by Alana Terry
“I, um, I had to leave early.” She hated herself as soon as the words escaped her mouth. Why couldn’t she have come up with something else to say? She cleared her throat and forced as massive a smile as she could manage. “What did you think, though? Did you have fun?”
“It was all right,” he answered. “I would have had even more fun if you were there the whole time.” He inched toward her again. His leg brushed against hers, or maybe that was just part of his pants. Jennifer was afraid to breathe. What if he could sense how nervous she was? What if she had bad breath? Why hadn’t she thought to add more deodorant before she sneaked out of the house and ran off with Shawna?
His pinky finger moved subtly. What was that? Was he trying to hold her hand? Sending her some kind of secret signal? She’d never held hands with a boy before. What if he took her hand now and it was all sweaty? What would he think?
She moved her hand and wiped her palm on the couch cushion. Darren looked down for a minute. Had she hurt his feelings? Did he think she was turning him down? She had to think of something to say, something fast.
“Dad hasn’t really been the same since Mom died.” And right there, Jennifer wished that she could disappear into the floor. It was as if the magic she’d been pretending to live under — here with Darren, him paying attention to her and only her — was a spell she’d just destroyed by bringing up such a depressing topic. She had to think fast, had to make it right, had to correct her mistake.
“Yeah, that really sucks,” he replied before she could say anything else.
She couldn’t breathe. Darren was staring into her eyes. He didn’t laugh at her. Didn’t get up and walk away. Didn’t abandon her to go find Lisa, who was so much prettier and cooler than Jennifer could ever hope to be. He didn’t do any of those things.
Jennifer gave a half-hearted chuckle. “Yeah. It kinda does.”
And they both laughed and started talking about Mr. Green, the science teacher back in middle school who was rumored to smoke marijuana on a daily basis. Half the girls at their school secretly had a crush on him, and there was no end to making fun of the ones who made the biggest fools of themselves to win his attention.
It was past midnight now. Jennifer knew she’d have to go home soon. She hadn’t meant to stay nearly this long to begin with. But she’d lost all sense of time with Darren by her side, their legs pressed up against each other, his pinky inching close to hers before pulling away so subtly she sometimes feared she imagined it.
Kylee’s stereo had already started to reshuffle its playlist. Only a few kids were left. Kylee wanted them all to come outside so she could show off the new hot tub in the back yard, and for a fragment of an eternity, Jennifer and Darren were in the living room completely alone.
He’d been telling her about what it was like spending summers with his dad when everything stopped. The din of the crowd. The song on the CD player. The pulse of Jennifer’s heart.
Their eyes locked. She couldn’t have looked away from him if her life depended on it.
And then his hand was on hers. Not just touching and slipping away. He was grasping her hand now, and all of a sudden, she didn’t care how sweaty her palms were.
And in that instant she knew. She knew that he would have never told Adam or Russ or Craig that Lisa was prettier. Would have never preferred to dance with Lisa. Jennifer thought back to the scene in the gym. He’d wanted to be with her. That’s why he gave her that look, that shrug. Lisa had grabbed him, demanded a slow dance, and he was too kind-hearted to turn her down. Shawna and Kylee and Lisa were all jealous. That was all there was too it. Jealous of Jennifer because Darren liked her.
Darren chose her.
Darren wanted her.
She held her breath, certain that if she opened her mouth just a little her heart would leap up out of her throat. That’s exactly when it happened. The tiniest of kisses, the kind that wouldn’t have even counted in any other situation. He missed her lips but grazed the corner of her mouth. A quick motion, not quite a peck but definitely something. Something real.
He pulled away. She tried to think of something to say. Anything to say. What do you say at a time like this?
She realized her hand was still in his. He hadn’t pulled it away.
She stood up. She had to think of something to do. Had to make it sound like this sort of thing happened to her every single day. Darren could never know that she’d never been kissed before, never held hands before, never been so in love in her entire life before. She just had to act cool. Natural.
