Chapter 1 - The Watch Beside the Cake
My father set the cake down and whispered, “Claire, who did this to you?”
Then he noticed Derek’s watch lying beside mine on the counter.
A deep scratch crossed its steel case.
Under the scratch were three tiny engraved letters: R.M.S.
My father stopped breathing.
This was no longer only about my bruises.
I saw the change happen in his face.
Not anger.
That would have been easier.
Anger was something I understood. Derek had taught me the language of anger over six years of marriage—the slammed cabinet, the hard exhale, the keys thrown onto a counter, the silence that meant I had somehow failed a test nobody had told me I was taking.
My father, Raymond Mercer, didn’t look angry.
He looked certain.
“Sweetheart,” he said again, “who did this to you?”
The candles on my strawberry shortcake trembled in the air-conditioning.
Thirty-two candles.
Dad had insisted on the exact number every year since I was sixteen.
Derek always thought that was childish.
I used to think it was sweet.
That morning, I had almost called Dad and told him not to come.
I’d stood in our upstairs bathroom for forty minutes, pressing concealer over the purple bruise beneath my left eye and along my cheekbone. The split at the corner of my lip was harder. Every time I smiled, it reopened.
So I had practiced not smiling.
That was what my marriage had become.
Practice.
Practice sounding normal.
Practice dressing carefully.
Practice remembering which explanation I had given which person.
Practice becoming smaller without anyone noticing I was disappearing.
“Dad,” I whispered.
Derek answered for me.
“Oh, that was me.”
The words came easily.
Almost cheerfully.
My father turned his head.
Derek was leaning against the kitchen island in his black shirt, coffee mug in one hand, wearing the relaxed expression of a man who believed every room eventually belonged to him.
He gave a little laugh.
“Figured a slap was cheaper than buying jewelry this year.”
Silence.
My mother-in-law, Sharon, was sitting at the dining table.
She made a strange sound that might have been a nervous laugh.
“Derek,” she murmured.
“What?” he said. “We’re all adults.”
My father carefully put the bakery box on the granite counter.
He had brought the strawberry shortcake from Bellamy’s Bakery near his auto shop.
Same white frosting.
Same strawberries.
Same ridiculous pink candles.
My eyes burned.
Dad looked at me.
“Was it once?”
I couldn’t answer.
That was answer enough.
His gaze dropped.
That was when he saw the watch.
Derek had removed it earlier because he complained that frosting might get on it while Sharon cut the cake.
Dad reached toward it.
Derek straightened.
“Don’t touch my stuff.”
Dad stopped.
His fingers hovered an inch above the watch.
He stared at the engraving.
R.M.S.
Something about those letters drained the color from his face.
“Where did you get this?”
Derek frowned.
“My watch?”
“Yes.”
“My father’s.”
Sharon dropped her fork.
It struck the plate with a sharp clink.
Dad looked at her.
For the first time since he entered the kitchen, Sharon looked directly at him.
Something passed between them.
Recognition.
Not ordinary recognition.
Fear.
My father slowly raised his eyes.
“What was your husband’s full name?”
Sharon stood.
“Claire,” she said suddenly, “maybe you should go upstairs.”
Dad’s voice stayed quiet.
“I asked you a question.”
Sharon’s mouth opened.
Derek rolled his eyes.
“Richard Michael Sutton. He died when I was nine. Why?”
My father’s hand closed around the edge of the counter.
Richard Michael Sutton.
R.M.S.
I looked between them.
“Dad?”
He didn’t answer.
Instead, he unbuckled his own watch.
It was an old black-faced mechanical watch he had worn for as long as I could remember.
He placed it beside my cake.
Then he began rolling up his sleeves.
Derek laughed again, but this time the laugh sounded thinner.
“Oh, come on.”
Dad folded the first sleeve above his forearm.
Then the second.
“Claire.”
“Yes?”
“Step outside.”
My stomach dropped.
“Dad, please.”
“Outside.”
Derek pushed away from the island.
“You don’t order my wife around in my house.”
Dad finally looked at him.
“She won’t be your wife in this house much longer.”
Derek’s jaw tightened.
“Excuse me?”
Dad turned toward me.
There was no fury in his eyes when he looked at me.
Only pain.
That somehow hurt worse.
“How long?”
I looked at the floor.
“Dad.”
“How long has he been hurting you?”
Sharon whispered, “Don’t.”
We all looked at her.
She was staring at Dad’s forearms.
More specifically, at the pale scar running across his right wrist.
Her chair moved backward.
“Ray?”
Dad went still.
Nobody called my father Ray except people who had known him a very long time.
Derek stared at his mother.
“You know him?”
Sharon didn’t answer.
“Mom?”
She backed away.
Dad’s face hardened.
“Sharon Sutton.”
She shook her head.
“No.”
“You knew Richard.”
