest where there had been Isla.

He woke up in a chilly house to a gentle knocking at the door. He trudged indifferently to open it, holding the afghan around his shoulders with one bandaged hand.

Dave was standing there. “Hey, want to spend a few days in Mass with us? My dad could use some help with his old Buick if you’re up to it. I tried calling, but you didn’t answer.” Dave looked a little over eager; Danny wondered if this was a made-up story. Maybe Dave just didn’t think he should be alone. He could be right.

He shrugged. It really didn’t matter where he was, and Isla didn’t want him at home. “Let me toss some stuff together.” He’d grabbed his most essential tools and the bag from the table.

Two and a half hours later, Dave bounced as gently as he could over the broken asphalt of Dad’s driveway. Dad was standing at the storm door that fit uneasily into its casing. He squeaked it open when they pulled in and came down the sagging steps one at a time. He shook Danny’s hand, squeezed Dave’s shoulders. He held out his hand to Lacey and helped her from the truck, saying, “There’s my princess.” He gave her a good long hug as she leaned on him tiredly, his cheek on her hair. He whispered a few quiet questions and Lacey nodded each time, smiling faintly. “Good, good,” he said.

Dad and Lacey made their slow, careful, unsteady way up the stairs. Danny shook his head.

“What?” Dave asked.

“I was just thinking what Isla would do if someone called her ‘princess.’”

“What’s that?”

“Tear him a new one, frankly.”

Dave shook his head and laughed slightly. “I don’t think anyone would dare call Isla ‘princess.’”

“No,” Danny said. “No.” But he didn’t make a move to go in.

“What is it?” Dave said, trying not to be impatient.

“She’d say it was insulting or something. She’d say it was like . . . saying women are weak. And maybe something about . . . like, rich people are better and something about power, um, imbalances.”

“And she thought you weren’t listening.”

“I was listening. But the point is, Lacey likes it when your dad calls her ‘princess.’”

“Isla likes to think deeply about things, and that’s not bad. But it’s something far simpler for Lacey, and that’s not bad, either.”

“What is it for Lacey, do you think?”

“It means she’s valuable. As a person. It means she’s loved. Special.”

“Maybe if I’d known how to tell Isla that . . .” Danny trailed off wistfully yet came back with force, “Maybe if she hadn’t made everything so damned complicated . . .”

Dave bit his lip and nodded, then started up the stairs with their bags.

Lacey was at the table with her head on her hand. “Dad got me Funny Bones,” she said, smiling with the sugary snack in her hand. Dave noticed she’d only taken one small bite, though.

“That’s good,” he said, kissing her head.

“Want one?” Dad said jovially, passing the box to Danny, who took one, and Dave, who didn’t.

Brushing the crumbs from his fingers, Danny said, “I might as well get right down to it I suppose.”

The old clapboarded garage was just wide enough for the car. The doors barely had room to open. Danny considered it for several moments, then turned to Dad. “I don’t suppose we could back it out into the driveway.”

“Well,” Dad said sheepishly, “we could push it. I’m afraid it won’t start.”

“Dad,” Dave said in alarm, “how have you been getting around?”

“Cheryl picks me up for work, and Cath takes me to Mass. Sometimes Roger comes round to take me to coffee with the guys. It’s fine.” Dave shook his head as Dad added, “Anyway, this is the city, son. There are buses, there are cabs.”

“Sounds pricey . . .”

“Thanks for worrying about your old dad.” Dad smiled fondly at Dave, then asked Danny, “Shall I put her in neutral?”

Danny looked at the sky. It was gray and occasionally spitting. “Nah, let’s leave it after all. I think I can manage.”

It was the right decision. By midafternoon, rain was falling steadily on the old corrugated metal roof and pinging off the windows. It was a little cold, but the rhythm and the steady scraping as he tried to bust off enough rust to access everything that was broken was cathartic. It was like it was miserable outside so that he didn’t have to be.

The twilight was deepening and he was working by one flickery overhead light when Danny finally put the key in the ignition and the vehicle rattled reluctantly to life. He thought he could call it a day and do some fine-tuning tomorrow before they headed home.

“Perfect timing, perfect timing,” Dad said as he came into the kitchen. Danny saw that the dishes which had been piled in the sink when they arrived were now clean in the dish drainer. Dave was drying a few plates and putting them on the table. His dad tossed some empty cans of cream of mushroom soup in the trash and then bent over the oven with some potholders. “Whoooooops-a-daisy,” he said, pulling out a CorningWare dish. “Hot, hot, hot.” He set it on top of the stove and asked, “Do you like tuna casserole?”

“Wow . . . it’s been awhile.” Danny tried to remember if he liked it or not. “I think so.”

“It used to be Dave’s favorite.”

Dave leaned in to say, “When I was five . . .”

“Well, it’s a classic.” Dad set it on the table. He put some lemonade powder in a pitcher, added water and stirred, then poured it into their cups. Danny’s had Mickey Mouse on it. The three men sat down, chairs scraping against the linoleum, and Dad crossed himself and recited, “Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts which we are about to receive from thy bounty, through Christ our Lord. Amen.” He picked up Danny’s plate; the serving spoon made a sucking sound as he dished up a hearty portion, then turned to Dave.

“It’s good,” Danny said.

“Hunger is the best seasoning and I’m sure you’ve got that after all that work in the garage. How’s she looking?”

“Well, it started, so that’s good. A bit more time on it tomorrow and I think we’ll be good.”

“Thank you so much. What do I owe you?”

“Oh, nothing at all. My pleasure.”

“Nonsense, you’re a professional.”

“I’m a friend.”

“Well,” Dad said, “we’ll find a way, I’m sure.” He winked.

Dave was quiet.

“Where’s Lacey?”

Dad and Dave’s eyes met briefly, and Dave answered, “She’s not feeling well.”

“Oh, that’s too bad.” Dave nodded.

“I hope you don’t mind bunking in the living room,” Dad said, “I’d give you my bed but I have such trouble with my hip. But no, maybe it will be ok on the couch . . . it’s closer to the bathroom . . .”

“Absolutely not,” Danny said, “I’m on the couch. Anyway, then I can watch TV if I can’t sleep.”

“Alright, son, thank you.”

Dave left periodically during supper to run upstairs, his face suddenly, quietly contorted with concern each time, though nothing happened that Danny noticed. It was the same when they moved to the living room to watch Hogan’s Heroes. Three episodes in, Dad went to the kitchen and came back with popcorn and a box of gingersnaps to offer around. Hogan was about to get the best of Colonel Klink.

“How is she?” Dad said softly the next time Dave came down. Dave shook his head.

“I don’t know Dad, I don’t know if her heart’s in it. She wants to be happy for me, but she’s just so, so sad.” He sat down on the couch and put his head in his hands.

“What’s going on?” Danny said sharply. “Is Lacey using again?” He had always been frank, but he was usually so guarded and spoke little. Now everything was turned on its head; everything was sideways and confused.

Dave shook his head. “No, but she’s fighting hard. She’s so brave, but she’s so sad. I thought if I could get her away from home, away from her triggers, away from her dealers . . . I’m desperate. I wanted to help you, wanted to help Lacey, wanted to help Isla. And I’m no good at any of it, I’ve got nothing for anyone . . .”

“Son . . .”

“No, it’s true.” Dave ran to the bathroom and blew his nose audibly. His eyes were red when he came back. Danny had never seen him sad, never seen him not offering joy and seeming to have his act together. He felt a rock in his stomach.

“Aw, hell,” Danny said, “you shouldn’t have to suffer for this, Dave. We’re all the ones that screwed up.”

“I screw up plenty.”

“You didn’t shoot heroin into your arm. You didn’t . . . your wife . . . you were always good to Lacey. You didn’t . . . well, it wasn’t like Isla and me.”

“I have my own regrets. So many, so many. Mostly that I couldn’t prevent any of this and don’t know how to fix it.” He put his head in his hands again. “I’ve got to go, I’ve got to be with her.” Dave sprinted up the stairs.

“See if you can get her to come down with us for a while,” Dad suggested. Dad muted the TV. The silence became awkward, but Danny was thinking.

“Do you think he regrets it?”

“Mmm? Regrets what?” Dad pushed the large plastic frame of his glasses back up his nose, looking at Danny thoughtfully.

“Marrying her,” he blurted.

“No,” Dad said confidently, “I know he does not.”

“But she’s . . . but she’s ruining his life.”

“Do you think so?”

“I mean, yeah, of course, what kind of life is this?”

“I think that a life of loving someone and caring for them and even sacrificing for them . . . well, it’s not a bad life. It’s not something you look back on with regret.”

“But what about Dave’s dreams?”

“Not everyone is driven by dreams.”

Danny scowled. “What about you? No offense, but no one wants to be a grocery store cashier when they grow up.”

“I wanted to have a family and be able to care for them. I’m not so sure that bigger dreams aren’t in the luxury category.”

“Look, I haven’t been rich a day in my life.”

“Contentment can exist without fame and fortune, that’s all I’m saying.”

“Are you calling laziness contentment?”

“No, I don’t think so. You can ask my manager, but I don’t think I’ve ever been thought lazy.”

“But isn’t it lazy not to try to better yourself?”

“Oh, I’ve spent my whole life working on that. And sometimes I’ve been restless and discontented and impatient and angry . . . the whole gamut. Now I have a home, enough food, a son and daughter-in-law that love me, and I’m content. Looking back, that feels like an achievement.”

“Content. What do you mean by that?”

“I’m happy. I’m satisfied.”

“Your son’s wife is probably going to die a junkie and you’re happy and satisfied?”

