by Amanda Tru
Instantly, her stomach knotted painfully. She pressed her lips together and slowly shook her head. “No. Not yet.”
“Calla,” Sami chided.
“How do I, even?”
Sami leaned forward as if someone could overhear them. “Calla, you have to tell him. He has to know the mess that woman created before he develops any deeper feelings for you. Keeping it from him is not fair to him.”
She was right. She knew it. She sighed. “I know. I’m just so afraid that I’ll lose him.”
Sami narrowed her eyes. “I hear you. But, better now than a month from now, or a year. You two, you’re like this perfection in a couple. Even Al Carpenter thinks so, and he’s super defensive about Ian.”
Calla sighed. “I think I’ve decided to press formal charges.”
Sami, who had spent years trying to convince Calla to do just that widened her eyes in surprise. “Shut up. Really?”
Thinking about Ian, how ordered and careful he kept his life, and how chaotic and out of control hers had become, she nodded. “I think it’s the right thing to do. And, I think it will be easier to tell him about it when I’ve done exactly what I should have done three years ago.”
“Good for you.” Sami leaned forward. “But, this is something that the longer you go without saying something, the more it’s going to seem like deceit. You don’t want that.”
She didn’t want that. Hours later, in her sea of filing cabinets and drawers, she resolved to tell Ian about it. After Christmas. After she filed charges.
Ian sat next to a dozing Calla as the jet airplane entered Atlanta airspace. He leaned forward and looked out the window, analyzing the last two weeks. He’d spent the first week in Ti Peligre helping with the rebuilding of a footbridge over the Thomonde River that the hurricane in September had wiped out. When Calla arrived on Christmas Eve, he’d met her at the airport in Port-au-Prince. They spent the night on two-inch mattresses covered by mosquito netting on the flat roof of a church, which provided a refreshing respite from the tropical heat. The next morning, they had driven two hours to Cariesse to catch the ferry to Anse-à-Galets on La Gonâve Island.
Emmanuel Danos, a Haitian neighbor of the orphanage and the fiancé of his cousin, Hettie, had met them at the ferry in a small four-wheel drive all-terrain vehicle. They proceeded to drive for hours on the worn paths of lava rock the locals referred to as roads through narrow passages of rough terrain up the mountain to the village of Ti Palmiste. Finally, they arrived at the orphanage his family’s mission ran.
The first time he’d taken this journey, his mother had carried him as a six-month-old in a sling made out of a large sheet of cloth fastened with a ring, allowing her to hold him hands-free while she worked and walked. By contrast, as he experienced everything with Calla, he felt like he experienced it for the first time in his life. The excitement, wonder, fear, and exhaustion that she felt radiated from her, and he felt all of those things, too. It breathed new life into something that had at some point become rote to him. Seeing the mission through her eyes made him seek to serve God on this trip with a renewed heart and spirit. It deepened his prayer life in a way he couldn’t begin to have fathomed. It excited him and made him want to tell her everything about this island, its people, the language.
When his grandmother had met them at the gates of the orphanage, she’d hugged Calla enthusiastically. For the next three days, they’d worked nonstop, rebuilding a fence that had blown down, fixing a wall and roof at the school that had collapsed under a falling palm tree, and shopping for chickens and goats at the marketplace to replace those that disappeared in the storm.
He’d watched her interact with the children, had observed the sheer joy on her face when she watched them open their Christmas presents his grandmother had brought. He watched the sorrow overtake her as they tried on shoes and socks and accepted them with the same enthusiasm an American child would show for a new laptop or smartphone. She’d sat for hours while a teenager had braided her hair, playing marbles with some younger kids the whole time. And then, in the daylight hours, watched her work until her palms bled.
She cried when they left. He had a feeling that some part of her considered staying there permanently. The way the children responded to her, he knew his cousin who lived there full-time wouldn’t have hesitated to bring her on as a member of the staff.
Unfortunately, Calla had limited time available to take off from work, so he left early with her, leaving his family behind so he could accompany her home. Retracing their steps, they went back down the mountain to the ferry, back to spend the night on the roof of the church, then to catch an early flight back to Atlanta. As they boarded the plane in Port-au-Prince, he wanted to warn her about reintegration and the hard time she could have reconciling the American way of life with what she left behind. He knew from experience, though, that no words would or could explain the pain and heartbreak she would feel. She would have to go through it, and she would know next time how to begin to steel her heart against the culture shock she’ll feel just getting off the plane.
For now, though, she rested with her braided head on his shoulder and her hand in his. He wondered how something as simple as her holding his hand could possibly feel so right. He’d known for days now that he had fallen very deeply in love with her. But, they’d had that first dinner just six weeks ago. Hardly enough time for such declarations or talk of a future. Best to wait. Give her time.
As he looked out the window and watched the pavement rise up to meet the plane, then felt the pull of force as his body tried to keep going forward when the pilot applied the brakes, she sat up. He watched her as she slipped her glasses on and ran her palms over the braids in her hair before she looked at him. When her eyes met his, he felt a rush of emotion, and it took all his willpower to keep from saying the words out loud. Instead, he just cupped her face with his palm and leaned forward to give her a slow kiss as the plane came to a stop at the gate.
