Freedom's Child: A Novel

by Jax Miller

  Matthew raises his hands. “This is my revenge, boys.” He brings his hand to his face. “Go get our niece.” They follow her.

  We’re alone. When he looks back at me, I feel nothing but the abyss that replaces his soul. My heel shifts the gun on the ground. Only felt like forever to find it. I whip him again, hard enough that it sends pins all the way up to my elbow, this time across his chest, just to keep him back for a second while I fetch the pistol off the ground. He grunts, but I can’t tell if it’s in pain or pleasure.

  “Looks like it’s just the two of us,” he pants.

  “Why couldn’t you just leave her alone?” With my finger on the trigger, it takes everything in me not to let it move.

  “It wasn’t her I wanted to begin with. I only wanted you.” In the shadows, I can see his grin curl upward. “It was all a means to get to you.”

  “Yeah, well, here I am.”

  “So I see.” It could have been romantic, given any other place. At any other time. With any other person. Under any other circumstances. I swear I can feel the welts start to rise on his skin. Instead of words, our minds race to twenty years ago, the same memories but different experiences, different perspectives. The silence gets under my skin, I can’t take it. Not only do I want to break it, I want to shatter it so it can never be repaired again.

  “Rebekah isn’t your niece.” I let the gun down and take a step closer to him. “She is your daughter.” I put the gun in my jeans to show him I have no intention of shooting him. I reach over and take his hand. Mine fits perfectly in his. My words seem to have stopped his breath.

  “That night…” His voice raspy, choking at the attempt to whisper.

  “Yes, that night.” I put my palm on his chest, feel his heart race. I imagine myself ripping inside of him and squeezing the blood from his heart until it simply stops. I kiss his collarbone and press my body against his. I think about the oils of his skin staining my lips and the thought makes me want to gag. Move slow. Don’t be too jumpy around him. Gain his trust, even if it’s for this second. As much as you hate him, gain his fucking trust.

  “When we made love…” His voice is unchanging.

  I kiss a trail from his shoulder to his back, fight the urge to pull his spine out with my teeth from the base of his neck. Get behind him, that’s the plan. Keep him enthralled. I’m holding the cards. Seduce him. Stay calm. “I think about that night all the time,” I say. In this, I tell the truth. I caress his torso from behind him.

  He can’t finish his sentences, just lets them trail off into the hollowness of this place. “Our daughter…”

  “My daughter.” In a rapid sweep, I put the belt around his neck and pull hard enough that we both fall down. Lying on my back, he wriggles on top of me, his back on my chest. I wrap my legs around him and pull until his kicking and thrashing becomes random jerks and spasms. When I let go of the belt, I feel the life return to my face, to my airways.

  It drains me for a moment; my attempts to push him off me are weak. He’s not dead. Only because killing him wasn’t my intention. Matthew isn’t worth it, isn’t worth the spit on my shoe. I press my fingertips onto the artery in his neck to confirm he’s alive. His pulse is faint but present. That’s what counts.

  I check the gun in the back of my pants. Not putting the belt back on. No, that can stay around Matthew’s neck, a leash for the dog that he is. I’m not going to leave him here. I’ll use him as ammo, use him as bait. Pull.

  His backside scrapes against the sawdust and hay. It’s not as simple as dragging him across the ground; I have to give a few firm yanks to pull him forward. Dead weight. I remember this heaviness from when I dragged his own brother, my husband’s corpse, across our home. When I leave the warehouse, the chill of autumn dries the sweat of my brow. Luke and John can’t see me yet, not from the trunk of the Delaneys’ car. I pause for half a minute to catch my breath. The distance between us is short, but the darkness is deep. They taunt and push Rebekah around like dogs fighting over scraps. Two words dominate the millions of thoughts that ricochet inside my skull: Get Rebekah.

  I become fixed at the concept, unstoppable. I find that I cannot plan my next move, don’t really think about it. I run on autopilot, like my mind can’t think of what to do next but my body does. I’m going to have to just let my body lead the way. Because all I can think about is getting Rebekah the fuck out of here.

