The Swap - Robyn Harding Page 0,88

still afraid of dying a slow and painful death. Of surviving with permanent, debilitating injuries. But there was no other way.

And then, like a sign from above—or maybe below—I saw it. Tossed carelessly on the work bench, barely visible in the clutter of tools and beer cans and carburetor parts, was a handgun.

It was not unusual for the island’s rural homesteads to have a weapon. There were numerous critters that could get into crops, build dens under houses, eat through sacks of grain. And if Thompson’s family really was smuggling cigarettes / cooking meth / growing illegal weed as was rumored, they’d have even more need for protection. My pacifist family didn’t have one, but I wasn’t daunted by it. I had watched enough TV to know how a pistol worked. I picked up the gun and found it loaded with two bullets.

I only needed one.

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Freya had been making a show of packing since Low stormed out of the house. She was throwing things into the cardboard boxes we’d kept in the garage after we moved in. She was drinking, too: vodka on the rocks. I’d lost count of how many times she’d refilled her glass, but I could tell by her unsteady movements, that she was getting drunk. I’d given Maggie her bottle and her bath and settled her down for the evening. When I returned to the kitchen with the baby monitor in my back pocket, I found my wife on the phone.

“It’s just until we get set up,” she said, overarticulating each word to hide her inebriation. “A month . . . two at the most.” There was a pause as she listened, sipping her drink. “The baby won’t be a problem. I’ll hire a nanny.” After a moment she snapped, “Yeah, it’s three adults and a baby. It’s not like you don’t have the fucking room.”

It had to be Freya’s dad in LA on the line. The conversation wasn’t going well.

“Your new wife can kiss my ass,” Freya growled. “You know she’s only after your money, you stupid old fart.” She hung up and threw the phone across the room.

I knew not to engage with Freya when she was in this state. She would be irrational, easily enraged, and cruel. My best strategy would be to slip out of the room, to hide myself away until she passed out. Before Maggie, I used to let Freya take her anger out on me. It became a sick sort of release, a toxic, sexual game. But since the baby had been born, I wasn’t into it. Only once, since we’d brought our daughter home, had I let Freya attack me, had we ended up having sex on the living room floor. That time, with a child slumbering in the next room, it had felt wrong.

I turned to go, but I was too late. “That was my dad.”

I turned back. “I figured.”

“He doesn’t want us to stay with him. Not with the baby.”

“We’ll figure something out.”

She sipped her drink. “This is your fault, you know. All of it.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?” She laughed and moved toward me. “You destroy my fucking life, and all you can say is okay?”

“Sorry.”

“Apology not accepted.” She smacked me then, upside the head. “I hate you!”

I stepped back, my head stinging. “You’re going to wake the baby.”

“Fuck the baby!” Smack. “I hate the baby!” Smack. “I hate my life!”

Her blows were harder than usual, her drunken rage improving her strength.

“Stop,” I said.

“You love this, you sick fuck.”

“I don’t,” I said, holding an arm up to fend off her blows. “Not anymore.”

“You don’t get to end this game,” she growled, reaching into a box filled with tools I had kept in the kitchen pantry for unexpected repairs. She withdrew a clawhammer. “I end it.”

If I had known what she was going to do, I’d have defended myself. I was twice her size, after all. But the hammer took me by surprise. Freya could be cruel and violent; she’d utilized a weapon before. But it had always been something fairly benign, like a plate or a wine bottle. Once, she had stabbed me in the chest with a fork. A hammer was different. A hammer was potentially lethal. And I didn’t think she was capable of murdering me. Not until I saw her eyes, dark and empty. Not until I saw her swing the hammer at my head with all the force in her body.

At first, I felt nothing, just a loud, shrill ringing in my ears. The pain