Chapter 1
The marble was cold through my white flats and my cheek still burned where his hand had caught me. I held my belly with one hand and my face with the other, backed against the dark double door with its silver electronic lock still showing red. My daughter's small fingers twisted in the cream fabric of my dress, her yellow dress bright against my legs. He leaned in close, his black turtleneck inches from me, his watch catching the warm recessed light, and the whole penthouse felt too small to breathe in.
My father pounded from the other side of the glass panel, his fist hitting the wood in a rhythm that shook the door in its frame. The sound filled the living room with the polished floors and the curved dark sofa behind us. I could see my father's mouth open, his gray hair, his dark overcoat over his white shirt and tie, and I couldn't tell if the man in front of me heard it or just chose not to.
My name is Sarah and I was seven and a half months pregnant that morning.
It was just after nine. I'd told my father to come by at nine to help me take Maya to her checkup, because I'd finally said out loud that I didn't feel safe packing alone. My husband had been standing by the coffee table on the patterned rug when the first knock came, and he didn't move to answer it. The lock stayed red. My phone had slipped from the sofa and landed face-up on the marble halfway between the door and the windows, its screen dark and too far to reach without letting go of my belly or my daughter.
When I stepped toward the door he moved with me. I saw the daylight from the big windows cut across his face, the micro twitch at his jaw, the controlled slowness of his shoulders as he shifted to block me. He didn't raise his voice at first. He just said it low, meant only for me.
"Shut up!"
My father shouted through the door, his voice muffled by the wood and glass. "Open it!"
I flinched and tried to turn sideways to put the sofa between us. Maya stumbled after me, her white socks sliding a little on the marble. I kept one hand on my belly where the baby had gone still and tight with my own tension. My father hit the door again, harder, and I could see his tie move as he leaned his weight into it. The electronic lock didn't change. No hand had touched it yet.
"Stay back!" I said. It came out smaller than I wanted, breathy and raw, but I said it to him and I meant it.
He didn't stay back. He grabbed my upper arms and forced me backward toward the curved sofa, his fingers digging into my jaw and the side of my neck as he pushed me down. The cushion gave way under me and the coffee table's edge pressed against my calf. I cried out and tried to twist, one hand still cradling my belly, the other pushing at his wrist. Through the glass side panel I could still see my father, his hands flat now on the glass, watching.
He glanced past me toward the door where Maya had pulled away, and his voice sharpened, loud enough for the whole room.
"Stop her! Stop her!"
I wasn't sure if he was yelling at me or at her or at my father through the glass. Maya had already let go of my dress. She was running, her curly dark hair bouncing, her yellow dress swinging around her knees as her little white shoes pattered across the marble toward the double door. My husband's grip tightened on my face for a second and then loosened as he half-stood, watching her go, deciding whether to hold me or chase her.
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The phone was still on the floor near the rug, untouched. The lock was still red, that silver and black rectangle just above the handle, waiting. My father had stopped pounding and was now gripping the outside handle through the narrow gap of the glass panel, his knuckles white.
Maya reached the door and rose on her toes, both arms lifted toward the handle. She couldn't reach it quite, then she jumped a little, her fingertips brushing the cold metal. On the other side, my father's hand closed around the handle from outside and began to pull the heavy dark wood inward. The crack of daylight widened by an inch. I was still half-pinned against the sofa, my cheek throbbing, my breath shallow, my daughter between the man inside who wouldn't let us leave and the man outside trying to get in, and the door was finally moving.
