She lifted her chin.
“I work in this house,” she said.
“I don’t belong to you.”
Then she told them about the basement.
She had heard Barrett say twenty-four hours.
No food.
No phone.
She had heard the lock click.
She had been frightened to intervene because Barrett was furious, but the moment my father arrived and asked where I was, she led him directly to the basement door.
Barrett began talking over her.
“She’s exaggerating.
I was trying to separate everyone.
Mallory was hysterical.”
“I wasn’t hysterical,” I said.
My voice was weak, but the room went quiet.
“I slapped Taryn once.
Then Barrett kicked me while I was standing beside the bed.
He dragged me downstairs.
He pushed me.
He locked the door.”
Taryn looked at the floor.
An officer turned to her.
“Is that what happened?”
Barrett answered for her.
“She doesn’t need to say anything.”
That was his next mistake.
Taryn looked at him.
For the first time since I had opened the bedroom door, she no longer looked victorious.
She looked afraid of being attached to him.
“He kicked her,” she whispered.
Barrett spun around.
“Taryn.”
She flinched.
“You did.”
“Because she hit you.”
“I know what happened.”
“Then tell them she attacked you.”
Taryn pulled my robe more tightly around herself.
“She slapped me.
Once.
Then you kicked her.”
Barrett stared at her as though betrayal were suddenly a concept he understood.
The paramedics began moving me toward the front door.
As we passed him, Barrett reached for the stretcher rail.
One officer stopped his hand.
“Don’t.”
Barrett looked at me.
“Mallory, don’t do this.”
I almost laughed.
Don’t do this.
As if I were the person creating consequences in that room.
I had spent years translating Barrett’s cruelty into softer language.
Stress.
Pride.
Pressure.
A difficult quarter.
