Erica Spindler - All Fall Down

“I didn’t say that.”

“Maybe you didn’t have to.”

The two women locked gazes; Mia backed down first. “Actually, I took your advice already. I thought, okay, what would Melanie do? So I confronted him. And guess what?”

Melanie swallowed hard, her mouth dry. “What?”

“He went berserk.” Mia indicated her black eye. “You see the result.” Melanie stared at her sister a moment, not wanting to believe what she was hearing. “You don’t mean … he hit you?”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

“That son-of-a-bitch!” Melanie leaped to her feet. “That no-good, two-timing … I’ll kill the bastard. I swear, I’ll—”

Melanie bit back the words, struggling to get hold of her anger. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and counted to ten. Growing up, she’d had a reputation for being a hothead. Her temper had gotten her into trouble time and again—once nearly landing her in reform school. If not for an understanding social worker, she would have ended up there.

As an adult she had learned to control her hair-trigger emotions. To think before she acted. To consider the consequences of her actions.

But old habits died hard. And when it came to her sisters, particularly Mia, she had always been ferociously, even blindly, protective.

“What are you going to do?” she managed to ask through gritted teeth.

Mia sighed, the sound too young and helpless for a thirty-two-year old woman. “What can I do?”

“What can you …” Melanie made a sound of disbelief. “Call the cops. Have his butt hauled in, then press charges. Leave him, for heaven’s sake!”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“It is. You just do it.”

“The way you left Stan?”

“Yes.” Melanie went around the counter to her sister. She caught her hands and looked her straight in the eyes. “Leaving Stan was the hardest thing I ever did. But it was the best. I knew that then. I know it now.”

Mia started to cry. “I’m not strong like you, Mellie. I’m not brave. I never have been.”

“You can be.” She squeezed her sister’s fingers. “I’ll help you.”

Mia shook her head. “No, you can’t. I’m just a sniveling, stupid excuse for a—”

“Stop it! That’s our father talking. And Boyd. It’s not true.” She searched her sister’s gaze. “You don’t think I was scared when I left Stan? I was scared shitless. I’d never had to take care of myself, let alone a child, too. I didn’t know how I would support us, if I could. And I was terrified he’d try to take Casey away from me.”

Melanie shuddered, remembering her terror, the way she had second-guessed her every decision. Her ex-husband was a prominent lawyer, a partner in one of Charlotte’s top firms. He could have wrested custody away from her without even breaking a sweat—he still could. As it was, he had pulled strings and gotten her application to the CMPD academy denied.

She had left him anyway. For herself. And Casey. She hadn’t been the person Stan needed or wanted, though for a long time she had tried to mold herself into that woman. One who needed a man to lean on, one who was satisfied to sit back and let her husband call the shots while she tended to house and home. She had failed miserably. And in the process had become a person she had neither known nor liked.

Their marriage had become a battleground. And a battleground had been no place to raise a child.

“You can do it,” she said again, fiercely. “I know you can, Mia.”

Mia shook her head, her expression defeated. “I wish I were like you. But I’m not.”

Melanie drew her sister into her arms and held her tightly. “It’s going to be all right. We’ll get through this. I’ll get you through this. I promise.”

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