The moment my aluminum crutch hit the hardwood floor without me, I knew she had kicked it away on purpose.
Time seemed to suspend itself for a fraction of a second. I hung in the air, my balance entirely severed, my mind struggling to process the sheer audacity of what was happening. Then gravity took over. My body dropped. My shattered femur, held together by fresh surgical pins and fragile hope, struck the unforgiving floorboards. The bone exploded with a white-hot agony that defied language, and my scream tore through the foyer of my own home like a pane of glass shattering in a quiet church.dhoom
I had been home from the hospital for exactly eleven minutes.
Eleven minutes since the discharge nurse had gently helped me into the passenger seat of our SUV. Eleven minutes since my husband, Harrison, had flashed his devastatingly handsome, perfectly practiced smile at the front desk and promised, “Don’t worry, ladies. I’ll take excellent care of her.” Eleven minutes since his mother, Margaret, had opened our front door, standing in the entryway wearing my vintage silk robe.
I should have known the moment I saw the robe. It was a calculated territorial claim.
“My room now,” she had announced, her voice as smooth and cold as polished marble.
I had blinked through the haze of heavy narcotic painkillers and the cold sweat of travel. I leaned heavily on the crutches, my injured leg suspended in its bulky brace. “Excuse me?”
Margaret looked at my brace, then traveled her gaze up to my bruised face, and finally settled on the plastic hospital bracelet still fastened around my wrist. Her expression was one of profound distaste, as if looking at a piece of trash that had blown onto her pristine lawn. “You heard me, Eleanor. The master bedroom is entirely too far for you anyway. You’re a liability. The stairs are dangerous.”
“There are no stairs to the master bedroom, Margaret,” I said, my voice trembling with exhaustion. “It’s on the ground floor.”
Her mouth curved into a razor-thin smile. “Exactly. It’s much too comfortable for someone in your condition. You need a utilitarian space.”
I turned my head to look at the man I had married five years ago. “Harrison. Tell her to stop this nonsense. I need to lie down in my own bed.”
He didn’t look at me. He was staring intensely at the intricate pattern of the Persian rug, his jaw tight, his shoulders hunched. He looked exactly like a frightened little boy waiting for his mother’s permission to take his next breath.
“Harrison,” I pleaded, the dull ache in my leg beginning to throb in warning.
Margaret stepped closer. Her signature perfume—a sharp, suffocating blend of heavy florals and synthetic musk—invaded my personal space, making my stomach turn. “You’ve been relentlessly dramatic since the car accident, Eleanor. Always making everything about your pain. Always demanding attention.”
