Chapter 6 - What Brett Had Learned to Minimize
The first incident had been fourteen months earlier.
Dana had thrown a ceramic bowl during an argument.
It missed Brett and shattered against the pantry door.
Three months later, she shoved him hard enough that his shoulder struck the refrigerator.
Then came the night she locked him out of the house after he questioned a credit-card charge.
“You told me you lost your keys,” Colleen said.
Brett stared at the tabletop.
“I lied.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t want you worrying.”
Colleen almost laughed.
It came out as something closer to a breath.
“You didn’t want me worrying, so you let me stay in that house with her?”
Brett’s eyes lifted.
“I didn’t think she’d ever touch you.”
“You thought wrong.”
He had no defense.
Brett started seeing a counselor through his employer’s assistance program in May.
That explained the H.P. initials on his calendar.
Harbor Point Counseling.
Some sessions had happened during genuine business trips.
Others had been appointments Brett disguised as travel blocks because Dana questioned where he went.
Colleen pushed the coffee away.
A small part of her felt relief.
Her son had sought help.
A larger part felt sick.
“How long were you planning to live like this?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did the counselor tell you?”
“That I needed a safety plan.”
The answer sat heavily between them.
Dana called Brett while they were talking.
He declined the call.
A minute later she texted.
If you ruin me, don’t expect me to go quietly.
Brett showed Colleen.
“Send that to your attorney,” Colleen said.
“I don’t have an attorney.”
“Then get one.”
It was the first time she had said the word out loud.
Not divorce.
Attorney.
A practical boundary.
Brett nodded slowly.
But when Colleen returned to Marsha’s house, she found a voicemail waiting.
It was from Dana.
Her voice was calmer than before.
“I know Brett told you things. Ask him why he brought you into our house right before he left town. Ask him what he expected you to do.”
Colleen replayed it.
Then she remembered something Brett had said two weeks earlier when he asked her to stay with Dana.
Just keep her company while I’m gone.
May you like
At the time it had sounded ordinary.
Now it did not.
