by Riley Ashby
“You know that’s how he found me, right? All those years ago?”
“I never asked you to come visit me at the hospital.” When I woke up with my wrists wrapped in gauze and cuffed to the bed, Eva was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding my hand. Conrad didn’t show up for two more days. He said I was old enough to make my own decisions, suicidal or not.
“You needed me.” She pulled my hands away from my head, clutching my fingers. I couldn’t meet her eyes, but I knew if I did, I’d see the same expression that had been on Madeline’s face before I left her to come here, still so obviously agitated and unsteady that even a woman I hadn’t seen in over half a decade could tell something was wrong. “You needed someone, and I knew he wouldn’t come.” She sighed. “Then a few weeks later, he appeared at Madeline’s birthday party. Joseph wanted to move again, but Conrad would have found us, so I convinced Joseph we should stay. I don’t regret visiting you because you needed me there. You’re my baby, Meyer.” She stood slowly, her small form looming over me in my chair. “But if you hurt my daughter, I will come for you.” She bent her head to look me in the eye. “Do you believe me?”
I do. “How do you know I haven’t hurt her already?”
“Because I raised you.”
I snorted and snatched my hands away. No more of this mothering shit. I was barely holding on as it was; I would not be collapsing into her arms and sobbing like a child. “Not long enough.”
She sighed and interlaced her fingers. Her hands trembled slightly. “You have no idea how hard it is to hold myself back right now, Meyer. I want to choke you with that tie until you bring her back to me. But as I said, I love you—”
“Don’t.”
“—just as much as I love her. Please give her that letter, and read yours. But don’t read hers. It’s not for you.”
My short nails dug into my palm, but the pain wasn’t enough to take me out of this hell. I nodded, eyes back on my desk. That much I could do.
She exhaled in a sigh. “Thank you, Meyer.”
I couldn’t watch her leave. Not again. I only looked up when the door clicked closed, and then it was only to throw everything off my desk.
“Jessica!” I roared, and my assistant flew into the room a moment later.
“Mr. Schaf, I’m so sorry, she said—”
“Get me a new computer, and then clean out your desk. You’re fired.”
She opened her mouth to argue with me, then thought better of it. She nodded and went out. I sank to the floor, sifting through the papers, searching for the letters lost among the debris of my desk. I clasped both envelopes to my chest, biting my lip so hard I tasted my blood. I couldn’t do this. There was no way out for me. Even the woman who had loved me unconditionally when all I’d ever known was pain and fear was against me now, because there was no way I was giving Madeline this letter.
My assistant reappeared with my new laptop, placing it on my desk silently and walking swiftly back to the door.
“Jessica,” I muttered, “you’re not fired. Cancel all my meetings today.”
She didn’t miss a beat. “Of course, Mr. Schaf. Would you like some coffee?”
“That would be nice.” After a moment, I added, “Thank you.”
“I’ll be back in a moment.”
I set about gathering my things, setting my desk to rights, and booting up my new computer. It was going to be a pain in the ass to get everything transferred over, and I didn’t even feel any better. Mumbling under my breath, I didn’t bother to look up when I heard the door open.
“Please tell me that’s a double,” I said.
“Glad to see you decided to join us.”
My shoulders tensed, and my teeth began to grind once more. I definitely needed coffee if I was going to deal with my father. “Sorry I was late. Had some trouble early this morning.” I swiped the letters to my lap and then to the ground beneath my chair, out of sight. “I have a lot to catch up on. I’ll be unavailable all afternoon.”
“Hmm.” Conrad leaned against the desk, mimicking Eva’s posture from only minutes before. Did he really not know she’d been here? “Having any problems at home?”
Jesus, how long was he going to pester me? I just wanted to do my work! “Things are fine!” My fist hit the desk, jarring my laptop once more. “Can’t you just trust me to do what we talked about?”
