Free The Comfort of Black by Carter Wilson Page A

our
sex life
?” She said it loud enough that a diner at the table to her left turned and looked.
Good, let them hear me. Let them see the petite blond getting harassed by the hulk
. “Fuck you,
Peter
.”
    Now Justine grabbed her arm. “Hannah,
let’s go
.” Justine stood and pushed her chair back. Hannah stood, but slowly. The anger within her made her want to stay and fight.
    â€œHe can’t send you to make sure everything just disappears. He has to pay for what he did. And he will.”
    Peter gave another look of confusion. “I’m not here to buy you off, Ms. Parks.”
    â€œAnd I’m not asking to be bought.” Anger coursed through her. “I’m telling you he can’t just pretend he didn’t hurt me. He can’t just make it all go away.”
    â€œI’m simply collecting facts about the situation. Wise decisions are rarely arrived at hastily. Without complete information, it’s often necessary to err on the side of caution when formulating a conclusion. In war, an appropriate analogy would be opting for a carpet bombing rather than a surgical strike.”
    â€œIs that what this is, Peter?” Hannah felt her arm being yanked by her sister. “Is this war?”
    For some reason that comment seemed to make an impact. A small crack in the mighty exterior of Peter’s face. A twitch on one side, just below his left eye. If this were a boxing match, Hannah would have just scored a point.
    Hannah finally succumbed to her sister’s pleas and followed her out of the restaurant, to the sidewalk, and into a cool, gray October day. Zoo shuffled with apparent glee as Hannah unwrapped his leash from the tree. They walked toward Justine’s car at a pace faster than normal, and the dog, sensing something wasn’t quite right, gave out a long, low whine as his small legs struggled to keep up.

CHAPTER TEN
    D AY 5
    She’s having the Billy Dream.
    Hannah feels it coming on and deep in her mind, beyond the sleep, she tries to tell herself to wake up. Sometimes this works, but not tonight. Tonight that small part of her brain with the power to wake her or steer her mind toward more pleasant images instead ignores her. Perhaps even laughs a little.
    It’s Thanksgiving night, 1995. Hannah is fifteen. Outside the small house, a cold wind bites and scrapes at the clapboard siding, taking with it flecks of decades-old peeling paint.
    Billy is drunk again, and not the sloppy kind of drunk. That’s not how Billy was when he drank. Billy got quiet, though there was nothing about his body language suggesting relaxation.
    Every sip he takes out of his longneck seems to take more of his words away, until he just sits back in his favorite ripped-fabric chair and looks around at his little world, surveying, waiting for something to require his judgment. It won’t take long. Billy is a strong, lean man, ropy veins always bulging from his constantly tensed arms. His deep olive skin seems perpetually tanned, and his dark complexion makes his eyes glow from his face. They are a washed, transparent blue, the color of ghosts in the snow. Despite the pervasive scowl on his face, he is a handsome man—model-like, even—which makes the reality of him all the more ugly. A beautiful monster.
    People used to say the same thing about Ted Bundy.
    Hannah has her mother’s blond hair and pale skin. She doesn’thave any of her father’s physical traits, but she knows she has more than a touch of Billy’s blood inside her.
    That fuckin’ bird done yet?
    In the dream, he takes another swig from the bottle and lets his arm dangle off the chair, spilling a trickle of beer on the cigarette-burned rug.
Dinner’s ready
, Hannah hears off in the distance. It is her mother’s voice. Hannah floats to the kitchen where the Thanksgiving meal is beautifully presented, the dream version an exaggeration of the reality from that actual