Chapter 1 - Put Me on Speaker
My mother-in-law slapped me so hard my chair scraped backward into the Christmas tree.
The soup bowl tipped. Scalding broth poured down the front of my green sweater, and my four-year-old daughter screamed, "Mommy!"
Fourteen relatives stared. Nobody moved. We were at Linda’s mansion in Lake Forest, Illinois.
Linda Harrington stood above me, diamond earrings swinging, her hand still raised. "That's what happens when you disrespect me in my own home."
I looked at my husband. Daniel was holding a dinner knife, the same way he'd held it before his mother hit me.
"Sarah," he said, "you shouldn't have provoked her."
Something inside me went quiet.
Five years of marriage. Three years swallowing insults. At thirty-two, I had spent another Christmas trying to keep peace for Emma. And Daniel sat blaming me while soup burned my skin.
I pulled my wedding ring off with shaking fingers and threw it. It struck his chest, bounced into his plate, and landed between the potatoes.
"Emma, come to Mommy."
She ran to me, sobbing. I held her with one arm and pulled the soaked fabric away from my skin with the other.
Linda folded her arms. "Oh, here come the dramatics."
"I'm leaving."
"With whose car?" Daniel asked. "I drove."
I took out my phone.
"Who are you calling?" Linda laughed. "The police because somebody hurt your feelings?"
"My father."
Daniel stood so abruptly that his chair fell over.
"Sarah. Don't."
For the first time that evening, he looked genuinely frightened.
Dad answered on the second ring. "Sweetheart?"
"Dad. Linda hit me. Emma saw everything."
"Where are you?"
"Still at the Harrington house."
A pause. I could hear my father breathing, slow and measured.
"Are you somewhere safe from her right now?"
"She's standing in front of me."
"Put me on speaker."
I touched the screen. The whole room heard his voice.
"Daniel," Richard Bennett said, "before you try to explain that slap, are you finally going to tell my daughter what you signed using her name?"
May you like
Daniel gripped the back of his chair.
"Please," he whispered. "Not here."