“Of course I knew Richard. He was my husband.”
“No.”
Dad stepped closer.
“You knew what he did.”
Sharon bumped into the table.
The pie plate slid.
“Please.”
Derek looked confused now.
“What the hell are you two talking about?”
Dad pointed toward me.
“I’m talking about your wife sitting in her own kitchen with bruises on her face while you joke about putting them there.”
Derek’s nostrils flared.
“You don’t know what happened.”
“You just told me.”
“It was one slap.”
My father’s eyes shifted to me.
I closed mine.
Derek realized too late what he had said.
Dad asked, “Claire?”
I whispered, “It wasn’t one.”
The room changed.
Derek stepped toward me.
“Claire.”
Dad moved between us.
One movement.
Nothing dramatic.
He simply stood there.
Derek stopped.
“Get out of my way.”
“No.”
“This is my house.”
Dad glanced around.
“Is it?”
Derek blinked.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I helped with the down payment.”
I stared at Dad.
He had.
Three years earlier, when Derek and I bought the townhouse, Dad had given us money from the sale of a second garage property.
I had forgotten.
Derek apparently had too.
“You gave us a gift,” Derek snapped.
“I gave my daughter a way to build a home.”
Dad looked at my bruises.
“This isn’t a home.”
Derek’s face reddened.
Sharon suddenly rushed toward the hallway.
Dad said one word.
“Stop.”
She did.
It was instinctive.
Immediate.
That frightened me more than anything else.
Sharon slowly turned.
Dad’s eyes moved to Derek’s watch again.
“Richard wore that the night he came to my garage.”
Sharon’s face crumpled.
“What night?” Derek demanded.
Nobody answered.
Dad looked at me.
“Outside, Claire.”
This time I obeyed.
I walked toward the back porch.
My legs felt strangely disconnected from the rest of me.
As I reached the glass door, Derek grabbed the back of a chair.
“Don’t walk away from me.”
I flinched.
Dad saw it.
That tiny involuntary movement told him more than I had managed to say in six years.
His face changed.
“Never speak to her like that again.”
Derek laughed nervously.
“Or what?”
Dad walked to the kitchen door.
He turned the lock.
Click.
Sharon made a broken sound.
Then she dropped to her knees.
Not because Dad touched her.
He didn’t.
She simply scrambled backward, one hand on the floor, staring at him.
“Ray, please.”
Derek looked horrified.
“Mom, get up.”
“You don’t understand,” Sharon whispered.
Dad faced her.
“Then explain it to him.”
She shook her head violently.
“Not here.”
“Explain.”
“Dad!” I called through the glass.
He looked at me.
For a second, I saw the man who taught me how to ride a bicycle.
Who sat beside my hospital bed when I had my appendix removed.
Who drove forty minutes because I once called him crying over a flat tire.
Then his gaze returned to Derek.
“Claire,” he said through the door, “call your mother.”
“My mother?”
“Now.”
My hands shook as I pulled out my phone.
Mom answered on the second ring.
“Happy birthday, baby—”
“Mom.”
She heard my voice.
“What happened?”
“Dad is here.”
A pause.
“Okay.”
“He saw my face.”
Another pause.
Longer.
“What did Raymond do?”
“He saw Derek’s watch.”
Silence.
“Mom?”
“What watch?”
“It belonged to Derek’s father. There are initials on it. R.M.S.”
My mother inhaled sharply.
“Claire, listen carefully.”
Something in her voice made me stand straighter.
“Go to your car.”
“What?”
“Do not go back inside.”
“Mom, what is happening?”
“Where is your father?”
“In the kitchen.”
“And Sharon?”
“She knows him.”
My mother said nothing.
“Mom?”
Then she whispered something I would remember forever.
“Your father promised me this day would never come.”
My heart hammered.
“What day?”
Before she could answer, a crash came from inside.
I spun around.
Derek had knocked a chair sideways.
Dad remained still.
Sharon was crying now.
I grabbed the door handle.
Locked.
Through the glass, I saw Dad pull something from his shirt pocket.
Not a weapon.
A folded photograph.
He placed it on the table.
Sharon stared at it.
Then she screamed.
Derek grabbed the photograph.
His expression changed instantly.
He looked at Sharon.
Then at my father.
“What is this?”
Dad said something I couldn’t hear.
Derek’s eyes widened.
He turned the photograph over.
There was writing on the back.
Three words.
I couldn’t read them from outside.
Then my phone buzzed.
A text from my mother.
DON’T LET DEREK SEE THE SECOND PHOTO.
I stared at the message.
Second photo?
I looked through the glass again.
Dad was reaching into his pocket.
He pulled out another photograph.
Sharon lunged toward him.
Derek caught her wrist.
“What’s in that picture?”
My father slowly turned it over.
May you like
Sharon screamed one name.
And it was mine.
