My heart is in my throat as I hear Charlie’s secretary on the other end of the line. “Ms. Owens, we’re ready to connect your call through to Ms. Owens. Would you like to connect?”
“Yes,” I say. “Thank you.”
“Connecting now,” she says in her Southern sing-song voice.
I let out a breath as I wait. The only other sound is the humming of the AC unit in my rental car. That sound is broken by the trill of a dial tone.
It dials once. Twice. Three times.
Then the click as we connect.
“Tess, darling?” comes Bea’s smooth, alto voice. “Tess, are you there?”
I’m flooded with emotion at hearing the clear note of concern in her tone. “Yes—Bea, it’s me. I’m here.”
“Oh, Tess,” she cries. “You’ve had us all scared half to death. Your apartment looked like it was ransacked. I was ready to call the police until Troy said he finally heard from your lawyer that you were alright.”
“Bea, I’m so sorry—”
“Where are you, darling? Let me come to you. Wherever you are, it’s not home. Let me bring you home,” she pleads.
I shake my head, knowing she can’t see it. “I can’t,” I say. “I have no home there anymore.”
“That’s nonsense. Tess, you listen to me now. All of this has been blown so completely out of proportion. I simply cannot believe that Dale chose to handle this situation as he did. I swear to you, when they told me about that god-awful HR meeting, I saw red.”
I blink back my tears. “So, you didn’t know? You didn’t approve them putting me on administrative leave?”
“Are you kidding me?” she cries. “What is this, a Nathaniel Hawthorne novel? We don’t punish our best and brightest junior partners for dancing at a wedding, Tess. It’s ridiculous.”
I breathe a sigh of relief, even as my gut churns. All this means is that Troy lied. Again. He lied to everyone, convincing us all that Bea was the mastermind, wielding the company’s morality clause like a cudgel to break and silence me.
“You know who should be put on administrative leave is Dale,” she adds with an irritated huff. “I simply can’t believe that after ten years with this company, he thought this was the best way to handle what was so clearly a private family matter.”
I go still, heart racing as I put together the pieces. “Bea, wait…who do you think is responsible for putting me on administrative leave?”
“Dale,” she cries. “I swear, that man is a menace. I’d fire him if I could get the other partners to all agree.”
Everything stops.
I close my eyes, taking a deep breath. “Bea, this was Troy.”
“Of course, Troy is upset,” she says quickly. “He’s been beside himself wondering where you are. He said he walked you out of the office mid-day on Monday and hadn’t heard from you since. We had to have the fire department let us into your apartment, and we found it in such a state. We were sure you’d been taken in the night—”
I can’t do this. I can’t listen to her spew back his lies.
“—and then there’s all this nonsense about the divorce papers. Troy was blindsided, Tess. Devastated. This was never in the plan—”
“Bea, enough,” I shout. “It’s my turn to talk now, okay?”
“Tess—”
“No, I need to talk, and I need you to just listen for a minute, okay? I have to get this out. I feel like I’ll die if I don’t get this out,” I say, putting every ounce of feeling I have into the words.
“What do you need to say, honey?”
Where to even start?
“Look, I know you don’t want to hear this, but Troy is lying to you. He’s lying to everyone. He didn’t ‘walk me out’ of the office last week,” I say, miming air quotes. “He kicked me out. He threatened to have security escort me out if I didn’t go quietly—”
“No,” Bea says, and I can practically see her in my mind, shaking her head, the little pearl drops she loves so well dangling from her ears. “Troy would never.”
“Troy is the one who arranged everything with that bullshit HR meeting,” I go on. “He’s the one who assembled the partners without you. He called in Dale and gave them all the photos of Ryan and me dancing at Rachel’s wedding. He shoved this stupid morality clause down my throat—which, by the way, if anyone in this family is guilty of breaking the company’s morality code, it would be your precious son. Did you forget all the women he fucked on company time, in company offices? Because I sure as hell didn’t.”
“Tess, you’re rehashing old history now,” she says with a tired sigh. “I’m fully aware that my son has made many mistakes. He apologized. He tried to make it right with you. He went to counseling—”
“He was fucking his secretary the whole time,” I cry. “I caught Candace on our security footage stumbling through the bushes in my backyard when I was in the goddamn house!”
“Again, that was in the past,” Bea rationalizes. “What happened then must surely still be painful to you. I won’t deny it still brings me pain to know the things he’s done. But it’s not like you hold no blame for what happened,” she adds, her tone icy. “It always takes two people to break up a marriage.”
Oh, fucking spare me. If one more person dares to give me this particular piece of sage wisdom, I’m gonna punch them right in the cunt, I swear to God.
“I’m not saying I judge you for your choices either, Tess,” she goes on, filling my stunned silence. “You chose to put your career first. You chose to stop making his happiness a priority. But have I ever judged you for your mistakes? Have I loved you any less?”
“No,” I say, eyes closed. “Bea, we’re not doing this. I am not to blame for Troy cheating on me. That was a choice he made. I can’t force another person to cheat. He alone is responsible for his actions. And, honestly, that’s not even the main reason our marriage failed.”
