AFTER ALL THESE MONTHS of worrying herself to death about it, Louise had finally got up her nerve to ask Boyd for a divorce. And he had hit her. In seventeen years of marriage, Boyd had barely ever raised his voice, and now this. She still couldn’t believe it. He had actually hit her. Louise looked at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. The eye was swollen about as much as it was going to, but the bruising had just set in. She had raised three boys, so she knew that it was the second and third day when a black eye looked its worst. She took out a tube of concealer and dabbed little blobs of it under her eye. She worked it in carefully and followed up with some foundation. She noticed that her hand was shaking. She realized that she wasn’t sure if she was shaking out of fear or anger. The makeup worked—for now. When the bruising really set in, there would be no hiding it. But she just needed to get through tonight. She just needed to feed the kids their dinner and get them in bed.
