by Rena Olsen
When we are back in the car, Glen holds me in his lap, rocking me and whispering words of comfort. I know I will pay for this breakdown later, but for now, Glen cares for me and lets me cry. As I come down from my loss of control, I realize that while I have lost Macy, I have not lost all of my childhood. Glen is still here. Glen is my tether, keeping my heart and my soul close to his own.
Now
Pam’s words echo through my head as I stare at the cracked floor of my room. Connor brought me a letter from Passion this morning, but I have not read it. I clutch it to my chest, terrified that I will open it to find the same condemning words inside that have been bouncing through my skull since the last group. One of these days Passion is going to wake up, too, and realize that I could have saved her and chose not to.
Is she coming to the same realizations I have been? I always thought I was happy. I was living my dream with Glen and our daughters. And our daughters were happy, too. For the most part. Of course, the adjustment to living with us was always a little difficult, but I loved each of them, and I believe they came to love me as well. Passion and I were especially close. She reminds me of Macy in so many ways, a little wild, unafraid, but also of myself, eager to please, quick to help. Is it possible that I was so caught up in trying to please Glen, trying to please Mama and Papa, even trying to please the numerous clients who were in and out of our lives in a flash, that I missed something? Missed that it wasn’t right, that the girls weren’t okay?
A tear rolls down my cheek. What kind of mother sells her daughters? It was how I’d always lived, how I believed I came to live with Mama and Papa. But when I look back now, there is a dark shadow over my entire life, as far back as I can remember. Playing with the girls, while Glen plotted to sell them to whoever gave him the best offer. I am starting to wonder if he ever cared about them the way he claimed. His eyes certainly never lit up the way they did when I told him about Nut.
When I really think about it, there were times when I knew things weren’t right. When things felt a little off. An itch I couldn’t quite scratch. But I trusted Glen more than I trusted myself. Each time I spoke up, talked back, I was taught that my thoughts and opinions were wrong, and I stopped believing any doubts that popped into my head.
Dr. Mulligan claims my family still wants to meet me. We talked about some of the things she could share with them, so they know the basics, but I’m not sure they fully understand. If they did, they wouldn’t want to meet me. They wouldn’t want me to taint their perfect lives. I imagine them living in sunshine, happy, smiling like in the pictures I was shown. I will bring nothing but darkness and heartache into their world.
I flop onto my back, letter still held over my heart, the springs on the bed squeaking in protest at the sudden movement. My family will be better off if we do not meet. I don’t want them to know what I’ve done. It will be better if they just move on, and I can start fresh with my precious Nut. And maybe when Glen gets out, he can start fresh, too. We can find a house far away, where no one knows us, and there is no “business.” Just us. Together. As we were always meant to be.
My daydreams lull me into a light sleep, and I wake when I hear the door creak open. I roll my head to the side to peek at the intruder.
“You have a visitor, Clara,” Jay says, poking his head into the room.
I groan. I don’t think I have the patience to deal with Mama today. “Tell her I’m sick,” I say, and it’s not entirely untrue. I have felt ill since Pam lobbed her verbal assault.
“Connor says you need to go.”
“Connor says,” I mimic, knowing I’m being difficult, but finding it hard to care. With a dramatic sigh, I heave myself into a sitting position. “Fine. Yes, sir. Whatever you say, sir.”
Jay frowns, and I feel a small stab of guilt. He has been nothing but kind to me and doesn’t deserve my mocking, but he’s the only available target at the moment, and it feels good to release my anger at someone. I am being selfish again. Perhaps it’s just who I am. Selfish.
“Let’s get this over with,” I say, standing to follow Jay down the drab hallway to the visitor room. I brace myself, preparing to put on a happy face for Mama. I don’t know how I am supposed to react to her now, so I decide to pretend nothing has changed.
Jay opens the door to the visitor room and I freeze. Tori leans on one of the tables, studying her nails. She looks up when Jay clears his throat. “You have fifteen minutes,” he says, pulling the door shut behind him.
