by Lee Heaven
One of his hands left my waist and rose to hover just in front of my face holding a little black box. I gasped. It had been years since Jeremy bought me anything. Every gift I had received over the years for birthday, mother’s day or Christmas was from the kids. I tentatively reached out and opened the box. Inside was a plain silver chain with a small ruby hanging from it. It was cheap, I could tell looking at it, almost like he had gotten it from one of those gumball machines. But it was the thought that count.
I turned and placed a kiss on his cheek, “Thank you. It is beautiful.”
Jeremy leaned down and kissed my lips. His hands slid up under my shirt and gripped my breasts. Hi tongue slipped into my mouth just as he wrapped his fingers around my nipple. He was tender as he walked me backwards towards the bed. This was the Jeremy I used to know. This is the Jeremy I had dreamed of having again for years, not the drunk Jeremy who would come home and live up to the two minute man theory. But no matter how he acted the next six months, I was still leaving him.
Chapter 4
Over the past months so much has changed, but so much had stayed the same or got worse. On the good side Sarah had finally left Shawn. Granted it wasn’t under the best circumstances, he did beat the shit out of her, but Decker showed up like her knight in shining armor and rescued her. Now she and her daughter, Josie, are living with him. She isn’t one hundred percent herself again, but after years of misery it was going to take time for her to get there. She has a job making her own money and Decker is there backing her every step of the way and not once making her feel smaller than she is.
On the shit side, Jeremy went back to drinking the day after Christmas. He never came home for New Years Eve and at two in the morning my phone beeped with a text message of a picture of Jeremy kissing Kathy. I wouldn’t even call it kissing, it was more like trying to suck her tongue out of her face. Of course like any woman scorned I confronted him. All he kept telling me was it was none of my business, what he did and who he did it with. When I tossed my phone at him and he saw the picture he lost it. His fist connected with my jaw making me fall to the ground. But I was done. I was tired of getting my ass beat and never fighting back. I jumped to my feet and swung my fist back at him, connecting with his face right under his eye. It stunned him enough that I was then able to connect a shot with his kidney and then a jab to his throat.
“Don’t you ever put your fucking hands on me again!” I screamed in his face. “I am done being your punching bag. You don’t love me, that’s fine. You don’t want to be with me anymore, that’s fine to. But I will not sit here and allow you to put your hands on me anymore.”
“Who do you think you are?” he sneered at me.
“I’m your fucking wife. I’m the woman you swore to love for the rest of your life and you so obviously don’t.” I walked away from him at that point leaving him stunned and sitting on the couch most likely wondering what the hell just happened.
That was almost four months ago. He hasn’t laid a hand on me since. Hell, he barely comes home any more. Can’t say I’m surprised. I knew after the first couple of nights of him not coming home that I wasn’t going to be seeing much of him for awhile. Tonight however he is home. The first time in weeks I’ve seen him. I haven’t even bothered to show him the foreclosure papers I once again received. He must know that they will be coming, he hasn’t paid the mortgage in months. He hasn’t even bothered to say a word to me since he walked in the door hours ago.
My phone ringing from the other room made me want to run to answer it, but before I could even pull my hands from the soapy water where I was washing dishes, I heard Jeremy’s deep timber answer my phone. It was close to midnight which meant it was either my step-father or Sarah.
Fuck I hope it wasn’t my step-father calling, he wouldn’t keep his mouth shut about me moving home if Jeremy started with him and I didn’t want Jeremy knowing. I just planned on leaving. It was safer that way.
His boots thumped on the carpeted floor as he walked toward the kitchen. “There’s a detective from New York City on the phone for you,” he said with a worried tone in his voice. Worried? Jeremy hadn’t been worried in years, but this phone call made him worry.
“Hello?” I said with a shaky voice. A detective from New York City could only mean one thing. Something happened to Sarah.
“Mrs. McAllen, my name is Detective Kelly. I’m wondering if you have heard from Sarah Starr at all tonight?”
Fuck I knew it, something happened.
“No, I haven’t talked to her for a couple of days. Is something wrong?”
“Ms. Starr went missing tonight,” he said as tears sprang to my eyes and poured down my cheeks. “We have a video but we are unable to identify the man in the video. Can we email you a copy and have you take a look and see if you recognize him?”
“Yes please send me whatever you want! I will do whatever I can to help!” After giving the detective my email address I hung up the phone placing it on the counter. I looked up to see Jeremy still standing in the doorway with a worried look on his face. “Sarah has gone missing,” I got out before I collapsed on the floor crying.
Jeremy picked me up and cradled me in his arms as he walked me over to the couch. I sobbed into his shoulder. She was just starting to pull her life together. She was just showing me that there could be happiness if I was able to get out of my own nightmare. How can I leave this nightmare if hers never ends?
I finally let go of Jeremy’s shoulder and slid next to him on the couch as I pulled my laptop off the coffee table and onto my lap. My fingers trembled as I opened it and logged onto the internet, signing into my email.
