Chapter 6

Joe's mom and grandmother had been understandably distraught when I informed them of his passing, but it was nothing compared to the pain of watching my daughter's heart break when I told her that Daddy had gone to heaven. I wasn't really sure that's where he'd ended up in the grand scheme of things, but I wasn't about to taint Frankie's view of her father, especially now that he was dead. She deserved good memories of him, not the knowledge that Mama thought he'd done enough to warrant a trip to hell.

What hurt the most, though, was the way she lifted her head from my shoulder where she'd cried herself out for at least half an hour. I thought she'd fallen asleep there, but her expression held no hints that she'd just woken up when she leaned back to look at me, tears still clinging to her lower lashes.

"Does this mean we can go home now?" she asked plaintively.

I was torn. While a significant part of me never wanted to step foot in the house again, and instead just start new somewhere else, I was also aware that it was the only home Frankie had ever known. It was her safe space, and all of her things were there. All of my things were there, but I was far less attached to them than my daughter was to her things. I'd had to replace my belongings so often while working in bond enforcement that letting go of material possessions was easy. The only things I was attached to in that house were the items I'd set aside in the memory box of Frankie's baby years and milestones.

The part that really tore at my heart, though, was the fact that Frankie recognised that the reason we couldn't go home was her father.

"Yeah, baby, we can go home," I confirmed with a sigh. "We'll pack up here, say goodbye to Gram-Ella and the Range-Uncles, and then we can go home, okay?"

And that's exactly what we did. I could see in their eyes that word had spread through the Merry Men not only about Joe's death, but of the domestic violence. They held me tighter and longer, and when it came time for Frankie and I to drive away, I noticed the car that followed us out of the garage and all the way home, parking a block away to keep an eye on us. Not that there was anything to look out for. The only threat to my life recently was now dead. I wouldn't deny them their surveillance though, if it made them feel better.

I couldn't even imagine how they felt finding out that I had been in that situation and hadn't told them until it was too late for them to do anything. They had always pledged to protect me, and I hadn't given them the opportunity when I truly needed it.

That would change, I silently vowed as I unlocked the front door and Frankie raced inside ahead of me, only to freeze when she caught sight of the destruction and chaos filling the house. The side table in the hall had been knocked over, the glass dish that usually held our keys when we were home shattered on the hardwood floor, the shards interspersed with loose change and bits of mail. A glance into the dining and living rooms showed a similar situation. A chair smashed across the table, DVDs and books knocked off of shelves, cushions thrown across the room, and the Christmas tree was decimated. I could only imagine what the rest of the house looked like.

"Mama?" Frankie asked, turning wide, terrified eyes up at me.

"Let's go back outside for a minute," I suggested, urging her out onto the porch with one hand behind her back. I squinted down the street to the black SUV sitting at the curb, contemplating my options. It would be so easy to request their help to clean up, but I also had the Burg grapevine to worry about. If Rangeman employees were seen entering the house less than 24 hours after my husband died, they'd have a field day with the gossip mill. Rumours would fly left and right.

Probably, there were already rumours about where I'd been for two nights.

"Why's thewe a big mess, Mama?" Frankie asked while I was still figuring out my options. I couldn't let Frankie go back in there and risk her getting hurt with all the debris. I needed her out of the way for a few hours while I got it all cleaned up.

"I don't know, sweetie," I told her. Though I could guess based on the pattern of destruction that Joe hadn't taken kindly to the news of the complaint I had filed, and that he wouldn't be able to work while it was investigated. Between that and our absence, he would have gone into a rage, throwing things. I wouldn't be surprised if there were a couple holes in the walls from where he punched them.

Thank god we hadn't been home. I didn't want to think about what might have happened if I'd ; been stupid enough to go home; if Ranger hadn't been there to stop me from going home. The phantom ache of all his blows flared across my torso and I sucked in a sharp breath, leaning against the railing as a wave of panic and dizziness washed over me.

"Mama?" Frankie questioned again, worry colouring her tone as she reached for my hand.

I forced myself to take deep, steadying breaths. "I'm okay," I told her, pulling my lips into a smile that I was 99% sure didn't reach my eyes. Straightening from the wall, I gripped her hand in mine and made up my mind of what needed to be done. "Let's jump back in the car and go see Grandma and Grampy," I suggested. I could leave Frankie with them while I cleaned the house, then filch dinner off them when I returned to pick her up.

I'd have to answer to my mother's inquisition for not being home and not answering my phone, but I'd endure it to keep my daughter safe, to make the house safe for her to come back to.