“Well, you certainly bring it up often enough to justify my being confused,” she counters.
I just sigh. This conversation is going nowhere. It’s time to redirect. “Bea, I know you love him, but can you really deny that Troy exhibits a pattern of selfish and manipulative behavior? Your son is a narcissist—”
“That’s enough,” she snaps. “I’m not going to let you turn this into a diatribe of all Troy’s faults. You want to talk of choices? You’ve clearly chosen to hate him. You’ve chosen to see only the worst in him, and that will be your cross to bear. But I answered this call to talk about you. I answered because I was worried about you, Tess. As a valued employee and a loved member of this family, you deserved nothing less.”
“I’m not a member of this family anymore,” I reply, suddenly feeling so tired. “At this point, I’m just a hostage.”
There’s a deafening silence.
At last, Bea says, “I never thought you of all people could say something so unspeakably cruel.”
Tears sting my eyes again. “No, Bea. Do you know what’s unspeakably cruel? Do you want to know what the last thing was that your son did to me before he forced me out of my office last week?”
“Tess—”
“He put his hand around my throat, and he squeezed. He choked the air out of me while I begged him to let me go—”
“Stop,” she pleads.
“Why would I stop for you when he wouldn’t stop for me?” I press, indignation lacing my every word. “He called me a whore, and he choked me. This was all after he threatened to ruin me. Do you really think there is any universe in which I wouldn’t ask for a divorce after that? Would you stay legally chained to a man who chokes you, Bea? A man who breaks his vows and fucks other women in your marriage bed? A man who belittles you and lies to you? A man who stalks you and scares you and threatens your job, your reputation—”
“I can’t bear this—”
“If I can bear it, you will too,” I shout. “This is your son, Bea. You think this is about the infidelity? No, your precious boy hurts me.”
“Please, stop,” she whispers, and I know she’s done. If I push any harder, she’ll hang up on me, and I need her. We’re both crying, our emotions exposed like two raw nerves. Finally, she breaks the silence. “Tess, darling, come home. Just come home, and I can help you work through all of this. We can’t fix this if you won’t come home.”
“No,” I say again. “I won’t put myself within physical reach of Troy ever again.”
Another choked sob echoes through the phone. “So…what then? You’re just done with me too? After thirteen years of a shared life, we just never see each other again?”
“You don’t have to break ties with me just because I’ve broken ties with Troy,” I explain, manifesting my hope into the universe. Please, God, let her not forsake me as all others always do. “I’ve tried to make that clear for the last three years. I love you, Bea. You’re the mother I never had. I’ve always loved and admired you, and I want you in my life but…”
“But you want never to see or speak to my son, the alleged wife-beater, ever again.”
She summarizes it so coolly, with such an air of resignation. And it’s in that moment that I know I’ve lost her. The pain tears through me, ripping me apart. I’m barely holding it together.
“Bea,” I whimper into the phone, knowing it’s pointless. Maybe part of me always knew.
“Can you just tell me where you are?” she asks again. “I just need to know that you’re safe.”
“No,” I reply, tears streaking down my face.
“You won’t tell me?”
“No,” I say again, my voice catching. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
I speak the truth we both know. “Because I can’t trust you not to tell Troy.”
We sit in the silence of that truth. I watch as a pair of men casually open the ice box and pull out a few bags. They walk in front of my car, ready to load their cooler, as if inside this vehicle my life isn’t going up in flames.
“What happens from here?” Bea says at last.
Finding my voice, I make my plea. “If you ever truly loved me, you’ll help me convince Troy to sign the divorce papers. This doesn’t have to be contested.”
I sense her indecision. “Divorce is such an ugly word,” she replies. “And the press, our clients, our friends—”
“There’s a way out of this that doesn’t involve a PR crisis for the family or the firm,” I say, ready to silence her doubts. “But you need to know this, and you need to hear it, Bea. Take off your mother hat and put on your CEO hat. Troy means to detonate us both. If you side with him in this, you will be left holding the grenade when he pulls the pin.”
“You certainly paint a bleak picture.”
“You’re the one who’s always cared about appearances,” I counter. “You want the public face of your family and your company preserved? Then help me. Just this once, set aside your blind loyalty to Troy. I have an idea of how we spin this into a positive outcome for everyone, but if you won’t help me, then Troy wins…and we will all burn.”
Whether she can admit it out loud or not, Bea Owens knows the truth about her son. If she has to bet her family’s name and her company’s reputation on my conduct or his, I can only pray she’ll make the right choice.
After a moment’s consideration, I hear the resignation in her tone. “Fine. We’ll try this your way, Tess. Just tell me what you want me to do.”
I smile as the smallest kernel of hope blooms in my chest. It’s weak, and so terribly fragile, but it’s there. “Get him to sign the papers. Without the divorce papers in hand, the rest of my plan falls apart.”
She sighs. “I’ll see what I can do.”
