Right before I go, as I tip over the baby powder on the nightstand—leaving a trail of my hurry on the quilted sheet and the hardwood floor—I think about the dog bite from when I was nine. How I stepped, without noticing, on its tail and the grey dog’s fangs left puncture wounds on the thick of my calf, streams of red soaking my socks pink. It happened in my tutor’s home, and after that she leapt on the bus to my house every Wednesday. How it was so easy to never go near the pup again. This is what I think about as I stuff underwear in my bag, the baby’s shoes, the money I hid in my pillow. I have to stab it, flying feathers fleeing on our bed, because he could come home early. Food? Leave all the food, I think. Just the milk formula. Just the milk.

As I carry the bag out of the house—the sky as grey as smoke—I think about our trips, holding hands, the warm moments of safety with him, then the way he needed me only for him, no more Tuesday bowling with friends, no more ruby lipstick, calling me every hour on the hour. Tania waits for me on the street, car on, and she has a pack of cigarettes for today. To calm the nerves, she says. She hasn’t smoked in a decade, not since senior year in high school when we heard each cigarette takes seven minutes from your life. That’s what he does. Makes you reach for poison to calm you down. She never told me that I had to leave him; she’d just say to call her whenever I needed her, even if it had been months since we last talked, no questions asked. Her brown eyes, staring at the stop sign of the dead-end street, remind me of how alert I am when I wait for him to come home. Food ready, beer cold, volume low on the TV, staring at the front door to greet him, speaking only when it feels right.

Each shout, then each day of punishing silence was to correct me. To make me a better wife. Mother. Truth is, I never told anyone everything, especially not Mom and Dad. Not how in the last months I was careful to sleep in the same position every night until one of my shoulders grew numb, so I wouldn’t accidentally touch him, and then wake him, and then argue until the sun rose because I disturbed his sweet sleep. How to show words on skin? How to show words and not punches? There’s nothing to show, no bite with lingering saliva. Just spewed spit. It was easy to leave when I was nine: my tutor was sorry, Mom and Dad nodded and said it was for the best. The wound visible. This time they said that you work things out—even if working things out feels as slow as a bruise heals, as enduring as a childhood scar.

When I get in the car, Tania flicks a cigarette to the asphalt, presses the gas before I close the door. It feels like we’re moving a dead body instead of moving my own.

“To get Shelley first?” she says. I nod.

When we arrive, Shelley springs into my arms, slobbers my face, and I guess the taste of my tears are a delight. In the rush, I nearly forget to pay the vet. “Let’s go, momma,” I say—hugging her, sticking my head to the lingering cherry shampoo on her neck. Her beige fur is clean—my shy mutt—and she places her paws on my knees, leaves drool on my jeans.

She’s one of the reasons I came back last time, when I told no one I was leaving and stayed at a motel for a week where I confused larvae for ticks on the grimy windowsill. Riley was with me, starting to say dada, dada, da. But then I stayed up late thinking about Shelley. About him keeping her chained in the backyard when it rained. Forgetting to feed her. His damn screams when she barked. Still, a part of me wished we could be a family again, that things could go back to how they were in the beginning, that I could come home, keep the peace, and there’d be no shouts.

When the tires screech, I realize I’ve left Riley’s favorite plush animal, the book I borrowed from the library, the dog food. But it can be replaced, or made new—I tell myself—as I reach my hand towards the back seat while the car rumbles on the highway, my fingers quivering through fur no matter how hard I try to make them stay still, the wind playing with Tania’s hair and uncovering the fleshy maze of Shelley’s ear canals.

*