"Moira Swanson, go hit the shops with a friend or something before you head home. I'll have your sister come watch Mom and Dad. Take the day off."
No explanation.
Just a day off he'd decided to grant me, like loose change tossed on a counter.
I didn't answer. My gaze stayed locked on the door behind him.
"You're not going to explain?"
He stepped into my line of sight and dropped his voice to a warning.
"Moira, this is a hospital. Don't make a scene."
The tears broke before I could stop them, and ten years of swallowed grievances came pouring out in words I couldn't control:
"You know damn well this is a hospital, Lionel! Where was all that decency when you were rolling around with that tramp in there?!"
Crack.
Before the last word left my mouth, his palm connected with my face.
He didn't hold back.
Heat bloomed in my nose, and the taste of iron flooded my mouth.
Lionel's pupils contracted. The hand hanging at his side wouldn't stop shaking.
"Moira, you... Don't you ever talk about her like that!"
There was a time Lionel had protected me the same way.
The second year of our marriage, both his parents were paralyzed in quick succession, and I became their punching bag.