  “Well, well,” they call out when they see me, all whistles and hollers. But what they don’t see is their brother’s unconscious body dragging behind me, his neck at the other end of my belt. When they do, they freeze; Rebekah falls to her knees, sobbing.

  “Open the trunk,” I tell them. I put the toe of my boot on the buckle of the belt to hold it on his neck, make them see me give a good tug with my right hand. With my left, I aim the gun at their faces and scream, “I said open the fucking trunk.”

  They look at each other. Right, like either of them know what to do in a situation like this. Luke is the one to open the trunk. “Get in.” They don’t seem angry. They don’t seem scared. They only seem to be taking me seriously. They crawl in, stiff in the fetal position. I take the keys. “And your phones.”

  “You’re not going to get away with this, you stupid—”

  I interrupt John’s sentence by slamming the trunk door down on them. I shoot out the tires, then throw the car keys into the tall grass as far as I can. Rebekah leans against the car, her cries stifled by a burlap hood. “Rebekah.” I help her up. There’s no time for introductions; Matthew’s starting to wake up and the boys are making quite the racket.

  “Follow my voice.” I get on and start the bike before helping her on behind me by keeping my arm on her so she feels my fingertips at the top of her chest. I pinch her clothes and pull her closer. “We need to hurry. Use the good leg and get behind me on the bike. I’m getting you out of here.”

  I haul ass. With her hands still behind her back, Rebekah squeezes me with the insides of her thighs to maintain her balance as I speed out of there. She screams in pain through the bandanna tied around her mouth, her cries coming out of her ears. “Hang tight!”

  I breathe for the first time leaving La Grange, a gulp at the air where I never felt more alive. But I’m not in the clear yet. I’ll have to stop soon.

  I turn when I see a grassed-over trail that leads through the forest, maybe five miles from the warehouse. I go in as deep as the path takes me until I’m sure we’re safe. When I turn the bike off, I listen to hear if anyone’s following. So far, we’ve made it. I use my heel to put the kickstand down and help Rebekah off the bike. She cannot walk after the fall. I carry her and lean her against a tree. “You’re OK. You’re safe now.”

  I sit beside her in the pitch black and lean my back against the same tree as her. I can’t even see my hand in front of me. I take off the hood and I feel my back pockets until I find a lighter. I use it to untie the knots on Rebekah’s wrists. And so this is it. This is my first meeting with my daughter. My daughter. While circumstances of the reunion are far from ideal, thank God she’s safe. Thank God she’s OK. She frees her hands, rips the bandanna from her mouth. She pants and swallows the fresh air, coughing to catch her breath. It’s too dark to see her face.

  “Relax, now. You’re fine,” I tell her.

  She forces steady breaths, her gasps wet with spit and snot. “Who the hell are you?” she demands.

  “My name is Freedom.” I don’t know what to say yet. This wasn’t how I planned it. But I’m OK with this. As long as she’s away from the Delaneys. It takes all that I have not to grab her, to hold her tight, to run my hands through her hair. It takes all that I have not to sob like a baby into her neck, to breathe her in.

  “They thought I was Rebekah.”

  Why the fuck did you just refer to yourself in the third person?

  I hadn’t before gotten a good look at her face. I put the flame between us. My heart sinks. If I wasn’t already sitting down, my knees might buck
le below me. “You’re not Rebekah.”

  “No,” she wheezes. “I’m her brother’s girlfriend. I’m Violet.”

  Fuck. The blood from my heart pools in my stomach. I try to swallow hard, but I can’t manage to. It feels like my ribs have sharpened themselves to daggers and are stabbing my heart to bloody shreds. Over and over I hear my head say You’re not Rebekah, you’re not Rebekah, you’re not…

  “I know your face,” she says. “A man visited me today, looking for you.”

  I lean my head against the bark. My face scrunches with a sob, but I hide it in the dark and try to force something, something that I might say if I wasn’t so consumed by devastation. “I’ve no doubt about it.”

  “Does Mason know you?”

  I sigh with a forced groan. “Once upon a time.”