Mom was at the storm door when we pulled up out front, as per usual, and I could see the questions lining up behind her eyes as we ascended the stairs to meet her.

"Thank god you're alright," she gushed, throwing the door wide and snatching Frankie and me into a tight hug. "I thought you'd been abducted, or worse. No one's seen you in twenty-four hours, and then I heard that Joseph had passed away. Oh, Stephanie, you must be devastated. He was such a good man! Such a good father for Francesca!"

My spine stiffened instinctively. Good man? Is that what we call wife-beaters? Except, of course, I hadn't told my parents about the abuse, so how could they know? I'd kept it hidden from everyone, because I didn't want to make things worse with Joe. Self-preservation.

"It's been a rough morning," I admitted, rather than blurt out the truth that was clogging my throat. Would I ever be free of its weight? "Listen, I have some things I need to deal with, can you look after Frankie for the afternoon?"

"Of course," Mom assured me, finally releasing us both and leading us into the kitchen. "There must be so much to figure out with funeral arrangements and such. We can keep Frankie as long as you need."

Fuck. The funeral arrangements. That would be my job to organise. I filed that away, shaking my head. It could wait until after I'd cleaned up the mess at home. "Just the afternoon, Mom," I reiterated. "But if we could join you and Dad for dinner, that would be great."

She nodded sagely. "There's always room for you at our table, Stephanie, you know that. Frankie, have you had lunch yet?"

I glanced at the oven clock, realising that it was already approaching one o'clock. It was a wonder Frankie hadn't been complaining that her tummy was rumbling. "She hasn't eaten," I answered for my daughter. "Things have been a little hectic."

More nodding and 'of courses' were her reply as she busied herself gathering ingredients to make Frankie a grilled cheese. I took her distraction and the fact that she hadn't even attempted to interrogate me about my whereabouts as good signs, but needed to lay down a little insurance to make sure I wasn't grilled when I returned.

"Come take your coat and boots off, Frankie-girl," I instructed, taking my daughter's hand and leading her back out into the hallway. I knelt down to help her with the zips and laces and so that I could swear her to secrecy on our whereabouts. I hated asking her to lie, but it was in our best interests. Right now the scrutiny of the Burg's ever watchful eyes were on us in the wake of Joe's death, and if they caught wind that we'd spent two nights at Rangeman, regardless of how innocent it actually was, or the fact that it was to ensure the safety of myself and my child, rumours of infidelity would start and it would be hell trying to convince them otherwise.

"You can't tell Grandma and Grampy about staying with the Range-Uncles," I urged her, slipping the knit hat off her head and tucking her frizzy hair behind her ears.

"Grandma doesn't wike the Wange-Uncles," Frankie agreed solemnly.

"Right," I nodded, taking her hands in each of mine, and holding her gaze steady. "So when Grandma asks where we were, you say-"

"Pwaying wiff fwiends."

I smiled. "Good girl." I kissed the top of her head, and then each cheek. "We were visiting Aunty Mare at the beach."

"I wuv the beach," Frankie enthused, bouncing up and down on her toes.

"Me too," I agreed. "When the weather warms up, maybe we'll take another trip to the beach."

Frankie's grin was the widest I'd seen it in ages as she looped her arms around my neck and squeezed tightly. "I wuv you, Mama."

I squeezed her back instinctively. I never wanted to let her go. "I love you too, Frankie. Be a good girl for Grandma and Grampy while I'm gone, and I'll see you at dinner time."

As I straightened and hung up Frankie's coat in the hall closet, Dad wandered out of the living room, a stick with bells attached to it, very similar to the one Frankie had been given to shake at her concert two days ago, in his hands.

God was it only two days ago? It felt like I'd lived a million lives since then.

"I thought I heard my jingle-beller," he said, stooping down to scoop Frankie up into his arms when she immediately ran to him. "How did your concert go?" he asked her, shaking the bells he held. "Can you show me some of your moves?"

"She has to eat lunch first, Frank!" Mom's voice called from the kitchen. "You don't want her to starve, do you?"

Dad rolled his eyes at me. "I'm sure she's not starving, Helen," he countered, but let Frankie down anyway, patting her bottom to send her into the kitchen for lunch. "Go eat before Grandma freaks out."

Frankie paused to give me another hug goodbye before skipping off to appease her grandmother, leaving me alone with my Dad.

"I'm sorry about Joe," he said quietly, stepping forward and jerking his head toward the door, indicating that he wanted to talk to me outside. I followed without a word, unsure of what I was supposed to do or say when a parent expressed sympathy for the loss of a man who had hurt me both physically and emotionally. I didn't want to lie to my father, but I also didn't know how to admit the truth to him without the shame overwhelming me.

