by Jen Waite
The absurdity of him standing there, of him appearing as if nothing had happened, made her feel slightly punch drunk and she fought a giggle. “Ethan.” She didn’t know how to say his name, how to act, what role to play. A terrified single mother? A merely annoyed ex-wife? The person standing in front of her was so unlike the man in her nightmares, the man who pushed her down a flight of stairs.
“What do you want?” Who are you? is what Anne really wanted to ask.
“I’ve moved to town,” he said with a smile. “I’m going to be working remotely so that I can be in Thea’s life.” He leaned against the door frame.
“It’s been two years,” she said, her mouth felt dry, full of cotton. “I have sole custody. You didn’t show up to any of the custody hearings. You haven’t paid child support.” She faltered, thoughts rushed into her head and she couldn’t form another sentence that made sense. “It’s too late,” she finished weakly.
“I know it’s been a while, but I’ve missed you. Both of you,” he responded. He looked down and when he looked back up, his eyes were filled with tears. “I’m going to be the father she deserves.” His eyes cleared just as suddenly and he remarked casually, “I think they call it a substantial change of circumstance, me uprooting my life for my daughter. It’s one of the main reasons for revisiting a custody agreement. And here.” He dropped a piece of paper and it flittered to the floor, landing print-side up. A check. FIFTY-FIVE THOUSAND AND 00/100 scrawled in capital letters. “Child support for the past two years. I deeply regret not being in Thea’s life until now, but I was working on myself. I’ve been in a bad place, Anne. I wanted to be the best version of myself for her. That’s why I’m here now.” He held her gaze and smiled.
Anne couldn’t speak. Her heart thrummed in her ears. She tried to take a deep breath in but her lungs stayed closed. Ethan was back, showing her what he could do, how convincing he could be. Thea started to shout from the kitchen, where she was perched in her high chair, shoveling Cheerios down her throat. “MAMA.” The color drained from Anne’s face. “I have to go.”
Ethan’s face lit up. “There’s my girl.” He took a step forward; Anne kept her feet planted just inside the door frame. The last two years disappeared in an instant. She was going to collapse. She was weak and Ethan was strong. He would win. She pulled a breath in through her mouth and managed to say: “You can’t see her.”
“Well, I’ll see you soon in court then,” he replied cheerfully as she shut the door and fastened the chain lock in place. She paused in the entryway and rested her forehead against the wall.
She gathered herself and walked slowly from the front door to the kitchen.
“Who that, Mama?” Thea reached a chubby hand toward the table, clamped down on several Cheerios, and brought her fist to her mouth; all but one Cheerio fell to the ground.
Anne smiled at her daughter and waited a moment, swallowing down acid that had crept up her esophagus. “Just a man, baby.”
THE CABIN
ANNE
They’d all seen it. Thea’s eyes had opened, just for a moment, and then flickered back shut. Anne’s teeth were no longer chattering; her body had gone numb some minutes ago. She watched the man across the cabin. He was pacing by the door and then, suddenly, he opened the door and walked outside. Anne turned to her mother and whispered, “You cannot do that again, Mom. You can’t just run at him—”
Rose cut her off. “You’re right. We should make a plan. I have a rock in my pocket.”
Anne paused, surprised. “I have a piece of sharp wood, from the chair, in my boot,” she whispered back.
“Take the rock.” Her mother pressed the smooth, jagged edge into her hand. “Use them both. When he’s not expecting it. I’ll take Thea and run.”
Anne looked at Rose and nodded slowly. “Yes.” Her brain felt slow—she couldn’t think of another plan, something more sophisticated, less clunky. She knew she had a better chance of taking down the man than her mother. Rose was smart but soft. Her mother’s arms and hands were better used for holding babies and kneading dough than for gouging a man with a piece of wood. Rose would only make it a few hundred feet with Thea, but maybe they could hide in the woods. Anne didn’t think past what would happen to them in the woods, overnight. Thea would get out, away from the man, that’s all that mattered right now.
