A Long Way Home

by Becky Doughty

  She must have sensed my animosity and made for the sofa instead, the one where Gina lay snoring. Stella glanced over at her, and she nodded and unzipped the backpack she had slung over one shoulder. “I’ll be here. Go ahead,” she said, waving a hand in a shooing motion at us.

  Stella laid a hand on my forearm. “Will you come sit with me in Jim’s office? He’s out for the afternoon, and he’s got the best sofa in the house in there.”

  I nodded and followed her with great reluctance. What was going on? I couldn’t take any more attacks today, of any kind. I felt like I was on the verge of shattering into a million pieces, and all I wanted to do was crawl between the blankets of my teenager self’s bed and cry in the arms of Pinky Panda until I fell asleep.

  I’d been in Mr. Ransome’s office two times before. Once, with Jordan, when Jim and Stella sat us both down and explained the way the law defined statutory rape, and another time when I took him a cup of fresh coffee and a piece of strawberry shortcake I’d made with Stella one afternoon. It was both Jordan and Jim’s favorite dessert, and I was sure I won him over with the first bite. It was a stellar first try.

  The room hadn’t changed much—the thick beige carpet and chunky walnut desk. Shelves banking one wall loaded with flight manuals and aircraft books, model planes and photographs of Mr. Ransome and his passengers in amazing, picturesque shots. A retired flight instructor, he kept himself busy these days flying for a local charter company. I felt swept back in time, like that seventeen-year-old experiencing so much of life for the first time. But this time, instead of anticipation, I was filled with dread as I made my way into the room. I grimaced at the sound of the door latch as Stella closed it behind us.

  She stepped right in front of me and took my shoulder, her hands gentle, reminding me of Jordan. How many times had he done that in the last few days, trying to get me to listen, to focus, to trust him? “Are you—hurt?”

  The question seemed, well… just left of center. What was she asking? She could see the mark on my head, so she knew I had a boo-boo.

  “I’m fine. I just hit my head, that’s all. I was in hurry, and I ran into a door.” And another version of the near-truth. I just needed to keep track of whom I told what for two or three more days. “A nice nurse gave me an ice pack and kept an eye on me the whole time I was—”

  “Savannah, please. Stop.” Stella’s voice was grim, her expression pained. What was she not saying?

  “Oh no!” I gasped and covered my mouth with my hand. Frightened tears sprang to my eyes. “My mom? Did something happen to my mom? Is she okay?”

  “Honey, no! I mean yes!” Stella put her arm around me and drew me over to the sofa. “As far as I know she’s fine, okay? This isn’t about her.” She sighed and gave me a quick, but heartfelt hug. “Please, sit down. This will be easier for both of us if we’re sitting.” She dropped down beside me, angling so her knees bumped mine, and then reached over and covered my hands where they were folded in my lap. “Savannah.” Her voice was low, husky, and I sensed she was choosing her words very, very carefully. “I heard—I overheard what happened this morning.”

  This morning. This morning? Was she talking about Jordan and me being alone together at my folks’ house? My near breakdown after Marek’s call? Marek’s phone call! Jordan must have called and told her about Marek’s phone call.

  “You must have hit a button by accident on your dad’s phone. The redial button. Or maybe I’m on speed dial, or something.”

  Oh God, oh God. No. No, no, no. I closed my eyes and begged to be struck by a bolt of lightning. For the earth to open beneath my feet and swallow me up. A chill seeped into my bloodstream, and I began to shake.

  Stella’s fingers tightened around mine and she leaned in closer, her voice barely above a whisper. “I’m so sorry, honey. I know this must be terribly difficult to process. And I wish I knew who else I could bring in to help us. I’m probably the last person you want knowing any of this, but I—well, I was the one God put on the receiving end of the line, so…” She took a deep breath and let it out in a slow gush. “Here I am. I want to help you, sweetie. And I’m going to do everything in my power to get you out of this situation you’re in.”

