“I was already planning on doing college online, anyway. We’ll make it work.”
“Are you sure you want to deal with all this?”
“Erica, I’ve been head over heels for you since we were fifteen. I tried to move on when I thought you were gone, and it didn’t work. I’m here, I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’m not sure how to negotiate this mess… I don’t know how long it’s going to take me to get back to where I was, to pick up the pieces and put them back together.”
His hand rubbed my upper arm, “We’re going to figure this out. If that means we take it one day at a time, or one hour at a time, then so be it. And you don’t have to get back to where you were, we’ve both changed in the time we were apart, let’s accept that and try to move on from here.”
“Oh, man, you really are saying all of the right things. How do you know that we can make it through this, and still stay together?”
“Are you essentially the same person you were? Maybe more mature, maybe more leery of people, maybe… whatever. But do you still basically have the same hopes and dreams? Do you want the same things for your life that you used to? Are you still you?”
I regarded him with a worried look on my face. “…No,” I said, finally. I watched his face falter. Now he seemed unsure of himself, of me, for the first time. “I don’t want the same things for my life… I want more. I still want a home and family and kids someday, but I want more than I did before. I want to live life, I want to travel and experience things. I don’t want some nine-to-five job where I sit holed up all day, away from life.”
Confidence seeped back into his expression. “It’s the age of the internet, baby, there are a ton of things we could do from a laptop with an internet connection.”
Boy, don’t I know it. “You’d wanna travel with me?”
“You know how we’ve said that we’d get married after college and buy a house?”
“Yeah?”
He smiled, “We’ll buy an RV, instead.”
I turned to stare into his eyes and shook my head, “Don’t tease me.”
He stared back, “I’m not teasing.”
I settled back into his side. “I could take courses to become an online travel agent. I could maybe write articles for some travel magazines and websites, maybe even learn more about taking pictures.” I smiled in spite of myself. Although the idea of photography had been a complete fabrication before, it started to look more and more like it could play a part in my future. Not to mention that it could be a way to capture peaceful moments. Those kinds of moments were worth remembering.
“There are companies that would let me be a web designer on the road.”
“You’d really do this? Not just talking about it, but really do it?”
He shifted us both so that he could look me in the eyes and let his sincerity show. “Absolutely. I’d be more than willing to go around the country with you. Maybe even hop over the pond a time or two.”
“Even with everything going on, I can probably have my certification in a year.”
“I’m tracked for finishing up in three years instead of four.”
“It might take the courts that long to settle everything,” I mused. “I’d have time to take some writing courses, too. Maybe even a photography class. And I told Sierra that I’d take some karate classes with her. Three years will give me plenty of time to check some things off that list.”
“Why don’t you let me teach you how to shoot a gun, while you’re at it?”
“Consider me talked into it.” Between the Karate and the gun, I’d never been anyone’s victim again. I settled back against his chest. “As this all begins to play out… please don’t let me push you away,” I whispered.
He turned to rest his chin on top of my head, “Never.”
Chapter Sixteen
I Wasn’t the Only One
The train whistle, that’s all that registered in my mind at first. I had never been a railfan, but I had grown up hearing the sound of a train’s whistle as it crossed over the river. The way the sound would bounce over calm water was lonely, haunting. But to me, this morning, it was a reminder that I was free.
Even before I opened my eyes to confirm it, I knew exactly where I was, and I knew that I wasn’t only dreaming it this time. I was sleeping on the couch in the trailer’s living room, under the three open windows that looked out over the porch. I knew that my dad was sleeping on the other couch that the family had forced into the small-scale dimensions of the room. I knew it because I could still hear the endlessly loud drone of his snoring. My cousin Evan, Keith’s little brother, was sleeping on the futon that lined the third wall, with his soft snore all but getting lost among the other noises. I could also hear my grandmother beginning to brew a morning pot of coffee in the kitchen, trying to be quiet since she was the earliest riser of us all.
I should have been exhausted from the last few days that had been lived on very little sleep. But I was free. I couldn’t go back to sleep, not while I knew that I didn’t have a reason to hide anymore.
Careful not to step on Uncle Vince or Aunt Colleen, who were sleeping on a thin foam mattress on the floor, I quietly got up and started folding the blanket that I’d slept under. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my grandmother lift the tea kettle and give me a questioning look. I nodded my head and shoved my blanket and pillow under the couch. I headed to the bathroom for a super-quick shower. Once I was out, my grandmother had my cup of tea waiting for me. In silence, I picked it up and followed her outside.
And suddenly, I remembered why I had always been a night owl.
The only people who were up this early around here were the old people.
Here they congregated, in chairs and at the picnic table between our trailer and the one in front of ours. All of them were early risers, all trying to avoid waking the longer sleeping, younger crowd, who denied that the sun even existed at this time of day on a weekend.
The old biddies, trading recipes and knitting patterns, and the cantankerous old men talking about boat parts and fish guts.
