I tried to speak.
Nothing came out.
“Sweetheart?”
“Can Maya and I stay with you?”
“Of course.”
My voice broke.
“Something happened to her.”
Rebecca didn’t ask for an explanation.
“Tell me where you are.”
Forty minutes later, she walked into the hospital waiting room, took one look at my face, and wrapped her arms around me.
I cried against her shoulder.
“I should have done something sooner.”
She held me tighter.
“You’re protecting her now.”
When I finally explained what had happened, Rebecca’s face went pale.
Then her expression hardened.
“Adrian always wanted control. I never imagined this.”
Neither had I.
That was what hurt so much.
I had mistaken control for protectiveness.
When Adrian complained about my friends visiting too often, he’d called it a desire for family privacy.
When he discouraged me from working full-time, he’d said he wanted Maya to have her mother at home.
When he insisted on controlling our finances, he’d told me he was reducing my stress.
