by Cee Smith
He wrapped me in one of those manly one-armed hugs. His arm felt lanky as it stretched across the top of my back. His broad hand slapped me heartily, and I returned the gesture with a little less gusto.
“I’m sure Connie will want you guys over for dinner as soon as she hears news of this, so keep a night free for us, will you?”
“Of course. Make sure she doesn’t get too riled up by this.”
He nodded his assent and we released each other, giving a final look over. Both of our expressions filled with the unknown for the future. That very well could have been the last time I saw him in those surroundings. I guess in a way this is like a death.
I waited by baggage claim, watching the carousel of suitcases spin to fill the time. Jessa sent me a text after her plane touched down, while she was still taxiing to the gate, and I stole another glance at my watch as I counted the minutes that had passed since her text.
Three minutes.
Three minutes since the last time I checked, but it felt more like hours as I waited away from the bustle of people, trying to look discreet in my oversized sunglasses and raised hoodie. The camouflage didn’t make me invisible, but it helped conceal the mass of blonde hair and the dark blue eyes that had been splashed across the media for days on end. I didn’t want to draw any more attention than my “undercover” outfit would draw. I couldn’t handle the pointing, the staring, the barrage of questions that seemed to whip past the mouths of regular people. Not even journalists, just regular people looking for salacious news to spice up their otherwise humdrum lives.
The row of chairs, which under ordinary circumstances would seem inviting, I now avoided. I couldn’t seem to find my inner Zen that would allow me to find comfort in such a high-pressure situation. In fact, I hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, tossing and turning all night thinking about what and how I was going to tell Jessa. Even as Scout drove me to the airport, I was still figuring out what I wanted to say. I trusted Jessa, but I didn’t know if I wanted to pull her into the mess of my world.
“Jessa!” I yelled as my sister came into view at the top of the escalators. She didn’t have a stitch of makeup on, and her brown hair hung limply over her shoulders and down the front of her neon pink shirt. She looked just as tired as I felt, with unusually pale skin and eyes carrying their own luggage—bags that hung beneath her hazel eyes. When she heard my voice, her body angled toward me revealing an oversized backpack that made her look less like my twin and more like a sister years younger than me.
The escalator coasted forward, drawing Jessa closer and closer until she leapt the last remaining steps and barreled into me with vigor. I burrowed into the embrace of my sister’s arms, hiding from the spectacle she’d created amongst the many middle-aged men and women in business suits. I swept her into a full-body hug.
“I missed you so much.” Her words were absorbed by the fabric of my sweater, hushed so other travelers weren’t privy to our reunion. I didn’t need to look into those hazel eyes to feel how much emotion she’d put into those few words.
“I missed you too, sister. It’s so good to have you here.” I gave a slight tug to her hair before taking a step back to look her over. Her eyes were glassy and freshly rimmed in red from unshed tears. A rock lodged in my throat at seeing her like this. I never could handle seeing her in distress. Luckily enough, there were very few times in our lives that I’d seen her so emotional. With the backbone of a lion, she wouldn’t hesitate to snarl at anyone that questioned anything resembling misty eyes.
“Do you have any other bags besides this one?” I jerked her bag throwing her off-center and stumbling to my side until we were both facing the luggage pickup.
“Not that it would matter. I’m sure you have more clothes than you know what to do with, but yes, my shit’s somewhere in that mess.” She nodded her head in the direction of the spinning belt that, in the span of our greeting, had attracted a crowd.
A few spins later, I grabbed her bag, lugging it behind us as we made our way to the car. Scout was already standing outside the car door waiting for us when the sliding glass doors parted. He popped the trunk and stepped up onto the curb, moving behind Jessa to help her out of the backpack. He peeled it off her arms in a way that made me feel like I was interrupting some interlude happening between them. He took the suitcase from my hand, and as he tossed our bags in the back, I looked at Jessa. If I hadn’t see it with my own two eyes I wouldn’t have believed it, but my sister was blushing. I lifted an eyebrow, and she turned to face the car.