Tori smiles and nods toward a table. “Care to sit?”
My feet carry me forward before my mind can catch up with the action. None of the girls from the group have visited me before. No one even really mentions the fact that I am being held here, that when the group disperses at the end of each hour, I head back into protective custody while they all head to their homes, their friends and family. I flush in embarrassment that Tori is seeing me like this, in this place, even though we are in the same building where we normally meet.
“How are you, Clara?” Tori asks when I finally slide into the chair across from her.
“Okay.”
Her brow wrinkles. “Let me try that again. How are you really?”
She’s beginning to sound like Dr. Mulligan. “Do you really care?” I can hear the bitterness in my voice, again misdirected.
Leaning back in her chair, Tori crosses her arms. “Of course I care. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. I had to get special permission from that agent and your therapist. Would someone who doesn’t care go to all that trouble?”
I cross my arms over my chest, mimicking her position, and study her. Her face remains open, honest, and I see a glimmer of concern in her eyes. She really is here to see how I’m doing. Something inside me cracks.
“Everyone hates me, don’t they?” I place my elbows on the table and rest my face in my hands. “You’re here to ask me not to return to the group? It’s okay. I won’t be back.”
“Oh, Clara.” Tori sighs. “That would be a mistake, not to come back. Don’t let Pam’s outburst keep you away.”
“She’s right though, isn’t she?” I don’t know if Tori can understand my mumbling through my fingers. “I’ve done some terrible things.”
Cool palms grasp my wrists, pulling my hands away from my face. “Clara, look at me.” Tori’s voice is firm, sharper than I have ever heard her speak. “Self-pity will get you nowhere. Blaming yourself for things you didn’t do will get you nowhere. So snap the hell out of it and talk to me.”
I’m shocked. Tori is always so gentle and affirming in group. She has always let me take my time in things, but now she is demanding and almost harsh. And it’s just what I need. This sort of interaction is familiar. I know how to respond to commands. I pull my hands away and sit up straighter in my chair.
“What do you want me to say?” I ask. “I look back at the last seventeen years and all the beautiful memories I thought I had are shadowed by what-ifs. What if I hadn’t been taken? What if I had listened to that part of me that wondered if what we were doing was right?” My fingernails dig into my palms. “There was always a part of me that wondered. Not until later. And I told myself it was fine, that Glen was good and kind, and that he loved the girls as much as I did, so he wouldn’t put them in a bad situation.”
Tori listens, her gaze never wavering from mine, steady and calm.
“As for his other . . . businesses, I always believed the women wanted to be there, or that they had done something that made them deserve that kind of life. Even when I lost my best friend . . . even when she was forced into that life, I still believed it was because she had committed an act awful enough to deserve it.”
The tears come. They drip down my cheeks and onto the table, and I make no move to wipe them away. Tori says nothing until the streams slow, and I use my shirt sleeve to dab my eyes.
“Why did you decide to share your stor
y?” Tori asks at last.
I shrug. “Dr. Mulligan said I needed to. I wanted to cooperate so I can get out of here.”
“Bullshit.”
My eyes fly to hers, startled. “What?”
“You heard me. That answer is bullshit. You forget that I’ve been in your place. Obviously not exactly, but I had no intention of being part of a therapy group or talking to anyone about anything when I got out. I hated the word ‘victim.’ But what I found out was that the best way to stop being called a victim was to stop acting like one and become a survivor instead. So, Clara, again, why did you want to share your story?”
The words fall out of my mouth before I can stop them. “I wanted to know if everyone would think I was terrible. I wanted to know if my family, the one that I was born into, would think less of me if they found out what I did. I wanted someone to tell me, one way or the other, if I am a bad person.” I am breathing hard, my heart thumping with the exhilaration of being so honest with someone, with putting a name to all those feelings that I’ve been holding in.
