Page 39 of The Wives of Hawthorne Lane

Colin raises his palm, halting her words.

“Before you dig any deeper into your lie, I want you to think.” He draws closer so that he’s towering over her and taps her on the temple with one long outstretched finger.

“Think really hard with that little brain of yours. Did anyone come by today, anyone at all, who had no business being here?”

Suddenly it dawns on her. Hannah. He’s talking about Hannah. “Oh, right!” she says, a forced lightness to her tone. “Hannah Wilson dropped by while I was gardening this afternoon. It must have slipped my mind.”

“Slipped your mind, huh? And what exactly did Hannah want?” Her name falls heavily from his tongue like curdled milk.

“She came to collect her mail. Doug mixed up our addresses again, and we just chatted outside in front of the house for a moment. That was all.” Georgina offers her husband a weak smile.

Colin grabs her chin, presses his thumb into the soft spot beneath Georgina’s jaw, and angles her face upward.

He examines her the way one might a horse at auction, searching her face for traces of the lie, or maybe he’s looking to see how well she managed to hide her bruised cheekbone from gossiping neighbors.

His eyes narrow. “And what did you tell her?”

“Nothing,” Georgina assures him.

Colin’s gaze lingers on the swelling beneath Georgina’s right eye.

He’s usually smarter than that. Colin generally retains enough self-control not to leave a mark on his wife—not where anyone might see it, at least. But he’d been so angry on the night of the auction, especially after Hannah had made a surprise appearance in the courtyard at a rather inopportune moment.

He’d had quite a bit to drink after that, surely thinking about the toll this might take on his reputation, and he’d lost his usual measure of restraint once they’d gotten home.

Georgina swallows hard, praying that he believes her. The last thing she needs is for Hannah to be caught in the crosshairs of her marriage. It’s bad enough that Georgina got herself here, never mind someone else.

Colin hadn’t always been like this. At first, he’d seemed like a dream come true.

This handsome, successful man who whisked her away from a home she couldn’t wait to escape.

They were happy for a time, or at least Georgina thought they were.

Until the abuse started. It happened so gradually—a harsh word here, an insult there—that Georgina hadn’t seen what was coming.

She was like the frog in the pot, the one who didn’t notice the temperature slowly rising until it was too late to jump.

Colin lets go of Georgina’s face, and his lips curl in disgust. “Seems to me like Hannah needs to learn to mind her own fucking business.”

“I’m…I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about it,” Georgina stammers, eager to divert the focus away from Hannah and back to herself. Colin is her problem, her cross to bear.

Colin’s hand reaches out for her so quickly that Georgina can’t react before he grabs a fistful of her hair.

Colin loves her long, distinctive red hair.

He says it was the first thing he’d noticed about her when they met, the thing that drew him to her across the crowded bar where she’d been out celebrating with some friends from culinary school.

Since then, she’s thought about cutting it off so many times.

She knows he’d be furious, but she imagines herself sitting in the chair at the salon watching it fall away in chunks, collecting in a coppery puddle around her feet.

Colin yanks her head backward so that Georgina’s throat is bared to him.

She marvels at how her life has come to this, how she finds herself wishing he’d just hit her already.

Get it over with. One quick slap, and Georgina could watch the anger drain right out of him.

It’s like a compulsion, his need to be cruel to her. An addict who just needs his next fix.

Georgina presses her arms to her sides, willing herself to be still.

As she does, she feels her diamond bracelet pressing into her wrist. She’s always conscious of it, a shackle made of gold and precious stones.

It was one of Colin’s gifts, the kind he always gives her after a particularly brutal fight when he’s taken things too far.

Colin likes to see her wear the jewelry he buys her.

Exquisite, expensive things. At first she thought they were signs of his remorse, but now she knows he’s not capable of such feelings.

Now she can’t be sure whether he forces her to wear them because he thinks she should be grateful for his generosity or because he likes to see the reminder of her humiliation.

“You know I don’t like it when you lie to me,” Colin says, a whispered hiss that rings sour in her ear.

She feels his warm breath against her skin, and she squeezes her eyes shut, wishing she were somewhere else, anywhere but here.

