Chapter 1 - The Stick in Her Hands

The wooden stick was already coming down when I kicked open our bedroom door.

“GET AWAY FROM MY WIFE!”

My mother froze with both hands wrapped around the handle. My wife, Elena, lay sideways on our bed, one bare foot hanging over the edge. A dark-red stain spread across the cream sheets beneath her. Her long brown hair covered half her face. She wasn't moving.

For one impossible second, I could hear only the ceiling fan.

Then I crossed the room so fast I struck my hip against the dresser. “Elena. Baby, look at me.” I eased her head into my palm. Her skin was cool, but she was breathing. A thin cut near her temple had soaked the pillowcase. I couldn't tell where the rest of the blood came from.

Behind me, Alma Hernandez lowered the stick an inch.

“She attacked me,” my mother said.

I looked at Elena's limp hand. “With what? Her eyes closed?”

“You don't understand what she's been doing.”

“Put it down.”

“Listen to me, Noah—”

“Put the damn stick down!”

It hit the floor with a dry crack. Elena flinched without opening her eyes. That tiny movement nearly broke me.

I called 911 and gave our address in a voice I barely recognized. The dispatcher told me not to move Elena more than necessary. I laid her back, checked her breathing, and kept talking to her as if my words could hold her here.

My mother stood by the white curtains, staring at the bed. She had raised me after my father died. I had defended her through every argument Elena and I had ever had. Now she seemed afraid to step closer.

“What happened?” I asked.

“An accident.”

“Which part?”

She said nothing.

An envelope lay partly beneath Elena's hand. Small. White. Its corner was streaked red. I slid it free, thinking it might have her medical information.

Alma made a strangled sound.

“Give that to me.”

I turned it over. On the back, in my father's familiar block handwriting, were six words:

NOAH — IF ALMA HURTS SOMEONE, OPEN THIS.

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My father had been dead for five years.

And my mother looked more terrified of that envelope than she did of the blood.