  “How—how much did you hear?” My voice came out jagged, hoarse, and I barely recognized it as my own. I stared down at Stella’s hand over mine. Her nails were neatly trimmed, but unfashionably short, and a scratch ran across the back of her palm—probably from a plant in one of the gardens she tended. I didn’t want to hear her answer, but I had to know.

  She hesitated for some time, and I knew it was bad. “I heard a man ask what you wanted to do. That you had the whole day.” She stopped, and then started again. “I couldn’t figure it out at first. Not until I heard him say his own name, and I recognized it. Jordan told me who he was.”

  I must have hit the redial when Marek shoved me in the car; I had grabbed for the phone to keep it from falling out of my bra.

  She reached into her back pocket and pulled out her phone. “I started recording the call at that point.”

  My heart ratcheted to a stop. Humiliation and shame swirled into nausea. “I—I think I’m gonna be sick,” I choked out.

  Stella was clearly a mother who knew how important it was to move fast at the sound of those words. By the time the first heave convulsed through me, Jim’s Denver Bronco trash can was on my lap, and she was standing beside me, holding my hair out of my face for me while I wrapped my arms around the receptacle. I wasn’t sure what could be worse than vomiting my guts out in front of Stella, knowing that she’d overheard everything this morning—and recorded it!—and spewing into Jim’s vintage football memorabilia, complete with the old-school logo.

  “I’ll be right back,” Stella murmured and hurried from the room. She returned shortly with a cool washcloth. The smell of vomit hung in the air. Somewhere in the middle of it, I’d started crying. “You think you’re finished?” she asked. I nodded, and she traded me the washcloth for the trash can. “Let’s go across the hall to the bathroom. We’ll get rid of this and you can wash your mouth out.”

  In the small bathroom, she dumped the contents of my stomach into the toilet and pointed to the cupboard under the sink. “There’s mint-flavored Listerine under there and Dixie cups in the Spiderman dispenser on the wall.”

  I followed her back across the hall a few minutes later. “I’m sorry. It smells awful in here.” I was so embarrassed by the whole situation.

  “Not to worry. Everybody barfs sometimes. That’s been one of the many Ransome mottos in this house.” She opened one of the drawers in Jim’s desk and pulled out a box of matches. “Besides, we have candles.” Within moments, she had three woodsy-scented candles strategically burning around the room.

  She sat back down beside me, but this time, she didn’t touch me. I was glad. “Savannah, I need to tell you what I’ve done about what I learned today. Who I’ve talked to so far.”

  My head snapped up. Not Jordan, no.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  “I almost called the police. I wanted to call the police immediately and get that man arrested. But as I listened, I realized we were in a quandary.” She pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes, but it was obvious her thoughts weren’t on the pattern in the carpet she was staring at. “Whether you believe me or not, I understand why you did what you did today, okay? But the conversation quickly became as incriminating to you as it was to him.”

  “What?” I stared at her, aghast. “How?”

  “Well, it was very clear he was angry, and it was very clear he was being rough with you. But you also stated that you intended to abandon your child. And by the end of the conversation, it could be misconstrued by someone who didn’t know you—or who wanted to see you in trouble—that you wanted to be with him.”

  “No! No!” The words came out high-pitched and desperate. “I didn’t know what else to say. Or do! I thought he was going to—to—” My voice broke off, and it seemed like I couldn�
�t catch my breath. “If I don’t comply, he hurts me,” I whispered, covering my face with my hands.

  Stella’s arms were around me and she drew me to her chest, one hand on my back, the other cupping my face. I could feel her chin resting on the top of my head. As tiny as she was, she felt so much bigger than I did at that moment. “I know, Savannah. I know.”

  She let me cry for what seemed like ages, passing me tissues from a box on the coffee table. Finally, I straightened, but she kept her arm around me, pulling me sideways so I could lay my head on her shoulder instead. “Maybe this will be easier if you don’t have to look at me while we talk,” she suggested.

  I nodded in full agreement.

