Long May She Reign

by Ellen Emerson White

  Once they made it upstairs, she had an excellent excuse to go to her room and rest—and she took advantage of it. In fact, when Trudy came in at about five-thirty, and asked if she felt well enough to get up for dinner, she shook her head and also declined the offer of having a tray brought to her room.

  She didn’t bother looking at the tiny pile of phone messages on her desk, or checking her email. Didn’t turn on the television, didn’t read a book, didn’t do anything other than pat Vanessa and sleep, waking up only long enough to take some Percocet every so often. She would have assumed that surgery would improve the way she felt, but she’d been in less pain staggering around on the torn cartilage for a week than she was now, and her hand was doing a lot of throbbing and twitching. She was also having even more nightmares then usual, which she assumed was because of the medication, but everything hurt too damn much for her to consider skipping any doses. And, in all honesty, she took an extra one, here and there, hoping that it might help.

  Which it didn’t.

  To make matters worse, for the first time, Jack showed up in one of her dreams. He looked different—he had dark hair, for one thing—but, she could tell it was him. The guy was there, too, and they seemed to be very friendly, which meant—Jesus Christ. If they knew each other, that meant—she woke up, gasping and terrified, and then stared around the room to try and figure out where she was.

  All right. Okay. Jack didn’t know him; he’d been cleared, by all of the security checks.

  Of course, Dennis had been cleared, too—for all the good it had done her.

  Mostly, it was Trudy who bustled in and out of her room, with trays and ice packs and the occasional hug. Neal kept doing his tentative thing, where he would stand in the doorway and sort of shuffle back and forth, while he decided whether to come in, but Steven—other than a sullen “yeah, we lost again today, we suck” report—avoided her completely. Her mother hadn’t come upstairs at all, for hours, and her father didn’t seem to be around, either.

  That is, he was probably around, but she assumed that he was angry at her about the conversation she’d tried to have with him in the hospital—or she was angry at him, for refusing to have it. It wasn’t that they weren’t speaking to each other, exactly, but it had been a very quiet drive home together, and an equally quiet afternoon and night, so far.

  The next morning, she felt so sick from either the pills or the anesthesia—or her stinking, rotten, depressing spring break—that she made no effort to get up for breakfast, and then slept through lunch, too. A couple of the WHMU nurses checked on her more than once during the afternoon, and then, Dr. Brooks came upstairs, frowning and concerned. After having a long conversation with her father out by the Yellow Oval Room, he decided to change her pain prescription, which made her feel even worse, since he was now going to be giving her something that wasn’t even half as strong.

  In an attempt to get everyone to leave her the hell alone for the rest of the night, she forced herself to go down the hall and have dinner. Her leg felt as though it weighed about a hundred pounds, and even though Silvio had set up a padded footstool by her chair, it hurt too much for her to make herself eat more than some mashed potatoes and one of Trudy’s biscuits before dragging herself back to bed.

  She didn’t see her mother at all until about ten-thirty, by which time she had already turned out the light. Her mother asked if she wanted anything; she said no; her mother went away. Then, about half an hour later, she and her father had a similarly unproductive exchange, and once he was gone, she took two of her new, weaker pain pills, wrapped her good arm around Vanessa—who scratched her—and tried to go to sleep.

  At some point, she had a very vivid nightmare, improbably worse than usual.

  It was hard to remember clearly, but she was pretty sure that she had been lying on her back in an overgrown field, or some underbrush, or something, with a lot of broken bones—legs, hips, ribs, arms—so she couldn’t get up, or really even move. Her mother—oddly clothed in hunter’s garb, complete with a camouflage bush jacket, bulky boots, and a bright orange cap—came out of what might have been a duck blind, as calm and friendly as ever, carrying a break-action shotgun. Meg knew she was going to fire the gun in her direction, which she did without hesitation, but it didn’t go off for some reason.

  “I’m sorry,” her mother said, and checked the chamber for ammunition, smiled apologetically, loaded a fresh shell, and snapped the barrel shut. Then, she lifted the shotgun to her shoulder, smiled again, took aim, and—

  Which was right around the time she woke up, crying so hard that it really could only be described as sobbing.

  She waited for someone to come in and see if she was okay, but no one did, so she must not have screamed this time.

  But, after a while, the door eased open, anyway.

  The President. Exactly the person she didn’t want to see right now.

  With luck, she wasn’t armed.

  Meg turned over on her side and pretended that she was asleep, but there must have been just enough light coming in from the hall for her mother to see the tears, because after bending to check on her, she stopped short, instead of leaving the room.

  “Meg?” she whispered. “Are you all right?”

  Hardly.

  “Is it okay if I turn on the light?” her mother asked.

  Meg shook her head. “Please don’t.”

  Her mother had already been reaching for the lamp, but she stopped, and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Is the pain worse?”

  Yeah, but who really gave a damn? Old news. Meg shrugged.

  “Bad dream?” her mother asked.

  More old news. “Yeah,” Meg said. “I guess.”

  Her mother rubbed her back gently. “Want to tell me about it?”