Piece of cake.
“Wanna see the hot tub?” Darren’s voice gave a little squeak. Jennifer stared at her feet.
“I should get home,” she said. “It’s … my dad … It’s getting late …”
She raised her eyes once, let them flicker up to his face. Was he blushing?
She wiped her palm on the side of her pants. “Thank you,” she stammered and hoped that he wouldn’t ask what he was thanking her for, because she wouldn’t have the slightest clue how to respond.
Darren cleared his throat. “Yeah, um, thanks to you too. I mean, have a good night. I mean, yeah.”
Jennifer couldn’t suppress her giggle. “Okay. Yeah. Bye.”
He scratched at his neck. Shifted his weight from side to side. He called something out after her, but she was already racing toward the front door, her feet flying, her heart soaring into the stratosphere.
She was halfway down the driveway when a low, menacing voice made her stop in her tracks.
“So this is where you’ve been.”
CHAPTER 15
“I have to get off,” I’m telling my husband. The moment the pilot told the attendants to shut the doors, I knew. Knew there was no way I could go through with this. No way I could continue on to Detroit.
“What’s gotten into you?” Russel’s voice is firm. I know I’m making a scene, but I can’t help it. I haven’t felt this trapped in years, not since I found myself in Henry’s basement.
I was fifteen, even though he insisted I was a full year younger. I told him my name was Anastasia, I begged him to let me tell my parents I was okay, but he wouldn’t listen to me.
“Your name is Jennifer,” he said. “You’re my sweet little pineapple. We’re finally together, just like we were supposed to be.”
I tried running away. After the first few weeks of compliance, he finally took the cuffs off. The very next morning I made it halfway up the basement steps before he stopped me, tackled me to the floor. I went days without food as my punishment.
I complain. Tell him how my stomach hurts.
“You’ve always been worried about being overweight,” Henry tells me. “I’m doing you a favor.”
I cry then, tell him I’m sorry about whatever it was that happened to his daughter, but I don’t know anything about anyone named Jennifer and won’t he please let me go.
It’s talks like this that earn me starvation rations. More beatings. Endless nights chained up in the basement, an animal in a cage. An animal he insists on calling Jennifer, his daughter.
The weeks wear on. The cold seeps into my bones. I’m ashamed to admit it. Maybe I should have been stronger. I go along with his games. I call him Daddy like he wants. Every time he begs for my forgiveness, I give it to him, even though I have no idea what he’s sorry for.
“They came every day, questioning me,” Henry says. His voice is so full of sadness I want to cry for him, for his poor little girl, whoever she was, for his loss.
I don’t ask him what happened to Jennifer. I’m not sure I want to know.
“Once your mother died, I thought I couldn’t go on,” he says one night. He’s recently cracked one of my ribs, and now he’s rubbing some kind of salve on my skin. It stings, but the touch is gentle. His voice is kind but filled with heaviness.
“I begged God to put me out of my misery,” he admits. “I didn’t want to live anymore, not without he
r. But I had you. You’re the one who kept me going. You’re the one who kept me alive.” There’s a hint of pride in his voice, and I’m so tired and so homesick and so confused that for a minute I wish that I really was this man’s daughter. That I really could ease his sorrow, heal the wounds of his past just like he’s healing the wounds in my side.
I forget how long I’ve been here now. Long enough that I don’t think of my captor as Henry. I call him Dad, and at night when I dream, I’m his daughter.
Sometimes I ask him what day it is, but I can never keep his answers straight in my head. And sometimes I know he deliberately lies to me, like during that heat wave he told me it was still March. We celebrated my birthday in the fall. Jennifer’s birthday, I should say, although these days it’s hard for me to remember that there’s a difference.
“It’s the anniversary of your accident,” he tells me one day. I don’t like it when he talks about the accident, when he hints to the tragedy that befell his daughter.
When Henry first brought me here, when he kept apologizing to me and telling me I was Jennifer and he was so sickeningly sorry for what happened, I was convinced he’d killed her.