“Thanks for coming this week,” he said as they stood and pulled bags out of the overhead compartment.
“I feel like coming back was the wrong thing to do,” she admitted, putting the strap of her bag over her head so that the bag crossed her body. She started inching forward out of the plane. “I feel like I left a part of me back there in Haiti.”
“Imagine how it is for my family. We do Haiti every Christmas, and then an orphanage in Ecuador every summer. I keep waiting for my grandmother to announce she’s taking up permanent residence at one or the other. I think the fundraising she regularly does for the missions is what keeps her here.”
She stood in front of him, and he fingered one of her dark braids. “I could get used to this look,” he said, remembering the way she’d just sat and let the girls minister to her.
She put a hand on her head almost self-consciously. “When I looked in the mirror in the airport restroom back in Haiti, I didn’t really recognize myself,” she said with a smile. “It took so long to put in that I’m loathe to take them out. But I will soon. They’re already looking a little messy.”
“They’ll be fine for a couple more days. I’ll help you take them out if you want.”
He watched her cheeks fuse with color before she looked up at him with surprise in her eyes. He immediately wanted to know what thought had crossed her mind, but didn’t ask. She just said, “Thank you, Ian,” very quietly.
In no time they strolled up the jetway toward the red-coated stewards directing the passengers toward US Customs. They held hands naturally, like they’d done it all their lives. They chose a line and, in a way, Ian wanted to pick the longest one. He knew real life would pick back up again on the other side of that checkpoint. Work, church obligations, more work – things that would keep them apart for good chunks of the time.
When they got to the front of the line, Calla went forward first. She handed her passport to the Customs agent. From his place several feet away, Ian watched Calla’s frown as the agent stood up from his chair. C
alla looked over at Ian with a worried expression on her face, but when he stepped forward, the agent held a hand out, palm up.
“Stay right there, sir.”
Seconds later, two uniformed security agents approached. One took Calla by her arm and led her away. The other retrieved her bag and accepted her passport from the Customs agent. She looked over her shoulder at Ian, but the guard kept propelling her forward relentlessly.
Ian rushed to the Customs agent. “What’s going on? Where are they taking her?” he demanded.
“Sir? Calm down. Hand me your passport, please,” the agent directed, looking at him with measuring eyes.
As he handed over his passport and his declaration form, Ian pleaded with him. “Please. What’s going on?”
The agent looked over his shoulder as a door closed behind Calla and her armed escort. Then he looked back at Ian and said, “Her passport was flagged. There was an arrest warrant for her. That’s all I can tell you.” He looked down at the passport and back at Ian and began the brief interview to allow him back into the country. “What was the purpose of your trip to Haiti?”
Calla sat in the cold metal chair at a dark gray metal table in a room with no color and bad lighting. Scuff marks from countless shoes broke up the monotony of the dull green floor. A mirror reflected the gray room back at her, and she wondered who, if anyone, stood on the other side watching her. A chill in the air made her want to rub her arms, but she didn’t want to look defensive. She’d planned on changing clothes at the airport, and her thin cotton dress worn for the tropical climate of Haiti did little to shield her from the cold chair or the cold air.
Where was Ian? What could he possibly think of her now? All the happy, comforting, familiar relationship she’d felt until now had probably dissolved the second the officer put the handcuffs on her in the interview room outside the Customs area.
She stared at the detective sitting in front of her. He had dark hair and olive skin but spoke with a southern Georgia accent. “Miss Vaughn,” he drawled, “let’s go over this one more time.”
Calla sat back in the metal chair and tried to not look as scared as she felt. “Sir, I don’t know what else you want me to say. I know that my father’s widow did this. But I don’t know where she is. She called me right before Thanksgiving and said she was going to Mexico.”
“Right. Mexico. That’s what you said. What I’m trying to understand is that if you dislike her as much as you clearly do, why would you have let this go on for as long as you have?”
Calla took a deep breath and slowly let it out of her mouth. “I’ve asked myself that a hundred times a day for three years. I…” she felt her throat constricting, and she paused long enough to clear her throat and fight back tears. “I think originally it was grief over my father’s death. And then, I don’t know, it was almost a sense of disbelief like, surely, I was wrong about everything I was finding out. At some point, I think I adopted a victim mentality. I felt like a victim, I thought like a victim. She used it. She used me. She lorded it over me like she knew exactly how I felt and thought. And I just took it. Like some whipped dog. Does that make sense?”
He inclined his head as if to agree with her, but his lips pursed and he said, “I just don’t understand, Miss Vaughn, how anyone can allow another person to put them in debt close to $60,000. And that’s not even counting another $10,000 in bad checks from last week. So, I’m just trying to understand how you let this happen, and really trying to ascertain how complicit you were in the entire thing.”
