Chapter 8 - The Broken Father
I didn't open the door. I retreated into the master bathroom with Micah, locked the solid-core door, pushed the heavy oak linen chest against it, and held my son against my chest with one hand while clutching a heavy iron fireplace poker with the other.
"Shh, Micah. Keep your eyes on me," I whispered into his ear. "Look at my eyes. Count the blue tiles on the wall with me. One, two, three..."
Micah buried his face into my sweater, his small fingers digging into my ribs, whispering the numbers with me in a terrified, trembling cadence.
Outside, the silence stretched for two agonizing minutes. Then, suddenly, a violent commotion erupted on the patio.
There was no sound of shattering glass or the roar of flames. Instead, a man’s frantic, screaming voice broke the night air:
"Evelyn! Drop it! Drop the damn lighter!"
It was Arthur.
A loud scuffle followed—the heavy thud of bodies crashing against the wooden patio furniture, the clatter of the plastic gas can rolling across the deck boards, and Evelyn’s shrill, animalistic shrieking: "Let go of me, you old fool! She ruined our boy! She sent Ross to jail! Let me finish it!"
"You're sick, Evelyn! You're completely sick!" Arthur roared back, his voice ragged with sobs. "Get off the deck! Get away from this house!"
Before Evelyn could break free, the dark yard was suddenly bathed in blinding red and blue strobe lights. Sirens howled as two squad cars jumped the curb of my front lawn, officers shouting commands as boots pounded across the gravel driveway toward the back.
"Police! Drop the lighter! Hands in the air! Hands where I can see them!"
Through the bathroom window, I saw the flashing lights paint the trees in brilliant scarlet. Evelyn’s screams reached a fever pitch, followed by the dull, unmistakable sound of someone being tackled onto the frosted grass.
"We have one female detained. Calling for an ambulance—she's resisting, combative. Secure the accelerant!"
Ten minutes later, a soft, cautious knock sounded on my front door, followed by Deputy Miller’s voice. "Nora? It's Miller. The scene is secure. You and Micah can come out."
I moved the linen chest, took Micah’s trembling hand, and walked out into the living room.
Through the front bay window, I saw Evelyn being forced into the back of a police cruiser. Her coat was torn, her silver hair wild and matted with grass and mud, her face contorted into a mask of pure, demonic venom as she spat at the window.
Sitting on the edge of my front porch steps was Arthur.
His head was buried in his rough, grease-stained hands. He had no coat on, only a thin flannel shirt in the twenty-degree chill. His shoulders shook violently as he wept—great, wracking sobs that seemed to tear through his entire frame.
I wrapped Micah in a heavy blanket, set him on the living room sofa with a glass of warm milk, and stepped out onto the porch.
Arthur didn't look up when the screen door clicked shut. "I followed her," he choked out, staring at the frosted boards between his boots. "I woke up and the truck was gone. She took the gas can from the shop. Nora... I swear to God Almighty, I didn't know she had gone this crazy. I didn't know."
"Dad," I said, staying six feet away from him.
He lifted his face. His eyes were bloodshot, his cheeks wet with tears. "Thirty-five years, Nora. Thirty-five years I let her run the house because it was easier than fighting her. I let her beat you down, I let her spoil Ross rotten, I let her treat you like dirt... and I told myself it was just 'keeping the peace.' And look where peace brought us."
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He looked at the puddle of gasoline on the back deck, visible around the corner.
"She was going to kill my grandson," Arthur whispered, his voice shattering into nothing. "She was going to burn you alive. And I enabled every single step that brought her to this porch."
