When she left, I looked down at the intricate butterfly wings I’d been working on. Somehow, I had snapped them in two.

22

I didn’t sleep well that night. Normally, I went out like a light, even on the hard attic floor. But that night, I stared at the rafters for hours. Freya was pregnant. If she had the baby, it would usurp my space in her life. She wouldn’t come to the studio anymore, wouldn’t have time to do pottery with me. I knew firsthand how demanding babies were, how noisy, smelly, and needy. Freya might allow me to continue my work, but did I want to without her? Was my pinch-pot plan as fulfilling without her involvement?

And I didn’t want to go back to my parents’ house. Even if my mom’s assurances that Eckhart would grow out of his monster phase were true, I didn’t want to be there. My youngest brother had tipped the scales. We had gone from being a large, noisy, loving family to a chaotic shit show. The last few months had shown me that I needed space and calm and quiet.

If it had been a normal night, if I had been asleep, I wouldn’t have heard them. The screams were too far away, weren’t loud enough to wake me from a typically deep teenage slumber. Later, I would wonder if the cacophony was a regular occurrence. When I’d slept in Freya’s spare bedroom, I had thought I’d heard similar shrieks, but I’d been too drunk and high to know for sure. But this time, I was stone-cold sober. And I could hear Freya screeching.

Panic sent me scrambling out of bed, down the ladder, and out into the night. Luckily, I’d been sleeping in a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, so I wasn’t streaking across their lawn in pajamas or less. As I hurtled toward the house, I didn’t consider how my appearance at their door in the middle of the night would look. My sole focus was Freya’s anguish. I had to save her from what was clearly an awful fate.

The front door was locked, so I ran up onto the deck where double doors connected it to the kitchen and dining room. Residents of the island were lax about security, but Freya and Max were from the city. They would be in the habit of locking their doors to bar intruders. Had they fallen into complacency? Had a burglar gained access through an open door? A murderer or rapist? As I reached for the handle, I saw them through the glass.

Freya and Max were facing each other in the kitchen. She wore a silky pink robe; he was in a pair of boxer shorts. I watched as Freya smacked her husband across the head. Hard.

“You stupid piece of shit!” she growled. “I fucking hate you!”

She smacked him again. And then again. Max just stood there, accepting her blows, flinching only slightly under the assault. Blood trickled from an angry scratch on his left cheek.