“You can’t make anyone leave a bad relationship. You can’t make her better any more than you already do. You can let him stay here, or you can let them both leave. She’s not going to go for being separated from him. Not in the state she’s in now. He’s made it a choice she has to make.” And her mother was a rotten, selfish person who’d choose a man over her child without a second thought.

She wrung her hands and he took them in his own. The anguish on her face also sounded in her voice. “I can’t let him stay here! He’s already doing this? What’s he going to be like in two weeks? I’m going to come over here and there’ll be strangers on the couch. Dodgy characters. The neighbors will call the cops. I had to make some serious peace with them when I took over the mortgage.”

Duke had no idea she’d done all that.

“Do you see how she is?” Virgie taunted. “She hated fun even as a kid. Why aren’t you keeping her satisfied and happy, Duke? Is it that she’s secretly a lesbian?”

“That again?” Carmella said.

Duke had no idea what that was about, but he was entirely finished with these people. “I see a woman who works her butt off so she can pretty much be your personal assistant. She pays your living expenses at huge detriment to herself. She brings you food and your medication. She takes care of you. I see a woman I’d be proud to claim as my daughter were I in your shoes, Ms. Hay.”

Virgie smiled. “Mrs. We got married again a few days ago.”

“Jesus on a skateboard,” Carmella muttered. “He beat you up. That’s not normal. That’s not okay.”

“It’s not your business what happens between us. Do I get in your business? This is why you can’t keep a man.”

“I’m calling an end to this,” Duke told Carmella. He would talk with her about the real options once they left. “We’re getting nowhere, they’re being abusive, and it’s only upsetting you more.”

Carmella sighed. “I want to speak to my mother alone.”

Rather than ask, Duke nodded, carrying Steven out of the room with him as he did.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Steven said as Carmella went into the bedroom with her mother and closed the door.

“You must be pretty disgusted with yourself then.”

“You can’t just stroll into my life and act like you know anything. Carmella has always been difficult. Granted, it was hard for her growing up. But she needs to get over it.”

Duke scoffed. “Does she? If my father touched my mother the way you just did hers, he’d be in the hospital right now.”

“Ironic that you taunt me with violence to condemn violence.” Steven avoided responsibility with the ease of a longtime master liar.

“Look, I’ve been around enough losers in my life to know every single way you can take this conversation. Let’s see, we’ve got your: It was a moment of weakness. You were stressed. She pushed you there. She hits you too. She gets off on it. You’ll never do it again. Or maybe you’re one of those who thinks hitting a woman makes him manly. Whatever it is, it won’t be you taking responsibility. You don’t need a punch in the face because I think it’ll disabuse you of the notion that hitting someone you should love and protect is okay, you need a punch in the nose because you’re a woman-hitting piece of shit. I don’t like that Carmella takes all this crap from her mother and I don’t like you even less.”

Duke wanted to call his parents right then to tell them he loved them. For all their faults, for all the yelling his dad did, there was never physical violence in their home.

Steven went for contrition now. “I am sorry we got off on the wrong foot. I’d like to be a family. I do love my wife and daughter, you know. I’ll be out and with her mother. If you’re with Carmella, we’ll be family too. I’ll prove you wrong. You’ll see.”

Duke shrugged. “Your kind of love sucks. I care about Carmella’s well-being. That’s it. That’s why I’m here. If you love people, you don’t beat them up. Not really a complicated rule.”

Carmella came out a few minutes later, but didn’t look at Steven. “Let’s go,” she told Duke.

He kept his body between Carmella and Steven on the way out. Once they were in the car, he drove around the corner and parked.

“What’s up?”

Duke pulled his phone out. “I’m texting Asa that we’re taking a pass on today.”

“No! This is something you do with your friends every year.”

“It’s breakfast, we can do that another day. As for Bumbershoot? There’s another day tomorrow. And more next year. I want to be with you. Away from a crowd and noise. Away from you having to pretend to be okay when you’re not. How about you and me grab my bike and take a ride up to Snoqualmie Pass? We’ll get some lunch and hang out. And you can tell me whatever you want to do. Or ask me advice, or just talk. Or none of those things.”

He could see indecision on her face.

“I promise. I’m not disappointed to miss today.”

She nodded.

That Carmella didn’t turn to something chemical to deal with the astounding amount of shit she had to shovel sometimes was a marvel to Duke. So that day he’d take her away from the city. On the back of his bike she wouldn’t have to talk. Wouldn’t have to be responsible for his reaction to her expression or feel any pressure to explain until she was ready.