  The parts she could remember weren’t exactly flattering. “You were in it,” Meg said. “I’m not sure what you were doing.” Or, more important, why she was doing it.

  Her mother’s hand paused. “Whatever it was scared you, though.”

  Yes.

  Her mother leaned down to kiss her forehead. “I’m sorry.”

  Christ, things were so fucked up that her mother felt compelled to apologize for something she had done in someone else’s nightmare. But Meg was too tired, and afraid, and sad, to do anything other than try to stop crying.

  “I know you don’t like the idea,” her mother said, after a while, “but you need to talk to someone.”

  Oh, yeah, that had been really successful the other times they’d tried to make her do it.

  “I’d like you to start as soon as possible,” her mother said, “but I’m willing to listen to an argument about why we should wait until the semester’s over.”

  What, she’d had a bad day or two, and now she was around the bend? Meg didn’t answer, concentrating on patting her cat.

  “Meg?” her mother asked, when she didn’t say anything.

  All right, fine. Meg pulled in a deep breath. “I think what I need is to talk to you.” About things that had happened, things she had done, and things he had said.

  Her mother nodded, her expression both receptive—and cautious.

  “Both of you,” Meg said.

  Her mother nodded again. “I think so, too,” she said.

  38

  SHE FOLLOWED HER mother down to her parents’ room, very clumsy on the modified, elbow-height metal crutch one of the nurses had brought up earlier, to help give her more support than her cane, but also much better mobility than the wheelchair. Her father, who had been reading in bed, surrounded by their other three cats, looked up, and then put his book aside.

  She couldn’t remember the last time she had been in their room, which was weird, because it had always been routine for her to sit with one or both of them late at night, watching the news, or some old black-and-white movie that would have bored Steven and Neal out of their skulls. But, for months now, her parents had always come to her room, when they wanted to see her, and mos
tly not together.

  She wasn’t even sure where to sit—they had never been the types to cuddle together in a big family clump, but they ended up on the couch, her father stacking some pillows on the undoubtedly priceless antique coffee table, and pulling it close enough so that she could ease her leg into a somewhat comfortable position.

  They sat there, her parents on either side of her, none of them touching, each second of silence seeming more endless and profound than the preceding one. When she first came in, Kirby had wagged his tail and lumbered over so that she would pat him, but then he had gone back to sleep in his usual spot in front of the fireplace.

  It was terrifying to think that they had never really talked about it. At least one of them—her father, more often than not—had always been with her during the countless grueling sessions when the FBI and other investigatory agencies debriefed her. Interrogated her, really. And sometimes, in the wake of nightmares or flashbacks, she had been able to gasp out whatever memory it was that had triggered the overwhelming terror, so they knew the basic story, and many of the specific details—but mostly, they all talked around it, and Preston and Beth were still the only people with whom she’d ever really tried to go any further.

  She didn’t know how to start. Where to start. Or even if she should start.

  Her mother touched her sleeve—Meg was wearing a much-too-big, faded World Champion Boston Red Sox t-shirt—and her hand felt warm, and sure, through the cotton material. “What happened first?” she asked.

  Yes. That was a good place. Okay. Meg pulled in a deep breath. “We were coming out the side door,” she said. Her exits were always rotated, on an irregular schedule, and that had been a side-exit day, as opposed to, say, an underground parking lot day. “You know, up past the loading dock. And Dennis told me to stop and tie my shoe. Even though we were in transit.”

  Her parents nodded, and she could feel their absolute concentration on her.

  An untied shoe. Jesus, that was all it took. A tiny little moment, just long enough to distract Chet—and whatever unknown backup security she’d had—and set the whole thing off. A split second during which she had no idea she was in the process of changing from the person she had always been—to some other, inferior creature. That everything that had made her herself was about to be gone forever.

  It had been a hot day. The heels of her hands grazed the asphalt as she crouched down over her sneaker, and even now, when she thought about it, she was almost sure she could smell a whiff of steamy, sun-softened tar.

  Which was the last thing she could remember, before all she smelled was cordite, and blood—she hadn’t even known that blood had a scent—and then, the mens’ terrible breath, and overpowering body odor. Once they had her inside the van, it was savage, and atavistic, and they were excited, and confused—and primal, in a way that—she was being punched and groped and pistol-whipped by men for whom rape would have been nothing more than an extra jolt of fun, on the best ride any of them had ever taken.

  And the guy had let them enjoy it, for a few minutes—hell, he’d probably been aroused by the communal violent energy himself—before ordering them to focus on the task at hand, his voice entirely without affect. Commands not given out of sentiment, she suspected, but merely a desire for efficiency, and maybe a little less noise.

  She looked at her mother, who did nothing more than motion for her to continue. Then, she looked at her father, who nodded.

  So, she took another deep breath—and kept going. She didn’t tell them everything—like about sharing Scotch with a terrorist—but she told them a lot. Things the FBI didn’t know, and never would. A few things even Beth didn’t know. Details. Nuances. Inflections. To her great shame, she cried a couple of times, because—well, she just couldn’t help it. But her mother also had to cover her eyes, more than once. Especially when she talked about how it had felt to wait, alone in the dark, for them to come in and kill her, and how she’d worried about how bad it was going to be when they did. Whether it would be quick, or whether they would take their time. Whether it would hurt. And whether, when the moment came, she would beg to be spared—and die a coward.

