The mask drops. His eyes go flat. His jaw tightens. He takes one step toward me, then another, and suddenly the man I married is gone. In his place is someone cornered, calculating, dangerous.
“Hang up,” he says.
I don’t.
That is when he reaches for the phone, and that is when Emma screams.
It is a raw, terrified sound that slices through the house. I move without thinking. I shove Mark back, slam the bathroom door, lock it, and drag the laundry hamper in front of it while the dispatcher tells me officers are on the way. Mark pounds once, hard enough to rattle the mirror, then starts shouting that I am crazy, hysterical, trying to destroy his life.
I hold Emma against my chest and force my voice to stay steady for her.
“Baby, listen to me. You did nothing wrong. None of this is your fault. Breathe with me, okay? Slow. Just like that.”
Outside the door, Mark keeps talking. He says I’ll regret this. He says the police will laugh at me. He says he is the one who pays the bills, the one everyone believes, the one who knows how to make sure I lose everything.
But something inside me has already shifted.