All That She Saw

by Alana Terry

  I look around, hunting for the source of my unease. Something’s wrong. Something happened …

  Then I see him.

  CHAPTER 6

  They look so much alike that for a second I forget Henry is dead. I suck in my breath, repeating the truth to myself like a soothing mantra.

  Henry Harris is dead, which means the man who just stepped onto this plane isn’t my captor.

  He can’t be.

  But he looks so much like him, from his unshaven face to his beer belly to that gaudy Hawaiian shirt.

  Henry is dead, I tell myself. Dead. He can’t hurt me anymore.

  He can’t reach me at all.

  This man isn’t Henry.

  And then I see the girl traveling with him. The fear that looks so familiar behind her haunted eyes.

  She doesn’t belong with him.

  I stare at the other passengers. Don’t they see? Isn’t someone going to do something? The flight attendants are cheerily helping people load the overhead bins and reminding folks to buckle up. Travelers are scrolling on their phones or reading books or shutting their eyes for a snooze.

  Nobody else sees.

  Nobody knows.

  You’re being paranoid, Anastasia, I tell myself. Paranoid. That’s all.

  Just because I happened to be abducted as a teen, just because a man named Henry who always wore Hawaiian shirts kept me locked up in his basement for two years so I could pretend to be his daughter — none of this means the girl I’m staring at is going through anything remotely similar.

  She’s wearing shorts and a T-shirt, which make her look even more out of place on this winter flight. Her eyes are puffy, outlined in dark rings. Maybe she’s tired from a full day of travel. Or mad because her dad told her she had to break up with some deadbeat boyfriend. Or worried about her grandma who’s lying on her deathbed in Detroit, praying that her family gets to see her one last time.

  That’s what I tell myself. That’s what I have to believe if I’m not going to drive myself crazy.

  “Miss Anastasia?”

  “What is it?” I don’t have the energy to remind Andrew to call me Mom. I haven’t stopped staring at the girl. Begging God to give me some kind of sign to prove to me that she’s okay.

  “You stopped reading again,” he complains.

  “My throat’s sore,” I tell him. “I’m going to take a break.”

  My husband turns in his seat. Gives me one of his quiet smiles that always breaks my heart. Always makes me certain he’s comparing me to her. Sometimes I want to yell in his face that I’m not his first wife and never will be, but what good would that accomplish?

  Maybe we rushed into things too fast. Maybe Russel needed more time to grieve Sarah’s death. More time to get himself ready for a new relationship. Looking back at how quickly our courtship progressed, I can’t even speculate if he or I was the one who came across as the most desperate.

  “You all right?” he asks me. I’m certain he’s heard me being short with his son. Certain he’s wondering why I can’t be more soft-spoken, more tender-hearted, more maternal.

  Why I can’t be more like her.

  I force a smile. “I’m good,” I announce with such conviction the whole plane must believe me. “It’s just a little loud in here. Makes it hard to read. My voice doesn’t carry …” I let the words die on my lips. I’m staring again. Not at my husband. Not at this instant family I’ve somehow managed to make for myself.

  But at her. This girl. She can’t be more than fourteen or fifteen. Still a baby, really. Trusting of others because she hasn’t learned yet how terrible life can be, how cruel the world can turn.

  Happy because she doesn’t know about Henry’s basement. She hasn’t been there yet. He hasn’t taken her.

  But he will.

  My throat seizes shut. For a second, I picture myself jumping out of my seat and demanding to be let off this plane. Running off, getting lost in the crowded airport. I’ll write Russel an apology in a few weeks, once I’ve decided where I’m going to go, what I’m going to do. I’ll apologize to the kids too. Tell them I’m so sorry, but I just can’t be the kind of mommy they need.

  But I don’t. Instead, I sit here trembling in my seat. I’m buckled in, my family surrounding me. I have their snacks in my backpack, Betsy’s pajamas thrown in too. There’s nowhere for me to go. Nothing I can do except remember.