“You have to knock the gun out of his hand, Anne.”
“Ok.” The matter inside her head felt warm and thick. “It’s possible, though, that he’s going to let us go. He looked sad before, or confused or . . . Maybe I can try to talk to him again . . .” Her voice trailed off.
Rose snapped, “Anne. I’m pretty sure his intentions aren’t great.” Her voice was ice. “We need to act now. This is important. If this is going to work, if we’re all going to get out of this, you must knock the gun away from him.”
“Ok.” And then more forcefully, “Yes, ok.”
Anne’s mind flashed to a day when she had picked up Thea from daycare, just a few days before Ethan came back. They were driving home when Thea asked from her car seat, “What’s a daddy?” The question came out of nowhere, and in the moments that followed, five seconds that felt like an eternity, Anne went through a catalog index in her mind. She’d thought this out. She had many different answers stored away, thoughtfully analyzed and studied during the past year and a half. But she hadn’t expected her daughter to ask that question before she turned two years old. Anne thought she had a few more years to construct her answer into something honest yet gentle, forthright yet sparing. And so, in those five seconds, she sorted through her answers, but nothing came out; her mind an abyss. Her hands tightened around the steering wheel, time slowed down, and right as she began to stutter some nonsensical reply, Thea screeched in joy, “Mama’s my daddy!” Anne’s shoulders loosened, she glanced back in the rearview mirror. Thea was pleased with her answer, repeating it several times while pounding her knees. “Mama’s my daddy. Mama’s my daddy. Mama’s my daddy.”
Anne looked down at Thea’s ghostly white face now, her daughter’s breath made a whistling sound as it came out. The door creaked open and the man reentered carrying sticks and leaves, for a fire, she presumed, though he tossed the sticks on the hearth and lit up a cigarette. A few minutes passed. The man was deep in thought, like he had completely forgotten that he was going to create some warmth in the cabin. Fuck you. Her body suddenly felt hot. She wanted to growl, scream, claw his eyes out. But she stayed still and waited for the right moment.
The man finished his cigarette. Tossed the butt in with the sticks and twigs. Flicked the Bic with his thumb. A flame danced out of the top of the lighter. He lowered it to the end of a skinny stick and waited for it to catch. He spread the flame from the end of the skinny stick to the other sticks, twigs, and leaves; he reached up into the chimney and yanked open the flue. It took a few minutes but a fire started to catch. The leaves crackled as they burned and withered and smoke billowed up the chimney. The man tucked the gun into the waist of his pants. He spread his hands out over the flames, rubbed them together. Anne looked down at Thea, her daughter’s face dappled in shadows by the light of the fire. She looked at Rose quickly and her mother gave her an almost imperceptible nod.
She shrugged Thea gently out of her arms and moved her daughter to Rose’s lap. The man looked at Anne, curious, and raised the gun so it was level with her head. “What are you doing.” It was not a question but a threat.
“I have to pee.” Her voice was steady; her heartbeat slow and rhythmic.
“No.”
“But . . . you took my mom before and I really—”
“I’m not taking you.” Even as he was saying it, she was slowly inching her way off the floor, sliding up the wall. The man looked to Rose, as if to say It would be in your best interest to convince your daughter to stop moving. “I said I’m not taking you.” He said it louder this time, an
d a tingle of fear shot through Anne’s body. She made a split-second decision. “Fine, then I’ll go by myself.” She needed to get close to the man. She stood up fully and pushed herself off the wall. Eyes on the floor, she headed toward the door. Her heart pounded faster as she recalibrated the plan. The man moved toward her with long strides and put himself between her and the front door. She kept going. He aimed the gun. “Goddammit. No one is leaving this—”
Before his lips formed another word, in one motion she bent down to her boot, closed her fingers around the shard of wood, pulled up, and lunged forward. A scream escaped her throat as she brought the stake down. He jumped back right before she made contact, and instead of stabbing his stomach, the stake sank into his upper leg. Anne fell to the ground, thrown off-balance. She climbed to her hands and knees on the ground, breathing heavily, hands flat on the floor, ready to spring. She looked up. The wood protruded from his thigh. Her eyes darted around the floor. The gun. Where was the gun? She looked back to the man. He peered at the wood sticking out of his leg and then, with a grunt, wrenched it out. He took two steps forward and his knuckles connected with her cheekbone and she was off her hands and knees, flat on her back. She didn’t know if it was the cold or the adrenaline, but she barely felt a thing, only a ringing in her ears. “You fucking bitch.” He lifted the gun, still in his right hand, aimed it at her face. She heard a sound from across the room and a thought flashed through her mind, Mom, protect her, before she closed her eyes and prepared herself for nothingness.