There sitting in my inbox was an email with the subject line S. Starr glaring at me. Mocking me! What if I opened this and find that it was Shawn who did this to her? What if it was someone else? Someone we knew? A stranger? I couldn’t look at Jeremy. What if he does this to me after I leave? Is there a chance he’d come after me?
Clicking open the email I click on the link that opened a video. I held my breath and waited as it loaded. Jeremy’s hand traced up and down my back. Rubbing circles as he went. Its times like these I remember why I fell in love with Jeremy to begin with. He was sweet, caring and tender. He wasn’t the man I had come to know over the years.
We watched as the video showed a black Nissan pulled in next to a Ford Escape. I watched for five minutes as no one got out of the Nissan. Sarah finally entered the bottom of the screen. She kept looking behind her, as if she was searching for something. The taillights flashed on the Ford Escape as she pressed the unlock button on the key fob. Just as she reached her door a man came out of the passenger window of the Nissan and jabbed what looked like a needle in her neck. I screamed as I watched her crumple to the ground. The man got out of the car, picked her up off the ground placing her in the car, walked around to the driver’s seat and then left.
“Holy fuck…did that…is this…real…holy fuck,” Jeremy said beside me as I sobbed into my hands.
I heard the ringing of a phone through what I can only suspect was Jeremy’s cell on speaker as he clicked away on my computer.
“Kortman,” a voice answered.
“Kyle, its Jeremy. I’ve just sent you an email with a video link in it.” Kyle Kortman was an old Marine buddy of Jeremy’s. He now does something with the FBI, what he does, I don’t know since every time I talk to him he says his work is classified. “I need to know if the video is real and if you can get me anything. The woman in the video is my wife’s best friend.”
“I got it,” Kyle said. “Well I’m about a second into this video and I don’t have to watch any more. The video is real. It came across my desk about two hours ago. I just sent a team to go help. As of right now all I can say is yes its real, no we haven’t been able to pull an image of the man’s face, there were no plates on the car. NYPD and my team have been tracking the car but have lost it somewhere. We don’t know what happened to it after it turned into a zone where the
re were no street cameras. If Chrissy can watch it and see if she can tell who it is we could use any hint. NYPD ruled out her ex…Shawn Peterson, if that helps.”
“Thanks, Kyle. Let me know any information when you get it,” Jeremy said before clicking the end button on the phone. “Can you tell who it is in the video?” he asked me.
I shook my head. I didn’t know who it was. “I think I knew it wasn’t Shawn, the man is too short and not skinny enough to be him. But, besides that I don’t know.”
I must have watched that video a hundred times over the next hour before I passed out on the couch. All I could dream about was Sarah and what horror she was going through. Who took her? Different faces popped into my dream, but I couldn’t decipher one from the other. They all just blurred into a mix of faces and transformed into the devil’s face and an evil laugh emanating every time I tried to reach out and turn the body of the man who appeared from nowhere.
~~~
For a week Jeremy came home every night. He didn’t drink once and no arguments happened. He was in constant contact with his friend at the FBI trying to find any information he can for me. For a week I watched the same video over and over again. Every time I watched it I prayed for the man to turn around but he never did. The FBI and NYPD were no closer to finding the man in the video than I was.
I couldn’t say how many times I had watched the video, but it was what I did all day long after I got the kids to school. I would pause and play in slow motion. I was hoping to see a tattoo somewhere, or have the man just turn his head ever so slightly so I could get a glimpse of his eyes or cheek bones. I streamed it to the TV hoping a bigger picture would show me something. I zoomed in and clicked frame by frame. But every time I got nothing.
News covered Sarah’s kidnapping every day. From the East coast to the West coast, they were always talking about it. People I hadn’t talked to since high school were sending me messages on Facebook asking if there was anything they could do. Even someone I grew up with who was currently living in Japan said it was all over the news there and people were looking for her there. No one knew where she was. There was no ransom for her, no contact from who ever took her. Everyone was still as stunned seven days later as they were the first day.
I was staring blankly at the TV as the morning news went on and on about the different things that happened around the country and the world since last night. It was the same crap as every morning, stocks were down, someone was shot, and some country was fighting with another country. Decker had done one of his daily press conferences an hour ago and like every other day he stood there with Sarah’s parents, his parents and Maggie begging for someone to please call with any information. That they were willing to pay whatever the kidnapper wanted if only he would call. I was frustrated and angry. I wanted to know who could do this just as much as anyone else. Jeremy walked in the door, handing me a cup of coffee from Dunkin Donuts. As I sipped on the coffee I looked at him, “What are you doing home? Do you not have work?”
“I took the day off to be with you,” he gave me a sad smile. “It’s been a week and I know it’s killing you. I can see it. I can feel it.” I looked at him hesitantly. “I know I’m a dick most the time, but there was a time I wasn’t. When I’m sober, I think of those times and want to be that man again. It’s when I realize that I’m so far from him that makes me drink again, just to be that dick all over again. I wish I could change the past. I wish I could sit here and say that I’m not going to be that man anymore. But the truth is I can’t change the past and we both know that at some point I will drink again and become that dick. I’m surprised you’ve held on this long.”