  Remember the nightmare, the trauma, the terror. Remember everything I’ve tried so hard to run away from.

  I’ve done a good job forgetting. At least, I thought I had. Thought I moved on.

  When I didn’t tell Russel about those two years in Henry’s basement, it wasn’t because I wanted to lie or mislead him. It was because in my foolishness, I actually believed I’d gotten over it. That my love for Russel and my newfound faith were enough to counteract my past, erase the trauma.

  I felt so happy with Russel. So alive. I thought that meant I was finally healed …

  That I could finally forget.

  Except now, I remember. I sit here, trapped in this seat, my hands gripping the arm rests, the flight attendants still bustling back and forth to get everything ready for takeoff, and I remember everything.

  CHAPTER 7

  He says his name is Henry Harris. “But you can call me Dad. Or Daddy. Whichever you prefer.”

  She tells him she wants to go home, and he lets out a soft chuckle. “This is your home, Jennifer.”

  She’s already learned that she can’t correct him. Can’t tell him that her name is really Anastasia Reynolds, that she’s never heard of Jennifer before and has no idea what happened to this poor daughter of his.

  How long has she been here? It’s hard to know because all the windows in this basement are boarded up. She’s slept on and off, but has she been gone for hours or days? Could it be weeks?

  At one point he knocked her unconscious. Her head hasn’t felt quite right ever since. “You’re lucky,” he tells her after she wakes up. “It could have been a lot worse.” He bandages a cut on the back of her head and says, his voice full of regret, “You remember what happened last time, don’t you?”

  She doesn’t remember a last time because there never was a last time. Except she’s smart enough not to tell Henry this. So instead she nods and lets him pet her blood-stained hair as he starts to cry and tell her how happy he is now that they’re together again.

  “You forgive me, don’t you, Jennifer?” And she tells him that she does.

  She learns to lie. As the basement grows colder and colder with the chill of winter, she begins to forget that there ever was a girl named Anastasia Reynolds. That there ever was a world outside of the cement prison, a world of snowflakes and ice skating and steaming hot chocolate fogging up her glasses while she takes dainty sips, careful not to burn her tongue.

  She forgets that somewhere is a mother and a father desperate for her safe return, a mother and father who might even assume she’s dead by now.

  As long as they don’t think she ran away …

  The cold that seeps into her soul becomes intolerable. She finds herself thankful for the nights when Henry can’t sleep and brings down his blanket and joins her in the basement. Tells her stories about her childhood.

  “Remember when Grandpa pitched you that softball and you broke the neighbor’s window? He told you to go and apologize to the owners because he knew they couldn’t be mad at a girl as cute and sweet as you. Remember that?”

  And she tells him she does. Tells him so many times that every once in a while, she dreams about being that same little girl, standing on a doorstep she can recall in vivid detail, explaining to a tired-looking housewife that her grandpa was pitching and she accidentally broke their window.

  Anastasia never played softball, but Jennifer did. Sometimes Henry even brings down the photo album and shows her pictures of her childhood. “That’s your best friend, Shawna,” he says. “She’s living in C
hicago now, married to some big-time businessman. I saw her dad at the hardware store the other day. Says they’re expecting their third kid. Isn’t that great?”

  And Anastasia feels somehow happy for Shawna, this best friend she never knew, this grown woman whose life has no resemblance to her own, this mother of three.

  There are times when she wants to cry for Henry, when she looks at this pitiable old man, so alone, so lost in the past.

  And there are times when she hates him. Hates what he’s done to her. She’s grown so skinny, she can feel her hips stabbing the cold cement floor at night when she tries to sleep. She hates the smell of his body odor but knows that she’s even more unkempt than he is.

  Some days, she’s certain she could kill him.

  Other days, she falls asleep crying, her heart aching for this lonely old man.

  There’s murmuring on the plane. My breath returns to me in a rush. I haven’t had a flashback this vivid since … since … well, since long before I met Russel. That’s why I was so sure I was doing better. So sure it wouldn’t matter if I told him or not.