We were silent on the porch, Dad eyeing me critically for a few seconds before he settled into a grim expression, hands in pockets, shoulders rounded. "I heard something from Eddie that I didn't want to believe," he explained, peering down at me in a way that made me feel far too seen. My pulse ticked up in fear of his reaction. "Pumpkin, why didn't you tell me?"

"I couldn't," I explained, tears lodged in my throat. "If I said anything it would only make things worse if he found out. I didn't want things to get worse, but then I found out I'm pregnant again, and I couldn't let anything happen to the baby if he hit me in the wrong spot, so I filed the report, and now… Oh God, Daddy," I cried quietly, flinging my arms around his neck in much the same way Frankie had done to me this morning. "He made a mess at home before he went to the bar last night. There's broken glass, and chairs, and I don't know what else. I took one look at it from the entryway and knew I needed Frankie out of there until it was cleaned up. The house is trashed."

"We'll take good care of her," Dad murmured into my hair, hugging me tightly. "Don't you worry. I'm just glad you weren't home when he did it."

"Me, too." I doubted I'd be standing here if I'd been there when Joe came home from being told he was on forced leave while they investigated him for domestic violence charges. Given the state of the house, I can only assume I would have had broken bones.

"Do you need help cleaning up?" he asked

My face still pressed firmly into his shoulder, I shook my head side to side. "I need to do this on my own." It would be like a cleansing ritual.

When I returned home, though, I found Lester and Ram in the kitchen loaded up with gloves and trashbags, leaning against the counters, and sipping from takeaway cups.

"Brett and Binkie got worried when you came inside and immediately left again, so they called us while they were tailing you to your parents' house," Lester explained, passing me a takeaway cup of hot chocolate. "We let ourselves in the back to investigate and knew we couldn't let you clean all this up by yourself."

"We're the cleaning elves," Ram pointed out, drawing my attention to the red and green striped hats they both wore with oversized, pointed ears attached to the sides.

"Can you believe the gas station down the road sells these hats, but not fairy wings?" Lester added. "Ridiculous."

I smiled despite the emotions continuing to swirl inside me, stirred up afresh by the conversation with my Dad. "Anyone would think it's almost Christmas," I pointed out, following it up with a long, savouring sip of my hot chocolate and what would have been a single raised eyebrow if I was capable of such things.

"Crazy," Lester agreed. "And speaking of Christmas, I sent Tank on a quest for a new tree, because yours appears to have been reduced to a pile of firewood."

"Thank you," I murmured. Because despite asserting to Dad that cleaning up the house was something that I needed to do on my own, just looking at the mess all around me had me exhausted. I never would have asked the guys for help, but I was so grateful they had inserted themselves anyway.

Lester pushed off the counter and slung an arm over my shoulder. "That's what family is for," he reminded me. "Now, given the short amount of time before you backed out of the house earlier, I assume you haven't done a full stocktake of everything that's been trashed, so let's do a walk through, and then you can tell us where we can start."

I nodded and set my hot chocolate down, but Lester immediately picked it back up and pressed it into my hand. "Bring that," he instructed. "You're not lifting a finger til you've finished it."

"But-"

"Cleaning elves," Ram reminded me pointedly, tapping the ears on his hat.

Rather than argue, I led the way upstairs to check out the damage. The hall wasn't too bad, just a couple of frames knocked off the wall. Ram picked them up without a word, dusted them off, and hung them on the hooks they'd come from. Frankie's room appeared untouched, as did the spare room, but I knew it couldn't extend to the bedroom I'd shared with Joe as well. I paused outside the door to take a deep breath, steeling myself for what I was about to be confronted with.

Lester and Ram stood on either side of me, facing across the hall to give me a modicum of privacy, but close enough to catch me if I became overwhelmed.

I pushed the door and it swung open freely revealing a similar mess to down stairs. Pillows were strewn over the room, the comforter had been stripped from the bed, and trailed across the floor, dotted with bits of satin and lace thrown from my lingerie drawer as it was upended. I picked my way through it all, noting the lamp that had been knocked off my bedside table, but paying it little mind as I caught sight of the bathroom and the shattered mirror. It looked like he'd punched it right in the centre, and swiped everything off the counter.

I picked my way back over to the door where they guys stood waiting like sentries. "I need a bag," I requested.

"We can clean it up," Lester assured me, turning to do just that until I pushed my hand into his face to stop him.

