Among the guitars and amps and leads, there was a camp bed neatly made up with fresh bedding, a small rug on soundproofed floor. A stack of improving non-fiction books, mostly about pregnancy. Around me the empty shelves, intended one day for a wine collection, breathed dust, and I was sure there were spiders in the dark corners. Nick had left water for me, even a sandwich on a plate. He didn’t want to hurt me, at least, not until I’d had the baby. He just wanted to know where I was. That was all he’d wanted! And what better way to do that than to lock me up in the dungeon I hadn’t even noticed him building. It had been a while since I could climb the steps down here, and anyway, the music room was just another project I had no interest in. I’d let him build this prison around me, while I sat and brooded for another man.

I’m not stupid, he had said, before knocking me out, and he was right. I had treated him like he was blind, as if he didn’t see my red swollen eyes, the repeated checking of my phone, the way I jumped when the doorbell rang or hid my face when a car crashed on television. I had assumed that, because he hadn’t mentioned it, he hadn’t noticed. I had forgotten that Nick didn’t do mentioning. I had forgotten my earlier punishment, of being moved down here to the countryside, and now a smaller, less open prison was required to shock me into repentance.

And I did repent, really I did. If I could have, I would have gone back to the year before, never looked near Damian, never attended that stupid conference, walked right past you in the bar and gone to sleep alone in my room. I would have accepted my lot, a husband who loved me, a job I was good at, instead of always asking for more. I would never have given up work, never moved to the countryside, never met you. I would, perhaps, not be pregnant. Would I really give that up along with everything else? I didn’t know.

I knew I had to get out of here – that I would not be able to stand more than a day or two alone in the dark – and that I would say whatever it took to make that happen. I knew that Nick and I were done now, done for good, that keeping me here must be a crime of some kind, a terrible violation, and that I would call the police on him if and when I got out. But all the same, when I thought about it from his point of view, it made a kind of horrible sense.

Eleanor

Eleanor