The Girl From Home Read Online Free PDF Page B

I’m old enough, Mom,” Robert had said with steely-eyed determination, “I’m going to kill him. I swear I will.”
    After that she went to see a divorce lawyer. He told her that at the end of the day—that was the phrase she remembered the lawyer used to set up nearly every sentence he uttered—she’d get half of their marital assets, which were relatively meager, composed mainly of the equity in the house that would result from the forced distress sale. He also said that New Jersey matrimonial law entitled her to twenty-five percent of Rick’s income as child support, but only until Emma turned eighteen. As for alimony, that was a maybe, but if she got any, it would be relatively little and not for very long. The bottom line was that— at the end of the day —she’d get somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty grand and maybe a few hundred dollars a month for a couple of years, and she’d have no place to live.
    The lawyer not only couldn’t guarantee that she’d get sole custody of Robert and Emma, but opined that it might be a bit of a long shot. He pointed out that even the abuse was going to be hard to prove, the proverbial he-said/she-said situation, as she had never filed a police report or sought medical attention. Jackie’s counter that Robert and Emma could corroborate Rick’s violence was met with a shrug and a “Do you really want to put your children through that?” remark, as if making her children testify to the truth was more damaging than subjecting them to living part-time with an abusive father. Perhaps recognizing that Jackie was willing to do anything to keep her children away from Rick, the lawyer said that no matter what the children said at trial, Rick’s side would find an expert to explain that children can easily be manipulated into testifying to abuse that never actually happened.
    Leaving the lawyer’s office, Jackie fully grasped the grim picture he’d painted. And yet it was still Shangri-La compared to being married to Rick. So she went home and told her husband she wanted a divorce.
    He laughed in her face.
    â€œI won’t give you a penny. I’d sooner go to jail.”
    â€œI don’t care. I just want to be rid of you.”
    â€œI’ll fucking take the kids,” he said.
    She knew that was just an idle threat. Not only would a judge never take children away from a loving mother, but Rick wouldn’t even want the kids full-time because it would impinge on his drunken skirt chasing.
    â€œNo you won’t!” she shouted back. “If you’re lucky, you’ll get visitation every other weekend like any other asshole divorced father.”
    It was what he said next that stopped her cold, however.
    â€œThen I’ll fucking kill you, Jackie. Guaranteed.”
    She knew that wasn’t just talk. Jackie had become an expert in knowing when Rick was lying. About this he was speaking the stone-cold truth.
    So she stayed. And things got even worse because now Rick knew she was trapped. The cheating became more open and the beatings more vicious. All she was left with was the dream that Rick would someday die and then her family would be free. Like when Dorothy threw the bucket of water on the Wicked Witch of the West. Even her children would rejoice over the death of the monster that terrorized them.
    Tonight, however, she had to live a different dream. Not hers, but the one that the people she went to high school with a thousand years ago believed: that the prom queen married the high school quarterback and they both lived happily ever after.

3
April
    K urtosis and heteroscedasticity .
    These are the words that Haresh Venagopul is saying over and over into the other end of the phone. In between are words that Jonathan does understand, but they don’t help him comprehend what Haresh means. What is abundantly clear, however, is that Haresh is very agitated.
    Jonathan is