by Cat Mann
Chapter 10
Happy Family
After my flashback on the yacht, brought on by the sight of heavy rope coiled around a railing, I had terrifying nightmares and my anxiety was through the roof. The plane ride home from Greece was a nightmare in and of itself. Right after I fell asleep on Ari’s shoulder, I woke up screaming. Ari hurried to calm me down before I panicked the other passengers, cupping his hand quickly over my mouth to muffle my scream. He told the flight attendant that a spider had scared me and she helped us search for the little intruder before giving us a look of suspicious curiosity and walking away.
I put my head back on Ari’s shoulder, but he gently nudged me off him.
“No, you can’t fall asleep here, not until we get home, Baby,” he whispered.
I was tired and the situation made me grouchy.
Without another word, Ari lifted his iPad.
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” Ari read to me softly as he started Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. His voice was so calm, warm and soothing that every so often my eyes would flutter and close. At such times, Ari nudged me softly back awake, shaking his head no.
Rory and Julia picked us up from LAX. They were holding hands, apparently having made up while we were away. Julia squealed with delight when she saw August and they had a classic airport reunion. I walked past them and climbed into the back of the Rover. I was in no mood for squealing or girl talk.
When we finally arrived home, I headed straight back to our bedroom. I climbed into bed and fell asleep within seconds. The images on the other side of my consciousness were those of torture and fear. Time and time again I was brought back to the basement, my prison, and to No. 6’s taunting laugh and dirty fingers.
I woke screaming in the night. I ripped blankets from my body and threw pillows to the floor. I cried for Ari, screamed for the pain to stop.
“Ava, Ava, shhhh. You are home. You are here. I am here. Open your eyes. It’s going to be alright. You never have to go back there again. Shhh, calm down.”
I opened my eyes to Ari’s rushed words. I searched in the dark for his face. He flipped the bedside light on and pulled me into his arms while I sobbed.
“I was so scared,” I whimpered.
“I know, I know,” he whispered. “I’m here with you; you’re safe.”
I lay curled up in Ari’s arms while he rocked me in bed, back and forth. He ran his fingers through my hair and down my back. He wiped the tears as they sprang from my eyes.
“On August fifth, my world ended,” Ari spoke so, so quietly. “I waited for you. I waited so long, Ava, and you never came home to me. I called you and called you and sent you text after text. I went to my parent’s house; no one had seen you. I went to Gianna’s and none of them had seen you. No one saw you run by, you didn’t stop to talk to anyone on your way home, you had vanished. You were missing and I panicked. I knew I had failed you. I hadn’t protected you, kept you safe. I should have gone with you that day, but I didn’t.
“Why had I let the woman I love, the woman I had just married, leave my sight for one tiny moment? What had I been thinking? I ran as fast as I could down that beach. I screamed for you. I looked out in the water in a frenzy searching for you. I died inside when I found your phone lying in the wet sand. I fell to my knees and cried as I dialed 911.
“My family followed me out on the beach, looking for you. My mother found me crying in the sand and she was the first to notice the trail of blood-soaked sand and footprints. He had dragged you away from the water, towards the road and just like that, the trail stopped. He had taken you away. I didn’t know where to find you or even where to look. I didn’t know if you were alive, if you were scared, if you were in pain.
“Days went by with nothing. No word, no leads. Everyone was afraid to talk to me, afraid of saying something that might upset me. I caught people looking at me. My friends and family, people I have known my whole life, looked at me with pity. They didn’t know how to communicate with a man who had just lost his heart, the love of his life, his reason to breathe. I couldn’t eat or sleep. I didn’t know how.
“My mind shut down. I don’t remember making the statement on the news, I don’t remember the press conference, or the vigil. The only thing I remember, the only thing I will never forget is sitting in our living room, listening to Detective Scott along with my family. He had come to tell us that the police department was calling off the search for you, and that they were going to make a public announcement the next morning. He said that the department was presuming that you were dead.
“People broke down all around me and cried. All I wanted was for everyone to leave so I could hurry up and join you in death. I wanted to die, too. I wanted to die so badly. I sat and breathed what I thought, what I hoped, would be my last breaths. I looked at my family for what I thought would be the last time. I couldn’t stand living a second longer without you in my life.
“Then, out of nowhere, my phone whistled a text alert. Everyone I knew was in that room – except for you. I grabbed my phone off the table in front of me as fast as I could.”
Ari closed his eyes.
“That text saved my life – one tiny x. People jumped out of their seats and watched me text you back. I fell to my knees and cried, ‘It’s Ava! She’s alive!’
“We found you in that dirty house, broken and beaten. You looked so scared, so close to not being alive.”
Ari took a breath and steadied his emotions.
“I don’t know what you have gone through and I don’t know what you dream about while you sleep, but I promise to protect you from it, whatever it is. I will keep you safe, Ava. I love you; you can trust me with your secrets.”
That was my cue, it was my turn to talk, to open up about my experiences, my secrets, as Ari had put it. Instead, I sat in the quiet room and contemplated Ari’s mention of suicide.
“How?”
“Hmm?”
“How were you going to, umm… do that to yourself?”
He shook his head slowly as he stared out of the window at the dark ocean waves that crashed on the shore just beyond our sandy lawn.
“Swim out to sea. Drown. Let the current pull me under and carry me away to you.”
“Huh, I have never considered that, purposely drowning myself.”
“Why would you?”
I turned and looked at him.
“Never do that. Never! I don’t care what happens to me, I cannot dream of a world without you in it.”
“Nor can I dream of a world without you in it, Ava; you are my world. If I don’t have you, then I have no reason to live.”
Moments passed and we sat in the quiet darkness, our room lit by a tiny bulb no brighter than a candle.
“Ava?”
“Hmmm?”
“Tell me what happened to you.”
“No.”
Ari shook his head incredulously as I crawled off his lap. He wrapped his arms around me and held me tight as I drifted back to a dark, tortured sleep.