“Get the fuck up.”
She opened her eyes. The man was staring at her, the gun inches from her face. She pushed herself off the floor and then almost collapsed back down as blood rushed from her head down her body. She steadied herself against the wall, averted her eyes from the dark circle forming on his pants where the shard of wood had punctured his skin. The fire crackled from across the cabin, casting shadows and sharp patches of light onto the floor. The man walked over to her slowly. He looked at her intently, as if searching for something he lost in her face. He raised the gun, pressed it against her forehead. “I didn’t want to do this,” he said, more to himself than to Anne. “Why are you making me do this?” He looked to her as if for an answer, but she didn’t know what he wanted her to say. There was still a ringing in her ears and she tried to play his question back in her head, so she could figure out how to answer, but there was only static. They were inches away from each other, his breath hot and sour on her face. He was staring at her hard, and she knew that whatever she said next would determine whether he pulled the trigger. Anne opened her mouth to speak even though she didn’t have the right answer when Rose said, “You need her.” Her mother’s voice was strong and sure. “When the girl wakes up, she will want her mother.” Anne felt the cold metal leave her forehead. It didn’t matter that she still couldn’t form words, because Rose had answered correctly. He took a long breath in, the gun hovered for a moment, level with Anne’s head, and then he lowered it to his side. He grabbed her arm and dragged her back to the wall where her mother and daughter sat.
“If you move again, you’re dead,” he said.
It was not until Anne slid down into her place against the wall that she realized Rose hadn’t tried to run with Thea. Her mother had not moved an inch.
TEN YEARS
BEFORE THE CABIN
ROSE
Rose clenched and unclenched her jaw as she listened to Anne’s hurried whispers on the other end of the phone. She heard Thea in the background yell something and then Anne yelled back, “Thea, NO, that is NOT to eat. Mom,” her voice came back into Rose’s ear, “I gotta go, but I just can’t believe he’s back. How can this be happening?”
Rose wrapped her fingers tight around the cord of the old house phone she refused to get rid of and breathed in deeply through her nose before she spoke. “Honey, everything is going to be fine. Your father and I are here for both you and Thea. We will figure this—”
“Sorry, Mom, I gotta go.” Rose heard “Thea Rose Thompson, spit it out” before Anne’s voice cut off and Rose was left standing in the kitchen, listening to a dial tone. She stood like that for a few seconds, thinking, phone pressed to her ear, cord dangling down to the kitchen sideboard. It had been two years since she’d last seen Ethan, since she’d watched him with his mistress, girlfriend, whatever she was. She remembered the sense of calm she had felt, walking back into the hospital, into Anne’s room, placing a kiss upon her daughter’s clammy forehead, knowing that Ethan was gone for good.
Of course, she realized now, she had been mistaken. She wasn’t thinking far enough ahead. She hadn’t thought that eventually his workplace fling would come to an end and he would get bored. Her ex–son-in-law was a parasite, hopping from one host to the next, sucking the blood up until the host lay parched, a hollow shell of what she once had been. Rose had seen what he’d done to Anne, and she’d watched as her daughter slowly but surely came back to life. And now Ethan was here, in their hometown, about to take a wrecking ball to everything that Anne had built for herself and Thea during the past two years.
Rose gently put the phone down on its base and then picked it back up again. She dialed a cell phone number she knew by heart and listened to the deep voice come through on the other end.
