When I told Ange about how horrible everything was and how scared I was, he told me not to worry. That soon I’d be living with him and everything would be okay, and I should just put it behind me. But how was I supposed to do that? He expected me to forget that I had a mom and dad and a little brother and that I loved them all so, so much.
Everyone knows that I was abducted. That I was away from home and no one knew where I was. That very bad men had me and the other children and that terrible things happened to us all the time, things I will never be able to talk about with my friends.
Julia gave me her cell number and told me I can call her anytime. But she doesn’t understand, no one does. How can I talk when everything that happened makes me feel dirty inside? How can I tell mom that I can’t face going back to school because everyone knows? I’ll never be clean again. It doesn’t matter what anyone says! I know that. I’m never going back to Terrace and I’m never going back to school!
Dad called again. He was crying. He’s so sorry for what he said. He really wants to see me, and I really want him to come. Mom won’t let him, because of what he said to me about getting into Seth’s car.
I called Julia and told her I want to see dad and that he’s sorry and please tell my mom to change her mind. Dad isn’t bad. He would never hurt me. He didn’t say what he said to hurt me. It’s what he always said to me when we talked about how young girls have to be careful about strange men and not to trust them. He was just trying to protect me, and he feels bad because he wasn’t there, picking me up from soccer practice. I know that, even though he doesn't say it. I know he feels guilty and thinks that what happened to me is his fault.
Uncle Michael is bringing his friends Morgan and Kate to visit us. I really want to meet them.
CHAPTER 51
I’d never flown up to Northern BC and the view from the plane is spectacular. Hundreds of miles of pristine, snow-capped mountains and the Pacific coastline—surreal, cold and distant below us. Michael’s in front of us, his head bent over work related stuff. Kate’s beside me.
“What are we going to say to Carey,” I said, not for the first time.
“Honestly love, I’ve no idea,” said Kate. “I’m hoping that the words will just come as they’re needed.”
“Me too.”
“There is one thing you could share,” Kate offered. At my blank look, she said: “You both escaped. You could tell each other your stories.”
I reached out a hand and Kate took it and gave it a squeeze, tucking my arm through hers.
“Bart says we don’t have to have the answers, Morgan. We just have to let her know we care.”
Rosaline opened the door at Michael’s knock. He enveloped her in a big hug, then kept one arm around her as he introduced the two of us. Kate wasted no time stepping forward to give Rosaline one of her famous hugs as well.
“Is Carey here?” I asked.
“She is and she’ll be out in a bit. She’s so pleased you decided to come, but ... you know,” she said softly.
“Of course,” said Kate. “We’ve no expectations. We’re just glad to be here.”
“And I’m so glad you could all make it. I’ve lunch ready for you. You must be hungry.”
“I am,” said Michael.
“You’re always hungry,” laughed Rosaline.
“Rosie’s a great cook,” Michael told us.
“Hi Uncle.” We all turned to the doorway.
“Carey!” said Michael, going over and giving her a hug.
“Carey, these are my friends, Morgan, and Kate.”
“I’m Morgan. We’re excited to finally meet you Carey.”
“That we are. I’m Kate.”
Carey gave us a little smile.
“Here, let’s get everyone to the table and get some lunch into you,” said Rosie.
“I could definitely eat,” I said.
“I’m as hungry as a wee army,” said Kate, laughing.
“Where are my manners?” said Rosie. “Let me take your coats.”
“I’ll take their coats mom,” said Carey, coming forward, her eyes on Kate and me.
We handed her our coats and the three of us shed our footwear. Kate and I had brought slippers. We got them out of our overnight bags and pulled them on. Michael had forgotten his so Rosaline got him a warm pair of socks to wear and we all followed her to the kitchen.
Carey took our coats to one of the bedrooms and quickly joined us in the kitchen. She took the chair on my left and I smiled. There was no return smile, but I sensed one lurking there somewhere.
“Smells delicious Rosaline,” declared Kate.
“Oh please, Kate, call me Rosie.”
“Rosie it is,” Kate and I chorused together, then laughed. I liked her right off. She was a no-nonsense woman with a warm smile. I sensed that she was genuinely relieved that Kate and I had come.
Rosie had outdone herself. Our lunch menu included lasagna and fresh baked buns, all of it delicious. An apple pie waited on the back of the stove.
“Can I ask you a question?” said Carey. I looked at her.
“You can ask me anything you want?” I said with an encouraging smile. Everyone at the table grew quiet. Continued eating.
“How’d you get away?”
“I tried to get away a couple of times. The first time, I was in a box on the back of a pick-up truck.”
“In a box?”
“Uh huh, like a storage box. I got the lid open and I crawled out.”
“Did you jump from the truck?”
“That was my plan, but no. The guy who had me saw that I was trying to escape, and he stopped the truck.”
“What did he do then?”
