He was trying to call Annie more often, so she wouldn’t worry about him, but he hadn’t seen her. He was too afraid that if he did, she would guess what was going on. He had dark circles under his eyes and had lost weight. Pattie was keeping him up all night, either fighting with him or seducing him, and he was utterly exhausted. He felt like a zombie most of the time, and he was flunking nearly every class but hers. He was behind on his papers, and only Pattie was giving him straight A’s. He no longer cared. With a baby to support, and a wife, he had to drop out anyway-it no longer mattered to him if he failed. Pattie was winning on every front. If what she wanted was to destroy his life, she was doing a great job.
Her big battle with him now was getting him to marry her right away. She didn’t want to wait. She was afraid he would change his mind. And she argued with him about it now every night. He was holding out. He had agreed to marry her in August, but not before. The baby wasn’t due till September. She called him a bastard and a sadist for making her wait. And now she wanted him to tell his aunt about their child. She wanted victory on all fronts. Ted was trying to hold his ground. But Pattie had all the ammo. She had the baby on her side.
Tom and Annie were having dinner at La Grenouille one night, when her cell phone rang. She had forgotten to turn it off. And the people at the tables on either side of them looked at her in disapproval when it rang. She glanced down at her phone and saw that it was Ted. She ducked her head down close to her purse, and with a rapid apology to Tom, she took the call. She heard from Ted so seldom now that she didn’t want to miss it. She didn’t know when he’d call her again.
“Hi, baby, everything okay? I’m at dinner with Tom,” she whispered, nearly hiding under the table, as Tom watched. He wondered if she would ever do that for a call from him. He knew now that there was nothing she wouldn’t do for those kids. “Can I call you back?”
“I… uh… I’m in the hospital,” he said, sounding dazed, and suddenly Annie’s eyes were filled with fear, and she glanced at Tom.
“Where are you?”
“I’m at NYU Hospital… I had a little problem with Pattie,” he said, and Annie thought he sounded half asleep.
“What happened?”
“She stabbed me in the hand with a steak knife. I’m okay. They just stitched it up. I thought maybe I’d come home.”
“I’ll come and get you right away,” she said, and snapped her phone shut, as she sat up and looked at Tom. “That lunatic stabbed him in the hand with a steak knife. He says he’s okay.” Annie looked shocked.
“Oh my God, that’s insane.” He looked as horrified as she was and signaled immediately for the check. They had only gotten their first course, but there was no way Annie could have eaten dinner now.
“No, she’s insane,” Annie corrected him, grateful that he was willing to leave with her. They talked about it all the way downtown in the cab. “I don’t know what happened, but she’s obviously gone nuts.”
“I had no idea she was this crazy,” Tom said, looking worried. “Next time she might kill him.”
They both thought Ted looked terrible when they got to the hospital. He was shaking and deathly pale. The doctor said he had lost very little blood, and he had ten stitches in his hand. It was heavily bandaged, and she had narrowly missed cutting a ligament and a nerve.
“What happened?” Annie asked him as the three of them rode back to her apartment.
Ted couldn’t hide it from her any longer. He had to tell her the truth. “She’s pregnant. She wants me to marry her. I said I would in August. She wants me to do it now. I don’t want to. The baby’s not due till September.” Annie looked grim as she listened. This was hardly the way to start a marriage, with a baby on the way, and a woman who was willing to stab him if he didn’t do what she said. “We were arguing about it tonight while we were eating dinner, and she just lost it.”
“You can’t marry someone like that,” Annie said with a dark look at Tom, and he nodded. He totally agreed, and he was just as worried about Ted. He looked emotionally abused, and he had been. And now she had injured him physically too, not just his heart and his mind. It was frightening.
“She says she’ll commit suicide if I don’t,” Ted said grimly.
“Let her,” Annie said harshly, as Tom paid for the cab, and they took him upstairs. He looked like he was in shock. And Annie put a blanket around him as he lay down on his old bed in his room. The room was intact and always ready for him, although he seldom used it. But this was still their home. “She’s not going to kill herself, Ted,” Annie reassured him. “She’s just trying to control you,” but she already had.
“I don’t know what to do,” Ted said, as tears rolled down his cheeks. “I want to do the right thing. But I never wanted a kid. Not yet. And I don’t want to marry her. But I have no other choice.” Tom was standing in the doorway, devasted by the look on Annie’s face, and he felt desperately sorry for the boy.
“All you have to do is support the baby,” Annie said quietly, sitting on his bed. “You don’t have to marry Pattie if you don’t want to.”
“I don’t. She freaks me out.” There was good reason for that, as the episode that night had proved.
“I want to tell you something, Ted. That woman is psychotic,” Annie said, looking straight at him. “She’s an abuser, and she’s going to make what happened tonight your fault. That’s what abusers do. She’s going to tell you that you made her angry, and that you hurt her terribly by what you said, so it justifies her stabbing you. By tomorrow, she’ll paint herself as the victim, and you’ll be the bad guy. Mark my words, she won’t even apologize for what she did to you tonight. She’ll blame you. And nothing about this is your fault. You got her pregnant, which was stupid and careless of you, but you’re not the one abusing her. And she’s going to do everything she can to convince you it’s your fault. I want you to stay away from her. I think she’s dangerous for you.”
The enormous bandage on his hand illustrated her point. Ted thanked her then for her support, and he glanced at Tom with an embarrassed look. Annie lowered the lights, and put another blanket over him, and they left him alone for a while to rest, while she and Tom went out to the kitchen to get something to eat. They were both starving since they had never finished dinner, and she offered to make him an omelette or a sandwich. Tom thanked her but said he was too upset to even want food. They settled for ice cream instead, while they discussed what had happened. These were the things that terrified Annie now. The foolish things they did, believing that they were grown up. Katie’s trip to Tehran with Paul, and Ted involved with this lunatic who had stabbed him. It didn’t get much worse or more dangerous than that.
“You just can’t protect them forever though,” Tom reminded her, and she shook her head, disagreeing with him.
“Maybe not. But I have to at least try.”
“You still can’t stop them, and they still do what they want. Look at Katie, and Ted. My guess is that he’ll go back to this woman, out of guilt.” Annie was afraid that he was right. She could see that happening too.
They sat and talked for a long time after they finished their ice cream, and Tom finally stood up to go home. He kissed her before he left and told her to call him if she needed anything. She promised that she would and thanked him for his help. He looked profoundly upset. And so did she.
Annie heard Ted’s cell phone ring just after midnight, and she tiptoed into his room to turn it off. It had awakened him by then, and as she left the room, Annie could tell it was Pattie on the phone. She didn’t want to eavesdrop on him, but she could sense that the conversation had started just as she thought. Pattie was blaming him for pushing her over the edge. She was saying that the stab wound in his hand was his fault. Annie could hear him apologizing to her. Pattie had him completely spun around. And she suspected that Pattie was furious he had called his aunt. She would blame him for that too. Ted looked exhausted when Annie kissed him goodnight.