"Lester," I said sternly. "I love you like a brother, but you are not picking my lingerie up off the floor. Let me collect it all, and then I'll get one of you to have a look at the mirror in the bathroom. I'm not really sure what to do with it."

Lester made a disappointed noise but handed over a trash bag anyway and I traded him for my half-finished drink. "You could consider donating the lingerie to a woman in need," he said over his shoulder. "Or a man in need?"

"Have you ever been in need?" I scoffed, tossing a pink camisole I'd hated from the get-go into the bag and following it with a pair of purple panties that were also so not me. "I find that hard to believe."

"He's struck out more times than he'd like you to believe," Ram said, and I could hear the grin in his voice. "Tell her about the blonde with the birthmark in the shape of Italy on her cheek from last weekend."

"She didn't appreciate my boot puns," Lester explained amicably.

I glanced at the cleaning elves over my shoulder to be sure they weren't looking as I picked up a thong and tossed it in the bag. "And you think giving her second-hand lingerie would have smoothed things over?" I asked.

The guys laughed. "I think he was planning on using them for his own pleasure, Bomber," Ram pointed out. "I'd tie the bag off when you're done if I were you."

With the lingerie all out of sight and a few other items also put away, I kicked the bedding aside so the guys wouldn't trip on it, and let them know they could come in. Ram took one look at the mirror in the bathroom and whipped out his phone, took a photo, then strode from the room as he tapped at the screen. Lester, his mouth set in a grim line, picked out a dustpan and brush from the basket of paraphernalia they'd brought up with them. He pointed toward the bed, suggesting I remove all the sheets and put a load of washing on while he swept up the glass shards.

I did as he suggested, and left him to tidy there while I assessed the downstairs. The kitchen was mostly just littered with trash from the bin that had been upturned, and the dining room and entryway were no worse off than I'd seen when Frankie and I first arrived home. The living room, though, had sustained the most damage. Not only had the tree been knocked over and broken to bits, but the few presents that were already wrapped and under the tree had been smashed. One in particular held the very definite imprint of a boot on it.

After how pristine Frankie's bedroom had been upstairs, I'd hoped that the Christmas presents would have been similarly spared, but apparently I overestimated Joe's control. And when I picked up the torn package that held the baby doll Frankie had been asking for only to discover that whatever violence the it had sustained had removed the plastic head from it's soft body, I couldn't hold back the emotions anymore.

It was too symbolic. Too prophetic of what could have happened if I hadn't spoken out, if I'd submitted and let the abuse continue unchecked. That could have been any one of us; me, Frankie, or the growing life inside me. And that wasn't okay. I wasn't okay.

I was a sobbing mess when Ram and Lester found me several minutes later, cradling the broken doll to my chest where I kneeled on the floor next to the destruction that was once the beautiful Christmas tree Frankie and I had decorated together. It was like he couldn't leave us even one nice thing.

Lester guided me to the kitchen where he sat me down at the table with a glass of water and a box of tissues. Ram cleaned up the mess strewn across the room in the blink of an eye, while Lester talked to me, coaxing me to calm down, and when I could finally breathe without hiccoughing, they left me with a legal pad and a pen to make a list of everything that needed replacing, and stern orders not to move until the washing machine was finished it's cycle.

I changed the washing over to the dryer and returned to the kitchen, busying myself with rewashing the dishes in the drying rack, and wiping down all the counters. A part of me wanted to check on Lester and Ram's progress, but a greater part of me knew that I didn't want to see the remnants of Joe's anger ever again, so instead, I returned to my pad and paper and started a to-do list. Everything from organising funeral details to buying toilet paper went on the list. And by the time I had dumped everything in my brain onto the page, the doorbell had rung three times with concerned neighbours offering obligatory condolences and dropping off casserole dishes.

I accepted them politely, unable to muster up anything more than a tight-lipped expression when they expressed their regret at the loss of 'such a good man'. I wanted to scream in their faces that he was so far from a good man it wasn't funny, but I didn't have the energy.

At five o'clock, Tank and Ranger arrived with the Christmas tree, two bags of ornaments to replace the ones that had been smashed in Joe's tree massacre, and a mirror that was miraculously the same size as the one Lester had removed while I was making my lists in the kitchen. And although he brought everything in through the back of the house, I couldn't help but assume the neighbours had noticed the large black man single-handedly hauling in a Christmas tree that was bigger than him, trailed by a figure everyone knew was Ricardo Carlos Manoso.

The Burg gossips would have plenty to keep them busy over the Christmas break, that was for sure.