When Dominic and I had resurfaced last May, Scout had joined us at the house we’d rented in San Luis Obispo. Jessa had stayed there with us that first week, and after she realized I was safe, she went back home but returned to the house every day to see me. What was only a suspicion, but quickly turned into a hunch, was that my sister was there for more than just me. I took one last look between Jessa and Scout before he opened the door for us and I shuffled in without so much as a sideways glance.
“What?” Jessa huffed as her hands picked at imaginary lint on her pants. While Scout walked around the back of the car, I looked to Jessa for some kind of explanation. I didn’t even try to hide my impoliteness by feigning like I wasn’t staring. I was all too happy for the brief distraction because what hadn’t been said, but what was shadowing this happy reunion, was the reason for her visit. I assumed I had about ten seconds before she would begin my inquisition.
“Nothing. I thought I saw something, that’s all.”
Scout opened the driver’s side door and Jessa smacked my thigh hard, alerting me that the conversation was officially over. Even through my jeans the slap of her hand stung, and I rubbed my leg absently as we both began to look out the window to passing taxis and people dashing to and fro like ants on speed.
We made it just outside the airport before she relaxed against the leather behind her, exhaling a breath she seemed to be holding since I’d called her the night before.
“Well…” That one word was filled with so many questions, so much expectation that the heaviness was almost like a physical weight pressing me into the leather cushions behind me. It didn’t help that those hazel eyes burned into me with a laser-like focus.
I did the only thing I could. I put it off.
“You have me all to yourself tonight. I figured we’d make it a girl’s night. You know, we can drink, watch movies, braid each other’s hair.” I gave her the biggest smile I could manage in spite of my overwhelming fear of her reaction.
“Are you even allowed to drink? You’re still breastfeeding, aren’t you?”
“Damn, Debbie Downer. Don’t worry, I’ve got it covered.”
She looked into the rearview mirror, perhaps to see if Scout was following along with our conversation, but I’d been around Scout long enough to know that he didn’t need to see, to hear. I watched her gaze into the rearview mirror with a sort of hopelessness that couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than longing. Perhaps I wasn’t the only one with secrets.
***
“Where’s my little angel?” Jessa hadn’t take two steps inside the door before seeing Ellie became her first priority.
“Her room is this way, but you know she’s asleep.”
We followed behind Scout through the west side of the house down the hallway. After ten feet he turned right, while we made a left toward Ellie’s room. I glanced back to see if Jessa was still following and could just make out her shadow amongst the darkness, but even in the dark, I could see that her body was following the path that Scout had taken.
“Wow. I’ve caught glimpses of your condo when we’ve video chatted, but maybe I should have asked for a virtual tour.” She had “museum” eyes and voice as I led her to Ellie’s room.
Dominic tried his best to recreate the same baby room that Jessa helped design in the South Dakota home. The left side of the room had a dim glow creeping up the lilac walls and directly across was Ellie’s crib, where she lay stretched out
in the deepest of sleep.
I moved just inside the door so that Jessa could make her way over to Ellie’s crib to get a closer look. Her hands gripped the railing of the crib as she leaned over to see her niece. When I moved next to her, she looked up with a heartbreaking smile that was as happy as it was sad. I wanted to switch on the lights to see if the glassy look in her eyes was from tears threatening to surface. I’d never seen my sister so emotional. I knew she had come out to lend emotional support and get answers to her questions, but now I was starting to think that there was something going on with her. Perhaps she needed this as much as I did.
“She’s beautiful, Hailey.”
“You can touch her. She shouldn’t wake up.”
Dropping her hand into the crib, Jessa passed over Ellie’s scalp a few times, rubbing the sandy brown strands like a rabbit’s foot. Her hand jerked back when Ellie turned to bunch her hands beneath her chin. I suppressed a chuckle at how gentle Jessa was being with her. She was so scared to touch her, as if she would break with the simple brush of her fingers.