“There’s a girl upstairs that I care about deeply who is trying, fighting, desperately, to survive, and my son is upstairs loving her selflessly. I’m sad, but there is still joy to find here.”

“Well, I always thought Dave was nuts and now I know where he got it.”

“Thank you,” Dad smiled a tiny bit. “Tell me . . . what are your dreams?”

Danny slumped back into the couch. “I don’t know anymore.”

“What did they used to be?”

“It’s not like I ever had a ‘ten-year plan’,” he snorted, “but I had projects. I wanted to help people, I really did. I wanted to give them a secure place to live that wasn’t a dump. I guess you heard how that panned out.”

“I heard that my kids had a place to live when they needed it.”

“Yeah, well . . . not anymore.”

“That doesn’t negate the time that they were provided for. I’m not sure where life is moving them, but . . . it is moving them. So I don’t think that’s on you.”

“Oh yes, oh yes, I think it is.” Danny thought of that night when he’d wrecked their home, blind to everything but the injustice he felt he’d been dealt. And how had it been justice to uproot Dave and Lacey?

“You know, actions do have consequences. Theirs, yours.”

“Actions and inactions,” Danny agreed sadly.

“Where do you think things went wrong?”

“You know, I’ve been asking myself that for a long time now as they got worse and worse. But things were looking good until I married Isla. I thought that was just another step towards the future, but . . .” he imitated a bomb blowing up with his hands.

“Ah. So, you blame Isla?”

“I did. I sure as heck did. But I never understood Isla and I still don’t. We were just no good for each other.”

“Nobody’s any good for each other unless they choose to be. Over and over and over and over again.”

“You’re lucky your wife died while you were still happy.”

Dave’s dad studied his hands, then looked up and said softly, but frankly, “That’s a cruel thing to say, but I don’t want you to think that I am angry. I know you are speaking in hurt.”

“You’re a crazy man, like Dave. You should be angry. As far as Isla . . . I think we’ve reached the point of no return.”

“That’s good, that’s good. Because you don’t want to return. There’s nothing to return to, is there?”

Danny blew an ironic laugh through his teeth. “You’re not wrong there.”

“Look, I don’t know all the details about you and Isla, although Dave confides a lot in me. I don’t know if there’s a way forward together. It would be a starting over, I know that.” They both looked upstairs as they heard crying and waited, then Dad coughed a little and continued, “But, whether together or apart, this impasse is where the miracle can happen, where the light can break through, where you start to build love from the ashes.”

“You say some pretty words for a grocery store clerk.”

“I read a lot in my spare time.” Dad smiled.

“If Isla were here and I had . . . say I’d been kind of aggressive with her. You’d be telling her to get the hell out of Dodge, wouldn’t you? Not talking about maybe finding a way forward.”

“Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying; I want your safety and happiness just like I’d want Isla’s. But I would say you can act in love even in a relationship you can’t repair, even if it is necessary to create distance. You can still behave in ways that are healthy or harmful to the other person. And I would say there has to be grace available for even the worst offenses. At least, I wouldn’t want to live in a world where there isn’t. It’s all well and good when I’m the one hurt, then justice is a weapon in my hand, but what about when I’m the offender? Suddenly, mercy looks a lot more valuable. No, I wouldn’t tell someone to stay in an abusive marriage or that justice isn’t important. But here’s the thing, Danny . . .” Dad shifted up in his recliner, leaning towards him, the buttons on his plaid cotton shirt straining, “Here’s the thing. Whether they call it abusive or not, people are bad to each other. Lots of people, people in families, roommates, lots of lovers. It gets out of hand more than we want to think, from impatience to meanness to anger . . . we hurt each other a lot. I don’t think there’s a single person that has clean hands.”

“You must have clean hands. You’re the meekest man I’ve met, well, maybe besides Dave.” It wasn’t clear if this was a compliment.

“Have you heard of the silent treatment?” Danny smiled a little and nodded ruefully. “I’m a master. But I’m not saying all marriages are the same. Some are much more unhappy than others. My wife was sick; I spent much more energy worrying about her than fighting her. You can’t imagine how much it hurts me now to think about ever being cross with her even a little bit. But the point is . . . there has to be a possibility of change. And even of reconciliation. What kind of world is it otherwise?”

“A world where some people are bad.”

“So that’s it? Isla’s bad and you’re . . . good?”

Danny grabbed the pillow he’d brought from where it was sitting on his duffel bag and laid down on the couch with it under his head.

“I mean, I’m not perfect.” Dad didn’t say anything more and the quiet grew a little long as they became aware again of the murmur upstairs. They stared at the silent, flickering screen. Finally, Danny said, “I mean, look at Dave and Lacey. Dave’s good and . . .”

Dad waited and finally, when Danny didn’t go on, prodded, “And what?”

“Well, Lacey’s . . .” he hesitated.

“You’re not going to say Lacey’s bad?”

“It’s hard to say that. I’ve seen her be so kind and she’s so sweet to Dave. Even, well, brave, fighting her addictions. But still, I mean . . . look what’s happening. She’s bad for him.”

“So, in your sorting, she comes out on the bad side?”

Danny didn’t answer. Finally, he said, “There are things I could have done differently. No, I will own it; I did some things very, very badly. But you just don’t understand what Isla did to me. She turned on me. I trusted her to have my back, and she stabbed me in it. She got in the way of every dream I tried to pursue. If I was mad at her, then . . . she deserved it. She destroyed me. I was just hurting and trying to survive. You can’t fault me for that.”

“Did you have her back?”

“What?”

“Did you have her back? Or were you just concerned about whether she had yours?”

Danny fiddled with the couch cushion. “I . . . I don’t know. Like I said, I behaved badly. But she had the good job and the money and the degree and the family support and then when life kicked me in the teeth, she kicked, too.” Literally, Danny thought.

“And now you hate her?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“If I had her back, and maybe it’s more than is humanly possible, but if I really had her back, was really looking out for her . . .” He looked sadly down at his hands again, “I’d have asked why she pushed back so hard.”

“I wish I had asked. Look, I felt really bad for how I treated her; I still do. It was wrong. But it’s too late. And she held even good things against me, not just the wrong that I did. ”

“Mmmmm.” Dad clicked the TV off and put the remote in a little bag with pockets that hung from the arm of his chair. “It might be too late for your marriage, but it’s not too late for your compassion.” He put down the foot of the recliner and showed signs of getting up. “We need some sleep. I’ll just say, for a person you never want to see again, you sure talk a lot about Isla.”

“I’m just processing it, that’s all. I did care a lot about her once. I was terrified of losing her, of her waking up and realizing I wasn’t good enough for her. I wanted to give her the world.”

“Maybe the world isn’t what she wanted. Or needed.” Dad heaved himself up and the worn recliner shuddered. He walked to the short hall where the bathroom was and paused before he went in. “The only person you can change is yourself. Taking a look at who you really are might be the bravest thing you’ll ever do.”

Danny closed his eyes. He was so tired. He listened to the water running, the clink of Dad putting his bridge in a glass and the shush of him brushing his teeth.

Sometime in the night, he rolled over. Someone had put a blanket on him. Dave was sitting in the recliner, staring at nothing with red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes. Concerned but sleepy, Danny murmured, “Everything alright?”

After a moment, Dave said, “Not really. It’s just part of it.” Then, after another pause, “We’ll go home soon. I’m sorry about all this.”

“Home.” Danny pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders and mumbled sleepily, “Don’t worry about me. Just get your girl well.”

Next Chapter: Responsibility

Copyright 2025 Jennie Robertson

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Previous Chapter: Go Fix It

Isla walked in the door and gave Danny a side hug around his shoulders. When had she last done that? She wasn’t like those sad women back at the therapist’s. People like her didn’t have those problems, didn’t need that help. She wouldn’t let it happen. Danny looked at her in mild annoyance at her touch . . . or was it surprise? He went back to staring intently at his phone.

How could she connect with him again? She didn’t know where to start. While she thought, she began absently tidying up the kitchen. It felt good to do something normal.

She grabbed a broom. After a while, she got into the rhythm of her work and unthinkingly started to hum. Within a few moments, she realized that Danny was staring at her in annoyance. Isla felt his silence; instead of getting used to his silences, she’d grown more sensitive to them, like developing an allergy to something you used to eat all the time.

“Sorry,” she offered.

“I’m just trying to concentrate.” It sounded like Danny was at least attempting to be civil?

“Ok, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” His tone was anything but reassuring. Isla seethed. She couldn’t even hum under her breath?

She accidentally knocked over a candlestick on the fireplace while dusting. Danny grumbled something about having peace and quiet in his own home.

Isla thought about suggesting that he could be in literally any other part of that home and have quiet. Instead, she bit her tongue for once and stubbornly continued dusting.

“Isla, would you shut the frig up?” She’d started humming again under her breath, but refused to apologize—she had every right to be here and hum.

Then, out of nowhere, he was shouting, “What the hell? What the hell?” He had seen his volunteer firefighter commendation in her hand. “I told you not to touch my stuff, leave it the frig alone!” He jumped from his seat, ripping it out of her hand. “Bad enough I have to live in this dump with you.”

“‘Live in this dump with me?’ Where else can you go?”

Her eyes drilled into his, daring him. He was breathing heavily, clenching his fists, and she waited. Her back was to the wall and he was near her, so near, between her and the world, and she looked up into his face and laughed.

Did he twitch? She would tell herself so. It was self-defense, she would tell herself. She watched, detached, as her hands grabbed his hair, her fingernails dug into his shoulder, her teeth sunk into his skin, her knee buried itself in his groin. It was better than sex, this orgy, this satisfaction, this final consummation of all the hate and violence that had been building between them.

