Diane Cole Listens
Chapter 06 - Diane Cole Listens
While Castillo worked to reach Carol Bishop, Diane Cole spent the morning with Emma in a quiet upstairs sitting room, the wedding preparations continuing steadily downstairs without either of them, Paige having stepped in gracefully to manage the final details in her sister-in-law's place.
"I want to tell you the rest of my own story," Diane said, "if you're willing to hear it. I think it might help, knowing you're not walking through any of this completely alone."
Emma nodded, grateful for the distraction from her own circling fear.
"My first husband was charming in public," Diane said, "the same way you described Frank. Successful, well liked, generous at parties. Behind closed doors, he was a different person entirely. It took me four years to build the courage to leave, and even then, I only managed it because a neighbor finally noticed enough to intervene directly."
"What did she do," Emma asked.
"She heard something through the wall one night," Diane said, "and instead of assuming it wasn't her business, she called the police herself. I was furious with her at the time, genuinely furious, because I was still deep in the specific fog that convinces you the abuse is somehow your fault, something you can manage or fix if you just try harder."
"I understand that fog," Emma said quietly.
"I know you do," Diane said. "It took me considerable time afterward to understand that neighbor had actually saved my life, and possibly Paige's too. I've spent the years since trying to be the kind of person who notices, the way she noticed for me."
Emma felt something in her chest loosen slightly, the specific comfort of finally speaking with someone who understood not just the abuse itself, but the confusing, complicated psychology of surviving it and eventually escaping.
"How did you meet Walter," Emma asked.
"Two years after I left," Diane said. "He was patient in a way I didn't fully trust at first, careful never to raise his voice, careful to always ask rather than assume. I tested him, honestly, more than I probably should have, before I let myself believe he was actually different."
"Did you ever tell him the full truth," Emma asked. "The way I just told Ryan."
"Eventually," Diane said. "Not on our wedding day, though. I waited nearly two years into our marriage, still too afraid, even with him, that the truth would change how he saw me."
"Did it," Emma asked.
Diane smiled, something warm and steady crossing her face. "It changed how much he loved me. Not less. Considerably more, actually, once he understood exactly what I'd survived to become the woman standing in front of him."
Emma thought of Ryan's face the night before, the specific way his anger had dissolved entirely into grief and protectiveness the moment he'd understood the truth, and felt a fresh wave of gratitude that she'd finally found the courage to show him, even under circumstances neither of them had chosen or expected.
"I'm scared he'll actually come here today," Emma admitted. "Frank. I keep imagining him walking into the garden during the ceremony, in front of everyone."
"If he does," Diane said, her voice hardening slightly, "he'll find considerably more resistance than he's expecting. This family protects its own, Emma, and as of last night, that includes you completely."
Paige knocked softly and stepped into the room, her expression carefully composed despite the obvious tension of the morning.
"The florist needs a decision on the aisle arrangements," she said, "but that can wait if you two need more time."
May you like
"No," Emma said, standing, wiping her eyes and finding, somewhere underneath the fear, a small, stubborn resolve she hadn't expected to locate this morning. "I want to go make that decision. I want today to still be my wedding day, not just the day Frank Bishop tried to ruin it."
Diane squeezed her hand once, proud and fierce, and the three women walked downstairs together, back into the bright, ordinary chaos of final wedding preparations, while somewhere across town, Detective Castillo was dialing a number that hadn't been called from this family in nearly nine years.
