The Original Chapter

PROLOGUE


She wore makeup for the first time that night. She didn’t know why. Standing in front of the cracked bathroom mirror, she surveyed her face. The purple eye-shadow, ivory foundation, and glossy lipstick -- they transformed her. Her pasty complexion was now a thing of beauty. A majestic painting. Maybe that was it. The makeup made her feel like she was disconnecting from herself, slipping on a costume. Masquerading as a different woman.

An hour later she stood outside her ex’s front door, gloved hand wrapped around the knob. It would be locked, but she knew he kept the spare key under the welcome mat. At this time of night he’d be glued to the sofa, remote in hand, a football game blaring.

She pressed the key into the lock and turned it slowly. Once inside the shadowy hallway, she listened. Yes, there was the tv talking. Nothing else. Reaching beneath her coat, she pulled out the loaded .38, its power burning in her palm. For one moment she balked. Once she crossed this threshold she could never go back. Neither could he. Ever.

She curled her fingers around the gun’s barrel. But it had to be done. He could never touch their child again.

The pounding, blaring music of a truck commercial echoed through the house, and she crept forward down the carpeted hall, quiet as a cat. Around the corner. Into the livingroom. And just as she guessed, there he was: sprawled on the sofa in his old gray sweatsuit, a half dozen dead soldiers littering the coffee table beside him.

She waited until she was standing behind the sofa, staring down at his greasy head. Now. She gripped the gun with both hands, adrenaline surging through her limbs. She could still see the bloody stripes the belt made on his own flesh and blood, and she felt her child’s pain as if her own back was beaten. Never again.

She lifted her chin, her lips pursing in boiling anger. How dare he.

Later, when she was once again before her bathroom mirror, she dipped a cotton ball into the jar of makeup remover and swabbed her cheeks again and again. Until she morphed back into the unremarkable woman whose child needed a mother.
Splashing icy water on her face, she looked herself in the eyes. Everything had gone according to plan, but there was one thing she hadn’t expected. And it’s absence snuck up on her, just like she’d snuck up on him.

She felt no guilt.