Chapter 2 - A Son's Choice

“Please tell me you didn't know,” I said.

David stood beside the wrecked dinner table, belt hanging from his hand. “Dad said he needed the family to see how you act when you're challenged.”

“And you agreed to hit me?”

“He said you'd move.”

“So you were willing to scare me for an audience.”

David's face folded. “Mara, I'm sorry.”

“Don't touch me.”

Robert was speaking to the emergency dispatcher in his office. Through the door, I heard him call me violent and unstable. He left out the belt.

I called my attorney, Priya Shah, who had helped me organize records for a nonprofit grant complaint. She answered on the second ring.

“Are you somewhere safe?” she asked.

“For now. He called the police.”

“Don't argue with the relatives. Save everything, and give your own account when officers arrive.”

Aunt June approached while I spoke. She was Robert's older sister, sixty-eight, with an old knee injury that made stairs miserable. She held her phone against her chest.

“I recorded dinner,” she whispered. “I was taking a video of the toast. I didn't stop when he threw the belt.”

“Why didn't you say anything?”

“I should have.” Tears brightened her eyes. “I won't make that mistake twice.”

David stepped closer. “Mara, I never meant—”

“You raised it,” I said. “You decided I was worth frightening.”

A patrol car pulled into the driveway. Robert emerged smiling, suddenly every inch the wounded father. He put a hand on David's shoulder.

“Tell them what she did,” he instructed.

A police officer came through the front door, notebook ready. She asked David, “Did your wife strike you?”

I waited for the man I'd married seven weeks earlier to tell the truth.

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He lowered his eyes and answered, “She grabbed me.”

Robert nodded as if a contract had just been signed.