“They kept questioning me after it happened,” Henry says to me nearly every day.
At first when he talked like this, I wondered why the police didn’t do more than just question him, why they didn’t put him in prison to rot for the rest of his miserable existence. I imagined he must have killed her. Strangled her maybe. Or beat her with a bat. But now, it’s hard for me to picture him doing anything to Jennifer like that. He has a temper on him, but he acts so gentle. He’s old now. Weak. Sometimes he stops in the middle of whatever he’s doing to me simply because he’s out of breath and needs to rest.
He likes me to soak his feet in salts. The skin on his heels is hardened and cracking all over, and he likes it when I massage them in warm water. When he’s done, I pat them dry and rub in lotion.
“You’re such a good daughter,” he tells me, and my heart aches because somewhere I remember I have a father who used to say the same thing to me, but it’s been so long I can hardly recall the sound of his voice. Sometimes I feel like I’ve been living in Henry’s basement for decades, that my whole life has consisted of nothing but his rage, his pity, his love.
He’s worn me down. I don’t fight anymore. The truth is I don’t want to. I’m too tired. When he gets angry, I remember that somewhere is a dead teenager who must have looked and acted and least somewhat like me for Henry to have gotten the two of us so confused. I remember that at some point Henry did something terrible to her, that she’s gone, dead, and Henry is a broken man because of it.
I believe he’s responsible for Jennifer’s murder, and that means he could kill me too. The thought comes to me most often in the middle of the night, when I hear him snoring upstairs. If this man could murder his own daughter and get away with it, why in the world do I think myself safe?
Except what can I do? Everything’s locked. Even though he hardly ever uses the handcuffs anymore, there’s no place for me to run. Nothing I can do. When he’s awake, when he’s in one of those fits of rage that overcome him, I’m quite certain that he not only possesses the strength to kill me but the will as well. Sometimes I wonder why he doesn’t just get it over with already. I wish for it at times. Intentionally egg him on. There’s very little left for me to fight for. I don’t want to hurt anymore. That’s all I know. And life with Henry is a life of pain. Not the physical so much as the mental. The emotional. The sadness, the regret, the remorse, everything he feels about his daughter — all that grief and anguish — I take it upon myself, just like after I’ve finished rubbing lotion into his scaly heels my own hands are drenched in oil.
I think we’ve become inseparable, Henry and me. I think if I were to leave it would kill him. Is that why I stay? Or do I stay because of the chains, the locks, the fear? And in the end, if I’m destined to die here in this cement basement one way or the other, does it really matter?
At night, I dream about my mother. I dream that she’s at home praying for my safety. I try to tell her I’m all right, that she can move on, that she doesn’t have to worry anymore. I try to promise her that I’ll fight harder next time, that one day I’ll manage to escape and return to her, heal her broken heart. But she can never hear me, and when I wake up, I realize that I’ve forgotten the details of her face. I can’t recall her smell, the sound of her making breakfast in the kitchen in the morning.
All I see is Henry. All I hear is Henry. He’s become my life, just like I’ve become his.
I forget about the promises I make to my mother in my dreams. I forget about a world outside of this cold basement. And I massage my father’s feet and lotion his dry skin and take his pain upon myself because he’s old and weak and needs me to ease the intolerable anguish in his soul.
CHAPTER 16
“What do you want me to do?” Russel asks. “We’re about to take off.”
“I’m sorry about your parents,” I say. “But I can’t do this. I need to get off.”
Russel looks at me as if I’ve started speaking gibberish. I want to make him understand, but how can I? He doesn’t know who I am. He doesn’t know what I’ve done. He doesn’t realize that I never should have married him in the first place, not with all the secrets I’ve kept from him. The truth is I can’t make this trip with him to Detroit. Can’t meet his parents. I can’t keep on pretending.