  —

  My name is Freedom and I help Violet’s broken body limp into the waiting room of a hospital. I think it’s the fact that she dresses like a rich little girl that she’s taken in before the drunks and the vagrants looking for a warm spot to stay. That’s fine by me.

  I close the curtain around us as the nurses become busy and leave us. I inspect the bruises on her wrists from being tied up, see the swelling of her leg even through her skirt.

  “There was a cop who came by to see me while I was on my way out,” she starts. “After he left, I ran back in the house. When I came back out, they were there. They asked me if I was Rebekah. I guess they hadn’t heard the news of her being missing. And that was the last thing I remember.” She feels under her hair, winces when she finds a knot.

  “You’re OK now.” I try to comfort her. But I think she can sense my disappointment, no matter how hard I try to hide it. With the nurses away for the time being, I go through the backpack that I took from Mason’s house and change into the clothes I stole from Violet. I’m sure she realizes they’re hers. That’s OK. Gotta get to the club. I’ll keep my boots on for the ride and slip on her heels once I’m there. I let her watch me leave Mattley’s gun in the backpack. Yep. I can tell in her face she recognizes the stuff. She gives me a nod. I thought she’d be a little more objecting about it and was ready to tell her to shut the fuck up and take the gun anyway.

  “I heard those men talking,” she says. “You’re Mason and Rebekah’s mother….”

  What am I supposed to say to that? I just stare at her without a word. What’s the point?

  A nurse appears from behind the curtain. “Ma’am, are you family?” she asks me.

  “I was just leaving.” And off I go. I can’t get distracted. I have to remember that Rebekah is still out there. Somewhere. I’m caught in this medium: between dragging my feet with disappointment over Violet not being my daughter and racing to actually find Rebekah. In this brief state, I must catch my breath. Think. Swallow all that has happened.

  Out in the parking lot of the hospital, I skim through John’s cell phone until I reach “Mom.”

  “This is Lynn. Leave me a message and I’ll get back to you soon.”

  “Hello, Lynn,” I start. “I suppose I don’t need to make the introduction, you’ll know who this is. Your sons failed. You’re never going to find me. You’re never going to find my children. It’s a shame. Pathetic, really. All these years, you’ve been driven by your own hatred toward me. But I have no shame in the fact that without any effort, I could still keep you from happiness, keep you bitter.” I swallow; I think about how the same was reciprocated. “Unhappy you will stay. Bitter you will be. And as for me? I will stay free.”

  Meanwhile, Peter, who still had the phone he stole from Lynn the day he left New York, listens to Freedom’s message on Lynn’s voice mail. He can’t help but smile.

  Now that I no longer have to worry about the Delaneys, I can focus. Break time’s over. Now. Go get Rebekah.

  —

  In Mastic Beach, Lynn Delaney still can’t get herself up from the floor. It took all the strength she had to pull one knee forward, push an arm past it. This could be called crawling. But with Lynn, it’s a project. Over a period of several hours, she finally made some headway over the carpet. And while she had the option to crawl to the front door and call for help, a choice that might very well save her life, she passed the door and went to the adjacent kitchen.

  The chilled box of wine on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator will ease her distress. The water is a close second. How long are they going to fucking be?! Not even one visitor to help!

  She rolls up fistfuls of Boar’s Head ham and dunks them into the jar of mayonnaise before stuffing them into her face. I raised a bunch of good-for-nothing bastards. In the bottom drawer, a carton of Newports, chilled to keep them from going stale. She opens a pack and pulls out a cigarette. She’s able to reach above her and pull the cord to the toaster. She pulls it down to her side and lights her smoke off the blazing red zigzags inside. Good-for-nothing bastards.

  I am a boy, back in the arms of this redheaded stranger in the ocean. The people back on the shore are small, faceless. I use my hand to wipe the hair from her face, her smile brighter than the sun that warms my shoulders. A sky, clearer than glass, is interrupted by a banner trailing a small yellow airplane that buzzes through the summer. “Look, an airplane with a flag!” I squeal.

  The redheaded stranger looks up, her hand over her forehead to shield her eyes from the sun. “Look, Ethan,” she says in my ear. But I don’t know why she calls me Ethan. “It’s a superhero plane with a cape.”