He was bigger than her but anger made her strong and she knocked him off balance, landing him on the floor, chairs falling, a mug full of coffee crashing as they went past, and she kicked him and kicked him and kicked him. Among the clattering, there was a knock, but nobody heard it, and then Dave was there, inserting his slight frame between Danny and Isla, yelling at Isla, “Get out, get out, get out, go!” And just before she let go of Danny’s thinning hair, his face came into focus and she saw the human there again—fragile, sad, defeated, exhausted, hurt. Where did the monster go, the one who deserved this beating, the cruel, cold beast who had been yelling at her? There was a dirty trick somewhere.

She opened and closed the fists she’d been making so tightly and, for just a moment, she saw that the hands of the monster were on the ends of her arms. Other thoughts and feelings rushed in to bury that brief insight.

How had they gotten here? Maybe at the end of the day it was an excuse, but over and over she found herself asking, genuinely confused, “How did we get here? How? We never even knew we could get to this place. This isn’t how people like us act.”

“Go, Isla!” Dave shouted again, and she grabbed her keys from the rack and ran out the door. She heard scuffling and crashing behind her but she jammed her car into reverse and whipped out of the driveway, tires squealing, driving as fast as she could to nowhere.

It didn’t take long to get there. When she’d passed nothing but trees for a while, she jerked the car into park and ran out into the woods, yelling from the depths of her diaphragm, kicking trees. She cried and coughed and walked and ran, and what she shouted and what she murmured, God only knows. She should have gotten lost after running blind like that, but she made her way back to the car, weak, empty, lighter, cleaner.

She thought her anger was spent, yet she drove aimlessly for hours, finally pulling into a gas station.

“Five gallons on pump 4,” she said, tossing two hot dogs on the counter in front of a cashier so characterized by ennui that only a madwoman could have interpreted his listless glance as critical and overly inquisitive. “What?” she demanded. The cashier couldn’t even be bothered to shrug.

Isla was a madwoman. The second wave caught her in the car, pulling a wilted hot dog out of its damp foil wrapper just as the shame hit her—Dave had seen them, Dave knew everything. She shoved the hot dog so far into her mouth that she almost gagged, so that she hit herself in the teeth with her own hand. She chewed twice and swallowed a big painful lump and then did it again. But like every other binge, it proved to be a penance that did nothing to absolve her, only bringing more shame.

She drove slowly now, spent, aimless. Looking at the houses she passed, little ranches, sprawling old farmhouses, big modern houses, split-levels, she wondered, Were the people in them happy? Was anyone really ever happy?

She didn’t want to go home, but why should she be kept from her own home?

Dave stuck his head out the door as she pulled into the driveway. She paused after turning off the car, and then slid out from behind the steering wheel.

“You ok?” she asked.

Dave nodded. “You?”

“Yeah. You know, more or less. Not at all, of course, but . . . you know. I’ll deal.” She paused to fidget with her keys. “Where’s Danny?”

“In the living room. Look, you don’t need to be here.” Isla couldn’t read his expression; who was he protecting, her or Danny? What exactly had he seen?

Isla crunched across the driveway, and peeked cautiously in the door, but before she could go in, Dave stopped her.

“Look, I think he needs to go to the ER. His hands are pretty busted up, and he probably needs to get checked for a concussion.”

“Holy cow, Dave.” Isla looked him over for bruises or cuts.

“He mostly did it to himself . . . it’s a mess in there, Isla. I’m sorry.”

“Well, he can take care of himself as far as I’m concerned.” The afternoon was a blur of lurid colors now, too many emotions smeared across the lens of her memory. He had been bad to her; she had been angry. There was guilt and there was fear and there was sadness, lying in a mess on the floor. That’s all she could pick out right now.

“He can’t hurt you,” Dave said, “but I will take care of him. Only, can you get me insurance information and maybe pack him a bag?” Although his words implied a belief that she had been acting in self-defense, he gave her a piercing look and didn’t turn away for several moments.

Isla walked carefully into the house. There was a hole in the wall about six feet up and the chair rail was busted in several places. The chair they had tripped over was in three splintered pieces. The door of the woodstove hung open. Danny was nowhere. She heard Dave come in behind her.

She found Danny sprawled on the couch in the living room, looking at her. His face was funny, hanging slack, and his eyes were vague and unfocused. His arms were wrapped carelessly around his body, and at the end of them was blood and raw flesh. She stared; she sighed. Then she pulled a stool up to him and took his hand. He winced and pulled back slightly.

A couple of fingers twisted unnaturally and she couldn’t tell where or how badly they were cut because of the blood on them. She sighed again and went for a soft clean cloth and bucket of warm water. “I don’t know why I’m doing this,” she said as she dabbed at the blood. When she turned the hands over, they were blistered on the palms from, evidently, grabbing the woodstove barehanded or perhaps, falling against it.

“Thanks,” he muttered, then cleared his throat again and said a little louder, “Thanks.” Isla thought it was possible that he might mean it. This confused her.

“Dave thinks you should go to the ER.” Isla glanced over her shoulder at Dave, who nodded. Danny didn’t answer; she finished with his hands slowly, then asked, “Can you walk?” Danny nodded, but he let her support his elbow as he struggled to get up and he leaned on her heavily as they walked to the door. “I don’t know why I shouldn’t drop you right here on the floor,” she said in a sudden, unexpected surge of fury. Danny didn’t say anything again; she didn’t drop him. Instead, she helped him to her car and opened the door. He closed his eyes while he waited for her to start up the car.

“Isla, let me take him. This isn’t a good idea,” Dave insisted.

“Follow in your car,” Isla said. Dave hesitated but in the end did as she said.

About halfway through the short drive, Danny whispered, eyes still closed, “Sorry, Isla. So sorry. For everything. This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“No kidding.” It was easiest to let anger win.

At the hospital, she shut off the engine and said, gently but deliberately, “Danny, I’ll make sure you have a ride when you leave here. But you can’t come home. I don’t know when or if you can ever come home. But you can’t come home today, and you can’t come home tomorrow.” Danny nodded.

At the front desk, Isla told them she was a friend, because she didn’t intend to stay, and she wished it was true. She said she didn’t know what happened, which was a little more true. She certainly couldn’t make sense of it. Dave soon joined them in the waiting room. He said he’d give Danny a ride, and she didn’t ask where to. They’d figure everything out later.

And that was it. She knew she had feared this moment and it smelled like failure. Still, she went home to bed and slept deeply, exhausted.

___________________________________________________________________

Isla wondered if there was any good excuse she could use for calling out at work, but nothing came to mind and the truth was out of the question. So, the next best thing was to go and pretend she wasn’t there. To go through the motions as disengaged as possible.

Bill came by with a list of things for her to do, more community improvements leading up to the big summer kick-off event.

“It looks like we’ll have four or five grand opening events,” he enthused, “I’m just amazed by what you’ve done here.”

“I just did what you told me to, Bill.” Her tone lacked any vigor.

“Aw, you did the work. Come on now.” She thought he was about to give her a chummy slug on the shoulder, but thankfully, he didn’t.

“I don’t know that I even want credit for this work.”

“Well, you will when you see our new downtown this summer.” Bill beamed.

“If you say so.” Isla kept shuffling paperwork.

“Sorry to put so much more on your plate, but there’s just a lot of little boxes to tick.”

“Don’t worry about it.” She patted her desk. “Put it there.”

Bill looked back on his way out the door. “Everything ok?”

Isla looked up from her phone. “Couldn’t be better.” Evidently, she thought, this is the best one can hope for. He watched her for another long moment and finally left.

Kim was texting. <<Everything ok?>> Ugh, even Kim?

<<Sure. Why?>> When no answer came after a few minutes, Isla texted again. <<I take it Dave’s been blabbing.>>

<<Dave is concerned.>>

<<What did he say?>> What had Dave seen, Isla asked herself once more, and how would he convey it to Kim?

<<That you and Danny had a bad fight. That Danny went wild after you left and trashed the house and himself.>>

<<You know how you asked how I was getting off the crazy train?>>

<<Yeah?>>

<<Maybe I’m off it.>>

<<Jumped? Or pushed?>>

<<Convenient station stop.>>

<<Uh huh.>> Then, after another few moments, <<Isla, how about staying with us for a few days? At least over the weekend? It sounds like the house is in rough shape. And I don’t know if Danny’s there. We can be your station stop.>>

<<I’m not going to run away from him.>>

<<It’s not running away. It’s just a break.>>

<<Thanks. I’ll let you know.>>

She tried to do her work, but the problem was she didn’t care about it at all and her phone kept vibrating. This time, it was Dave, answering an earlier text she’d sent about Danny.

<<Hey, can I give you a call?>>

<<Sure. Why not?>> Her phone rang almost immediately.

“I didn’t know if you could answer at work.”

“Work. Ha.”

Dave ignored her response. “Listen, Danny . . . well, he’s with me. We’re going to my dad’s for a while, him and me and Lacey, ok? So you don’t have to worry about running into him for a while.”

“Ok. That’s good.”

“But listen, Kim says you can stay there if you want, and, well, it’s up to you, but it seems like a good idea to me. I mean, unless you want to go to your folks.”

“No!” Isla said in alarm. “They don’t know anything about this!”

“I bet they know more than you think.”

“I hope not.” Isla couldn’t keep the distress out of her voice.

“Don’t keep them in the dark too long, Isla. They’re really here for you. You’re lucky.”