“I wasn’t!” She slapped her hand on the table so hard the sound echoed around the room. Her voice stayed raised. “I had nothing to do with it. She started when I was fourteen years old. I live in a one-room apartment, I don’t own a car, I work two jobs, and more than half of all of my income goes to service debt that she made in my name, and I have nothing. Nothing!” She took her glasses off and rubbed her eyes. “I had planned to talk to the police about her tomorrow. Seriously. I talked to my friend Sami about it before I went on my mission’s trip.”
He turned a page in the open file folder. “We have no record of her going to Mexico. Where would she have gone?”
“Sir,” her voice sounded tired, ragged, hoarse. “I have no idea. I really don’t. I don’t know anything about her. I don’t even know if the man that’s with her is actually named Jimmy.”
“Do you have an address for her?”
He’d asked these questions four other times. “I haven’t seen her since the day of my father’s funeral. The funeral she attended on Jimmy’s arm. The funeral where she laughed about his death and sent everyone home.” She hadn’t said any of that out loud before, and that caused the detective to raise an eyebrow.
She wearily rubbed the back of her neck. “She called me right before Thanksgiving. She called my work extension. I can tell you the day. Maybe you can get a phone number from the phone records.”
A knock on the door interrupted them. The uniformed police officer standing by the door opened it, and a youngish woman in a blue business suit walked in. She had brown hair cut to her chin and striking green eyes. “Hello. I’m Miss Vaughn’s attorney. I’d like a moment with my client please,” she said to the detective. He looked at her for several seconds before shutting the file folder in front of him and getting up. The men left without another word. As soon as the door shut behind him and the officer, the woman spoke to Calla as she pulled a yellow legal pad out of her bag and sat down in the metal chair across from her. “My name is Mary Ann. Sam–,” she paused and corrected herself, “Ian is my cousin. He called me.”
Hot tears filled her eyes for the first time since the Customs agent took her passport from her. “I don’t –”
Mary Ann reached over and took her hand. “Don’t worry. Okay? I need to know what’s going on so I can know what we need to do. Ian didn’t have any information for me.”
Calla took a deep, shaky breath. “When I was fourteen, my father’s wife used my identity for the first time. That was almost ten years ago. In that time, she has put me into almost $60,000 in debt. This arrest was for $10,000 in bad checks that she’s written in the last couple of weeks. The checking account was in my name and was a closed account. The police think we’re in cahoots.”
Mary Ann rapidly made notes on her yellow legal pad. “Okay,” she said. “Have you ever pressed charges? Filed a civil suit? Reported her to law enforcement at any time?”
Calla shook her head.
“Why have you not pressed charges against your stepmother? Is it because your father doesn’t want you to?”
“My father died when I was twenty. But, I don’t think he ever knew anything about any of it. I think she’s a con artist and I think that my father was her victim. What do they call it? Her mark?”
“If that’s the case, why have you never even once gone to the police?”
With a sigh, Calla answered, “I don’t know. I’m sure a psychiatrist would have a field day analyzing my psyche right now. But I’ll honestly tell you that my relationship with Ian made me realize that going to the police was exactly what I needed to do and I planned to go this week.”
Marianne made notes. For several minutes, the sound of the scratch of her pen on the paper resonated in the otherwise silent room. Finally, she nodded. “Okay. Don’t say another word unless I’m in the room with you. I’ll get you out of here, and we’ll talk some more.”
“That’s it? Will this go away?”
Marianne shut the lid to her pen and laced her fingers together, resting her hands on top of her notepad. “I think that, eventually, we can prove you were not complicit. As long as you’re not hiding material merchandise or something like that. No expensive trips or lifestyle. I think if we can find out if the stepmother has a past, maybe charges pending in another state or something, it will go further toward proving your innocence. Your lack of pursuing legal matters might have something to do with your stepmother being someone in authority, and then you having
a victim mindset. It’s hard to say what the D.A. will accept as fact. But we’ll give him everything and then see what happens. I know him. He’s fair, and he’s not going to pursue charges if there’s nothing substantial there.”
Tears poured out of Calla’s eyes. “I can’t pay you.”
Marianne reached over and covered her hand with her own. “Actually, we can work it out but that’s something we’ll worry about much later. One thing at a time.” She stood up and said, “Right now. I’ll go up and see about getting you released.”
Ian sat with his back to the arm of the couch and looked at Calla. In the two weeks since he’d seen her last, she’d taken the braids out of her hair and the tan she’d gotten while in Haiti had faded. She had dark circles under her eyes, and her cheeks looked sallow, as if she had lost weight.
He’d come here because Al thought talking to her face-to-face would help him. But, as he stared at her, he found himself growing angry as the hurt tried to infiltrate his heart again.
She’d let him in then sat on the other end of the couch, legs pulled up to her chest, tears sliding down her cheeks. It took a lot not to reach out to her and try to comfort her. He reminded himself of the two weeks of silence and unanswered texts and phone calls.
She didn’t speak, so he finally broke the silence. “At what point were you going to tell me what was going on with you?”
Calla rested her temple against her knees as she turned her head to look at him. “I’d promised myself after Christmas. I wanted to press charges against her before I told you about it. Plus, I had a feeling you wouldn’t want to be with me anymore, and I didn’t want to spoil your holiday.”