I sighed. What was I supposed to do? He was actually apologizing for all the shitty things he has done over the years. But he also just said that at some point he was going to drink again and be an ass.
“Jeremy…I just don’t know if I care anymore. When you asked me years ago, to let you take care of me, it was just the beginning of me falling in love with you. And I do, I do love you. I love you for taking care of me in a time where I just didn’t think I could move on and was ready to give up. But all these years later, all these years of abuse, secrets and mistrust, I just don’t know if I care anymore. I don’t know if I can even try again. You break me a little more every time you put your hands on me, every time you walk out the door and never come home. Every time I get a call or text message saying you’re all up in Kathy. Every time the mortgage doesn’t get paid or I have no money to even feed the kids.” I finally turned my eyes on him. “I’ve been trying to decide for years now if you really loved me or if you just married me out of some jealousy because I had originally chosen Kristopher and not you, and this was your way of sticking it to him.”
Jeremy sat there and stared at me. I couldn’t even tell what he was thinking. I ignored the phone ringing on the table and just looked at him. This was me starting to say my goodbye. This was me dropping hints that come the end of school year I was done. I had been on the phone with the mortgage company and thankfully they were willing to work with me. I had until the beginning of July to move. I wasn’t even going to tell Jeremy that they were foreclosing again, for the fifth time in two years. I was just done, done with it all. I didn’t care if he came home anymore. I didn’t care where he spent his money. I didn’t care if he slept with Kathy. I was just done.
I was about to tell him some of that when the news broke through to me.
“We have breaking news. Sarah Starr, girlfriend of Yankee Shortstop Decker Jensen, has been found safe”. I turned to the TV with wide eyes as I watched as the camera panned in on two black Suburban’s pulling out of the garage that was always the backdrop to Decker’s press conferences and sped down the street with cop cars falling in front and behind to clear the traffic. “Details are still coming in.” The camera from the helicopter followed the cars as they raced across the city. “We have a report that at nine fifteen this morning, just a short time ago, Ms. Starr was found safe. As we watch from the helicopters camera we can see two black Suburban’s flanked by police, we presume that Ms. Starr’s family along with Mr. Jensen, are in these vehicles, as we watched them pull out of Mr. Jensen’s building just a few moments ago. We just have new information in…Ms. Starr was found at Yankee Stadium this morning. We have not received any information on how she was found or where she has been. We have sent a team over to the stadium for ground coverage to begin as soon as possible.”
I watched glued to the couch as tears silently streamed down my face. I watched as these two black cars raced across the city. I watched second by second barely hearing a word that was being said on the TV. I barely noticed Jeremy at my side or the way his hand rubbed soothingly up and down my back. I watched as the cars raced down the side street near the stadium and as Decker jumped from the driver seat of one of the black cars as it was still rolling down the street and someone from the passenger seat jumped over to slam it in park. I watched as Decker and then Sarah’s parents went running into the stadium.
My phone ringing on the table pulled me from my fog. I looked at the screen to see Erica, Ely’s mom, calling me.
“Hi,” I whispered into the phone.
“They found her!” She rasped into the phone.
“I know, but the TV isn’t saying anything about details. What do you know?”
“Not much at the moment. I just got off the phone with her mom and they didn’t know much besides that she ran full speed into the office at the stadium this morning. I’m getting in the car right now to head to the hospital now. I’m sure she’s going to freak at some point, we all know how her attacks end up. I’ll let you know as soon as I know anything.”
“Thanks Erica,” I said as I hung up.
I placed the phone on the table and let out a breath of air that had settled in my chest all week. I was happy she was home, she was safe. No, happy didn’t even begin to describe how I was feeling. Flying high, ecstatic, nothing seemed to begin to explain how happy
I was. .
I kept watching the TV eating up any information they were giving out. I watched as Decker walked out of the stadium carrying a bundle of blankets that I knew had Sarah hidden under them and into the back of a waiting ambulance, which promptly sped off the second the doors were closed. I watched as it sped down the street and disappeared into a hospital parking garage.
“Would you search for me the way Decker has searched for Sarah this past week if I ever went missing?” I asked Jeremy without even looking at him.
He didn’t answer for a minute, that hesitation gave me all the answers I needed, no matter what he said out loud. That hesitation told me that he probably wouldn’t even give me fifty percent of what Decker gave Sarah.
He finally spoke, “I would like to think I would give as much as I could, but you can’t compare us. He has all the money in the world to help him and I do not.”
If flames could shoot out of my eyes I’m sure they would have with the look I gave Jeremy. “Money has nothing to do with what he did. Love has everything to do with it. That man would give his life for her. That man would give everything he has away if it meant he was able to keep her safe for the rest of their lives. It’s love that drove him to never give up this week. LOVE!”
I stood from the couch and walked away. I knew he didn’t love me enough to do what Decker had done. I knew he wouldn’t search for me the way Decker searched for Sarah. I wondered if he would even bother reporting me missing or if he would just go on living his life.
As I closed my bedroom door and blocked out Jeremy, I think back to all those years ago. Did he ever love me? Did I ever really see it in his eyes?