Isla sighed. If she was lucky, what did unlucky look like?

“And will you go to Kim’s?” Dave pushed.

“Yeah, yeah. For a few days.”

“Ok. Good.”

She put off texting Kim but, of course, received words of welcome as soon as she did. When the clock hit five, her backpack was already on her back, her office lights out.

“See ya, Monday,” she said over her shoulder to Doreen.

She didn’t turn on any lights at home until she got to her room; the shadows of the wreckage downstairs were haunting, but better than the glaring truth. She could see that the bag she’d packed for Danny was gone. She tossed some comfy clothes, a magazine, and her toothbrush in a bag. It will just be for a few days, she told herself. Still, in the back of her mind, she wondered, unable to foresee the future at all.

Next Chapter: No One Has Clean Hands

Copyright 2025 Jennie Robertson

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Previous Chapter: At Least It Was Something

“How are things, Isla?” Kim put a warm mug of coffee on the table in front of her.

The truth was that Isla felt like a piece of iron made thin and brittle around the edges by rust and wear, flaking off bit by bit, like the underbodies of the salt-damaged cars that Phil and Danny tried to coax through yet another winter. She and Danny fought, either with words or silence, almost constantly. Every time she put her key in the lock, she wondered why she had come home.

She also wondered why she had come here; actually, she knew why. Kim’s kitchen was like a warm, messy embrace. But Kim and Phil deserved to enjoy their happiness, and it was enough to have Dave and Lacey flittering in and out in various stages of distress. Isla thought she should stay the hell away.

“I’m ok.”

Kim looked at her skeptically. “What happened the other night?”

“Well, that’s shooting straight from the hip, isn’t it?” Isla took a gulp of coffee.

“No, I thought about it for a good while.”

Isla stared at her bandaged hand, shook her head and said, “This sounds crazy, but I barely remember. I was so upset, but . . . I walked in, I dropped some things, Danny got mad, I got mad, he stuffed my papers in the fire, and I ran away. Sounds like a whole lot of nothing when you lay it out.”

It was always a whole lot of nothing, now. Probably because the big things were gone— the garage, the house, Danny’s hopes and dreams, her hopes and dreams. Little things were all they had left to lose.

“Are you safe there?” Kim put her hand on Isla’s and looked deeply at her.

Isla looked away. “Of course, I’m safe. What do you mean?”

“Don’t play dumb, Isla. Does Danny hurt you?” Kim eyed her bandaged hand and Isla put it on her lap.

“Danny does nothing but hurt me.”

“Isla!”

“And I suppose I do nothing but hurt him.” She shrugged and looked out the window.

“This can’t go on forever, Isla. How are you getting off this crazy train?”

Isla laughed ruefully. “Jump, I guess,” she said, then muttered, “or get pushed.”

“If there’s anything I can do . . . you know, you’re always welcome here.”

“I know, but no, no, we’re fine. It was just a one-time thing. He’s just so tense, you know. With everything that’s gone wrong for him. Poor guy.” She tried to sound sincere.

“Mmmm.”

While she sat in Kim’s kitchen, Isla felt cared for and a little sane. Yet, between leaving Kim’s and getting home again, her clarity fell apart, and the only thing she remembered was that they weren’t doing well enough at pretending to be a happy couple. Nobody was fooled.

_________________________________________________________________

“So, Isla, tell me why you’re here.” The woman in an armchair opposite her had perfected a look that was friendly, warm, but practiced and non-committal, “Oh, and I’m Carmen, by the way.” Isla wondered how someone achieved that precise level of emotional detachment, and if it was a good thing. The woman had a salt and pepper pixie cut, light on the salt. She leaned forward slightly with hands clasped on her lap, a notebook and pen on the side table.

“My friend made me come.”

“What friend? What do you mean ‘made you’?” Isla realized immediately that “made me” were triggering words in this context.

“My best friend, Kim. I shouldn’t say she made me—she asked me to come. And made the appointment. And threatened not to use cream cheese frosting the next time she baked cinnamon buns.” The woman’s slight wince reminded Isla that “threatened” wasn’t funny here either. She certainly seemed to be stepping in it. Sheesh, everything was taken so seriously.

“And why did she think that would be a good idea?”

“She knows that my husband and I haven’t been getting along well lately.”

“What do you mean, ‘not getting along well’?”

“I told Kim that he hurts me. I guess that kinda freaked her out. But I told her I hurt him, too. She didn’t need to make a big deal of it. We’re just not getting along.”

“In what way do you hurt each other? Physically? Emotionally? Financially?”

“That’s a lot of questions.” Isla shifted in her chair.

Carmen nodded again and wrote a note. “Isla, when we talk about abuse, we talk about an imbalance of power and control. Would you say that this applies to your relationship?” Isla picked at a French knot on the arm of her chair.

“Imbalance? I don’t know. We’re both kinda mean to each other.”

“A lot of experts in domestic abuse do not consider mutual abuse possible. That’s why we need to consider what imbalances may be present, if any.”

“Abuse means using something incorrectly or being cruel or violent, doesn’t it? Two people can do that to each other. It’s just nonsense to say it’s not possible.”

“I’m talking about abuse in a clinical sense. Very often, one person is acting in self-defense or exhibiting behaviors that are maladaptations to the abuse.”

“But they can both be acting in self-defense. Do you get a free pass just by not acting first?”

“Let’s not get hung up on that. I’d like to talk a little bit about your relationship with your husband. Is that ok?”

Isla shrugged.

“I see from your intake form that you do not have children. Is that correct?” Isla nodded. “Are you currently living together?” Isla nodded again. “Do you ever feel unsafe in your home?”

Isla cleared her throat. “I feel unhappy. But unsafe,” she considered, then shrugged. “No, not really.”

There was a spot on the wallpaper behind the therapist’s head. Maybe left by a piece of sticky tack or a greasy finger or some paste when it was being put up, she mused. Carmen kept talking and talking, asking questions. Did Danny try to control her, did she feel stressed, had he ever hit her, did he try to keep her from going places, did he force her to have sex when she didn’t want to?

“Do you have restricted access to money or other resources?”

“Restricted? By Danny? Ha . . . um, no.”

“That’s an interesting response.” The woman tilted her head thoughtfully, another perfected motion of her trade.

“Danny doesn’t have any money. He doesn’t work. Or rather, he doesn’t make money. He costs money.”

“Mm-hmm.” The woman made a note. “So, you are in charge of the money?”

“What are you saying?”

“Just clarifying.”

“I make the money. So yes, I guess I ‘control’ it. Am I just supposed to turn it over?”

“No, of course not. I’m just trying to determine the health of your relationship.”

“Well, doc, is it terminal?” Another weak attempt at humor. The therapist merely maintained her non-committal expression for a beat before moving on.

“Has he ever made an important decision that affected you without asking for your input?”

“Uh, he bought a house and moved all my stuff. Does that count?”

Carmen nodded. “Why would he do that? Was it an attempt to control who you could see?”

“He said it was to ‘surprise’ me.”

More nodding. “And how was he able to buy a house without any money?”

“He used to work. And he owned another house that he sold.”

“I see, I see.” She looked at her watch. “Isla, it’s just about time for the therapy group that I told you about. I’d like to see if the other women are out in the waiting room and bring them in. Are you ready for that?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” Isla smiled and shrugged. “It’s all women here?”

“Not necessarily. But generally. Many men don’t report abuse.”

“Why?”

“Many men have been made to feel that a real man is tough, invincible. It can feel weak to them to admit to abuse, and they can’t be sure they’ll be taken seriously. Or some of them don’t take it seriously themselves; some men even say they find it ‘cute’ when a woman gets angry or strikes them. Though that too could be a defense mechanism.”

“They wouldn’t find it ‘cute’ if I hit them,” Isla said, then realized with horror that there was an ugly sneer on her face. Carmen shook her head in confusion and Isla rushed to clarify, “I mean, it’s important to be able to defend myself, right?”

“Self-defense is important if you are unable to call for help,” Carmen said, nodding hesitantly.

“Exactly.”

Carmen rose. “I’ll go see if the group is ready. Be right back.”

As she opened the door, Isla saw a colleague pass her in the hall and heard a little whispering as the door swung shut. She leaned forward to listen.

“. . . something a little off.” How unprofessional, Isla thought.

Carmen came back with the woman from the hall and three people Isla hadn’t seen before. They chose seats from the options scattered around the room. Next to Isla was a tiny, bird-like woman of sixty or so. Her skinny fingers fluttered whenever she moved them, tightening her cardigan, adjusting her necklace. Periodically she crossed her arms and tucked her hands under her elbows to still them. Across from her was a woman on the opposite end of the spectrum physically—tall and heavy, in her late 30s, perhaps. Her short blond hair was frozen with hairspray into a little visor over her forehead and her aqua eyeshadow was clumsily applied. She wore a faded red t-shirt tucked into jeans and an incongruously glitzy wristwatch covered with rhinestones. The third woman sported tall leather boots and a stylish belted jacket cinched around her perfect figure. Her flawless make-up was straight from a TikTok tutorial, and she wore several chains and large hoop earrings.

“Let’s get started,” the new therapist said. Her voice was rich and warm, her blow-out honey colored. Her round face and big eyes behind big glasses were guileless and kind. Isla wondered how she’d gotten stuck with the other one for her individual session. “I’m Melissa,” she said to Isla, then to the group, “I’d like you all to meet Isla. She’s giving our group a try, I know you’ll all be glad to welcome her.” The women nodded as she went on, “We’ll kind of introduce ourselves as we go along. Let’s start with Cindy,” she indicated the little quivering woman by Isla’s side. “She’s one of our success stories. Cindy, tell us why you’re here.”