  “So, honey, I spoke to Jim. Don’t worry; I didn’t play the recording for him.” She must have felt my body tense. “I just explained a little about what I’d overheard, without giving him too many details, and asked Jim to do a little research on this Marek fellow. And in case you didn’t already know, Marek was born under the name of Eugene Trenton Krame. Seems he simply mixed up the letters of his last name and made himself a Gypsy king.” She released a small snort of disgust. As a caveat, she added, “Jim has some crazy connections in this town. I’ve stopped asking how he knows who he knows. There is always a good explanation, so it doesn’t really matter, you know?” She patted my shoulder absentmindedly. “Anyway, interestingly enough, Marek’s record is spotless. He has no traffic violations, no unpaid fines. His myriad of business licenses is up to date, and he has great recommendations from a multitude of venues he worked in the past.”

  This was not encouraging to me.

  “However, what his records do not show is that he is Killian’s father. Jim says he couldn’t find a birth certificate for Killian at all, nor can he find anything with Marek—er… Eugene’s name on it anywhere.”

  “Killian doesn’t have a birth certificate,” I stammered. “I never got one for him.” One of the women in our troupe had asked me if I wanted to go with her to the Registrar’s Office to order one for him shortly after he was born. Marek had said we didn’t need one and they were too expensive anyway.”

  “Do you have the Record of Live Birth?”

  “What is that?” I hadn’t really thought about what kind of documentation a person needed to be considered alive and counted for in the world.

  “It’s part of the pile of forms you filled out at the hospital when you gave birth. A card with the hospital’s information, Killian’s footprints, and his birth parents’ information.”

  “Oh. Well, I didn’t have him in a hospital, so…” I shrugged one shoulder, wondering if there were other things I needed to provide for Killian that I hadn’t.

  Stella straightened and pulled away from me so she could look at me. “You didn’t have him in a hospital? Where did you deliver?” The look on her face made me anxious.

  “At home. In our trailer.”

  “Wait. What?” Stella took my shoulders again and turned me toward her. “Savannah, did you have a midwife?”

  “No.” I shook my head, feeling a little defensive. “I didn’t have time to go to a hospital. We had to get to our next event, and Killian came a few weeks early. Marek said we weren’t near a hospital anyway. One of the women in our group is a doula and she helped me.”

  The look on Stella’s face made me wish I’d lied now. Killian had come incredibly fast. I’d felt like I had a full bladder all morning, but that was nothing new, except that every time I tried to go, I couldn’t. And then out of the blue, my water broke and I went into hard labor. He was born maybe an hour later in the parking lot of a rest stop somewhere between Denver, Colorado, and Cheyenne, Wyoming.

  “Did he take you to a hospital after you delivered? Were either of you checked out by a professional?” Her eyes glistened with a mixture of unshed tears and angry sparks. “Has Killian been to a pediatrician yet?”

  “No.” I didn’t expound. The answer to every one of her questions was no.

  “Oh. This guy’s going down.” She stood up and began pacing the floor. “Negligence. Child Endangerment. Statutory Rape—you were only seventeen when you hooked up with him, right?” She ticked one thing after another off with her fingers, and then suddenly, she dropped down beside me again, put her arms around me, and burst into tears. “Oh, you poor, poor baby.” Then I was crying again, too, just because it felt so good to be loved on, worried about, and even cried over for the right reasons.

  A light tap on the door had us both grabbing for more tissue. “Yes?” Stella called out, her voice nasally from her stuffed-up nose.

  “Stella, honey? May I come in?” It was Jim. Stella raised her eyebrows in question at me. I nodded, even though my stomach lurched in dread.

  Jim Ransome looked like a man on a mission when he swept through the room. Not forceful or angry, just determined. He didn’t even bother with polite greetings, but sat down in a chair opposite us and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees.