Rose didn’t even say hello. “I need you to teach me how to shoot.”
THE CABIN
ROSE
Rose was torn between wanting her granddaughter to wake up and wanting her to stay unconscious, dead to the world, or at least to the man. On the one hand, if Thea were to regain consciousness, it would mean she was improving physically, and it would also mean they had a chance of running. All three of them. On the other hand, if Thea were to wake up, the sick son of a bitch would take her and . . . Rose didn’t finish that thought. She knew what the man wanted, what he was going to do. Rose could tell that Anne’s brain was stuck, wasn’t letting the information in, but Rose knew right away from the way he looked at Thea. Pedophile. Rose was thankful that Anne hadn’t made the connection yet, wouldn’t allow herself to make the connection, because she needed her daughter as calm as possible.
The first attack had been unsuccessful, Anne had barely injured the man and the gun never left his possession, but Rose was already pushing forward in her head to the next steps. As long as Thea’s eyes stay closed, she still had time to plot. She calculated that they had been in the cabin for less than twenty minutes, though it was already getting dark outside. The sun had disappeared from the gray sky, the night waiting to take over. The man had brought in larger chunks of wood from outside and steadily built a fire. It provided a flicker of warmth in the small room, enough that she thought Thea’s body wouldn’t give out from the freezing cold. She turned her head slightly to look at her daughter. Anne stared at nothing, as if in a trance, and rubbed Thea’s arm.
After the failed attack, Anne had turned to Rose while the man collected more wood and whispered, “Mom, why didn’t you move? You were supposed to run with Thea. At least try to. You didn’t even try.”
Rose had had to look away from Anne’s stricken face. She couldn’t answer truthfully, there was only so much she was willing to tell her daughter, and so she said simply, “I’m sorry. I froze.” She thought of Sam and wished she could ask him what to do. Of course, if Sam were there, beside her, they wouldn’t be in the cabin in the first place. She shook her head and smiled bitterly at her own twisted logic. Sam wasn’t here and wouldn’t be swooping in to rescue them, no matter how often her mind traveled to him.
Rose turned her attention back to the man, who was smoking again by the fire, when she felt the energy shift beside her.
“It’s not fair,” Anne said aloud. “To you, I mean.” Rose snapped her head to look at her daughter, but Anne’s focus was solely across the room.
“What?” the man responded gruffly, his back to them. Rose noticed he did not call her bitch or use anot
her four-letter word. Rose’s body tensed, waiting for Anne’s reply. She did not know what her daughter was doing.
“You said you didn’t want to kill anyone,” Anne replied.
He turned slowly. “You don’t know shit.”
“That may be true, but I can sense you’re struggling and I’m sorry for that. It must be difficult,” Anne said calmly, smoothly. She was in therapist mode. Rose flicked her eyes between Anne and the man, as if she was watching a tennis game.
The man turned toward them. His eyes looked down to the floor and he nodded once. When he spoke, his voice was so low that Rose had to close her eyes to hear every word. “I was going to end it. I was gonna do the right thing. And then you drove in.” The man flicked his cigarette into the fire and muttered something else that Rose couldn’t hear. Rose was still unsure what Anne’s intentions were in engaging the man, but this was the most the man had spoken since he took them, and Rose held her breath, waiting for Anne’s next move.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have chosen that parking lot. I put you in a difficult position.” Anne’s voice was genuine without a hint of condescension, and even though Rose understood that her daughter was trying to engage the man or appeal to him in some way, she was impressed nevertheless.
The man turned his back to them again and spread his hands over the fire. Rose thought he had shut down, but then she heard him say something in a whisper.
THE CABIN
ANNE
“She had blond hair, so I had to,” the man said, or at least that’s what Anne thought he said—his back was to them again and the words came out in a whisper. She didn’t have much time to process before she responded back to the man; it was important that she kept him engaged and she’d like to keep this specific energy going. She couldn’t be sure that he said what he said or that he was referring to Thea but she went on instinct.