The woman smiled and began in a gentle, breathy voice, “Well, I spent 25 years in a relationship where I had no autonomy at all and I didn’t think that could ever change, but then about 15 years ago, I started coming here and I started to realize the truth, that I have worth and that I actually can make good decisions for myself. My husband had convinced me that I was ugly, that I was stupid, that I couldn’t survive without him. And when he had me completely under his thumb, he needed to conquer someone else, so there were affairs. I was terribly lonely. Everyone thought we were such a nice couple, it was hard to find help. But finally, I did, and ever since, I’ve been wanting to help other women. Now I’ve been here longer than a lot of the employees.” She raised her shoulders and smiled somewhat sheepishly at the therapists.

Melissa gently prodded her, “And what are you here for, Cindy?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she laughed a fluttery laugh. “I’m here to encourage the new ladies as someone who survived. Tell them what I’ve learned. I just want them to know that they matter. That’s the main thing. They come in here with someone telling them over and over that they don’t matter, and they just need to know that it’s not true.” She looked at Isla with a meek, hopeful smile as she pulled her cardigan tight again. “You matter.” Isla nodded curtly in acknowledgment.

“Cindy’s very dear to us,” Melissa said. “Thanks so much for sharing. Let’s get into our discussion, but first just a couple of reminders. We want this to be a safe place to share; we aren’t critical of each other. We keep our words encouraging and helpful. We talk in quiet voices. It’s ok to be upset, but shouting and unkindness are absolutely out of line. Please remember that we are all at different points on our journey.” Everyone nodded assent. “Remember to stick to a few minutes each and then look for some input. Don’t monopolize the time. If you don’t want to speak, you are always allowed to pass, or even to leave. You are here voluntarily; you have agency over your life. If you take away nothing else, we want you to experience that certainty while you are here. Isla, this is Jess,” Melissa indicated the woman in the red shirt, who nodded, “and this is Taylor.”

“Hi,” Taylor, the chic woman with the jewelry said in a bubbly voice, ending with a crackly laugh. “Hi, nice to meet you. Welcome.”

“Who would like to start us off? How was your week?” Melissa asked.

“Well, Dylan is back,” Taylor said, laughing nervously again.

Melissa’s face was concerned.

“Yep, well, he says he’s sorry. You know, he said he should never have left and he was so sorry and it would never happen again and he loves me. You know the drill. My boyfriend said he’d leave me if I kept coming here,” she explained to Isla, “and I did, so he did. Only for a couple of days, though.”

“And what do you think about all that?” Melissa prodded.

“I mean, I feel kind of bad for him. He says that it’s embarrassing to him that I’m coming here and that some things are private and that it’s wrong for me to come here and talk about our relationship. That it’s not really that bad with us.” Nervous laugh, once more.

“My husband was always sorry,” Cindy said, “but I think he felt like a failure when I got upset. I think he was worried about himself. I don’t think he was sorry because he knew it was wrong, that he was hurting me, or because he didn’t want to see someone he loved hurting.”

“Apologizing can be another way to control someone,” Melissa said. “Do you feel like he is trying to use his apologies to make you do what he wants?”

“I don’t know,” Taylor said, laughing self-consciously and brushing her highlighted hair behind one ear. “How can you tell? He sounds really, really sorry. Like he’s begging me. He says he’s afraid of losing me.”

“And he is,” Jess spoke up finally. “Because he owns you. A narcissist will always say what you want to hear. It’s part of their manipulative plan.”

“We’re all concerned about Taylor’s situation, but let’s remember that we can’t read Dylan’s mind,” Melissa gently corrected her, then added, “Do you have any thoughts, Isla? No pressure.”

Isla cleared her throat. “Well, yeah. Yeah, I do. I mean I don’t get it, it doesn’t feel like you’re being fair to . . . was it Dylan? I mean, people can be sorry. And doesn’t it make sense that he’s afraid of losing you? Isn’t he in danger of losing you? Isn’t that what these people are here for? To convince you to leave? The only ‘success’ story I’ve heard so far was a divorce.”

“Isla,” Melissa said gently, “you probably aren’t aware of it, but your voice is starting to rise a little bit.”

“I’m sorry.” Isla sighed impatiently.

“To answer your question . . . no, we are here to care for the health and safety of each other.”

“But that means splitting up.”

“Splitting people up is not our purpose. Not every relationship is the same. But reconciliation can be difficult and we’d be very cautious to recommend it. Although people can change, those situations are not often the ones that we encounter here.”

“Then Dylan has everything to be afraid of. And if you’re going to sit here and say that he can’t be sorry, he can’t make things right, he can’t possibly mean it, it’s always just a sinister plan . . . then how can he get out of that position? Do you really think that people have a ten-point takeover plan? Don’t you think that they are just desperate and scared and sad?” Cindy put a gentle hand on her shoulder. Gentle, calming, but also, Isla sensed, a warning.

Carmen was calm yet stern, “Isla, let’s plan to talk about this privately in our next session.” If there is another session, Isla thought as she sat deeper in her chair in resignation.

Taylor was laughing steadily now. At least, it sounded like laughing and her mouth looked like smiling, but Isla saw that there were tears in her eyes. “They are good questions, though. They really are good questions.”

Melissa was visibly working hard to control herself. “Isla is very new here,” she said to Taylor. “There’s a lot she doesn’t know about your journey,” she said with a significant look, “and you have no obligation to tell it all now, although it’s up to you. Please don’t forget the things we’ve been talking about in our private sessions.” Taylor nodded. Jess had handed her a tissue and Taylor was dabbing at her eyelashes in what Isla thought was a prissy way. Heaven forbid her precious mascara smear.

“Jess, would you like to share anything this week or introduce yourself to Isla at all?”

“Yeah, I uh . . . well, welcome, first of all. I’m uh, newly separated from my partner and she, uh . . . well, she was a manipulative little princess, wasn’t she?” Taylor laughed and Cindy tilted her head and nodded kindly. “So, uh, I’m just trying to figure things out, you know, she took all my money and my keys and just, uh, I’m basically starting over and um . . . I’m just grateful for these ladies. I don’t know how I’d do it.” She looked down and rocked in her chair a bit.

“Thank you, Jess, anything new you want to talk about?”

“Uh . . . it’s just more of the same, really.”

“Ok. Let’s give the floor to Isla. Isla, what brings you here?”

“So, my best friend made me come.”

“But why? Remember, you never have to answer.”

“No, that’s ok. My husband and I have had a rough patch and it’s become, well . . . too much. And the other day we had a fight and he broke some things and my hand got hurt and . . . yeah, Kim was just concerned. Honestly, I don’t know where or how it can come to an end.”

“How long have you been married?” Taylor asked.

“Let’s see . . . almost two years? Yeah.”

“Has he always been this way?”

“No, well, sometimes I think we didn’t know each other well enough when we got married—who does—but no, we used to get along, well, mostly. He’s had some, uh, disappointments in life and . . . he’s taken it hard. I don’t know that I’d call it abuse.”

“When someone is hurting you and breaking your things, that’s called abuse,” Cindy said softly.

“Well, I’ve been told that the clinical definition . . .” she looked at Carmen, “well, anyway, that’s basically my story.”

Taylor’s phone buzzed. “Oh . . . oh, are we almost done here? I’m so sorry, my ride is here.” She laughed her trilling laugh again.

“It’s about time to wind up anyway,” Melissa said. “Thank you all so much. See you next week, and please call the office if you need anything before then. Remember in an emergency, who do we call?”

“Ghostbusters?” Isla offered.

“911.”

As the other women made their way into the hall, Isla moved next to Melissa and Carmen. “Look, I’m not sure that I really belong here, you know? I just, I’m not sure I’m going through what these other women are.”

Carmen peered into her eyes for a moment. “You might be right.”

“You are welcome, of course,” Melissa added, “but make the right decision for you.”

“And everyone else,” Carmen cautioned. Isla nodded and hustled into the hall.

Clustered at the end of it were Cindy, Taylor, and Jess. Taylor had her hand on the doorknob, somehow at once seeming to indicate that she would leave at any second and also as if she wanted to pull it closed.

“And are you ready for the wedding night?” Taylor was saying, laughing of course.

Cindy smiled at the floor, coy but shy. “It sounds silly coming from this old wrinkly, but . . . I have a package coming from Victoria’s Secret this afternoon.”

“You hussy!” Taylor teased her, then, as Isla came up, explained, “Cindy is getting married this weekend!”

“Married!” Isla responded. “Isn’t that something?”

“Dan is really something,” Jess said. “Cindy got an award at the state house last year and he said that she’s his hero.”

“Oh,” Cindy said dismissively, “well, he’s a good man, I won’t argue with that.”

“Dan, huh? Congratulations. It was nice to meet you all.” Isla excused herself and gestured towards the door.

A young man was leaning on the wall right next to it. Isla recognized him from an exchange of pleasantries in the waiting room when she’d first arrived. He’d been very affable. But now . . .

“There you are,” he said to Taylor, reaching around Isla to grab her wrist. He pulled her close, putting his arm around her waist. “I missed you.” He kissed her then looked at her face. “What the hell is wrong with your mascara?”

“Oh, I uh . . .”

“Go fix it . . .”

“Ok, I’ll just go in the bath . . .”

“You know what, just fix it in the car.”

