Significant Others by Marilyn Baron Page A

home,” she said frantically.
    “Hannah, you’re not making any sense. Have you called your father? He’ll come home early from work. As a matter of fact—”
    I could hear Marc’s raised voice in the background. “Hannah, give me the phone. Let me talk to your mother.”
    “Oh, your dad came home to see you. That’s wonderful.” How convenient that Marc was already home.
    “No,” she screamed. “I’m going to tell her.”
    “I said give me the phone,” Marc ordered in a voice I had rarely heard him use in our entire married life.
    “Hannah?” I asked nervously. “Is everything all right?”
    “No,” Hannah sniffled. “I came home to try to find you, and all I found was Dad in his bathrobe. He wasn’t alone.”
    Oh, God in heaven! Marc, you bastard. I’m going to strangle you. How could you?
    “He’s here with this woman, and she’s barely dressed.”
    The images of Trisha in the photographs would never leave my head, and it was a hundred times worse because now my daughter would be seeing them live and in person for the rest of her life, too.
    “Honey,” Marc had the phone now. “I can explain.”
    “Marc,” I said evenly. “I want you to get rid of that trash and put my daughter on the next plane to Ft. Lauderdale. Now .”
    “Honey, baby, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
    “I don’t care what you meant to happen. And you should be apologizing to our daughter. I want to see my little girl now, you miserable bastard. What have you done to us?”
    I couldn’t catch my breath. I was hyperventilating.
    “For God’s sake, put some clothes on,” I heard him shout at Trisha. “Get in the bathroom.”
    “I’ll bring her down to Florida,” Marc said to me.
    “I hate you, I hate you,” I could hear Hannah screaming in the background. “I hate both of you.”
    At this point I didn’t know if she meant she hated me or Trisha. This was beyond horrible.
    “Put Hannah back on the phone,” I demanded. He did.
    “I’m not going anywhere with him ,” Hannah cried. Him being the interloper, the stranger, the liar, the cheat, not the father who had loved and treasured her all his life.
    “Sweetheart, I’m so sorry you had to see that. I wish I could be there for you right now. I don’t want you to fly alone in your state of mind. So if your father wants to bring you down, it’s okay.”
    “Are you guys going to get a divorce?” She hiccupped.
    “We don’t need to talk about that now. I just want to see you. So hurry down here, okay?”
    “I love you, Mommy,” she whispered, still choking on her tears.
    “I love you too, baby. I’ll see you soon.” At least Marc had the decency not to get back on the phone. Divorce is too good for the cheating scum. I am going to bypass the divorce phase and go straight to the lingering and painful death phase and maim the miserable creep as soon as he steps foot in this condo .
    How could I explain this to Hannah? And would I have enough time before they got here to plan Marc’s demise and give him what he deserved? I needed to call in the reinforcements. I needed my best friend Vicky.

Chapter Six: The Boss from Hell
    “Vicky? Did I get you at a bad time?” I whispered into the BlackBerry when I was back in the guest room.
    “No, I’m on my way in to work.”
    “It’s almost the end of the afternoon!”
    “Hello. Don’t you listen to the news? We’re in the middle of a major ice storm here, and I should be home snuggling with my honey in my warm bed. But of course Grant went into the office. It’s unnatural for me to get to work before ten anyway. Yesterday I got in at nine and my boss was shocked. I told her not to expect me to sustain that level of punctuality. It’s already turning out to be a really bad day.”
    “What’s wrong?”
    “Well, the boss from hell is out of town, and I forgot to call ahead to the hotel and find out the thread count of the sheets. Now she’s on a major rampage.