  I stare at the middle-aged passenger ahead of me. He’s in the aisle fidgeting with an overhead bag, and when he raises his arms his hairy stomach pokes out from beneath his Hawaiian shirt. I wonder for a minute how I could have ever confused him with Henry.

  Henry wasn’t that heavy for one thing. Not that hairy either. And this passenger is too young.

  Besides, I remind myself, Henry is dead.

  Henry is dead, so I have no reason to keep on thinking about him. No reason at all.

  The children are getting restless. The flight attendant is shutting the last of the overhead compartments. That means we’ll be taking off soon. Once we’re in the air, I think I’ll finally be able to relax.

  I’m flying to Detroit. I’m going to meet my in-laws, going to spend a nice, relaxing vacation with them. The kids can’t wait to see their grandma and grandpa, and Russel tells me that I’m going to get along just great with his sister. Life is good. I have everything I ever wanted, a husband who loves me, a strong and healthy family, the freedom to travel around and take time off to spend with relatives.

  I’m safe. I’m healthy. And I can’t let these scars from my past bubble to the surface and threaten everything I’ve got going for me right now.

  CHAPTER 8

  “I don’t want to read that one,” Annie says.

  “Me either,” her brother grumbles.

  I put the Grover book away and ask Andrew which one he’d like to choose.

  He crosses his arms. “Something new,” he says with a pout. “We’ve read all these before.”

  “Why don’t you tell me a story?” I suggest, wondering if the impatience I’m feeling comes through my voice in spite of how hard I’m working to mask it.

  “I don’t know any stories,” Andrew complains.

  I’m at a loss. “Maybe your sister does,” I finally suggest.

  It’s the only nudge little Annie needs, and in a second she’s rattling off a tale of princesses and dragons in castles. Even with as sheltered as her father has kept her from contemporary movies and worldly influences, she sounds like any other child with the blessed gift of a fantastic imagination.

  I fight my mind’s urge to wander back, to take me again to Henry’s basement. It’s been years since I escaped. There’s no way I’m going back. Never again. I’d sooner die.

  “And then he tells Jennifer she’s going to be his daughter forever and ever and ever.”

  My eyes widen. I feel the breath suck into my lungs as if a black hole has opened up in the space between my ribs. “What did you say?” I manage to stammer.

  Annie gives me an annoyed look. She doesn’t like to be interrupted.

  “What did you say?” I repeat. I feel the blood emptying from my head, gushing to my extremities. For a minute, I have the terrible feeling that the man in the Hawaiian shirt is going to turn around in his seat and start laughing at me.

  “I said that the princess and the prince lived happily ever after.” Annie’s voice is impatient, her lower lip protruding in an exaggerated pout.

  “What did you say her name was?”

  She’s looking at me like I’m crazy. Am I? How can I know for sure?

  “What was the princess’s name?” I demand, leaning toward her.

  “Jessie,” Annie answers. “Weren’t you listening?”

  “I thought you said her name was Jennifer,” I mumble. Suddenly exhausted, I slump back into my seat.

  “It’s Jessie,” Annie states with all the authority of a four-year-old who’s entirely sure of herself.

  “And who was it that wanted to be her dad?”

  “What?” Her eyes are wide, and now both Annie and her brother are staring at me as if my hair has just turned green.

  “You said the bad guy told the princess she had to be his daughter for ever and ever.”

  Annie contorts her face. I can’t quite gauge her emotion. Is it confusion? Disgust?

  “That was the prince,” she tells me with an exasperated huff. “The prince said, ‘You’ll be my wife for ever and ever.’ Didn’t you hear that part?”

  “Sorry,” I answer distractedly. I feel my throat constrict, sense my hands gripping the arm rests of my seat, feel the seatbelt prodding into my stomach. It’s too tight, but I can’t loosen it. I shut my eyes, and I’m back in the basement, a scared little girl whose only dream is to go home.

