The Light Through the Leaves(8)

Ellis drowned her shrinking ice cubes in more whiskey and watched Jonah pull his car out of the driveway. She didn’t recall much more of that evening. She remembered hearing River and Jasper fight over the TV. She looked out her bedroom window, watching a raven flap its darkness across the ashen sky. She had a bottle of pills in her hand.

She woke in the emergency room. They told her she’d overdosed.

The same psychiatrist who’d prescribed the pills told her she had to stop taking them. She said she needed them. She begged. She cried. But they wouldn’t let her have anything.

It hurt. God, it hurt.

Two days later, her first day back home, Jonah came to her in the living room. When Ellis saw the look on his face, she understood why Mary Carol had taken the boys out of the house. She was grateful for the drink in her hand. Jonah hadn’t found the bottle she’d hidden in the laundry room when he’d cleared the house of alcohol and pills.

He glanced bitterly at the drink as he approached. “I’m not going to draw this out,” he said. “I think we both know this isn’t working.”

“I agree,” she said. “Your mother has to go. She’s wrecking our family. Your father, too. Let’s tell them they can never come here again.”

His bold stance crumbled into perplexity.

She wanted to laugh at his dismay, but if she had, she’d have ruined the humor. Jonah was such an ass. He truly didn’t know she was jesting.

“I’m talking about us,” he said.

“I know,” she said. “They’ve come between us. It’s time we take a stand.”

“Ellis . . .”

“What?”

“I’m trying to say I want to leave you.”

She let herself laugh. And laugh and laugh. She was aware of how out of control she looked. She didn’t care.

“Stop it.”

“Stop what?” she said, wiping at the tears.

“Laughing. This isn’t funny.”

“What’s funny is you don’t know why it’s funny. You don’t know the half of it—as they say.”

“What don’t I know?”

“You don’t know I took the kids to have lunch with you the day Viola was taken. You don’t know we were going to surprise you with a picnic in the park like we used to do. You don’t know I saw you get in Irene’s car and kiss her. You don’t know I said something to distract the boys and drove away fast so they wouldn’t see you. You don’t know how I felt at that moment, to know you’d been with another woman all that time, even while I was screaming and pushing your baby out.”

Jonah stood in jaw-dropped silence.

“You don’t know that was why I had to go to the woods that day. But you know that’s what I do, go to the woods when I’m upset. To try to figure out what to do.”

“Ell, I’m—”

“Quiet! I’m not done.”

He clamped his mouth shut.

“You don’t know I told the boys they could catch tadpoles so they’d want to go to the woods with me. You don’t know I decided I had to divorce you, and it was the hardest decision of my life. You don’t know River spilled his tadpoles in the car and both boys were screaming, and I was so crazy about what you’d done to all of us that I forgot about the baby.”

Ellis stood, suddenly strong.

“You don’t know jack shit, Jonah! You don’t know what it was like when I realized I’d left Viola. You don’t know how I wanted to die when I saw someone had taken her.”

Jonah pressed his palms to his temples, as if trying to squeeze everything he’d heard out of his brain.

“I’m leaving you!” she shouted. “Tell that to your lawyer! I’m leaving you because you’ve betrayed our marriage vows! I’m leaving you because you’re at least half-responsible for Viola’s abduction! I’m not taking this on by myself anymore! You’re as guilty as I am!”

Jonah started crying. Ellis had never seen him do that, not even the day Viola was taken.

He was sobbing, all red in the face, his nose running, and she was struck by how much she had loved him. Or was it only his beauty that she’d loved? His thick nut-brown hair, eyes the color of clear sky, cheekbones as sculpted as smooth stones.

She hoped his looks weren’t all that had drawn her in. But what was it; what had she loved about him? His gentleness? His calmness? Was it only that he’d said he loved her, and she thought she had to love him back? She once thought she loved his goodness, but now she knew he wasn’t good. That hurt the most.

“Ell . . . Ell . . . ,” he said at last, “I can’t explain. I can’t tell you. You don’t understand . . . you don’t know why . . .”

“I know what I saw. Do you deny it?”

“No.”

“Are you still with her?”

He didn’t reply, but she saw the answer. Guilt hung over him like a haze. Of course he was still with Irene. He was rarely home. He’d let his mother take over, just as he had when he was a boy.

Ellis slid down to the couch, sapped of her momentary strength. “I’m leaving you, Jonah. I want half of everything. But not the boys. I have to leave them.”

He quit crying, his eyes wide. “You won’t contest my custody?”