All talk ceased when I came out. All the gray heads turned towards me as everyone paused in mid-conversation. I cocked an eyebrow and gawked back at them. They all took the hint and went back to what they were doing. Once I sat down in a chair, I was greeted with the more normal smiles and good morning pleasantries that I was used to.
I kept stealing glances at the tent that sat along the trailer’s side. Keith and Jared had opted to pitch it and sleep out here, rather than try and fight for floor space now that so many of the family was down here. But there wasn’t any movement yet, despite the quiet conversations floating around nearby.
The men were curious, and the women had a way of gentling the men’s questions. Casually, piece by piece, like sly foxes trying to extract the latest gossip from a shy source, they began to ask questions. I leaned back in the chair, sipped my tea, and patiently answered them. The men were focused on how it was that I couldn’t manage to get away. The women were focused on how I’d reacted to everything. I ended up going through the entire story for them.
One of the ladies couldn’t take some of the answers and she got up and drifted back over to her own camper. My grandmother started shifting uncomfortably in her chair, I thought she was going to get up and go back inside. Instead, she just shuffled her chair back, to get out of my line of sight while she tried to digest everything she was hearing.
Strangely enough for me, the telling was getting a little easier. Maybe it was because as they asked questions, I was forced to process it all further than I had before. Putting it all in the form of informational sentences made it all feel more… I don’t know… clinical, maybe. Either way, while it was all still painful, it had begun to get more manageable somehow.
Eventually, they ran out of questions. Everyone was quiet in the wake of the conversation. A couple people murmured comments like, “Wow,” or “Huh,” as their mind tried to take in all that I
had told.
But, then, I noticed it was too quiet. And it went beyond the group of ten or so old people seated around me. There was no snoring or deep breathing coming through the windows at this end of our small trailer, nor from the tent. I realized that I must have attracted a larger audience than I had intended. When I turned around to check on my grandmother, I saw my father standing just on the other side of the screen door.
My collective question and answer session had given all the information to the two men I’d most dreaded telling. The look on my father’s face was excruciating. And I could only imagine what Jared’s must look like. But now those two, among others, knew. They knew all the things that had happened to me, and now it was up to them to deal with that knowledge.
“Hey, Erica?” Keith called out from inside the tent.
I smiled, leave it to him to just go ahead and cut through the stunned silence surrounding me. “Yeah?”
“You wanna take the boat and go fishing after breakfast?” he asked just before he started unzipping the tent door to climb out.
I took a deep breath to clear my head of the heaviness of the mood, “Yeah.”
He zipped the tent back up once he was out and then walked over to stand beside my chair. “We’re going to need bait.”
I smiled again, “If we offer to take Evan with us, he’ll go dig up some worms.”
He dipped his head in a nod, “True.” He turned and headed for the door. When he reached it he had to stop because Dad still hadn’t moved. Keith couldn’t help himself, I suppose, he had to break up the mood that wouldn’t let go of my father, who just kept looking out at the tree tops further inland. So Keith stared at him through the screen and asked, “You wanna come fishing, too?”
Dad shook his himself a little, “Mike and I were going to take the boat out after lunch, to take you guys water skiing.”
“We can be back before lunch, no problem,” Keith said.
Dad still just stood there, oblivious to the fact that Keith wanted to get inside.
And now my grandmother stood up to get in line, probably to go get breakfast started since it seemed so many of us were now awake.
“So, do ya?” Keith asked Dad.
Dad finally looked down to try and understand what was going on. “Do I what?”
Keith almost laughed, “Do you want to go fishing with us after breakfast?”
“Oh…,” his gaze travelled over to me, “are you going?”
I did giggle, under my breath, “Yes, Daddy.”
“Then I’ll go, too,” Dad said.
“Well, that’s great,” Keith said, drawing Dad’s attention back to him. “Do you think we could come in now?”
“Oh! Yeah,” Dad turned a little red-faced as he stepped aside and let Keith and Grandma in. Once they had passed by, Dad came outside. He pulled my grandmother’s chair back up beside me and sat down with a cup of coffee that was no longer steaming. He took one sip of his cold coffee, made a face, tossed the cup’s contents at the base of the shade tree that we were all sitting under, and sat the cup on the ground, beside the chair.
Someone pulled out a radio and dialed in a station playing the news. This was another early morning tradition the older people had. They claimed it was too easy to feel disconnected down here. I claimed they wouldn’t feel that way if they all owned smart phones, but some shooed and grumbled that comment away.
Jared unzipped the tent, and without looking over towards the group, climbed out in his swim trunks, and headed straight for the pier. I looked at Dad with a question in my eyes. Dad shook his head at me, signaling me to let Jared go.
It was a quiet gathering now. The drone of the news sounded close by, the smell of bacon beginning to waft from our trailer windows, gray heads were downcast as people were lost in their own thoughts. Other people began to stir throughout the marina. A couple dogs began to wander down as their owners had let them out to do their business.
Evan shot out of the door, with a plastic container in his hand and a smile on his face.
