“You’re doing a pretty good job of it now. How much of the money you make here does Tom drink away in a bottle? I didn’t say it was easy, but, honey, nothing about life is easy or ever has been. You got steel in you, and it’s time you believed it.”

This baby inside me is a ticking clock, and where I’d almost convinced myself this marriage was something I deserved, the vows a promise that shouldn’t be broken, it’s not only me anymore. I want better for my child. I want better for myself.

“You and the baby can always stay with me and Max.”

It’s kind of her to offer, but I can’t bring that kind of trouble to their doorstep, and in many ways, Key West is really a small town in its own right.

“What about your aunt?” she asks. “Your momma’s sister?”

“We write to each other, but I haven’t seen her since I was a little girl. I can’t bring these problems to her—”

“Sure you can. You worry about getting safe. The rest will fall into place.”

My mother passed away seven years ago, and I never miss her more than in moments like these, when I’m in need of advice, comfort. Maybe she would have told me my place was with Tom, that every man gets a little free with his fists when he’s had too much to drink, but whatever words she would have given me, the absence of her is the hardest part. She wasn’t a soft woman, my momma, couldn’t be married to a man like my father if she was, but she loved me, and I wish more than anything that she was still here, to help guide me through this new phase in life.

But she’s not here.

There’s just me, and this baby.

What if there could be something else? Somewhere for the two of us? What if I could be free? I’m scared, but more than anything, I’m tired. So tired.

“I’ll take my break now, Ruby.”

Our gazes lock, and she leans forward, wrapping her arms around me, giving me a swift hug—the first I’ve experienced in all the time I’ve known her.

“You do right by that baby. You do right for yourself.”

* * *

—

The fresh air hits me when I open the back door of Ruby’s, the freedom from the various odors escaping from the kitchen much needed, and I sag against the building’s exterior.

The sound of footsteps coming around the corner startles me. In the daylight, the back of the restaurant doesn’t seem as ominous as it did last night, but I’ve learned my lesson not to be too lax.

My heartbeat slows as John comes into view.

He stops a few feet away from me. His limp is less pronounced in the morning; in all the times he’s come into Ruby’s, I never really noticed it until last night.

“You’re in pain,” he says, his gaze searching.

“It’s the baby. It’s uncomfortable.”

“I worried about you last night. I shouldn’t have let you go into that house alone. I should have gone in with you to make sure it was safe.”

“That’s the last thing you should have done. Trust me. It only would have made things worse.”

“It’s not only the baby bothering you. Did he hurt you?” He says the words with a mixture of fury and disbelief, as though he cannot understand how such a thing is possible even though the evidence to the contrary is right in front of him.

My mind reels from my conversation with Ruby. It’s the leaving that scares me most. I can’t stay in Key West. But leaving is a difficult proposition when you don’t have a car and you don’t have much money. Leaving seems impossible when you’re walking away from all you’ve known, when the stakes are life and death.

I was a girl when we married, barely more than a child myself. Tom has been my whole world; he has made himself my whole world in all sorts of little ways I never even realized, like telling me what to wear, or what to eat, or who I should be friends with. But as hard as it is to envision my life without him, I can’t see staying with him, either.

In the distance, the sound of a hammer hitting a nail over and over again echoes like gunfire.

I jerk.

They’re boarding up houses and businesses in preparation for the storm. If she comes, they’ll applaud their foresight; if she misses us entirely, they’ll grumble as they pull down the boards.

It’s funny how one man’s paradise can be another’s prison.

I can’t stay another day in mine.

“I’m leaving him.”

The words escape my lips before my mind catches up with the reality of them, but as soon as I say them, I am filled with a sense of rightness even as fear seeps through.

“Where will you go?” John asks.

“My aunt lives up north—Islamorada. I haven’t seen her in years, but we write letters.” Letters I’ve always hidden from Tom, since he didn’t approve of Aunt Alice and her independence. “She might know of a place I could stay.”

Getting to Islamorada is the difficult part; it’s about an hour drive to the ferry landing, and then there’s the ferry—

“A guy I grew up with lives down here part of the year,” John says. “He lets me borrow his car when he’s not around, when he doesn’t need it. I’m planning on leaving this morning—driving up to No Name Key and taking the ferry back to camp. It would be no trouble for me to take you to your aunt’s.” He glances down at a surprisingly elegant timepiece. “Ferry leaves around eight. If we hurry, we might be able to make it.”

And like that, I leave my husband.

* * *

—

We barrel down the highway like the devil is on our heels. For all I know, perhaps he is. I left with nothing other than the clothes on my back, a fistful of tips and my unpaid wages—with a little extra from Ruby—shoved into the pocket of my dress. I briefly considered returning to the cottage to pack a bag, but there wasn’t enough time and it wasn’t worth the risk of encountering Tom. The ferry is unpredictable enough as it is; better to leave now when there’s help to be found and a chance of escape than miss this opportunity.

I glance at John behind the wheel of the Plymouth, wondering if he’s regretting his decision to help me out, if he’s afraid Tom will come after us. How would the law view a man interfering in the business of a man and his wife—helping to take his child away from him? In these parts, people take care of their own, and for an outsider like John, the price to pay is steep indeed.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“Why?”