“He strangled me.” I didn’t really want to talk to her about this, but after the hell that she’d been through, I felt it best to be completely honest. Michael didn’t know about that and he gave me a horrified look, which Carey didn’t see.
“That must have hurt a lot,” said Carey, her eyes full of concern.
“It was over pretty quick.”
“Then what happened?”
“I must have passed out. The next thing I remember, I came to on the shore of a lake. I got myself up and escaped into the woods close by. I found a thicket and I crawled into it. Then I fell asleep.”
“You fell asleep!”
“I was very tired,” I said, smiling at her.
“And he didn’t find you?”
“No, he did not!”
“They made us go to sleep a lot, even when we weren’t tired. They gave us pills. Lots of different kinds. Whenever I could, I hid the pill in my cheek and waited for them to leave, then I’d spit it out.”
“Good thinking!” I said.”
“Yeah, well, I couldn’t always do that,” she said. Sometimes, they’d make us open our mouths so they could check. Then I’d have to swallow it and I couldn’t help falling asleep.”
“That must have made you angry.”
Carey nodded yes. “They gave us other pills too, so we wouldn’t be any trouble.”
“Right. Me too.”
That ended conversation for a while.
“So, how did you get away, Morgan?”
“I woke up the next morning and the guy who took me was nowhere in sight, so I crawled out of my hiding place and headed back to the lake to get a drink of water. Man was I thirsty! That’s when I heard a motorboat, so I hurried as fast as I could down to the lake to try to get the attention of the people in the boat.”
“And they saw you?”
“They sure did. They rescued me.”
“I wanted to save the other kids, and myself, but we were never alone.”
“But in the end, Carey, it was you who saved them, and yourself.”
Carey gave me a dubious look. I was surprised that she wasn’t buying her part in the rescue.
“You got your hands on that cell phone,” Michael interjected with
a grin. “I could not believe it when you texted me!”
“I was so nervous Uncle!” She turned back to me. “The first time I hit send before I typed the message.”
“Oh no!”
“But the second time, I got your message, loud and clear!”
Carey stopped talking and started eating in earnest. Rosie jumped in.
“Kate, Michael tells us that you have psychic abilities.”
“He said you knew what I was thinking,” said Carey—all attention—even as she made inroads in her lasagna.
“It’s more that I knew how you were feeling, at least some of the time. It’s the same as if someone is sitting right beside you and you just know that they’re happy, or they’re sad. You had me worried, more than once,” said Kate. “Then I’d know that you were feeling better.”
“I see,” said Carey gravely. “But how did you know it was me who was having those feelings?”
“I can’t explain that.”
“How did you find Seth? Is that different?”
Kate nodded. “It is. There’s no way to explain how I do that either. I don’t even know how it works. It’s a gift.”
“I’m sure glad you found him, Kate.”
“Me too.”
“Do you know if he’s okay, I mean, really okay?”
“He’s staying in a place where they help people to heal from the kind of experiences that you and Seth had to live through. My husband and the team that he works with are helping Seth. And his mom is close by, so he sees her every day.”
Carey gave this some thought. “Is your husband a psychiatrist?”
“Yes. He is.”
“Julia’s a psychiatrist and she’s helping me.”
“I’m glad to hear you have a helper,” said Kate.
I happened to glance over Carey’s head at Rosie and Michael, studiously ignoring us, heads down, eating. Carey was studying me very closely.
“That’s a scar on your forehead?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Did one of the men do that to you?”
“Yes, Carey. There were lots of bruises too. I’m healed up now, but I still feel them in a way I can’t quite explain.” That just popped out. Even I was surprised.
“I know what you mean,” said Carey. We shared a glance of understanding.
“There’s something I’d like to show you Morgan. It’s in my bedroom. Mom, can we be excused?”
“Of course, sweetie.”
I got up and following her to her bedroom. She shut the door and we sat on the side of her bed.
“I don’t really have anything to show you. There’s something I want to ask you. I didn’t want to ask in front of the others.”
“Ask away, Carey.”
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” She was suddenly quite anxious. “I don’t want you to be mad at me. I really like you Morgan.”
“I really like you too, Carey.” I laid a hand on her shoulder. “You can ask me anything you want,” I assured her. “I won’t be mad, I promise.”
“I’m really grateful that you helped my uncle find me. I’m so grateful to everyone who helped.”
I nodded and waited for her to continue. There was a long silence.
“Did they rape you?” she finally asked me quietly, looking at her hands.
“Yes. Some men did. I don’t remember much about the rape. I was semi-conscious. They drugged me first. But I knew I’d been raped and beaten. I was sore after and there was a lot of bruising.”
Carey turned quickly and looked me right in the eye.
“Are you mad I asked?”
“No, not at all,” I assured her. “You know Carey, you’re the first person to ask me.”
“Didn’t your boyfriend ask?”
“No, he didn’t. He knew though, even before I told him. He felt it was his fault.”
“Were you afraid to tell him because then he wouldn’t love you anymore?” Then I understood.