  Then, when she told them about what it had really been like in the mine-shaft, lying chained in the cold dirt, slowly dying of thirst, hour after hour, day after day, and about how utterly, gloriously happy she’d been when she realized that all she had to do to get away was destroy her hand, her father cried, too.

  She wasn’t sure if she could take herself—or them—through the days of crawling through the woods. A lot of it was kind of blurred in her mind, anyway. She closed her eyes, felt her mother’s hand graze her cheek, and opened them again. “Did you think there was any chance I’d get back on my own?” she asked.

  It was very clear that they didn’t want to answer that, but finally, they both shook their heads.

  Swell. She wanted to snap something like “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” but she restrained the impulse. “So, what did you think was happening?”

  Again, they avoided looking at her.

  Then, her mother let out her breath. “I assumed that they were brutalizing you, but keeping you in relatively good shape, so that they could use you to manipulate me.”

  Her father made an abrupt and angry gesture with his hand, but didn’t say anything.

  “All right, manipulate both of us,” her mother said, sounding as tense as her father looked.

  That was a blatant lie, but Meg, for one, wasn’t going to point that out.

  “But then,” her mother said, when neither of them responded in any way, “after a few days, when we weren’t hearing anything, or coming up with any legitimate intelligence, I thought that—” She stopped for a second before going on. “I assumed that it was already over, and probably had been from the very first night.”

  Jesus. Meg glanced at her father, who nodded.

  Another reminder that thirteen days could be a really long time.

  And once again, her mother was the only one with the nerve to break the silence.

  “When I saw the teeth, part of me hoped that you were dead,” she said, quietly.

  Jesus. Meg leaned away from her, although her mother was staring off into the indeterminate distance, and didn’t even seem to notice. She looked at her father, whose face was so rigid and still that she had absolutely no idea what he might be thinking.

  “It was almost the worst thing I could imagine, but I assumed that if they could do something that unspeakable to you, and casually leave the evidence behind, that they might—” Her mother moved her jaw. “I thought you might be in a situation where you would rather not be alive.”

  It was probably just as well that she was never going to know exactly what it was like to be inside her mother’s head. And she could tell that her father felt pretty much the same way.

  “He never crossed the line into unspeakable,” Meg said finally.

  Her mother looked directly at her, which was strange just by virtue of being notable. “I’ve always assumed that he was pure evil.”

  Meg shook her head. “He was very controlled evil.” Mostly controlled, anyway. Except that she was never going to know how it might have played out, if he hadn’t decided to end the whole thing abruptly, and just leave her to die on her own.

  If he hadn’t, frankly, chickened out.

  “I, um, I don’t think he would have let them decapitate me while I was still conscious,” she said, which made her parents do something that looked very much like cringing. Although, obviously, they all knew that it would have almost been—predictable—if her body had been found that way. Terrorism, in its most grotesque, and hackneyed, form. “I mean, if they were going to film one of those—bad scenes, I think he would have stopped and made sure I was dead, first, before they got to that part.” She hoped so, anyway. “Or, I don’t know, maybe he just would have left the room, so he wouldn’t have to watch it happen.”

  And gone far enough away so that he wouldn’t hav
e to listen to it happening, either.

  The room was quiet enough so that the ticking of the grandfather clock—which had actually belonged to her grandfather—was almost painfully loud. Then, the phone rang, and they all jumped, and then looked over, as it rang again.

  “I’m sorry,” her mother said. “If I don’t pick up, you know they’re going to start knocking.”

  And maybe even break the door down.

  Watching her effortlessly cross the room, Meg felt an intense combination of anger, envy, and resentment. It must be nice to get up and walk, without having to think about it and make plans, first. To be able to use both hands. To have hours, and maybe even whole days and weeks, when life didn’t revolve around how much everything hurt.

  God-damn her, anyway.

  Her mother was listening intently to whoever was on the other end of the line, and then gave terse instructions, and authorized something or other. When she finished the call, she spoke somewhat crossly to the signal board operator, reiterating that she still didn’t want any non-emergency communications put through for the time being, and then hung up.

  “I’m sorry, Meg,” she said.

  Meg shrugged, staring down at her splint and trying to flex her middle and ring fingers, still feeling the resentment cocktail bubbling around somewhere inside.

  Whatever conversational rhythm they’d managed to establish was gone now, and they sat there, about a foot apart from one another, in silence.

  “I really do apologize,” her mother said.

  Yeah. Her mother was always sorry. Over and over and over again.

  And had too damn many reasons to be. Time to take off the gloves. “What would you have done if they’d brought you a video, that showed them hurting me?” Meg asked.

  Her mother shivered, instead of answering, and her father looked off in the other direction.

  This time, for once, she wasn’t going to back down, or be nice. She was sick of being nice. “If you knew,” she said, “for a fact—saw it, with your own eyes—that I was being tortured beyond human capacity, and all they wanted was one small concession, what would you do?”