I glance at the man ahead of me, the one in the Hawaiian shirt, the one that for a moment I was convinced was a younger version of Henry. If I keep seeing images of my captor every time I’m out in public, how am I supposed to lead anything resembling a normal life?
I need to get myself back home, back to the quiet of Russel’s farm. Actually, I don’t care where I go, but I know I can’t stay here.
Russel needs an explanation. He’s not the sort of person who goes by gut instinct, who lets himself be driven by fear or emotions. I’ve got to give him an actual reason, something he can accept even if he can’t understand.
Even if I have to lie.
“I don’t think it’s safe,” I blurt out. It isn’t exactly what I meant to say, but I realize as soon as the words leave my mouth that they’ll serve their purpose nicely. “It’s not safe,” I repeat, lowering my voice.
Russel still isn’t ready to let me walk off this flight, so I play the women’s intuition card, hoping it’ll be enough. “I have a really bad feeling about this,” I say, keeping my voice low.
In a flash, I see the next five minutes playing out perfectly in my head. Russel tells me I’m being ridiculous, that we’re totally fine, that his parents are waiting for us in Detroit. Then I get up anyway, tell the flight attendant I’m demanding to get off this plane.
I give Annie a quick hug. Out of all the children, I’ll miss her the most. I don’t look back to see Russel’s pained face, because even though he might not be quite as intuitive as some, he’ll understand, he’ll realize that I’m not just giving up on this flight.
I’m giving up on this dream, this ridiculous notion that with all of our differences and the secrets of my past we can actually make this marriage work.
Except that’s not what happens. I watched wide-eyed as my husband takes a deep breath, looks at his kids, sighs once more, then signals the flight attendant.
“I’m sorry to cause trouble,” he says when she walks up to check on us, “but I need to get my family off this flight. Now.”
CHAPTER 17
I know that everyone is staring at us as we walk down the aisle to get off the plane. The children are confused. I have no idea what I’m going to tell them. I have no idea what I’m going to tell Russel.
We pass the man in the Hawaiian shirt. My skin bristles. I feel dirty and exposed just being within arm’s reach. I hold my breath, as if the air surrounding him might somehow be contaminated. It was the same way I used to hold my breath when I’d hear He
nry coming down the stairs first thing in the morning. I was never certain if he’d be in a good mood or not.
I’ve read a few articles about women who’ve survived the kinds of things I have. A lot of them talk about how important it was to get therapy after what they’d been through. I never saw a therapist myself. Couldn’t stand the thought of sitting in front of some stranger reliving everything … everything …
I actually haven’t told anyone the full truth.
I learned to hide the emotion, at times even from myself, but my hatred and loathing for Henry grew with each passing day of my captivity. It’s hard to imagine now that I could despise him so much and still ache for his pain. Still mourn his tragic family life. I don’t pretend to understand how or why it turned out that way, but that’s what happened.
I had no idea two full years had passed since my kidnapping. I’d lost track of time. Didn’t know if I’d been in Henry’s basement for four months or four decades. It all felt exactly the same to me.
It was the day I finally learned the truth about what happened to Henry’s daughter. I’d grown so used to Jennifer’s disappearance being such a mystery, I think I actually forgot sometimes that Henry was mourning the loss of a real flesh-and-blood human being and not some phantom he’d created in his mind.
“You snuck out of the house that night,” he tells me. There’s something strange in his voice. I don’t think he’s drunk, but there’s something not quite right. Sometimes he calls me Jennifer, and other times he talks about her as if we’re separate people and always have been.
“I would have let you go if you asked me.” His voice is so pained my heart feels like it’s going to bleed dry. “I would have driven you to make sure you got there safely.”
I know he doesn’t really expect me to answer him back, so I simply sit and listen. I’m not thinking about his daughter. I’m not thinking about how strange it is that he’s finally decided to talk about what happened to her after all this time I’ve been with him. I’m thinking about how sad he sounds, about how desperately I’d like to find a way to make him smile. To ease his pain.