“Ok, I just need to get my . . .” Taylor grabbed her coat from a hook as he propelled her past it and through the doors to a big black SUV that was already running. Isla saw him grope her bottom as she climbed in and then smacked it hard. His cold laugh reached her ears just as the automatic doors hissed shut. She felt a little sick. She felt disoriented.

______________________________________________________________

<<How did it go?>> Kim’s text was already there when Isla got into her car.

<<Eh, ok. There’s so much unhappiness in the world.>>

<<Think you’ll go back?>>

<<I don’t think so. It didn’t seem like a good fit for me.>>

<<I’ll keep trying.>>

<<I know.>

Copyright 2025 Jennie Robertson

Next Chapter: The Hands of the Monster

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Previous Chapter: Being Honest

Isla was shifting uneasily in a squeaky chair in the lobby of the police station when they brought Danny out for release. They didn’t speak as they got in the car. His silence made the cold wrap around her shoulders and sent icy barbs deep into her heart like Novocain, numbing it.

He didn’t talk to her about the rental house, and she didn’t mention it to him. She went to work all day, every day, and didn’t ask him how he spent his time, afraid of the answer. Danny’s arrest made it to the paper: “husband of town council member Isla Campbell.” She willed herself to ignore it. Her colleagues looked at her with pity; she was pretty sure that Becky was avoiding her. But basically, it was ok, or so she told herself.

Sometimes, she pretended she wasn’t married. She didn’t tell anyone, pretending she was the free-wheeling Isla, strong, independent, up for anything, answering to no one. In some ways, it might as well have been true. Danny had a distinct lack of curiosity about where she was, why she was home late, or anything else. They kept a grocery list on the fridge and Isla filled the fridge once a week because she was the only one with money. They ate their meals apart. Danny slept in the guest room, but sometimes their paths crossed.

A cup of hot coffee. Standing up too fast, turning around without looking. An innocent mistake, but everything felt purposeful in this tense new life. A wrist grabbed and wrenched, coffee thrown back towards a face, maybe on purpose, maybe not. A muttered threat.

Isla had too much in her arms one night as she came in from work: a stack of folders, a gallon of milk, her briefcase, lunch, and keys, and it might have been fine, everything might have been fine, if Danny hadn’t been sitting at the laptop trying to fix his life, to make a new plan, to pick himself up. Just at that moment, when his every nerve was on fire with anxiety as he thought about all that had gone wrong, his brain frantic with the effort of understanding how to put the shards back together, Isla fumbled with the doorknob as she came in and dropped her armload on the floor. Her keys jangled and an apple rolled out of her lunchbox and across the floor.

“Damn,” she said, and, looking at him, “sorry.”

But he didn’t hear her. He didn’t see anything. He didn’t think anything. He couldn’t take a single drop more stimulation. His brain was overwhelmed with static and his body with adrenaline as he screamed, “Damn it, leave me alone, get out of here you freaking idiot.”

The iron lifter on the woodstove, the red-hot iron cover flying through the air. The cry sounded far away, the cool running water trying to stop the burn.

Danny grabbed a pile of the papers she had dropped and shoved them into the hungry stove, which licked its lips with grateful red flames. He took another handful, and she lunged for them, pleading, “I need those!” The static was subsiding and Danny became aware of what he was doing. To stop would be to admit defeat; to stop would mean Isla was controlling him. He was a bad man, a very bad man. He’d always be a bad man and his wife, clutching her papers, staring at him with accusing eyes, proved it, and he hated that knowledge, couldn’t get away from it. He was going to lose her, he was losing her, and what was he even trying for? He paused, sank back onto the chair, exhausted. His eye saw the bold words on the laptop screen: “Plans for Getting Back on Track,” and he closed the laptop with a tiny, deafening click. He threw it at the stove, not hard, but hard enough to crack the screen, hard enough for Isla to decide to walk out the door. There was no getting back on track. Those days were done and gone.

Isla slammed the door of her car and locked it. She looked back at her house, the monster’s den. Her heart pounded. She threw her armful of disarrayed papers on the seat beside her and tried to make a plan that would save her pride. Her pride? It bristled as she thought about it; what did she have to be ashamed about? She was the one who now had to re-do two or maybe three weeks of work. She didn’t know who Danny was now or who he used to be when she married him, but she wasn’t about to lose herself over it. She could not let that happen. At the end of the day, she was the only one she was responsible for, right? She was the only one who could make her head hang or hold it high, and she wasn’t ready to crawl yet. She started the car, and pulled out, not knowing her plan. Danny wasn’t watching from the window; a tiny part of her wished he was there. Didn’t he even care that she was going? What was he doing now? Destroying the house? Putting her books in the fire, her clothes? Sobbing in remorse? She had no idea. She’d never expected to be this woman. This wasn’t the kind of marriage that people like her had. Not smart people. Not good people. Not successful people. What the hell happened?

Isla stopped at the Cumbies for a minute, got a coffee, fixed her hair. She put on lipstick, then quickly rubbed it off. Kim would notice if her makeup was fresh at the end of the day. It wouldn’t make sense. She’d ask where Isla was going and with whom. Isla sipped coffee in the car and drove around until she felt more settled and stable, then pulled into Kim and Phil’s driveway.

Clara answered her knock and shouted, “Mum! It’s Auntie Isla!” Isla came into the kitchen and saw Kim bending over the stove and Miles tossing silverware haphazardly on the table. The normalcy of the scene hurt her.

“Hi,” said Kim, still stirring, “what’s up?”

“Just thought I’d stop by . . .” Isla said unconvincingly. Kim looked at her with an eyebrow raised. The plates were clattering onto the table now, and Phil was coming in, and the room was too bright and too noisy and too colorful. Isla couldn’t get her bearings. “I, uh . . . I . . .” She shook her head, unable to look at Kim.

“Do you have supper plans?” Kim asked. Isla desperately wanted to leave, but she had no real excuse since she’d just come in. She shook her head. “Miles, set a place for Auntie,” said Kim.

“What’s Danny up to tonight?” Phil said by way of small talk. Some men cook for themselves; Phil wasn’t one of them. Phil had scrambled eggs for every meal when Kim was away. He took an anthropologist’s interest in other kinds of marriages.

“Um . . . I have no idea, actually.”

“Oh!” Phil looked at her expectantly.

“We don’t eat together very often these days. You know . . . busy schedules.” Phil’s expression was quizzical but a glance from his wife stopped him from asking more questions. Isla’s temper still flared a bit at his inquisitiveness and she snapped. “Let’s be honest. Danny and I don’t like each other much right now. We don’t eat together because we don’t want to.” The kids looked at each other in wide-eyed confusion as Isla added, “I’m sorry, but it’s the truth, and I believe in the truth.” Not the whole truth, she added silently.

“Oh. Well. Haha, well, you can always eat here if you get lonely,” Phil offered, laughing awkwardly. Kim looked at her in thoughtful concern.

“Thanks, Phil.” Her temper had cooled again. She meant it, like she knew he did.

After supper, slightly relaxed, Isla rolled up her sleeves to do dishes with Kim. She hadn’t meant to show her the burn on her hand, but she winced and saw that it had blistered.

“Ouch, what happened there?”

“I ran into the stove. Or should I say it ran into me!” Isla chuckled half-heartedly while Kim leaned close to her arm, face scrunched up.

“Looks pretty nasty, lady. Maybe you should have it seen.”

“Nah, I’m fine.”

“Anyway, let me do the washing. You don’t need to stick that in dirty dishwater. You dry,” she said, winking and tossing her a towel.

“Ok,” she said, smiling back a little too much.

By the time the last dish was put away, Isla felt ok, even good, if she didn’t peer below the surface of her emotions. But when Kim walked her out to the car in the chilly dark, she asked, “What’s really up, Isla? You ok?” And Isla knew that she had to find a place where she could really hide. They knew her too well here. They loved her too much.

“I’m fine. Just needed to get away for a little bit. I’d better get myself home.” Isla smiled unconvincingly and turned towards the door.

The house was locked when she got home so Isla let herself in. The kitchen was cold and dark, the fire out. Danny was gone, she was sure. Though it was still early, she crept through the dark rooms, lit only by the streetlight. She brushed her teeth in the golden light of the bathroom, put on her pajamas in the bedroom, and slipped between the cold, smooth sheets.

Danny never came in, at least not to their bedroom. But in the morning, as she went down for breakfast in her work clothes, she found a stack of half burned papers carefully retrieved from the woodstove and stacked on the kitchen table. She cried because it was not enough, and she cried because at least it was something.

Next chapter: Go Fix It

Copyright 2025 Jennie Robertson

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Previous Chapter: Disturbing the Peace

Lacey couldn’t have gotten far, but then he didn’t think she was trying to go far. Dave drove slowly all over the neighborhood and up and up and up the hill to the hospital, looking down every alley and in every dark corner. Phil was searching in the opposite direction and Isla in a third until she texted that she’d gotten the call she was waiting for from the police.

Too late, Dave realized they should have talked more about where she would go when temptation grew too strong. He was wondering which dingy door to start knocking on down the worst street in town, weary yet determined, knowing that she might just as likely be down a “decent” street, when Phil called. “Got her,” he said. “Down at the waterfall.” Dave immediately swung his car around and turned that way. She was sitting on a bench, hugging her skinny knees to her chest. Phil was approaching from the other side, but when he saw Dave, he gave him a nod and retreated.

Dave parked and took several deep breaths so that his wild relief wouldn’t scare her. He walked softly up to her, sat down and put his arms around her. She rested her head on his shoulder.

“I was scared,” he whispered.

“I am, too,” she said, “Me too.”

“Where did you go?”

“I walked. But I didn’t go there. I wanted to, but I didn’t. Not yet.”