“And what did you find out?”
My shoulders droop. “I am not a good person. I should not meet my family because they deserve better than a dark, used-up version of the girl they lost.”
Tori taps her chin, lips pursed. “Who said that?”
Eyebrow raised, I stare at her. “Pam?” Tori was there. She heard everything Pam said.
“Okay. Who else?”
I search my memory for another hostile face, but come up empty. I shrug. “I guess that’s it. But she said it all.”
“So one person’s opinion matters more than the other ten of us who were there? That seems a little harsh.”
When she puts it that way, I feel a twinge of guilt. “But she said everything that I feared. It was like my worst nightmare coming alive.”
Tori reaches out and grabs my hands. “Listen, Clara. There are going to be people who see you as the bad guy. They are going to question your choices. They are going to paint a crazy dark caricature of you and try to convince everyone, yourself included, that you purposely tried to hurt those girls. That you wanted them to be miserable.”
“That’s not true!” I say, yanking my hands from hers. “I loved those girls. Every one of them. I wanted them to be happy. I believed Glen when he said they would be. I mean, sometimes I questioned . . . but I never wanted bad things for them. Never.”
“Then there’s your answer.” Tori leans back in her chair. “Everyone does things they’re not proud of. Everyone makes bad choices. But your intentions were never bad. And no matter what, the only thing you can control is what you do now.”
“But I should have—”
“Stop it.” Tori sounds impatient. “I’ve mentioned the house I was kept in a few times during group. Did I ever tell you how I ended up in that house?”
I shake my head.
“I wanted to go to a concert and my parents wouldn’t let me. I stayed over with a friend, and we hitched a ride into the city.”
“And the guy who gave you a ride took you?”
“No.” Tori laughed, but the sound was bitter. “A security guard. He told us we could go backstage to meet the band. Except once we were in the back hallway, some big guys jumped out and forced us into a van.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Tori shakes her head. “That’s not the point. The point is that for years I beat myself up over my choice not to listen to my parents. I thought it was my fault. If only I had listened. If only I had told them where I was, since they didn’t even know to look in the city for days. But it was never my fault. Sure, I made bad choices, but the guys who took me? They are the ones at fault.”
“But I did things. I helped them.”
“Clara. You have a choice now. Focus on what you did and how bad you feel about it, or focus on how you can start the process of healing, not only for yourself, but for your family, and for the families of the girls who were taken.”
Jay taps lightly on the door frame. “Time’s almost up, Clara.” I nod at him.
Tori stands. “I hope you’ll come back, Clara. And I hope you’ll see your family. I was terrified the first time I saw my parents after I was rescued. I thought they would be angry. But they were just so overjoyed to have me back and be able to tell me how much they loved me.”
I nod as I stand as well. “I’ll think about it. Thank you.”
She moves as if to hug me, but then steps back and smiles. “See you soon?”
“Sure.”
She turns and walks to the exit, sending a small wave before slipping out the door. As Jay walks me back to my room, my mind is tumbling with a mix of confused emotions. I have a lot of thinking to do.
Then
Glen shakes out the blanket and snaps it so it floats to the ground, perfectly smooth. I clap in delight. “Nicely done, Mr. Lawson.”
“I do what I can, Mrs. Lawson,” he says, settling down on the blanket and pulling me to sit between his knees, my back to his chest. His arms wrap around me and I snuggle in, happy and content. This is the first time we have had the opportunity to be together like this since we moved into the house. There always seems to be something to do, another crisis Glen has to take care of. And Joel has brought in several new girls over the past few weeks, almost more than I can handle. Thank goodness Passion has been helpful, and Mama even came by to help get everyone settled.
But tonight, it’s just us. Just Glen and me, by ourselves, enjoying a late picnic. The girls are asleep, Joel is keeping watch over the house, and Passion is in charge within. Glen brought me along the lake path to a small clearing away from the compound. It’s like our own little world out here, and the stars shine even brighter away from the floodlights around the house.
