Chapter 2 - The Flight from the Estate
The upstairs hallway smelled of heavy potpourri and old beeswax. Inside the guest suite that served as their temporary bedroom, Elise moved with mechanical precision.
She set Winnie down on the edge of the bed, kneeling before her. “Listen to Mommy very carefully. We are going to pack your favorite things. We are leaving this house, and we are never, ever coming back. Do you understand?”
Winnie nodded solemnly, her oversized eyes wide in her hairless head. “Is Daddy coming?”
Elise’s jaw tightened. She thought of Scott, currently fifty miles south overseeing a commercial construction project for his father’s real estate firm. Scott, who had spent the last two years slowly morphing into a replica of his father—dismissive, emotionally distant, and utterly beholden to Marjorie’s approval.
“No, baby,” Elise said softly. “Just you and me.”
She grabbed her large canvas duffel bag from the closet floor. Into it, she threw Winnie’s clothes, her medical records, her vaccination booklets, and Mr. Fox, the threadbare stuffed animal Winnie had slept with since birth. Then she grabbed her own laptop, her professional credentials, and her lockbox containing her birth certificate, social security cards, and the modest savings account she had maintained independently from Scott.
As she zipped the duffel shut, the bedroom door swung open.
Marjorie stood in the doorway, blocking the exit. Her arms were folded across her cream-colored cardigan, and her lips were pressed into a thin, censorious line.
“Where do you think you are going, Elise? You are making a scene over nothing.”
“Move out of my way, Marjorie,” Elise said, hoisting the heavy duffel bag over her shoulder and scooping Winnie into her other arm.
“If you walk out of this front door tonight,” Marjorie said, her voice dropping into a venomous hiss, “do not expect Scott to chase after you. And don't expect a single penny of support from this family. You will leave with nothing.”
“I am leaving with my daughter,” Elise replied, brushing past her mother-in-law with a force that made Marjorie stumble back half a step. “And that is all I have ever needed.”
Descending the stairs, Elise saw Howard and Bethany standing near the foyer. Neither made a move to stop her physically—perhaps because Marjorie had already made it clear they considered her beneath their dignity to touch twice—but their eyes followed her like cold, dead stones.
The heavy oak front door opened to the freezing January rain. Elise stepped out onto the gravel driveway, the bitter wind howling around them. She didn't have a car here—Scott had taken their sedan to Raleigh, leaving her to rely on rideshares when she wasn't at the clinic.
Standing beneath the shelter of the portico, shivering in the damp chill, Elise pulled out her phone. Her hands shook so badly she dropped it twice before she managed to open the ride-hailing app and punch in the address of a modest extended-stay motel near the Richmond airport.
While she waited for the car, she opened her messaging app and found Scott’s contact name. She stared at the screen for a long moment, feeling a sickening knot in her stomach, before typing out a single, unvarnished truth:
Your father struck me across the face. Your mother and sister shaved Winnie’s head over a missing bracelet she didn't take. We are leaving.
She hit send.
For five minutes, nothing happened. The rain continued to pour, soaking the hem of Elise’s coat. Winnie whimpered quietly against her shoulder, shivering despite the wool blanket Elise had wrapped around her.
Then, her phone vibrated in her palm. Scott’s reply had arrived.
Mom is under a tremendous amount of stress with the estate audit and the lost jewelry. You always overreact and make everything about yourself. Go back inside, apologize to my parents for yelling, and let everyone calm down. We are still a family, Elise. Stop acting like a child.
Elise stared at the glowing words until they blurred behind a wall of hot, furious tears.
There was no shock left. Only a profound, liberating clarity. The man she had married did not exist—or rather, he had never been the man she thought he was. He was simply a Walsh through and through, incapable of empathy, loyalty, or basic human decency.
May you like
She didn't reply to him. Instead, she pressed her thumb against his contact card, selected Block Number, and then deleted his thread entirely.
A silver sedan pulled up to the driveway, its headlights cutting through the sheets of rain. Elise opened the door, slid into the back seat with Winnie tucked safely against her side, and looked out the window as the grand brick colonial faded into the darkness behind them.
