Chapter 1
The black leather belt swung inches above Naomi Carter's bowed head while her husband laughed.
Her palms burned against the patterned gray rug. The thirty-year-old woman's dark brown skin shone with tears; her cornrows met in a low bun behind her cream blouse. Her navy trousers brushed the carpet as she struggled to move. Behind her stood Marcus, thirty-five, dressed in his favorite black shirt, turning the belt around one fist as though the scene were a joke he had invented for company.
"Ask properly," he said.
On the beige couch, his silver-haired mother, Evelyn, gave a brittle laugh. She wore a burgundy dress and sat with her ankles crossed. Daniel, Marcus's bearded older brother in a gray polo, made a sound like a cough before joining in. A teapot steamed on the rectangular coffee table between them.
"I asked you to stop," Naomi whispered.
"No," Marcus said. "You asked me to explain something you don't understand. That's different."
Naomi had asked why a folder labeled FAMILY PLANNING contained a document bearing her name, her address, and a signature she had never written. Marcus had pulled the folder away. When she tried to take it back, he stepped into her path. She stumbled against the table and dropped to her knees. The belt came out of his waistband almost casually.
For several seconds, nobody moved to help her.
Only yesterday, Naomi had come home carrying a grocery bag and found Evelyn rearranging the photographs on the mantel. One picture of Loretta had been moved behind Marcus's college graduation portrait. When Naomi shifted it back, Evelyn had smiled and said, "You really hold on to things, don't you?" Naomi had said nothing because dinner was nearly ready and she was tired. She understood now how often she'd measured her words against the possibility of everyone else's displeasure.
That morning, she'd called Marcus at work to ask why a credit-union envelope had arrived addressed to her. He told her not to touch it and promised to explain over tea. She'd waited for him to keep that promise, even when Daniel appeared with the folder and Evelyn insisted on pouring the tea herself. The room had filled with the little noises of a family gathering. Naomi hadn't known the sounds would become part of a memory she would spend months trying to separate from ordinary life.
Then Naomi heard the little metallic click of the buckle striking Marcus's wedding ring. It was a sound she knew: the sound he made when impatient, when an argument was supposed to end because he said so.
She lifted her eyes. Her husband was smiling. Daniel was looking away. Evelyn was watching her with an expression that might have passed for concern if her mouth hadn't still been curved upward.
Something inside Naomi went painfully still.
"Give me that," she said.
Marcus lowered the belt a fraction. "What?"
She reached up, closed her hand around the leather, and stood. The movement drew him toward her, just enough to erase the height difference he had been enjoying.
"You will never make me get on my knees for you again."
His smile disappeared. "Lower your voice."
"This is my house."
"Our house," Evelyn corrected from the couch.
Naomi didn't look at her. She and Marcus were nose to nose now. He tightened his grip and stepped forward. The belt rose between them. Naomi shoved his arm away with both hands. Marcus lost his balance against the corner of the couch and dropped out of her sight with a startled curse.
Evelyn gasped. Daniel stood halfway, then stopped.
Naomi turned toward the coffee table. She remembered her late mother's porcelain tea service arranged in Evelyn's careful pattern, each cup placed where a guest was supposed to reach. She remembered the folder vanishing beneath that arrangement when she'd entered the room.
With a cry that frightened even her, she gripped the table's edge and flipped it over.
Wood hit the floor. Porcelain exploded. The white teapot broke at the spout; saucers spun across the hardwood. For one shocking second, all four people listened to the pieces settle.
Naomi stood behind the overturned table, fists clenched. Evelyn covered her mouth. Daniel stared at the ruin. Marcus pushed himself upright, holding his elbow and looking at Naomi as though he'd never seen her before.
"You crazy—" he began.
"Don't finish that sentence," Naomi said.
A thin blue sheet lay among the shattered cups, blown free from beneath the wooden tray. She saw her own name printed across the top: NAOMI L. CARTER. Below it, in smaller type, was the address of the house her mother had left her.
At the bottom were two words she could read from where she stood.
OWNER AUTHORIZATION.
Daniel saw the paper too. His face changed before Marcus's did. He stepped over the broken porcelain, but Naomi planted one shoe on the page.
"Move," Daniel said, too quickly.
She looked up at him. "Why?"
Evelyn lowered her hand from her mouth. The room was suddenly quiet enough for Naomi to hear the clock above the kitchen doorway.
"Because," Evelyn said, "you have no idea what you're about to destroy."
May you like
Naomi bent, picked up the blue sheet, and saw a date printed beneath the signature line.
The date was eight days away.