My father’s hand struck out faster than I could react, wrapping around my tie and dragging me halfway across my own desk. His spittle flew in my face as he spoke.
“Don’t you raise your voice at me, boy. You will show me the respect I’m due!” He let go only to slap me clear across the face, then stood back and straightened his jacket. My eyes focused down, the right side of my face burning from his hand, but I knew what I would see if I looked up. My father, red-faced and sputtering, fists clenched as if just barely holding himself back from punching me—because he was. If we were at home, I’d be bleeding by now. I knew better than to yell at him or try to push back. It would have been better for me to stay quiet, play him off, and maybe make up something I’d done to Madeline to make him happy. I must have still been reeling from the previous night, fighting off the last of the pills as well as the alcohol.
“I’m sorry,” I gritted out.
“Damn right, you are.” Conrad’s breathing was even again; I watched him relax out of the corner of my eye. “Don’t be late again this week. You have an image to maintain here.”
“Of course.”
“Very good.” He turned on his heel and left with no goodbye, no apology. Not that I expected one. As the door clicked shut behind him, I let my head drop onto my desk and let loose a wracking sob. Just one. That was all I ever allowed myself. It was all I could allow myself. My world allowed no room for any type of weakness, but I’d learned long ago that if I kept it all inside, I ended up in a hospital room after searching for an end to the brutality that plagued my every waking moment.
My performative grief over, I straightened my back too quickly, stars spinning in front of my eyes, and dragged my hands across my sore face. Copper burst in my mouth; he’d drawn blood after all. I picked up my desk phone and rang Jessica.
“Bring me an ice pack too. I slammed my knee on my desk.” Hanging up before she could ask any questions, I opened my broken laptop for the first time that morning. Jesus, I’d been here for an hour and managed to get assaulted by my past and my father in one go. Jessica entered moments later and placed a tall coffee near my right hand and an ice pack by my left.
“For your knee,” she said softly. She turned to go without waiting for a reply.
“Thank you,” I said again, two words she wasn’t used to hearing. Her footsteps paused, the short carpet crunching beneath the soles of her shoes as she turned back toward me.
“You’re welcome,” she said after a pause, then left once more.
I set about installing the necessary apps on my new laptop before I dared to look at the old one. The screen was shattered, but it still functioned, and I pulled off a few documents I had saved to my local drive before calling Jessica in to dispose of it. I checked every email, even the ones I normally would have sent straight to the trash, and micromanaged more than usual. My schedule was cleared for the day, and I immediately blocked it off with random appointments, discussions with my favorite project managers, and a happy hour with Shawn to get me out of the office early. But by the time Jessica finally brought in my lunch at one o’clock, I couldn’t ignore the envelopes anymore.
The paper slid beneath the rollers of my chair as I slid back to retrieve them, wincing at the black scuff marks that marred Eva’s handwriting. It looked a lot like mine. I stood and walked to my paper shredder, flipping the switch to turn on the machine but paused a moment before sliding them inside.
You don’t owe her this. You don’t owe her this. But still, part of me couldn’t bring myself to destroy her letters. In all the years since she’d walked out on Conrad and me, she’d never sent me anything. Ever
ything she’d touched, every piece of paper with her handwriting was destroyed. What could be expected after he made me kill a puppy? But now I’d seen her twice, and I held something of her in my hand. Something for me.
I flipped off the shredder and drifted back to my desk, then slid both envelopes into the inner pocket of my bag.
Madeline
I paced all day, kicking myself for letting him leave. I yelled at Joshua for not accompanying him to work and allowing him to go off by himself without us really knowing where he was.
“I can only do so much,” he said. “If he wants me to stay with you, I stay with you.”
“Aren’t you worried about him?”
“I’m more worried about what he’d do if I left you here alone.”
“We can go together.” He shouldn’t be down there. His father would see right away that something was wrong and twist the knife to make it worse. He might not come home.
