CHERISHED: The Mountain Man's Babies

by Frankie Love

  "You're missing the point," I tell Jaxon. “It's not about what drama has been happening, it's that injustice has been happening. It's about where Cherish actually went and finding her. She's the mother of my children, what don't you understand?"

  "I understand perfectly," Jaxon steps back. "But I also know that the cult is dangerous. If you find them, it doesn’t mean you’ll come out of it alive. Maybe you should—"

  "Hell, no," I tell him. "No way in hell do I think you'd leave Harper for dead."

  "The last thing your children need is both of their parents gone," Jaxon says, his voice low and gravelly.

  Those are some words that hit fucking close to home. "I don't want that either," I tell him. "But I love her, Jaxon. And I have to find her."

  Jaxon doesn’t answer because he knows if he were in my position he’d do the exact same fucking thing. Anything to get her back.

  “So, what's your plan?" he asks.

  "I don't fucking know that yet," I tell him. “But I need to figure it out pretty damn fast."

  Turns out my plan is one dead end after another.

  The cops try to convince me that Cherish left of her own free will. They fucking suggest that maybe since she’s already married to someone else, perhaps she needed to leave me with the babies to let go of those choices.

  "But she isn't actually married to anyone," I tell him. "The cult is practicing polygamy."

  "I understand you keep saying that, but there's no documented polygamy in the state of Idaho. So, if she's practicing, it's under the radar, and we can’t do anything to prove it."

  “But she isn't practicing," I yell. "She's forced into it."

  "If we had a lead we could help you. The best thing you can do right now is move on. You know, sometimes, people don't want to be found."

  His words sting, and I pray to God they aren't true. The idea of Cherish not wanting me hurts more than I expected, even knowing it simply isn't true.

  The first chance I get, I load up the van, drive as far as I can toward Montana, about a nine-hour drive. I want to believe that maybe love will lead me to her like it had before when we both arrived at the cabin.

  But it isn't fair to the babies to keep them in a car like that, and after one night at a hotel with three infants and one exhausted daddy, I know it isn't realistic to drive aimlessly looking for her with the babies.

  Harper and her friends tell me the babies will be fine with them, that they will be well looked after and that I don't need to worry.

  As I kiss the heads of those three perfect babies, I swear on my life I will find their mother. Leaving them for the first time hurts like hell... but what choice do I have? Finding Cherish is the only thing that matters.

  Jaxon and his buddies Hawk, Buck, and Wilder are all pissed as fuck too. The goddamn cops aren't doing anything besides filing paperwork. But we don't need that—we need vengeance.

  We take turns, two at a time, leaving the mountain and the other women and children, and fly to Montana. When we get there, we drive for fucking hours.

  We search, city by city, as many towns as we can fucking find, and look for her.

  It's hard for everyone. I can't keep asking them to leave their families so I can find mine—but they refuse to stop looking.

  The men on this mountain are nothing like the men back in the cult. They understand what it means to love deeply, to love well. To love your woman forever.

  I won't stop searching until I have her in my arms.

  But as the weeks turn to months, as the summer becomes fall, the leaves on the trees turning all sorts of brilliant colors—we find ourselves exhausted by a chase that is nothing but a dead end. It's hard to keep my head clear. I feel powerless to find Cherish—and I know she needs me.

  I try to hold on to hope, but I know it's too much to keep asking my friends who have been here for me throughout all of this to continue at this pace. The rest of the men have growing children back home as well.

  It's been five fucking months.

  And the babies, they aren't just babies anymore. They are crawling and pulling themselves up. They're big enough to sleep through the night and we've come to understand one another. The four of us have been through it all together. First fevers and first teeth. First foods and first steps—for Jamie at least. Eight months old and that girl is moving—force of nature, that's what she is.

  And dammit, it feels like it's all fucking slipping away. A life with Cherish. Five months is a long ass time. And winter is gonna roll in before we know it. Soon as it does, we'll be snowed in for months.

  I call Jonah, filling him in. He's been here for me the best he can be, considering the distance between us, and as much as I’m grateful to all of Jaxon's crew for having my back—Jonah understands me better than they do—he's had my back and been with me through thick and thin.

  "I'm just so goddamn restless," I explain. "I need to do something besides drive around, leaving the babies all the time. It's been months... and yet nothing. I'm no closer than I was before."

  "You need to go find her yourself," Jonah urges. For some reason, his words ring most true—maybe because he is the one who has been through hell and back with me. He understands the power of these old bastards. How scared I am for Cherish's fate. He knows that the men at the compound will beat you with a shovel if they decide they don't like you—those fuckers don't need a gun.

  Jonah tells me how he's dating some girl he met at a tattoo parlor—apparently, he's gotten all kinds of badass since I left. I feel like I need to be a little more badass myself.

  "That's good, man," I tell him, trying to be happy for him.

  "Enough about me," he says. "What's your plan? You can't live without knowing where she is."

  "I'm gonna pack the van, just like Cherish did when she came out to the cabin. The babies are older now and can handle traveling with me. And there's no way I can stay put any longer."

