Then locked.
And now my parents were standing on the other side explaining that imprisonment was apparently another form of guidance.
“Open the door,” I said again.
Dad shook his head.
“When we come back, we’ll talk.”
My stomach dropped.
“Come back from where?”
Mom glanced at her watch.
“We have to leave for the airport.”
I stared at her.
“The airport?”
“Hawaii.”
For a moment I thought I had misunderstood.
Their vacation.
They had been planning it for months.
Seven days at a resort on Maui with Bridget.
“You’re leaving?”
“The housekeeper will be here tomorrow morning,” Dad said. “You will have plenty of time to calm down.”
“You’re going to leave me locked in here overnight?”
“You’re safe.”
“No, I’m not.”
“There’s a bathroom.”
“There’s no food.”
“You’re not going to starve between dinner and breakfast.”
I put both hands against the door.
“Dad, stop.”
Something in my voice finally made Mom look uncertain.
She turned toward him.
“Gordon.”
He barely glanced at her.
“She needs to understand we mean what we say.”
Then he looked through the glass at me.
“When we return, we’ll discuss Ethan and the rest of your future like adults.”
I wanted to say something sharp.
Instead, fear finally reached me.
Not dramatic fear.
Clear fear.
The kind that removes everything unnecessary.
“Please open the door.”
Dad’s expression did not change.
“No.”
Then they walked upstairs.
I heard footsteps.
Closet doors.
Suitcase wheels crossing hardwood.
Bridget laughing at something near the foyer.
I screamed her name once.
“Bridget!”
Silence.
Then her voice floated faintly down the stairwell.
“You’ll be fine, Shelby.”
The front door closed.
Five minutes later, the garage door opened.
An engine started.
Then faded down the driveway.
I stood in the middle of the room.
Alone.
My hands were shaking.
I touched my stomach without thinking.
Eight weeks.
The baby was still more idea than shape to me.
An ultrasound photograph tucked inside my purse.
A due date written on a card.
Bradley buying three books about pregnancy and reading them as if he were preparing for a professional certification.
We had not planned the timing.
But the moment I saw the positive test, something inside my life shifted into focus.
Bradley had sat beside me on the bathroom floor.
“You okay?”
“I don’t know.”
“We don’t have to know tonight.”
I looked at him.
“You’re not scared?”
“Terrified.”
That made me laugh.
He smiled.
“We’ll figure it out.”
We.
Not I’ll decide.
Not You should.
We’ll figure it out.
I reached for my phone.
One bar.
Then none.
The basement had always had terrible reception.
The soundproofing and concrete walls blocked most of the signal.
I tried calling Bradley.
The screen showed CONNECTING.
Then dropped.
I tried again.
Nothing.
Emergency services.
Nothing.
My breathing became faster.
I forced myself to sit.
Think.
The room was warm but not dangerously hot yet. A small high window near the ceiling connected to an exterior well, but it was designed mostly for ventilation and light. I could see a gray strip of evening sky.
I tried the door again.
Locked.
I pushed.
Nothing.
I shouted.
The room swallowed sound.
Of course it did.
That was what it had been built to do.
I sat against the wall beneath the window.
Then remembered something Bradley and I had joked about months earlier.
His father, Clifford, was a corporate compliance consultant who had spent years teaching companies how to plan for emergencies.
Bradley had inherited the habit.
One evening after my car battery died in a parking garage, he made me create a simple emergency text code.
“If you ever can’t talk, send one word.”
“Like what?”
“Something we never normally use.”
“Raven.”
He frowned.
“Why raven?”
“I don’t know.”
“Fine. Raven.”
“If I text you that, you call me?”
“No. I get help and then I call you.”
I had laughed.
“You’re intense.”
“You date me voluntarily.”
Now I opened our messages.
One bar appeared.
I typed:
RAVEN
Send.
The circle spun.
And spun.
The signal disappeared.