Joshua was unmovable. “And what do you think will happen when we run into Conrad down there? What excuse is he going to have for bringing you to the office?”
Every day here felt like peeling back a layer of skin to expose the fresh wound that was Conrad’s control over Meyer’s life and my own by extension. I had seen enough to expect that Meyer had to have undergone some level of psychological abuse, probably physical, too, as a child if not as an adult. It made me wonder what could have possibly drawn my mother to Conrad. Who would willingly align themselves with a man like that? Was he different in the beginning? How long did she stay with him? And what made her finally decide to leave?
Joshua made me dinner and then sat with me outside, watching while I walked with Her Majesty and then sitting next to me on the front porch as the sun sank lower and then disappeared beneath the horizon. I started to pace, convinced we had made a mistake, and he had run his car off a bridge or into a concrete wall when his headlights cut through the darkness and swept across my tired eyes.
I met him in the kitchen, mouth open to demand an update from him, but he pushed an envelope against my chest and continued walking. I stared at the paper in my hand, feeling elated and nauseous all at once when I recognized my mother’s handwriting and the trademark heart she’d drawn around my name. She did the same thing no matter the occasion, every birthday and graduation or just because card. I fell into a chair with a whoosh, every atom of oxygen leaving my body at the realization that I was holding my mother’s words in my hands. Somehow, she’d gotten a note to him, and for some reason, he’d decided to give it to me. I forced myself to open it slowly, taking care not to tear the paper.
My dearest Mads,
I hope to God this letter finds you well. I haven’t slept since the night we were told of your disappearance; your father is having an even harder time than I am, which I hadn’t thought possible. But I shouldn’t tell you that. You surely have enough troubles of your own without hearing about ours.
I don’t know how much Conrad and Meyer have told you. I don’t know how much Meyer himself knows, at least of the truth. He was very young when I knew him, and his father has had a lot of time to warp him since I left. So I’m going to tell you the truth, the real story of what happened to me and how we met. I only hope that Meyer still possesses enough gentleness to pass this along.
Conrad and I met when I was fifteen years old. He was a young single father out at the bar, and I was feeling rather proud of myself for sneaking in with my fake ID. He charmed me from the start. He saw at once that I was too young to be in such a place, but he promised not to turn me in. He flattered me with compliments of my maturity. He bought me drinks, and at the end of the night, he put me in a cab home with his number in my pocket.
I almost didn’t call him the next day, but he’d taken my wallet with my ID in it. He said that for me to get it back, I’d have to come to his house. If I’d known that he wasn’t going to let me leave, I would have risked telling my parents what happened to my wallet and cash. But I thought I could trust him. I thought he had my back.
He was coy at first, showing me around the house and offering me food and drinks like an adult. I felt so sophisticated holding a wine glass in my hand while he showed me his artwork, the fine furniture, and eventually his bedroom. He was so … I won’t tell you that. But I can tell you I felt loved and cared for that first time. He urged me to sleep, saying he’d talk to my parents. When I woke up, it was in another room, and I wasn’t alone.
The door was locked, and I pounded and screamed only as long as it took to wake up the child sleeping in the crib. I hadn’t even noticed it at first, panicked as I was. When I turned, I saw Conrad’s same bright blue eyes and blond hair looking at me through the slats of the crib. He cried and extended his arms toward me right away.
Meyer was four years old when I first met him. I doubt he remembers, but I could never forget the way he looked at me, and the purple bruises on his pale skin. He knew, somehow, that I wasn’t there to do him harm. I’d always wanted to be a mother, you know that, and this child needed me. I went to him and gathered him in my arms, and he hugged me with all the exuberance of a child who’d just found his first love.
I held him for hours, changed his diaper when needed, then fed him with food I found in the room. It was well-stocked, supplies to last us both for days. We fell asleep together in the little twin bed I’d been provided, and when I woke up, Conrad was standing over the two of us. I gathered Meyer into my arms and fell back against the wall.