  A victim who’s rage and quest for vengeance is the only incentive she has left to stay alive.

  CHAPTER 9

  Jennifer applied her roll-on deodorant and frowned at the mirror. Her bangs had been hanging a little limp ever since she got home from school.

  Nothing some extra hair spray couldn’t solve.

  Dad knocked on her door. He was in a hurry, like always, but she wasn’t ready yet.

  “Jennifer?” he called to her. “You done in there?”

  “In a minute.” She picked up her brush and pretended it was a microphone and she was on stage belting out the melody with Boyz II Men. She practiced a few dance moves in front of the mirror. Would this be the night Darren would ask her to dance?

  She sprayed her bangs again, then spritzed more mousse onto the palm of her hand before scrunching up her curls in hopes of giving them a little extra bounce.

  It had taken a lot of pleading to convince her dad to let her go out tonight. She could swear it sometimes felt like her dad’s one goal in life was to keep her trapped as a prisoner in her own home. If he could handcuff her and keep her locked up in the basement, she sometimes wondered if he would.

  Well, tonight was going to be different. It was her first school dance. Darren would be there. All of her friends. It was just this year that Lisa and some of the other popular girls had started paying attention to her. Tonight was her chance to prove she truly fit into their group. She’d been practicing her moves in front of the mirror, sneaking in snippets of that dance show on MTV every morning, studying the dancers until she knew the right way to move her body.

  Darren was going to be so impressed. She hoped he’d ask her to slow dance with him. Especially if a Boyz II Men song came on. He knew she loved Boyz II Men.

  Dad pounded on the door again. Jennifer applied one more layer of lipliner, gave herself a last once-over in the mirror, and stepped out of her room.

  She felt like a princess about to attend her very first ball. No, that was too childish. She was like those dancers on MTV, the ones who always looked perfect and were always surrounded by admirers. This was her night. Her time to make a lasting impression, not only on Darren but on Lisa and all her friends and their entire freshman class.

  This was Jennifer’s time to shine.

  CHAPTER 10

  She got out of the house without Dad grumbling much about her clothes. She’d already planned out each and every one of her arguments if he said her skirt was too short o
r her top was too tight, but he was surprisingly quiet when he drove her to the school.

  “Drop me off here,” she said a block away from the bus stop. Behind them, a car sped by.

  “Let me off here,” she repeated, more urgently when she started to fear her dad might actually drive her up to the school itself. What if Darren was here? What if he saw her getting dropped off? She had her hand on the door and was willing to roll out of the Chevy before it stopped, but Dad finally slowed down to let her out.

  “Don’t pick me up until 9:30,” she told him, slamming the door shut before he could make any last arguments or change his mind about allowing her out tonight. It wasn’t really her dad’s fault he was like this. He’d been overly protective of her for years, ever since Mom died. Jennifer understood. It didn’t make his behavior any more bearable, but at least she knew he meant well.

  “Oh, my gosh, is that you, Jennifer?” She recognized Lisa’s voice in an instant, her heart skipping a slight beat to have been noticed. “Look at your hair! It’s so curly.”

  Jennifer beamed and joined the circle of Lisa’s friends, who were making their way toward the school. When they stepped into the gym, the girls congealed into one massive, dancing throng in the middle of the crowd. Jennifer scrunched up her curls, hoping they’d keep their volume all night, hoping her deodorant would work, hoping this dance would be just as perfect as she imagined.

  A familiar beat came over the speakers, and Lisa grabbed her by the wrist. “Come on!” she shouted. “Macarena!”

  And in an instant, Jennifer forgot how worried she’d been about her hair, her deodorant, her dad. She forgot about how desperately she wanted her friends at school to like her, to include her, to treat her like one of them. She forgot everything except for the music. The beat washed over her worries, drowned out her fears. She knew this dance, even though she’d never done it with a group this large before. Everyone moved at the exact same time, following the exact same script, one living being whose parts moved together in perfect unity.