  “Wow, a superhero plane! What does that flag say?”

  The woman points to the plane’s banner and replies, “Freedom.”

  “That’s the superhero plane’s name?”

  “That’s right,” she smiles. “We can call him Freedom McFly.”

  “Go, go, Freedom McFly,” I yell with my hands up as the plane soars over our heads.

  “Now.” Her face close to mine. “Where is your sister?”

  Mason jumps up to the sound of a man shouting, “Get him the fuck out of there, right now.” The short nap makes his head pound. The beating he’s just endured doesn’t help. A stranger marches toward him on the other side of the cell. His accent’s not local.

  “You guys can expect to be hearing from the attorney general in regards to this,” he says as he walks toward Mason to examine his wounds. “C’mon, Mason. We need to get you the hell out of here.”

  “Who are you?” Mason asks him.

  Mattley ignores him and directs his words toward Darian Cooke and Dix. “Whatever bogus charge you have him on better disappear, you understand? Tell your sheriff once he gets back that he should start looking for a new job.” He helps Mason up and leaves the cell, stopping right in front of the officers. “The same goes for you two.”

  After hearing of Rebekah’s disappearance and the peculiar circumstances back at the diner, Mattley thought it best to head to Goshen Police Department to try to get to the bottom of things. He had to suppress his surprise at finding Mason locked up in there, after recognizing him from his research on the Internet. In seeing him heavy-eyed and waking from a dream, he imagines Freedom in a different way. It takes him seeing Mason in the flesh and blood to view her as more than this woman he has a crush on from back in Oregon, more than a woman with a severe drinking problem, more than the bartender at the Whammy Bar, more than a woman who lives in a shitty apartment. It takes seeing him in person to realize that she has a history far richer than anyone could imagine. She is a grieving mother. She is a woman stopping at nothing to find the children she never knew, a woman who had sacrificed everything at the risk of suffering more than he can imagine. He finds himself wondering, Who ever thinks about the birth parents of adopted children? Adopted children everywhere, adoptive parents everywhere, even celebrities. But who the hell ever thinks what’s behind the curtain? What the context was? Who thinks of the suffering on the other end when all we see is the one side, the face value?

  Through the bars, Mattley studies Mason, looking at exactly what she ha
d sacrificed. Flesh and blood. Freedom’s own flesh, her own blood, stretched from coast to coast. And Mattley can finally see exactly what she’s fighting for, striving for, running to. It makes sense only when he sees him. And Mattley sees no other way than helping Freedom, even without her knowing.

  They say nothing as he and Mason leave the police station. Only Mason, pretending to accidentally trip into Darian Cooke, lifts his police badge from his belt and sneaks it under his shirt.

  Mattley helps him to his car, Mason’s grunts echoing through the stillness of the night, their breath visible in the cold. “Where’s Peter?” he moans as he sits behind the wheel of his Mercedes with Mattley’s assistance. “Who the hell are you?”

  Mattley closes the door after him as Mason opens the driver’s-side window. “I’m a police officer from Oregon; I’m helping with the disappearance of your sister,” he answers.

  “Oregon…” He trails off. “I’d heard Rebekah was trying to get to the West Coast,” he says, remembering the information he received from Gabriel back at the hospital. Mason leans his head on the steering wheel, frustrated. He suddenly remembers that he’s supposed to meet Peter at the Phoenix back in Louisville. “Listen, I’m sorry, I can’t stay and talk.” He starts the car. “Send the bill for my bail to my office. I promise to repay you.”

  “It’s not about the—” Mattley starts.

  “Listen, if you really want to help”—he reaches into his pocket and grabs another business card from his firm, just like the one he handed the drunk girl in the jail, a sense of urgency making his joints twitch as he jots something on the back—“find Joe. He’s with the ATF. He’ll be a helluva lot more help than me. Tell him what’s going on, that the sheriff is behind something.” Mason hands him the card and drives off in a hurry. Mattley’s face heats up when not able to get a word in edgewise. There’s so much to be said, so much to explain.