Glen kisses my hair and reaches for the picnic basket. I sit up and turn to face him, and we take turns feeding each other bits of chicken and fruits, all finger food for this very purpose. And we talk, as we have not talked in months. About the girls, about the future, about the past.
“Tonight is extra special, Clara,” Glen says, glancing up at the sky. “Do you remember the first time we went out on the roof?”
Of course I remember. Everything changed that night. That’s when our relationship really began, the obedient girl and the rebellious boy. I nod. “Yes, the meteor shower.”
He grins. “The meteor shower.” He takes my shoulders, his hands gentle as he turns me around and pulls me back against his chest.
Streaking through the dark sky, I see first one, then two, then countless shooting stars, blazing triumphantly for but a moment, then fading to nothing. The other stars, which I had before seen as bright and stunning, pale in comparison to their fiery cousins. I grip Glen’s arms, which are wrapped around me, mesmerized by the show Mother Nature is putting on for us. It is glorious and exhilarating and also a little sad, watching those tiny lights pulse and die. I say as much to Glen.
“But what a gift their short lives are, baby,” he whispers in my ear. “Their purpose has been served. What a way to go.”
His breath tickles my ear, and when he stops talking, his lips remain, moving down to kiss just behind my ear and down my neck. I close my eyes and focus on the points where his skin meet mine. His hands stroke across my stomach, then divide and conquer as one moves up and one moves down. He guides me to lie down on the blanket as the kisses and caresses continue.
As Glen rises above me, his face framed by the falling heavens behind him, I see the boy I fell in love with. The boy who was eager for the future, who was excited about what the world had to offer. This is the Glen I remember, not the cynical man he has become, so much like the father he both revered and despised. I pull his lips to mine as we come together and I pour all my feelings into him, all the words I am not brave enough to say.
In the afterglow, I am afraid my Glen will disappe
ar again, but as we lie entwined, sweat cooling on our skin from the breeze coming off the lake, he holds me close, whispering words of love. I want to stay in this spot forever, just the two of us, the way we both always wanted it to be. The way we were meant to be.
A rustle in the bushes startles me, and I curl into Glen, trying to cover myself. His body stiffens.
“Who’s out there?” Glen growls, and I am fearful for whoever has interrupted our time.
“Sir, Mr. Lawson, I’m sorry to bother you . . .” A timid voice floats out from the trees.
“Then get the fuck away,” Glen says, pulling the blanket up over our bodies.
“Sir, there’s been a breach at the training camp. Joel sent me to find you.”
“Fuck.” Glen mutters a few more choice expletives before responding. “Fine. Give me five minutes. Wait by the south guard station.”
“Yes, sir.” Hurried footsteps fade into the forest, and Glen rests his forehead on mine.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” Glen says. “I hate to cut this short.”
I manage a small smile. “Duty calls.” I flinch, hoping Glen does not reprimand me for my flippant comment. I didn’t mean for it to come out sarcastic.
Instead of getting angry, Glen turns thoughtful. “Why don’t you come with me? See some of the other things I do? I know you don’t see much of my other businesses. Maybe you should.”
I wrinkle my nose. “I’ve seen the brothel.”
He laughs. “No, I mean the training camp. If you promise to do as I say and stay out of the way, you can come along and check it out.” He pauses. “If you want to, that is.”
Glen wants to show me the training camp, and he’s giving me a choice. I’m not sure what has gotten into him tonight, but his mood is a gift I am not willing to waste.
“I would love to go.”
We pull on our clothes, fabric and zippers rustling in the quiet night, and Glen grabs my hand and leads me along the path. A guard shack comes into view in minutes, and I realize that our picnic spot was not as private as I had first assumed. The young guard who interrupted us waits by the building, standing tall, but a flush creeps up his neck when he glances in my direction. My cheeks grow warm.