  “I found something,” he said, looking at me with narrowed eyes. “And I’m sorry to have do this to you, Savannah. I know you’ve already endured more than anyone should ever have to endure in a lifetime, no less in one day.” I darted a look at Stella. She nodded encouragingly and I took a deep breath, trying to prepare for whatever Jim wanted from me. “I need you to answer a few very important questions. Do you think you can do that?”

  I hesitated only briefly. My life, my dark secrets, my shame and guilt, were all being brought to the light, no matter how hard I’d tried to keep things together, to hide away. In the end, it really didn’t matter what people knew, did it? All that mattered was who had the upper hand, the higher stakes, and the most to lose. I definitely had the most to lose, and that made me the lowest pawn in the game. But maybe, just maybe, Jim was right, and he had found something that would turn the tables on this whole ordeal. “I’ll do my best,” I said, my voice stronger than I’d expected.

  He squared his shoulders. “Are you sure Marek—Eugene Krame—is Killian’s father? Absolutely certain?”

  “Yes.” I didn’t even pause. “He’s the only—the only one—” I hated saying it out loud.

  “It’s okay, sweetie. We understand,” Stella cut in, patting my shoulder, her arm still around me.

  “Think, Savannah. Are you sure?” Jim was leaning so far forward I was afraid he might topple off the chair.

  “Of course, I’m sure.” A spur of defensiveness rose up in me. “I didn’t sleep around, you know.” Then I snorted, realizing how ridiculous that sounded. I’d been dating their son—madly in love with their son, who was in love with me—and I’d gotten myself knocked up by someone else.

  “I’m not accusing you of sleeping around, Savannah.” He straightened up, much to my relief, and lifted his arms above his head, lacing his fingers behind his head the way I’d seen Jordan do a thousand times. “It’s just that I spoke to a few people today, folks from Marek’s past. One was young woman, much like yourself, who ran away from home to join his troupe. According to her, he—” Jim pursed his lips as though the next words were bitter in his mouth. “—kept her for almost two years. But when he found out she was pregnant, he pretty much left her on the side of the road, stranded in the middle of nowhere up in Northern California. It was January and the girl had on a skirt and a lightweight sweater, but no shoes. She walked almost ten miles until she reached a gas station somewhere around midnight where she got help and eventually made it home to her parents.”

  I stared at him as he told his story. Marek often mentioned a girl I reminded him of, a girl who’d betrayed him and he’d made her pay. It was one of the many threats he used, but I’d never thought she was real. I certainly hadn’t bothered to check with the others in the troupe to validate his stories. It was bad enough when things got so loud they could be heard outside our trailer, and I’d have to endure looks of pity and concern for days after.

  “Do you know why he abandoned her, Savannah?” It was a rhetorical question, and he d
idn’t wait for me to answer. “He told her he knew she’d been with someone else because he couldn’t have children.” He sat back again and let the weight of his words settle over us.

  “Jim.” Stella spoke in a hushed voice. “Do you mean… Killian can’t be…?”

  Jim sat forward again. “I don’t know. It’s her word. I don’t have access to his medical records, of course. But she insisted it was true. Claimed he slept around all the time and had no children to show for it. She also acknowledged that she had, indeed, been with someone else around the time she would have conceived.” He narrowed his eyes and studied me. “So Savannah, please do not think I’m judging you or accusing you in any way.” He pointed back and forth between Stella and himself. “We want to help you. We considered bringing your father in on this—”

  “No! Please. He’s got too much to worry about right now with Mom and taking time from work.” I sat forward, sliding to the edge of the couch, suddenly anxious.

  Jim nodded. “I just know that I would have wanted to be a part of this if you were my Tish. You’re right; his plate is full. However, he is still your father, and the man God put in place to defend and protect you until you’re married.” I couldn’t help smiling at how old-fashioned he sounded. “So after I learned what I did, I went to him this afternoon—I think you’d just left, in fact—and told him only that you needed help and I thought I could help you.” He glanced over at Stella and amended his statement. “That we could help you, if he would be willing to trust us to do so while he focused on Beatrice.”