“Come on.” I nudged her shoulder to follow me back to the hallway. Once we exited, I turned to her. “You can get your fix tomorrow when she’s up.”
The clock in the kitchen read 11:15, and I felt like it was just the start of the night for us. I had made a margarita mix earlier in preparation for our little heart to heart because what goes better with a tell-all than a little alcohol?
As I was pouring margaritas for the both of us, Scout passed through the kitchen to his quarters on the east side of the house, adjacent to Clema’s room. When he was out of earshot, Jessa asked me for a tour of the place, which was how we found ourselves meandering about with glasses in our hands, while I played conductor of our estate. I flicked on the main lights as we walked through each area, giving her a glimpse of each room as she followed me.
The condo was one big circle with the elevator and stairwell positioned in the middle, along with the mudroom and closets. One door on either side of the room led you out on the southwest side, which was the library and living room. A partition separated the dining room from the living room, and on the opposite wall, a swinging door led past the laundry room to the kitchen, office, and Clema’s and Scout’s rooms. Down the hallway to the left of the kitchen were the master bedroom and Ellie’s room, and on the right were two more bedrooms with their respective bathrooms.
Our condo was only one of two in the whole building that had access to a terrace that wrapped around three sides of the condo. I showed Jessa the doors that led to the terrace that I would sometimes use—spending hours people-watching from above.
When the tour was over, we found ourselves back in the living room facing each other from opposite sides of the couch, like two boxers in their respective corners. For the first time in my life, I was appreciative of the distance that separated us. More than the truth of what happened to me, I was afraid of her response to my choice to stay. The truth was like a physical part of me now, as sure as a vein wrapped around muscle, sinew, and bone. To offer up that part of myself meant to flay myself open for her to peruse the aisles of one of the most poignant times in my life. If there were one person I would do this for, it would be her. I just had to muster all of my strength to reveal it.
“Well…spit it out. And I mean everything.”
I choked back my drink, “Damn. Can I finish my drink first? You know, this isn’t easy.”
She gave an understanding nod of her head as she set her glass on the side table, in an apparent way to let me know that she was ready when I was.
“Where’s Dominic anyway?”
“He’s giving us some time alone. He figured it would be easier to talk this way.”
“Hmph,” was her only reply. With the contents of my drink sloshing into the cavern of my stomach, I began tracing patterns in the condensation lining the side of my glass. I still wasn’t sure how or what I was going to tell my sister. My relationship with Dominic was hard enough to lie about the first time I introduced him to my family, and I knew that no matter what I said, I wouldn’t be able to hold anything back this time around—maybe that’s what I really feared. Dominic wasn’t the hero that we painted him to be. In all actuality, he was the monster, the villain, the ogre in my fairytale…and I loved him all the same. So what did that make me?
“It’s true,” I said, my voice a hair above a whisper. I shamefully avoided her gaze as I continued, “Dominic was the one who kidnapped me in Australia.”
“What the fuck, Hailey?”
“L-Let me finish and then if you have any questions I’ll answer them.”
“I never meant for this to happen, but even that first time I saw him, there was something there. I can’t describe it. Hell, I didn’t know what it was, but it was something. I’m sorry I lied to you, but I had to. You wouldn’t understand. Something happened while I was with him. Yes, what he did was awful, but it was a one-time thing.
“Why did he take you?”
I cringed. Leave it to Jessa to get down to the heart of the matter.
“He…he needed that liver transplant, and his doctor found my records in the system and knew we’d be a match. Jessa, I’m so sorry. I wanted to tell you, I did.”
“You lied to me, Hailey. You knew what he did and you let me give him a piece of my liver. Did you even think about how I would feel about that? Didn’t you think I deserved the truth?” Jessa didn’t sound as angry as I expected her to. She sounded disappointed, that somehow my lies had let her down. Like I wasn’t the person she thought I was. Maybe I wasn’t anymore. Perhaps my kidnapping had changed me in ways that I wasn’t even aware of yet.