Dad spoke his first words since sitting down, “I think that boy wants to go fishing.”
I smiled, “Yeah, I think so, too.”
I’d been turning in my chair every so often, keeping tabs on Jared’s bobbing head in the river. He’d jumped in and started swimming across the channel, to the island. He walked up on its narrow beach, disappeared into the woods for a few minutes, then came back out and started swimming back over to the dock. He came up the ladder, walked up the pier, came dripping across the grass to me, leaned down and planted a quick kiss on my lips, and headed inside for the shower.
Dad’s eyes had followed Jared’s progress too, his own eyes concerned. But then Dad’s expression turned to shock when he turned and saw the big, goofy grin I was wearing. “What?” he asked.
“He’s going to be fine. We’re going to be fine.”
“How do you know that? Hearing about everything that happened to you makes it all the more real and harder to deal with. He might not be able to get past it.”
I smiled to myself. “I just know.”
I think Jared had astutely been trying to give me space. Not hugging me too much, sometimes not even hugging me with both arms, and only kissing the top of my head. Everything about his actions had leaned towards the no pressure zone, and I had appreciated it. But it had also made me feel like there was a little distance between us. And I didn’t know if he wanted it there, or if he was waiting for me to cross the breach and let him know when I was ready for more. But in his simple action, of his reclaiming a little bit of ground, by giving me a peck on the lips, I had all the reassurance I needed.
“Erica!” my grandmother called from the kitchen.
I got up with a happy sigh and went inside. “Yeah?” I asked as I walked through the hall that ended at the kitchen.
Mom stood at the stove, manning pans of home fries and bacon. She had the fan on high and was already breaking a sweat from the heat.
Grandma was trying to fry eggs and handle making the toast in the four slice popup toaster that she refused to trade in for a toaster over. “Butter the toast for me, would you?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“You hid most of yesterday,” Grandma remarked as I grabbed the butter and a knife.
“Yes.”
“And you’re going to disappear out on the boat today?” she asked with a raised brow and a critical tone.
I smiled at her. “Yes, but today isn’t about hiding, Grandma. If it was, I wouldn’t have gone outside with you earlier. I would have kept lying on the couch, pretending to be asleep.”
“Then what’s it about? Your mother and I have hardly seen you since you’ve been back.”
I stared blankly at her for a moment. “I haven’t been hiding from the two of you. You two stayed in here all day yesterday, talking to small groups of people at a time.”
“You could have sat in here with us.”
I shook my head, “No, I couldn’t. I’ve been cooped up inside for far too long. That’s why I want to head out on the boat. That’s why I went out last night. It’s not about avoidance. It’s about trying to grab hold of life again. It’s about living.”
She seemed to consider that. “You can’t make up for the past year and a half in just a couple of days.”
“I’m not trying to. I’m just taking advantage of the opportunities in front of me, that’s all.”
“Are you headed home this evening when we all leave? You can stay here for the week, if you want.”
Mom’s hand paused as she was flipping slices of bacon.
I shook my head, “No, I have no desire to be all by myself, anytime soon. I’ll drive my car home when everyone leaves, spend the week there and try to get my bearings.”
Grandma slid a side-ways glance at me as she turned the eggs in her pan, “But you’re coming back next weekend and spending some time with me, right?”
I picked up the next piece of toast and started buttering,
“Absolutely. You, me, and Mom can go over to the VFW Saturday night and play bingo.”
“Good,” she said, satisfied.
Mom’s hand finally started flipping the bacon again. “Your principal has already called and left a message on my phone,” she said. “He said for you to come in sometime this week, in the morning, and your guidance counselor can go over your options with you.”
“All right. I think I already know what I want to do, but I’ll hear what she has to say. It’ll probably be easier if I let her help me set it up.”
“He said she could probably help you fudge some registration deadlines, given the circumstances,” Mom added.
Dad was behind me, coming in from the hallway, “What is it you think you want to do?”
I sighed and filled them in. Having your only child, whom you just got back, telling you that she planned on living on the road wasn’t easy for either one of them to hear.
“Is this a knee-jerk reaction, or have you spent time thinking about this?” Dad asked.
“I’ve spent the last six months thinking about this. Not fantasizing, either. I had a lot of fantasies before he moved me here. But once I came up with the plan to cooperate and wait for an opportunity, and then he moved me to a place where I knew where to go to get help once I was out, I began to seriously think about what I really wanted to do once I got loose. This is it, this is my plan.”
Dad glanced over his shoulder, at the bathroom door, turned back, and dropped his voice to a whisper, “Are you so sure that you and Jared are going to make it through the next year intact?”
“I do. But my plans aren’t about him, Dad. They’re about me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled he’s on board with them, but this is what I want to do. I’d do it without him, if I had to. I wouldn’t want to, but that’s how much I need to be able to have the freedom to go.”
“If you need to go so bad, are you going to be able to stay put for three years?”
Lulling the Kidnapper Page 20
