The Road to Grace (The Walk) by Richard Paul Evans Read Free Book Online

thought my parents would be upset and worried about me. But it was more like I had never been gone. My father wasn’t there, and my mom didn’t even ask where I’d been.
    “Once I graduated from high school, I stopped going home at all. I spent most of my time with one of the other waitresses at the restaurant. Her name was Claire. She was a friend from school and had helped get me the job in the first place. We’d work until closing, then we’d go out to parties, then sleep at her place. Eventually I just moved in with her.
    “That’s where I met Sam. He was Claire’s cousin. Sam was a lot older than me. Eight years older.” She shook her head. “He was only twenty-six, but he seemed so old back then. I guess compared to me, he was. I had only known him a few weeks when he asked me out.
    “He was different than the boys I’d been hanging out with. They were still kids. Sam was older. More mature.On our third date, he asked me to marry him. I said yes. I wasn’t sure if it was right, but it’s like they say—a drowning person isn’t picky about which lifeboat she climbs into. I wasn’t really sure about anything at the time except that I liked him. And if I was going to get married, I thought that marrying someone older would be safer.
    “I didn’t know until two days before our wedding that Sam had already been married once before. I guess his ex was a pretty strong-willed woman, and he couldn’t take it, so he had the marriage annulled six weeks after their wedding. I found out later that he’d told Claire that his next wife would be someone younger. Someone who would obey him. I guess that’s why he married me. I was pretty submissive. I did whatever he told me to do.
    “So we got married. Our wedding day was the happiest day of my life. I was so hopeful. Then, on our honeymoon, Sam told me to stop using birth control. He said he wanted a baby right away. He didn’t so much tell me he wanted one, as he demanded one—as if my feelings on the matter were irrelevant. We had never even discussed children before then. I told him that I didn’t think I was old enough to have a baby. I still felt like a kid myself. The truth is, I didn’t even know if I wanted one. I didn’t want anyone to have to live a life like mine.
    “But Sam was older than me and he said he didn’t want to be an old man when his kids were in high school. I knew in my heart that I wasn’t ready. But Sam didn’t care what I thought. He had this stupid line he’d heard somewhere—‘they’re not your feelings, they’re your failings.’ He just got meaner every time I refused. We started fighting about it almost all the time. I couldn’t stand it. It was like we had become my parents.
    “Then everything came to a climax. After months offighting, Sam gave me an ultimatum. He said if I wouldn’t have his baby, he would find someone who would. He gave me until his birthday to make up my mind.”
    As Pamela spoke I realized that in spite of all the times I’d seen McKale’s father, I really didn’t know him. To me he was a laid-back, easygoing guy, who worked a lot and listened to vinyl records when he wasn’t working, which was partially why McKale had always been with me. I wasn’t sure that I believed everything that Pamela was saying, but it was clear to me that she did.
    “Sam said that he would leave you?” I asked.
    Pamela’s eyes teared up. She nodded. “More than once. I was devastated. I don’t even think it was about the baby anymore; it was about controlling me. He was good at punishing me. At first he was passive-aggressive. He would go days without speaking to me. I was always more needy than him, so after a day I would be begging him to talk to me—to love me. Then he began treating me like a child. One night he said he was going to spank me. I thought he was joking. But he wasn’t. He made me go over his knee and he spanked me until I cried. It was so humiliating. I felt like a child