“No Carey. I had to tell him so that we could work through it together. I think that deep down, he still feels partly to blame because he wasn’t there to help me. But he couldn’t have stopped it from happening and there’s nothing he can do about it now.”
I opened my arms and Carey moved in for a hug. As soon as I put my arms around her, she started to cry.
“They raped me too,” she sobbed into my shoulder, “and did terrible things that I can’t get out of my mind. They made us take pills. They made us drink. We weren’t allowed to say no. I haven’t told anyone yet, not even Julie.”
“You just told me honey.”
She looked at me, surprised. “I did, didn’t I.”
“Yup. You know, I think, some day, we’ll be able to put the bad experiences we’ve had behind us. I don’t mean forget about them. I don’t think anyone can ever do that. But first, we have to talk about what happened, so that it’s not bumping around inside our head.”
“That’s what it feels like,” said Carey.
“And we do need to forgive ourselves, not blame ourselves, so we can move forward with our lives. That’s the hard part, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know how to put it behind me, or accept it, or forgive myself, like you just said we need to do.”
“I’m still working on it myself Carey. All of it. I sure don’t have all the answers. But I do know one thing. It takes as long as it takes.”
“I like that,” she said. “It takes as long as it takes. Mom wants me to hurry up and get better. Uncle Michael too.”
“They want you to heal. They don’t want you to be sad. That’s because you’re so precious to them.”
“Yeah, and mom is used to making it better for everyone, but she can’t wave a magic wand and make it better for me,” said Carey, a very sage comment coming from an eleven-year-old. “I feel so much pressure, but I can’t do it any faster.”
“We know that we have to do this for ourselves, in our own time, don’t we,” I said.
“Yes, we know that.”
“At first Carey, I blamed myself for what happened to me. If I hadn’t gone for a run at night, just paid closer attention to what was going on around me, not been so distracted, you know what I mean. I wanted to turn back the clock.”
“I still blame myself because I got in the car with Seth,” she said quietly and in this child’s eyes I could see that she did. It was so unfair.
“Carey, you did nothing, absolutely nothing wrong. There are bad people out there, and they do bad things. One thing I do know for sure is there’s no healing for us if we travel down that road.”
“Part of me knows that. Really. And that’s what everyone keeps telling me. But it’s like having a tape in my head that says the same thing over and over: It’s your fault.”
“Have you read any of the things people are saying about you Carey?”
She shook her head. “What things?” I looked at her. I was incredulous. It must have showed.
“You’re a hero! You saved yourself and seven other children, and you saved Seth and Joy. You are so very, very brave. You’re my hero,” I said, and she could see I meant every word. Carey was looking at me strangely.
“I don’t feel very brave right now.”
“From my own experience, the things we’re most afraid of talking about get bigger and bigger if we keep them inside.”
“Julia says the hardest wounds to heal are the invisible ones.”
“She’s right about that.”
“She also says talking about the things that hurt us is a way of taking away their power so they can’t hurt us anymore.”
That resonated with me. “I really like that! You know what I’m going to do?”
“What Morgan?”
“I’m going to tell everyone that I care about, exactly what happened to me: about the men who raped me; about the man trying to kill me; about everything. Talking with you today has helped me see
that I have to do that. Thank you, Carey, for helping me realize how important that is.”
That surprised her. “You haven’t told your friend Kate?”
“No, not everything, But I’m going too, really soon.”
“You’re my hero Morgan. Uncle said you took down the bad guy that was trying to kill you with karate!”
That made me smile. “Well, that’s not exactly how it went down. I held the guy off for quite a while and I did bust one of his kneecaps. That gave me a lot of satisfaction. Believe me! But it was my partner Lucas who hit him with a big rock and dropped him in his tracks. I was tired by then and that was fine with me.”
Michael chose that moment to call us back to the kitchen. “Hey, you two—if you don’t get back here, I can’t guarantee there’ll be any pie left!”
“He’s not kidding,” said Carey, matter of fact. “He loves mom’s pies. He can eat two pieces.”
“Two!”
“And its apple pie, my favourite and my mom is an awesome baker and we have ice cream.”
“Apple pie and ice cream. That sounds good. We better get back to the party.”
“Is it a party?”
“It’s a celebration, absolutely!”
We were sitting in the living room, enjoying after lunch coffees.
“We have a surprise for you Carey,” I said, looking over at Kate.
“You tell her,” said Kate.
“No. You tell her,” I insisted.
“We wanted you to know that Marie is living with my husband and me.” Carey jumped up and threw her arms around Kate.
“You’re taking care of Marie?”
“Yes, we are.”
“But where’s her mom?”
“No one’s been able to find her.”
“How long can she stay with you,” Carey asked, suddenly worried.
“Until her mom is found.”
“What if they don’t find her?” she asked, her face apprehensive. Kate didn’t want to tell her, not just yet, that Marie’s mom was most likely dead.
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