Dave swallowed hard. “Let’s go home,” he said. “Let’s rest.”

“We can’t go home,” she said, “We have no home.”

“Home is where we’re together.” She nodded, but her eyes were still staring at something, nothing, across the mill pond. He helped her up; the studio was just a short walk, not even worth moving the car, and he didn’t rush her reluctant feet on the dirty sidewalk. It wasn’t quite dawn, but you could feel that the night had turned a corner.

They climbed the smelly, rattly stairs, passing the landing where they had “met.” Dave pushed open the door. Isla had left the light on in the box that was the changing room and it glowed golden and welcoming.

“We knew it was fragile,” she whispered, standing outside the flowered chintz of the doorway, the blue light of the moon on her face. She twisted her wedding ring. “Dave, it’s winning.”

He stood with one hand on the door frame. “Well, that’s just what we can’t let it do.”

“Dave,” she said softly, “Dave.”

“I’m going to fight for you.” He led her through the doorway.

“You’re a good man. I don’t deserve you.”

“It’s me who doesn’t deserve you. But you need to fight. We can’t win unless you fight.”

“I know. And I am never not fighting. I need to know that you know that.”

He sank to the floor and pulled her close to him. “I know it. Of course, I know it.”

“I need to know that you’re being honest to yourself.”

His face contorted as he struggled to master his emotions. Finally, he nodded and said, “I’m being honest. Oh, Lacey, what are we going to do?” They curled up under a blanket and held each other tight, tight. After a while, he spoke again. “Will you do something for me, Lacey?”

“If I can.” Her tone was anxious.

“I don’t want to push you but . . . how about quitting the Imperial? Work here with me. Be together as much as we can. It will help, won’t it?”

The darkness was quiet for a while, then she said, “We need the money.”

“We’ll be alright, I mean, especially if, I mean, as far as the money . . . well, maybe we’re better off without a lot of money.”

Lacey bit her lip and nodded. “Ok. But you’d be surprised what you can turn into money. There’s almost always a way.”

Dave nodded sadly and said, “Thank you. It will be good to have more time with you.”

Later, in the darkness, she whispered, “No one will believe it.”

“Believe what?” Dave murmured sleepily.

“That a person like me could have been happy, even for these few years. Or . . . make anyone happy. They’ll say it was a fairytale. Maybe it was a fairytale.”

“Oh, it’s real.” He squeezed her tight.

“Make them believe it Dave, please? Make them know that I wasn’t only . . . that person. That addict.”

“I’ll always tell people how happy you make me. Anyway, they’ll know just by knowing you.”

She didn’t answer. But after a long time, as Dave dipped in and out of sleep, she said, “I’ve been lying, Dave.”

“Huh?” He looked at her through half-opened eyes.

“I lost the job at the Imperial weeks ago.”

“What?” he said, suddenly fully awake.

“Yes,” she nodded. “I stopped going.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.

“I didn’t want you to know. I didn’t want you to be sad and also . . . I didn’t want you to know.”

“Are you using again?” he asked, knowing that he couldn’t trust her answer.

“No,” she said. “No. Not yet. But why won’t it let me go, Dave? The darkness, the drugs? Why won’t they let me go? I want you, I’m happy with you. So why?”

“It’s not forever,” he said, “It just feels like it. What we have together . . . this is forever.”

Next Chapter: At Least It Was Something

Copyright 2025 Jennie Robertson

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Previous Chapter: The Greater Good

Danny was sitting at the kitchen table, staring disconsolately into a mug of coffee. He did not look up when she started speaking.

“You don’t have to give up; it might take awhile, but we can save up again, try with another house,” she said confidently, her smile masterful.

“I have nothing left, Isla. It’s over. We’re ruined,” he mumbled behind his mug.

“I still have a job. We won’t starve. We won’t lose this place.” The forced brightness in Isla’s voice shone like stainless steel.

“I hope you don’t think I’m just going to mooch off of you. I’m a man, damn it.” Danny’s hand tightened.

“We’re a team, we’re a family, right? Aren’t we? It doesn’t matter where the money comes from.” He could feel her willing him to agree with her even as rebellion rose in his chest.

“Doesn’t matter? Of course it does. It matters to me. First I lose everything, now you tell me that it doesn’t matter if I’m a man or not? Maybe you don’t think I’m much of one.”

Danny got abruptly to his feet. He didn’t slam the door when he left; he didn’t pause even to close it. He went to the garage and grabbed a bag. He had carried the weight of his failure in his chest all day; his mind wasn’t better, his heart wasn’t better, but he pushed it from his thoughts. He didn’t feel anything except the jangling weight of the bag in his arms as he walked fast. He listened to his feet hit the sidewalk, felt the length of his stride. The rhythm felt good, and he walked faster and faster until he was running down the sidewalk, slush spraying out from under the thick soles of his boots. There weren’t that many pedestrians in the night, in the winter, but the passengers in passing cars craned their necks. He wasn’t dressed like a runner; he wasn’t running like a runner, nor as if anything was chasing him, though it was. And when he got to the rental house, it caught him.

He hollered from the depths of his body as he kicked in the door, and then he kicked it and kicked it again until the wood began to splinter, and again, and again, until there was a hole. He walked the halls and punched holes in the Sheetrock with a hammer and pulled it away with the claw, yelling unintelligibly. He saved his words for the walls, pulling out cans of spray paint, filling the house with every expletive he knew and some he didn’t. The clinking sound as he shook the can was sharp; as he started to listen to the spray, the sound of pressure escaping, he forgot to yell.

When his paint was gone, he went out to the lawn and threw the hammer into a window. His actions were controlled and deliberate now. He went inside to get it and came out and threw it again. Blue lights were coming around the corner as he threw it once more; he began to notice a few neighbors gathered in the shadows between streetlights. He heard the doors of the cop car closing behind him and he threw his hammer anyway, and started back to retrieve it yet again.

“Hey man, what’s going on?” the cop said with a pretended camaraderie.

“Working on my house.” Danny kept on walking.

“If you could take a minute to tell us about it.”

“I don’t need to tell you about anything.”

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to.”

“It’s my house; it’s still my effing house until April. I’m not breaking any law. It’s my effing house.”

“You’re creating a disturbance.”

“You created it; your damn city created the disturbance. I’ve been disturbed all day. You want to condemn this place, I’ll give you something worth condemning.” As Danny was talking, the second cop had grabbed his hands behind him, was reading him his rights. “You can’t do this! It’s illegal! This is my own house, I’m not breaking any laws.” The neighbors watched Danny being led away, head hanging in the dark.

____________________________________________________________________

Isla was in the cold, dark house where he left her, not wanting warmth or light. She was curled up on the couch, staring. The phone rang and she let it go through until it stopped, but it rang again. Dave. She hesitated, then picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Isla, can you come by the house? Danny’s in a little trouble.”

“Trouble?” Her heart started pounding. Even though she knew he was mad when he left, she figured he’d walk it off, or putter in the garage. Somehow trouble between them, no matter how harsh, felt fixable or at least hideable, but trouble with the world outside . . . now that could be real trouble.

Heavy with dread, Isla drove slowly to the condemned house. Lights were on inside, sparkling on the jagged edges of the broken windows. She saw shadows moving inside.

“Hello?” She knocked on the doorframe as she stuck her head inside.

Lacey was kneeling by the cabinet in the living room, gently packing fallen angels in a battered cardboard box.

“Oh, Lacey, I’m so sorry.”

Lacey smiled sadly at her and was silent for a few moments before answering in an eerie, detached little girl voice, “It’s ok. I know how to do this.” Her eyes met Isla’s, all vulnerability now shuttered. Any coldness Isla had ever felt towards her melted. Too late, maybe.

“You’re bleeding,” Isla said softly, gesturing at Lacey’s hands, stuck here and there with splinters of glass.

Lacey pulled her sleeves down around her forearms and wrists and turned away from Isla, who was reaching out to her. “It’s ok,” she said absently.

Maybe she needed to be alone with her grief, Isla told herself.

There was a tapestry of spray-painted colors above and bleeding onto the couch. Isla traced its whorls and coils out into the hall. She sat on the stairs and stared at the paint until images popped out at her, demons and clowns and fires and fragments of stories. One sweep of color she imagined to be a man’s arm around a woman, his face on her head, her head on his shoulder. She wished Danny had put that there on purpose. She shook her head. She wasn’t making sense.

She glanced up the stairs but heard movement in the kitchen.

“Dave?” she questioned, seeing him at the sink.

“She was supposed to be safe here,” he said in a strained whisper to himself as he tried frantically to scrub red spray paint out of a tattered stuffed rabbit. “Safe. At home. Her sanctuary.”

“Oh, Dave,” Isla’s voice broke.

“It’s the worst possible timing,” he said slowly, looking desperately at Isla. “She was slipping already. I don’t know why.” More scrubbing, then again, “She was slipping already.”

Isla shook her head, teary, hope finally exhausted, and whispered, “How did it come to this? How did it come to this?” And they were together alone with their grief for a few moments until Isla said, “Where’s Danny? Were you here when all of this happened?”

“No, thank God. Although I’d like to think I could have stopped him sooner if I had been. No, we were out, but some neighbors called the cops when they heard the noise. They were still here when we got back. Danny’s been arrested.”

“Arrested!”

“For disturbing the peace.”

Isla smacked her hands on the counter. “What do we do, Dave? What do we do? I’m so sorry to have brought you into this.”

Dave didn’t answer, but gave her shoulders a squeeze with his wet hand.