“This is how it’s going to be,” he said. “You fuck me when I need to be fucked, you take care of him, and then stay out of my way otherwise. Understand?”
Any questions were met with blows. I’d never been struck before, not even spanked by my parents, but during those first weeks, I pushed him every chance I got until I was so broken I could barely walk. Then he started threatening Meyer. It turned out he didn’t need to hit me, just the baby. I gave in. He gave me freer rein of the house. I learned to creep, to sense his moods the moment he came home and make myself scarce. Sometimes I avoided him. Sometimes I couldn’t.
Four years passed like that. The first time Meyer left for school all day was the worst of my life. I was suddenly in the big house with nothing to do. But beneath the beatings and the rapes, I was relatively well cared for. Conrad had no trouble reminding me how much worse I could have it. I ate good food, I had a warm place to sleep, and he didn’t let anyone else touch me. Until the night that he did.
I’m sorry to tell you this, Mads. I know this isn’t the kind of thing you want to learn about your mother. For his thirtieth birthday, he put his true self on display for all his friends. I suppose he felt safer since I was no longer a minor, and he could show me off without worrying about one of his friends ratting him out. I’d hoped one of them would be decent enough to see the fear in my eyes or to hear my veiled cries for help. But they just looked at me with the same hunger I’d grown to recognize over the past four years, the hunger that said they’d take me with or without my consent, as long as they had Conrad’s. And they did. He handed me over to them like a piece of meat—something to be traded or sold—and there was nothing I could do. It lasted forever—not just the act itself but the pain and humiliation. You remember the days I couldn’t get out of bed, and you’d hear me crying for hours on end? Now you know why.
The night he handed me over to his friends was the night I resolved to escape or die trying. I’d come close before—to dying, that was. He’d caught me hiding knives, with one foot out the door, crammed beneath the trash in my attempts to escape. But Meyer always gave me away. He didn’t understand that he had to be quiet, or he got restless, or he’d cough at the wrong moment. So as much as it pained me, I had to leave him behind. I ran from that house without even a pair of shoes, and I never looked back. I couldn’t afford to.
I ran straight to my best friend’s house. I hadn’t spoken with anyone for four years, and I didn’t even know if he still lived there. But the moment Joseph saw me, he pulle
d me inside and locked the door.
“I have to hide,” I said, and he didn’t ask any more questions. He packed a bag, and we were gone thirty minutes later.
We drove for days, changing cars and gathering fake IDs along the way. He withdrew every last dollar he possessed and sold what he could to get more. When we finally settled in Iowa, he was able to get a low paying job while I hid in our grungy one-bedroom apartment.
Four weeks later, my period was late.
I ignored it. I’d been late before. But then another month passed with no blood, and Joseph finally brought home a test. We both cried as we looked at the result.
We talked a lot about what to do. He made an appointment with two doctors. But in the end … well, you know what we decided. Like I said, I’d always wanted to be a mother. I suppose most people in my position would have made a different choice, and I wouldn’t have blamed them. I told Joseph to go home and live the life he’d planned. He told me he’d loved me since we were children, and he didn’t intend to run out now. We went to the courthouse a week later for our marriage license.
When you were born, with your head of dark hair, we cried again—this time, tears of joy. Because we knew that at least you weren’t Conrad’s. At the very least, we had that burden off our backs. He could never come for you. Joseph put his name on the birth certificate, and from that moment forward, he was your father.
We were safe for years. I really allowed myself to believe that he would let me go. I went back to work. I finished my GED. And I raised you the way I always wanted to, with love and compassion. You turned into such a wonderful, caring young woman. And we probably would have been safe except for my trip. Do you remember? I had to return to New York a few weeks before your sixteenth birthday. I can’t tell you why—it’s Meyer’s story to tell if he chooses to. But I think that was how Conrad discovered us. All I knew was that Meyer needed me, and I couldn’t leave him alone.