PART 3
I watched the narrow strip of light beneath the pantry door and saw his shadow stop.
“Gloria?”
His voice was different.
Not angry.
Worse.
Careful.
I looked down at my hands. White flour covered my fingers. My keys were hidden somewhere beneath twenty pounds of flour, and the emergency bag I’d packed was under the bed.
I had made a plan for leaving.
I had planned the road.
The gas.
The shelter.
The parking spaces.
I had even practiced opening the Buick door without making the latch click.
But I had never planned for someone to knock on the back door at 2:13 in the morning.
Leonard’s shadow moved away.
Then I heard him unlock the back door.
My stomach dropped.
The door opened.
Cold air entered the house.
“Who is it?”
No answer.
Leonard stepped outside.
I moved to the little pantry window and looked through the slats of the blinds.
At first, I saw nobody.
The backyard was black except for the weak yellow light above the door.
Then something moved near the fence.
A person.
A woman’s voice whispered, “Gloria?”
I knew that voice.
I nearly collapsed.
“Mrs. Alvarez?”
Leonard heard it.
“Who?”
The woman stepped into the light.
Mrs. Alvarez.
She was wearing a long gray cardigan over her nightgown, house slippers on her feet, and she was holding something in one hand.
She looked directly at Leonard.
“Sorry,” she said. “I thought I left my watering can over here.”
At two-thirteen in the morning.
A watering can.
Even Leonard seemed to understand how ridiculous it sounded.
His voice became suspicious.
“Your watering can?”
She smiled.
“At my age, I forget things.”
Leonard stared at her for a long moment.
Then he laughed.
It was that laugh he used when he wanted another person to know he was smarter than they were.
“You ought to get some sleep, Alma.”
“My name’s Elena.”
He knew her name.
He had known her name for twenty years.
I knew exactly why he called her Alma.
It was another little humiliation. One of the countless ones that accumulated over thirty-eight years until they became a wall.
Mrs. Alvarez didn’t correct him.
Instead, she looked over Leonard’s shoulder.
For half a second, her eyes met mine through the pantry window.
She had come for me.
I knew it immediately.
Leonard closed the door.
“Go back to bed, Gloria.”
I heard his footsteps retreat.
I stayed where I was.
One minute.
Two.
Three.
The television volume went up.
Then my phone buzzed.
I nearly screamed.
I pulled it from the pocket of my robe and stared at the screen.
There was one message.
No name.
Just a number.
THE ROAD ISN’T SAFE TONIGHT. DON’T GO TO THE SHELTER. COME TO MY HOUSE.
I stared at it until the words blurred.
Then another message arrived.
HE KNOWS ABOUT THE SHELTER.
My knees weakened.
I had never given the shelter number to anyone.
Not Mrs. Alvarez.
Not a friend.
Not a doctor.
No one.
I slowly slid down the pantry wall until I was sitting on the floor.
The house felt suddenly too small.
Every room seemed to have ears.
Every wall seemed to be listening.
I thought about the gas receipt.
“Try it and see.”
Maybe Leonard hadn’t been guessing.
Maybe he’d known for weeks.
Maybe my practice runs were exactly what he’d expected me to do.
And maybe the three knocks had nothing to do with Mrs. Alvarez.
Maybe she had only been trying to warn me.
I waited until nearly 2:40.
Leonard finally went to bed.
I heard the bedroom door close.
Then the lock.
He didn’t usually lock the bedroom door.
My fingers went cold.
I crawled to the pantry opening and listened.
Nothing.
I moved through the kitchen and took the flour bag from the shelf.
My keys were still there.
I pulled them out.
Then I stopped.
There was something wrapped around them.
A tiny piece of blue thread.
I hadn’t put it there.
I stared at it.
Then I remembered Mrs. Alvarez’s cardigan.
Gray.
With blue stitching around the cuffs.
She had touched my keys.
She had been in my kitchen.
Somehow.
At some point.
I carried the keys upstairs.
Our bedroom door was closed.
I stood outside it and listened.
Leonard was snoring.
I quietly opened the bathroom window and found the emergency bag where I’d hidden it behind the old towels.
My hands shook as I pulled out my birth certificate.
Then the photograph of Celia.
Then the envelope of money.
Four hundred and eighty dollars.
Thirty-eight years of marriage had taught me how to stretch every dollar.
But it had also taught me something else.
How little a person needed when they had finally decided they wanted to live.
I put on jeans.
A sweater.
My coat.
I took the shoes from the laundry room.
Then I opened the back door.
The cold Missouri air hit my face.
I stepped onto the porch.
And saw the tires.
Both front tires of my Buick were flat.
Not punctured.
Cut.