  The line is quiet for a minute. Then Jonah clears his throat. "I know you love her, James. But you can't pack those kids up and hit the road with winter coming soon. It's not like here in Miami. You aren't thinking straight."

  "Fuck that, I have to go, Jonah. Don't you understand? I'm all alone. Trying to keep my shit together, but how the hell am I gonna do this?"

  "Let me come and stay for the winter. You need someone to shoot the shit with, and hanging out with all those big, happy families is probably depressing as hell, considering."

  "Considering Cherish is gone?"

  I can hear Jonah sigh through the phone. "Exactly, man. Exactly right."

  "No way, you have a life out there." I shake my head, though he can't see me. I'm mixing formula in a bottle, have Andrew in a carrier on my hip, and throwing animal crackers on the highchair tray for Jamie. Jonah doesn't need to be here for this. This is my life. Not his.

  "I know you are done asking the other men on the mountain for help, and I know you'll never ask me for any—but I'm not asking. I'm telling. Let me come meet those babies of yours, and pour you some whiskey for getting through these last five months, all right?"

  He doesn’t let me talk him out of it, and he tells me he'll be on the next flight coming to Idaho.

  I look around the tiny cabin, shaking the bottle for Andrew, and thank God I'm not in this alone.

  Chapter Sixteen

  For so long I held onto regret. Regretting the choices I made—mostly that I wasn't braver, sooner. Knowing that one night with James might have to be enough for a lifetime.

  After driving in a van for what seems like an entire day, we end up the middle of nowhere, at a compound very like the one we just left. Except this one is much more permanent. There were maybe a hundred of us before, not counting children.

  But this place is much larger than that. There are hundreds of people here, and not just people from the Lord's Will Bible Church, we have now merged with a sister church of so-called believers. Apparently, our doctrine matched up enough that we can join forces without cau
sing unrest.

  They'd been here less than a month when I arrived, and everyone is still getting settled. At first, I hoped I would get lost in the shuffle. I don't know our exact location, of course, no one will tell the women. The people from Lord's Will were raised in the real world, homeschooled, and churchgoers, but for the most part, they are people like me. We haven't been living this lifestyle for very long.

  The people here, though, have been living this lifestyle forever. How they've been going unnoticed for so long is beyond me. I catch on pretty quick that if this has been their way of life for a decade, no police officer is coming after them.

  And certainly, no one is going to be coming after me.

  The moment I'm pulled from of the van, George drags me to the church elders. Luke is here, still. And how that man is still holding his head high, after his three wives left him, is beyond me. But he's here, wearing his suit and tie, next to some men I've never seen before. Apparently, they are the pastors here, the heads of the church. And when I stand before them, I'm told to get on my knees.

  I brace myself, terrified of what they are going to ask me next, already gritting my teeth, refusing to be the woman they want me to be.

  Theirs.

  But to my surprise, they don't ask me to sleep with them. They don't take off my clothes. Now I'm not saying they are good people, but they truly believe I am a sinner and I need to repent. They also believe that I wasn't holy enough to be returned to my husband. Yet.

  I try to explain that I had been forced away from my children.

  They told me losing my babies was a part of God's plan for me. Of course, this idea is ludicrous, but I know better than to talk back. So, I stop talking about my children at all, and I bow my head, and I pray to a God I've never understood, asking for salvation from this hell.

  Somehow, somewhere, something hears my still, small voice.

  They send me to the kitchen, where I am to work back-breaking labor, washing dishes and making food. I work 12 hours a day, no freedom, no privileges. And then, and only then, if I prove myself as a woman will I be allowed back into my husband's home.

  Apparently, once I am at George's home I'll be allowed my own bedroom, have the honor of carrying his children, and the privilege of shopping trips in town. These men must think that will appeal to me.

  That's the last thing I want.

  I lived with George before, and his wives, and I know that even though I would be given more 'freedom', the cost is just too great. They're fools to think I would want more than a cot in the pantry. More than my hands in soapy water, washing dishes for the compound, day in and day out. This punishment is a privilege and they don't know it.

  I'm certainly not going to tell them.

  "What do you have to say for yourself?" Elder Luke asks.

  "Forgive me," I beg, feigning sorrow.

  A month passes this way.

  I don't hear from James.

  A month passes this way.

  My milk has dried up, my babies will soon forget my face.

  A month passes this way.

  I miss my period.

  A month passes this way.

  My breasts are tender once more.

  I throw up every morning like clockwork.

  Another sinner, a woman who just started working in the kitchen a few days ago, presses her hand to my back when she finds me in the bathroom.

  "Are you okay?" she asks. "Are you with child?" Her name is Grace, and she offers it to me.

  I nod, hoping I can trust her. Hoping she won't betray me with this truth. I haven't lain with George since I've returned. And I already know my time is running out.

  "I'm four months along. If I weren't wearing such a large dress and apron, everyone would already know."

  Grace nods, understanding." You're not the first one this has happened to. I can help."

  "You? How?" I look around the empty bathroom. "They are going to kill me when they find out I'm pregnant."