Her mind takes her, unbidden, to the first time Colin hurt her.

Sebastian was so young then. He wasn’t sleeping through the night and Georgina felt as though she might die from the exhaustion.

She wished she had the kind of mother who would fly up to New York to help her, to teach her how to do this.

She wished that she had anyone who could help her.

She loved her son, but she didn’t know how to do this.

She didn’t know how to cope with the unexpected depression that haunted her after his birth.

Weren’t new mothers meant to be blissfully in love, humming lullabies in rosy nurseries as they rocked chubby infants in their arms?

What was wrong with Georgina that she always felt like she wanted to cry?

That there were days where she couldn’t even find the strength to shower?

That when Sebastian would squall and scream for hours, she didn’t have the motherly instincts to know how to soothe him?

She felt like she was lost in it, drowning in the isolated gray days that stretched into long, sleepless nights.

Colin had been of little help. He was in the running for junior partnership at his firm that year, and he’d essentially been living at the office.

Georgina could tell how stressed he was.

She could feel him changing—the way he’d snap at her over the smallest things, the way he’d come home from work and drop his briefcase at the door and immediately trudge upstairs, hardly stopping to acknowledge Georgina or the crying baby on her hip.

Georgina knew Colin’s job was a demanding one, but she’d needed his help.

Couldn’t he see that she needed him? Couldn’t he see how lonely she was?

Georgina remembers the night it all changed, the night she realized just how alone she really was.

Sebastian had woken in the dark, early hours of the morning and Georgina could hear him crying, that high-pitched scream that seemed to punctuate her every moment.

She cringed. She knew she should go to him, but she was so tired.

So very tired. When was the last time she’d slept through the night?

Maybe she’d feel better, more like herself again, if she could just sleep.

She rolled over, pulling her pillow over her head, blocking out the noise.

Colin grabbed her shoulder, shaking her awake. “The baby is crying.”

“Huh?” Georgina pulled the pillow away. She must have managed to doze off.

“The baby. He’s crying,” Colin repeated, irritated now. “Don’t you hear him?”

“I need to sleep, Colin,” she insisted. “I’m tired all of the time and—”

“ I need to sleep,” he barked. “You’re tired? You’re home all day long! I have a client meeting in the morning, and I can’t be up listening to this all night!”

“So go put him back to sleep!” She rolled over, indignant. Sebastian was Colin’s son too. He could get up with him for once.

Colin yanked the comforter off Georgina’s body, and the rush of cool air pimpled her skin. “What kind of mother are you? You’re just going to sleep while your baby cries for you?”

Georgina sat up, her eyes flashing with anger as she glowered at her husband in the dark. “Maybe I am!”

Suddenly his open palm collided with her cheek. He’d hit her. Colin had hit her. They both sat there in the dark, stunned into silence for a moment while the realization washed over her.

“I’m…oh God, Georgina, I’m so sorry.” He pulled her to his chest.

Georgina sat rigidly in his arms, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

This wasn’t Colin. Sure, he could be moody at times, but he’d never been violent before.

He wasn’t a monster. He was Colin, the man she loved, the man everyone was always telling her she was so lucky to have. And she was lucky…wasn’t she?

Colin cried, his warm tears soaking through the thin cotton of her nightgown, and the feeling of it on her skin brought her out of the state of shock she’d been in.

She wrapped her arms around him, consoling him, though she wasn’t sure why.

“I’ve just been so stressed at work,” he said, sobbing. “And with the baby waking us up every night, I—I don’t know what came over me. I’m not that person, Georgina. Please tell me you know I’m not that person.”

He looked at her, his eyes glittering with tears, silently pleading with her to forgive him. Georgina had never seen Colin like this before, vulnerable, afraid. He was giving her a rare glimpse of who he was behind the strong facade he always maintained.

“I know,” she said, her hand rubbing circles on his back.

“I can’t lose you,” he whispered, his voice cracking with remorse.

“We’re going to be okay,” she said, as if speaking it aloud could will it into truth. What Colin did…it had been an accident. They were both sleep-deprived, dealing with the stress of being new parents. She knew her husband—he wasn’t a bad person. He’d just made a mistake.