They had gone through the motions of a family breakfast. Lauren had choked down the scrambled eggs Leah had made for her. She had allowed Leah to drive them into Oak Knoll because Leah’s birthday was coming and she would turn sixteen and want to get her driver’s license.

She had managed to seem like a sane person while meeting Wendy’s mother. The girls had decided to take the daylong art course Sara Morgan was teaching at the women’s center. Later in the day Wendy had a tennis lesson and had invited Leah to play. Sara would take them and Lauren would come back into town at the end of the day, and they would all go to dinner like normal human beings.

Lauren wasn’t sure how she would manage to pull that off, but she would try for Leah’s sake.

And yet no sooner did she pledge to do something for her daughter’s sake than she found herself driving away from the Thomas Center to Roland Ballencoa’s neighborhood. She parked under a tree on a side street and sat there staring at his house while the tug of war pulled and twisted and turned inside of her.

Did you miss me?

Even if she wanted to be rid of him, she couldn’t stop him from touching her life. He would always be part of her life.

Did you miss me?

She took the note out of her purse and looked at it.

At the heart of all her anguish, all her anger, all her guilt and despair stood Roland Ballencoa. The hate that burned through her thinking about him literally made her see red. The note turned as red as blood before her eyes.

Did you miss me?

She took a pen from her purse and wrote beneath the neatly typed line: I would sooner see you in hell than see you at all.

She put the note back in the envelope and sat there. Funny how calm she seemed, she thought. All the conflicting emotions screaming in her head had gone to white noise. Now she didn’t think, she acted.

As if her body was not her own, she got out of her car, walked across the street, up Roland Ballencoa’s sidewalk onto his front porch.

What if he saw her? What if he came to the door? What would he say to her? What would she say to him? What if he tried to grab her?

What if my daughter is in his house? What if she’s in a box under his bed? What if I pull a gun on him? What if I’m tired of being his victim?

There was, at the core of her obsession, an almost giddy excitement at the idea of confronting him. There was a part of her that wanted him to come to the door.