  "It won't come to that."

  "How do you know?" I've spent the last four months with my head down, so any gossip has been lost on me. I've hardly left the kitchen—the only time I did sneak off was to look for my father and siblings.

  But apparently, they left when the compound moved. They aren't here, never even showed. And in some ways, I'm grateful, I want more for my brothers than what this place would have offered them... and I hope it means my father had some money left from what he was paid for me.

  I can't think the worst about them. That my father may have abandoned them somewhere. More children I have let down.

  "You need to hide this pregnancy for as long as you can."

  I nod, agreeing. "And then what? Has anyone been able to sneak out?"

  "It's not that easy. There are patrol guards here, watching who comes and goes."

  "How do you know?"

  "I grew up here," Grace tells me.

  "What did you do, to get punished?"

  She swallows, her eyes brimming with tears. "I tried to escape."

  "Why wouldn't they just let you go?"

  "Because the people here are monsters, Cherish. And that is why we need to be smarter next time. Why we need to make a plan that doesn't result in us returning right where we came from."

  I look deep into her eyes. There's more to her story than she lets on, but it's not the time to push.

  "Why are you helping me?" I ask.

  "Because, Cherish, you know what it's like on the other side. But for me? I've never left this place. I need your help as much as you need mine."

  "What will we do?" I ask.

  "We are going to plan another escape, but this time, it's going to work."

  Together, over the course of the next month, Grace and I plan each night when the compound is quiet, we whisper between the cots and figure out how we can leave.

  Sneaking out still seems the surest bet.

  "But it didn't work for you last time," I tell her.

  "Yeah, but it will be easier with two of us."

  It would have been easier, too, if my body would have cooperated.

  I was on bedrest for the entirety of my last pregnancy.

  This one seems no different. I know there must be more than one baby in my womb this time too because even at five months, I know that there is more movement than one fetus could produce.

  And I start cramping.

  The same way I did before.

  I need to see a doctor, but I can't risk asking for one.

  The night of the escape I tell Grace the thing I have been putting off for days.

  "I can't go," I tell her. "I'm scared of traveling, hitchhiking, and sleeping in rest stops. I can hardly move as it is."

  Grace swallows back any fear she may have. "I don't want to leave you, not after all this."

  "I'll fake a fever for a few days if anyone asks. You have to go," I tell her, with the urgency that has grown in my chest every day since we started talking about an escape. "Go find my children. My man. You have to go to the mountain."

  "Alone?" she asks, her eyes wide, her hands nearly trembling. Last time she tried to escape she was caught... but we know more now. We've been scouting the guards, watching when they take breaks, change shifts. The odds of us being successful are higher now, not to mention my time is running out. If I don't leave soon everyone will know I am pregnant. And I don't want to imagine what they will do to me if they find out.

  Grace nods, putting on a brave face. But she's never been anywhere besides the safety of this compound.

  "You can do it," I tell her, reciting the directions to the mountain, telling here exactly where she needs to go. "Take this with you," I tell her, setting the guitar pick in her palm. "And give it to James when you meet him. Because you will meet him. I know it."

  Chapter Seventeen

  Jonah wasn't lying when he said he got himself a bunch of tattoos. He and I got our first ones together in Miami—I got Cherish on my chest, and he got a big ass whale across
his. Since then he's covered himself in a dozen more and looks more hardcore than I know he really is.

  Because damn, he can put the babies to sleep about as well as I can.

  He's been here a week, and already he and I have set to adding an addition to the house. When Jaxon and his buddies found out, they told their women to come get my babies and helped us get the addition built in no time.

  With their help, we build three simple bedrooms off the main cabin. Though it’s not technically mine--my father was given it after my uncle died-- we all figure if he ever thought about showing his face back on this mountain he'd be running for the hills, knowing we all had plans to whoop his ass.

  "It means a hell of a lot," I tell them, knowing everyone has taken time off work to help me put this house in order. The babies will appreciate it too—having enough room for them to learn to crawl and walk is a true blessing.

  But it's hard to start counting them.

  Stella, Wilder’s wife, insists on helping decorate. She used to be an interior designer and knows what she's doing. She picks out paint and fabric, and while the men are putting the finishing touches on the cabin remodel, she enlists the help of Josie, the girl who works at Rosie’s diner, to help her get the main cabin room together. I hardly recognize the place.

  She's turned the place into a calm and comforting oasis. How she managed to do that with all the gear a set of triplets require is beyond me. She even turned a small nook into a space for Cherish, believing she will return one day, somehow. Cherish's guitar is hanging on the wall, and she framed a print with lyrics from a Beach Boy's song and added a plush blue chair where I can imagine the love of my life curled up, strumming her instrument.

  "Thank you, Stella, I know you've never met her, but the fact you'd go to all this effort—"

  She cuts me off. "You know, when I met Wilder he had just taken in his brother's newborn twins. I have a soft spot for a man who puts everything aside to take care of his children. What you've done the last five months is nothing short of incredible." She wipes a tear from her eye. "Your babies are all so precious, and we just hate that this has been the reality for you all."