“I never meant to lie to you. The only reason why I couldn’t donate myself was because I was already pregnant. Jessa, you offered to donate and you didn’t do that for him. You did it for me, so my daughter wouldn’t have to grow up without her father. I know Dominic. Even after he took me I could see that, yes, he did this awful thing, but that wasn’t who he was. I forgave him. I don’t expect you to understand, but he’s my family now, too.”
“Did he hurt you? Does he…hurt you now?”
“No, no. He didn’t then, and he doesn’t now. Our history will never change, but we’re different now. I’m not a prisoner here, Jessa. If I wanted to leave, I could. He would probably stalk me from afar, but he would let me go.” I tried to make it sound like I was completely comfortable with the idea of Dominic stalking me, but even knowing that he had done it for a year still gave me the creeps when I spent too much time thinking about the things he’d possibly seen or heard. Every word was true though. There was a time when I would have doubted if he would ever let me go, but those fears had subsided when I brought him home. When I welcomed him into a new family.
“Is that how he found you? Was he stalking you?”
“When he wasn’t…it was—” I cut myself off because I didn’t want to mention Scout’s name while discussing that situation. Scout had very little to do with my actual abduction, and I didn’t want to tarnish his name in Jessa’s eyes. I could see she felt something for him, and I didn’t want her to change her perception of him just based on what Scout’s employer did.
“Yes. He watched me for a while. There are no secrets between us. He’s told me as much as I want to know, and I’m not happy about it, but it is what it is. I can’t change the past.”
“I’m assuming you both didn’t go around telling people, so how did this become public knowledge?”
I sat up taller against the back of the couch, shifting my feet beneath my bottom as I folded my hands in my lap.
“See, that’s the real reason you’re here.” Jessa mimicked my movements, readjusting her position on the couch as if readying for words that could knock her back into the cushions behind her.
“You know what Scout does. He’s one of the best at his job and unfortunately I believe who he says leaked that information.” I looked down at my hands one last time, almost as if to test mys
elf that this was all real, that this moment with my sister wasn’t something I dreamed up in a nightmare where I was forced to tell her the only other person we trusted so implicitly was the one who betrayed me the most.
“Adam. It was Adam.” I nodded my head alongside my words as if I was still convincing myself that what I said was true. Jessa gasped like the words sucker-punched the breath from her lungs. Her eyes were so wide, I could see the whites surrounding every part of her irises. I watched her lips stumble for words before she could muster up the strength to speak.
“No. No way. He wouldn’t do this. He couldn’t. How would he even have that information?”
“I don’t know where he got the information, but Scout followed the source until it led back to Adam. It’s true, Jessa. And I have no idea why he did it or how he got that information, but I can never forgive him for this.”
My words broke on a cry as tears crawled down my face. I didn’t know if I would ever get over his betrayal, but at that moment, it felt like a knife piercing the piece of my heart that was a reserve tucked away for everything I felt for the Bartholomews, for everything they’d done for us, for taking us in, for loving us and caring for us like we were their blood. This was the first time that I stopped to think maybe the Bartholomews knew that Adam was going to release that information. How much had he told them? What were their thoughts?
“What did Adam say when you talked to him?”
“I haven’t called him yet. Dominic said I should wait and make the call with you. That I shouldn’t do this alone.”
“Oh, Hailey.” Jessa crawled across the couch until I was in her arms. My tears were like a leaky faucet steadily dripping onto the shoulder she used to prop me up. Her embrace was warm and comforting and everything I’d missed those last few months.
“God, I hope Scout’s wrong, but we’ll get through this, Hailey. I promise.” She leaned back to look me in the eye, nodding her head. I nodded with her, though I wasn’t so sure that we would get through it. Too much had happened to suggest otherwise.
