Chapter 5
The first week of our marriage was nothing like I’d imagined.
No honeymoon. No lazy mornings in bed.
Just police stations, and lawyer’s offices, and endless paperwork.
We filed the police report on our wedding night.
The detectives who took our statement were horrified by the recording.
“Attempted murder is a big one,” one of them said, shaking his head. “We’ll pick her up first thing tomorrow.”
They didn’t have to.
Margaret showed up at our hotel room at six a.m., banging on the door, screaming that we’d framed her.
The hotel security called the police.
They arrested her in the hallway, still in her silk robe, still screaming.
I watched from the peephole as they led her away in handcuffs.
I didn’t feel happy.
I didn’t feel vindicated.
I just felt tired.
Tired of the fighting. Tired of the lies. Tired of her.
The restraining order was issued two days later.
One hundred yards. No contact. No calls. No texts. No third-party messages.
If she came within a football field of any of us, she’d go straight to jail.
Hannah moved in with us that same day.
Margaret had kicked her out the night before the wedding, changed the locks on her bedroom, thrown all her clothes in the trash.
Daniel had gone back to the house to get her things, and found her suitcase sitting on the front porch, soaked from the rain.
She had nowhere else to go.
We turned the guest room into her room, painted it her favorite shade of blue, bought her a new desk for school.
She cried when we showed her.
“I’ve never had a room that felt like mine,” she said.
We visited my mom every day.
She was still in the ICU, still unconscious, but the doctors said she was getting stronger.
The swelling in her brain was going down. Her vitals were stable.
“Another week or two,” the doctor said, “and we think she’ll wake up.”
I held her hand every night, talking to her about the wedding, about Hannah, about how Margaret was gone and we were safe now.
I told her about the gown. About how Hannah had saved us.
I told her I loved her.
That I’d never let anyone hurt her again.
But the peace didn’t last.
A week after the wedding, Margaret was released on bail.
Her lawyer had argued she was a “pillar of the community,” that she had no prior record, that she wasn’t a flight risk.
The judge had set her bail at fifty thousand dollars.
She was out before the sun went down.
The first sign of trouble was a text from an unknown number.
A photo of me, walking into the hospital.
The caption: You think this is over? I’ll take everything from you.
I showed it to Daniel.
He called the police.
They traced the number to a burner phone.
No way to prove it was her.
“Keep all messages,” the detective said. “Every single one. We’ll build a case.”
Then the lies started.
Someone created a fake Facebook page in my name.
Posted photos of me from my waitress days, edited to make me look drunk, to make me look like I was with other men.
Posted lies about how I’d cheated on Daniel, how I’d stolen Margaret’s jewelry, how I’d faked my mom’s illness for money.
The page went viral in our small town.
People I’d known my whole life started sending me hate mail.
Calling me a gold digger. A whore. A liar.
I cried for three days straight.
I wanted to hide. To never leave the house again.
Daniel held me, and told me over and over that none of it was true, that no one who mattered believed it.
Hannah stayed up all night, reporting the page, commenting on every post with the truth, posting the recording of Margaret’s threats, the police report, the restraining order.
Slowly, the tide turned.
People started to see the page for what it was: a desperate lie from a desperate woman.
Facebook took the page down.
But the damage was done.
I still got stares when I walked down the street.
Still heard the whispers.
Then the worst happened.
We showed up at the hospital one afternoon, and the nurse met us at the door, her face white.
“Someone tried to get into your mom’s room last night,” she said. “A woman. She said she was your aunt. She had a fake ID. Security caught her before she got in, but she got away.”
My blood ran cold.
Margaret.
It had to be.
The restraining order. The bail. The police.
None of it was stopping her.
She was still coming for us.
Still coming for my mom.
Daniel called the police that night.
He called his lawyer.
He demanded they do something.
“Her bail should be revoked,” he said, yelling into the phone. “She’s violating the order! She’s harassing us! She tried to break into the ICU!”
The lawyer was calm.
“We need proof,” she said. “Security footage. Witnesses. Something that ties her to the hospital. To the texts. To the Facebook page. Without it, the judge won’t revoke. We just have to be patient. The trial is in three months. We’ll get her then.”
Patient.
I hated that word.
How was I supposed to be patient when Margaret was still out there?
When she could hurt my mom at any second?
When she was trying to destroy my life one lie at a time?
That night, I sat on the porch of the small house we’d rented, watching the sun set.
Daniel sat down next to me, wrapping his arm around my shoulders.
Hannah joined us, leaning her head on my other shoulder.
“We’re going to get through this,” Daniel said softly.
“I know,” I said.
May you like
But for the first time since the wedding?
I wasn’t so sure.