For hours, wordlessly, they packed and cleaned while Isla waited for a call that didn’t come.

Finally, Isla said, “Where will you go? Kim’s?” Then, hesitantly, because everything seemed in limbo now, “Do you want to come to our place?”

“We’ll go to the studio, I guess. No need to bring our trouble on anyone else.”

“It’s already my trouble . . .”

“Well,” Dave said, and shrugged. Maybe they didn’t want to be in Danny’s house, Isla surmised.

“I’ll take a load over to the studio.” She picked up a garbage bag full of bedding.

She stopped at her house to dig a space heater out of the attic. The studio may not be home, but at least it could be warm. She tried to silence the voice in her head that said, This is your fault. Yours and Danny’s. Your fault, your fault, your fault. Couldn’t get your crap together and now you’re ruining other people’s lives.

While she made up a bed in the changing room, her inner voice was just a hum in the background.

It began to scream when she went back to the condemned house to find Dave on the floor holding a box of angels, crying frantically, “She’s gone, she’s gone.”

Next Chapter: Being Honest

Copyright 2025 Jennie Robertson

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Previous Chapter: Nothing Had Happened

“You did this.” Isla looked up, startled to see Danny in her office, as he dropped an envelope on her desk with cold, calm certainty. He closed the door and sat down, leaning forward, arms on his knees, intermittently staring hard at her face and the floor. She couldn’t explain to anyone how much that hard look pierced her, made her feel wild and helpless and cornered. Not that she’d tried. But sometimes she wished he would hit her, so she’d have a pain that she could explain to other people.

She ripped open the envelope, unable to imagine what was inside.

“Don’t pretend like you don’t know what it is.” Isla hesitated, his tone forbidding her to proceed.

“But I . . .”

“Isla,” he said, standing and placing a hand with studied, hostile gentleness on her arm, “we’ll talk when you get home.” And he left.

Didn’t he know that he was making home the last place she’d want to go? What was wrong with the man? He was such a stranger to her. Sometimes it seemed like marriage was the ultimate loneliness, proof that no matter their proximity, two souls could never really meet.

She read what was inside the envelope: “This is to serve as notice that the property at 72 School Street deeded to Mr. Daniel Fisher is hereby deemed by the town of Scottsville to be unfit for residence. Demolition will begin three months hence on April 30, 20— ”

His investment house. Dave and Lacey’s home. To her surprise, she grieved for him. She hurt deep inside her body. She almost forgave his hostility. She wanted to run after him, to share this sadness if he’d let her, but she stopped, thinking I can fix this.

But she couldn’t fix it. At the code enforcement officer’s office, she was met with a brick wall, a kind, apologetic brick wall in the form of Becky, one of the more personable people in town hall.

“We sent multiple notices,” Becky explained.

Isla threw herself into the leather armchair by Becky’s desk. “He didn’t read them, or he lost them, or he muttered about them and ignored them.”

“Then why didn’t you do something?”

“No, I mean . . . he never told me. I just know how he’d be. They would have come while I was here, anyway.”

“Oh. I’m so sorry, Isla.” Becky’s face was honest. “I wish there was something I could do. Every time we inspected, we gave him lists of the things that needed to be done. We gave him deadlines.”

“If there’s one thing I can tell you about Danny, it’s that he doesn’t want to be told what to do.”

“I know, I know.” Becky shook her head.

“Especially by the government.”

Becky nodded sympathetically. “It’s been two years, though,” she explained, “I mean, we gave him ample opportunity. We need to get this town cleaned up. Stop it from being the dumping ground of southern Maine. A house like that one just says: ‘drug den,’ if not to users, then to any decent real estate investor that might roll into town. Keep them right on rolling.”

“He was working on it. He put a lot into it. So much. All of his money. He was there every minute that he could be, and he had other people working on it, too.” Isla thought ruefully of the many times she had gone to suppers, parties, family reunions alone so that Danny could work on the house. She thought about how proud Dave and Lacey had been of their puttying and painting.

“I’m afraid he may not have prioritized the items on the list that we gave him.”

Isla sighed and shifted uncomfortably. She knew it was probably true. “There aren’t any appeals?” Becky shook her head ruefully.

“Not at this point. I’m so, so sorry, Isla. But it’s for the greater good of the town. And he will get some compensation.”

Isla bit her lip and shook her head. She stood up, not meaning to be abrupt, but was driven by the steam power of her growing outrage. “I just can’t believe that the greater good is built on the destruction of individuals. Danny was working on the house; you know that, everyone knows that. Who is this greater good for if not for you, and me, and Danny, and the people who live in the house, and every other individual in this town? I’m sorry, I’m sorry . . . I know you’re just doing your job, but this is just no good. It’s not the greater or lesser good. It’s just . . . it’s just not good at all.”

Becky’s eyes were sympathetic, but she said, “You have to look at the big picture, though.”

Isla clenched her hands and bit her lip again. “A lot of ugly little pictures don’t turn into a beautiful big one. It’s just not possible.”

Suddenly, Bill stuck his head in the door. “Everything ok in here?” Isla jumped a little, tense as she was, and confused that she hadn’t heard his heavy step in the hallway.

“Of course,” she said irritably.

“Oh good, it sounded a little tense.” Bill smiled and his eyes held hers for a beat too long. “Oh, Isla, great work on the downtown. That ‘funky’ new gift shop hits a whole new niche of the population.” Then he squeezed her shoulder companionably as he dropped his air quotes and then left. She brushed his touch off instinctively.

As she rose to go, Becky said to her back, as a courtesy rather than a threat, “There shouldn’t be anyone living in it. He’d better clear any squatters out or there will be an additional citation . . .” Isla was already gone.

Isla went back to her office. She couldn’t concentrate on her work but she was conflicted about going home to Danny. Part of her wanted to be with him, still, in spite of everything. She imagined putting her arms around him, grieving together, even though she knew that isn’t what would happen. What would really happen made her angry. He would be stiff and silent. There had been a truce since she decided to turn a blind eye to his clandestine mechanic work, or decided she needed time to make a plan, at any rate. She was pretty sure that the truce was over.

She took a detour on her way home. As she came to Danny’s project house, she stopped to look at the sagging roofline, the rotting wooden fire escape, things that he’d said over and over were too expensive to fix right now.

“I said I’d see you at home.” Danny was sitting on the steps with as miserable a face as a man can have.

“I’m so, so sorry, Danny.”

“Like hell you are.” His words stung like a slap to her cheek.

After a measured pause, he began, “I had one shot at success, Isla. I had one shot at not living a hand-to-mouth existence. That house was our future. Hell, it’s our past, too. I know you hate me, Isla. I know you resent me, you wish you’d married someone like Dave, all that.” She shook her head vigorously and started to say that of course she didn’t; she didn’t even notice she was crying. “But what I don’t understand,” he added, beginning to spit the words at her one by one, “is why you had to destroy me.”

“Danny,” she said, voice shaking, “I had absolutely nothing to do with this.”

“Oh, come on. That notice was signed City Hall. Might as well’ve been signed Isla Campbell.”

She shook her head incredulously. “I had nothing to do with it. I didn’t even know until today. I even talked to Becky at code enforcement when I read the notice; I asked about appeals, everything. There was nothing I could do.”

“Right, right, Miss Isla Campbell, hero of the world, champion of the people, the common man, the very common man.”

“I did it for you, Danny! I wanted to help you! I know how much this means for you, for us. It was our last hope, our only hope. I know, I know, I know.” Isla’s voice sank to a desperate whisper.

“Now you’re mocking me?”

“No, Danny, no! I hate this, I’m so sorry for this, so sorry for you, for us. I hate this.”

“Then they did it because you angered them, picked another fight, knocked the chip off another shoulder. I know you did this, Isla. I know how you are.” He looked at her wild eyed, breathing heavily, yet his body was still, as tense and still as a tiger watching its prey.

But she wasn’t prey, and it was hard to see that he was speaking out of hurt when he was hurting her. “How I am? And exactly how is that?” She sat down next to him, with a look that challenged his.

And she put her hand on his arm.

And she dug her nails in hard.

He leaned in close to her and said in a hoarse whisper, “This is how you are.” And he shook his arm loose and moved away before sneering, “So . . . you broke it. How you gonna fix this one, Wonder Woman?”

“Me?” She laughed mirthlessly. “I wasn’t interested enough in your little project to get it condemned, and I’m not going to do a damn thing about it now either. Take out your own trash.” She stood to go, her foot grazing his calf, and sped off in her car.

Being angry felt better than being sad, at least in the moment. The problem was that she couldn’t sustain it because her stupid memories kept popping up: Danny spreading plans on the table in front of her, telling her proudly that at least a couple of families in town wouldn’t have to suffer a deadbeat landlord, that this was their retirement account, whistling as he got to work on it. Memories like that hurt her and she knew they hurt him, too. She wanted right now to believe that he was a pathetic, worthless, craven creature, beyond help and beyond cruel for blaming her, that his stubbornness had made him a useless waste of air, and his hurtful words couldn’t hurt her because he didn’t have the strength of character to matter to her.

But the issue was the part of her that knew he was more than that. The part of her that knew he, like countless others, was a hero thwarted by limited resources and bound by unlimited red tape. It didn’t excuse his accusations. Still, one heart can be both noble and unjust, even if that’s not what they say at the movies.

She used up her anger whipping around corners on back roads. Someday someone would get hurt that way; she got lucky again this time. And when she arrived home safely, she was in control. She could, would, handle this. His truck was in the drive. Good.

Next chapter: Disturbing the Peace

Copyright 2025 Jennie Robertson

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