It was my first taste of wine since the mere sip of the glass I’d pushed aside in the roadhouse. This time, it went down fast and smooth, like a cherry liquor, flavors of exotic spices exploded in my mouth. I felt my muscles fully relax by the time I was half way into my second glass.
“Maybe go steady,” Marcus said, shooting me a look that instinctively served to piss me off and in one hot second. I know my limits. Where was this coming from, I wondered? Hadn’t he been the one tempted by the pills back at the shelter, that terrible night? My enjoying two or three glasses of damn good wine was hardly a comparison.
“I’m a grown up, Marcus, thank you,” I snapped. “I’m enjoying Walter’s hospitality here, is all, lighten up won’t you? It’s been tense enough these past few days.”
Marcus wisely opted not to respond as I promptly divided the remains of the bottle between Walter’s glass and my own. He stood, clearing our empty bowls from the table.
“I’ll take care of the dishes,” Marcus said, his back to Walter and me as he filled a bowl with hot water and bubbles, looking out of the window above the sink into the darkened yard.
Small talk with Walter gave way to a queasy feeling, a dangerous mixture of one too many glasses of wine combined with the rich ingredients of the stew. Roiled up emotions also played a part in this undesirable cocktail I’d shaken up for myself.
“You know,” I said to Marcus, after I’d made it across the kitchen without hurling the contents of my stomach to stand beside him at the sink. “You can’t truly know someone, start to love someone, until you’ve learned them inside out. The good and the not so good.”
What the hell? Why had I mentioned the love word? As soon as it was out of my mouth, I flinched. I was acting like an idiot making a statement as intense as this so early on, despite our inexplicable attraction and rushing headlong into such a physically intense relationship the way we had. As if this wasn’t enough to send him hightailing through the redwoods back to Point Reyes.
“It’s not about judgment, it’s about sharing stuff, small joys, sorrows, all the shit that life throws in our way,” still I continued with my tipsy rant.
“Who’s judging?” Marcus replied, deadpan, calmly drying the inside of the Dutch oven with an old dish towel. “I guess we’re on a crash course, you and me,” he joked.
“Maybe it’s all too much for a fucked-up person like me to ask for,” I cried, tears springing from my eyes.
“I would not categorize you as fucked-up, Maggie,” Marcus said, turning to hold my arm at the elbow. “And it’s not what we’ve had to face along the way, nor what might happen in the future,” he added, “it’s how we deal with it all going forward that counts.”
“I need to pee real bad,” I said, breaking the tension. I made it halfway across the kitchen before tripping over one of the piles of boxes I’d stacked that afternoon. A head thumping, heart racing, queasy feeling came over me as I leaned forward on the rug between boxes and promptly threw up the contents of my stomach in front of Walter and Marcus both. They looked at me like neither of them had seen this coming on this fast though I sure had. I felt too wretched to set about cleaning it up.
“Time to make my excuses,” Walter said, leaving the room as I attempted to compose myself. “Marcus, see that the lady is taken care of, won’t you?”
The rest of the night was an unfortunate blur except for my being aware of Marcus lifting me up from the floor, taking me to the bathroom, feeding me water, holding up my hair and washing my face. It must have been Marcus who cleaned the patch on the rug, as, much to my relief and any further humiliation the following morning, there was no material sign of the damage I’d done.
I was up and about before Marcus awoke. He had placed his truck keys neatly on the kitchen table with a note that let me know he was planning on sleeping in an extra hour or two. Clearly, giving me some room to exit gracefully. His note wished me luck with reuniting with Mia. “Drive safely,” he’d written. “Love, Marcus xo.”
Crap, my cheeks flushed, what a complete fool I had made of myself. And yet, no one had forced him to leave me his truck keys, or to sign off with the L word, I noted. I hoped to God the guy had enough humility about him to let it go, my first messing up around him. If he’d been gone when I returned, I wouldn’t have blamed him.
Chapter 26
Mia
The two women I came to know and trust as Jo and Kate drove me to their place that very same night of my bath and fireside meal in Julia’s cabin. The inside of their mud encrusted SUV smelled of a curious mix of pine needles and vanilla. It was the most pimped out vehicle interior I have ever traveled in, all soft sheepskin seat covers, a pile of fluffy blankets on the back seat, a sparkly crystal dangling on a dark pink ribbon that swung from the rear view mirror. I found a box of tissues and a tin of mints in the pocket behind the driver seat. I was wired enough by this point to take it all in.
I’d listened to the three women speak in hushed tones after Julia had greeted them at the door. It did not appear as if they knew each other, though Julia had a quick, quiet manner that put us all at ease. She told them about Marybeth and Malcolm and how they had taken off on their way south soon after they’d delivered me into her care. The two younger women gave me a sort of emergency run-down as to what they were all about, what they do for girls like me. They’d asked if I was OK with them driving me to their house right away. I never said so much to anyone but I was deathly afraid of Jefe Hombre having somehow survived. I’d have willingly traveled to the end of the frickin’ earth with these two clearly capable, in charge women. I wished Jazmin was with me, I had zero way of knowing that she was yet to make her move and my worst fear was that she would pay the price for what I’d done.
Anyway, I was in no fit state to take care of myself. I was going nowhere on my own, barefoot, for God’s sakes, except for a pair of chunky, hand knitted socks Julia had slipped over my thick, bandaged feet. I was totally helpless, dependent on the goodness of a string of strangers.
I’m not about to recount the route we took that night. Nobody needs to know where we were headed, or where Grace Place is located, that’s the whole point of it, you see. The secret part is what keeps women, girls like me who wind up there, safe, protected.
It was pitch-black and so dense with redwoods not a single star shone through. I closed my eyes and imagined myself being ferried through a long, dark tunnel to someplace light and bright and peaceful where no one would be able to touch me let alone hurt me ever again.
The women were talking in soft, low voices up front. Their lilting conversation seemed to me as if it was a whole new language, like it was taking place on a different planet from the silent hellhole I had escaped from.
The SUV pulled to a stop at the end of a winding driveway after we’d passed over a rickety wooden bridge into an unlit, heavily wooded property. I barely detected the outline of a house as I squinted through the tinted window. Talk about hidden. It filled me with relief to figure any random passersby would be hard pushed to stumble on this place, day or night.
From the outside, the silhouette of the house in the trees made me think of the small, wooded cottage in the Hansel and Gretel story. I remembered it as pictured in a faded color print in a tattered, old, fairy tale book, one of the few permanent books at the ranch when I was a kid. I’d carried home all kinds of books to read from the mobile library that trundled along the coast every couple of weeks, though I don’t remember any of the stories as well as I do the dark, scary Brothers Grimm tales: Rumpelstiltskin; Snow White; Cinderella; Rapunzel — and not the Disney versions, neither. The book had been my aunt Maggie’s when she was a kid. I know this because she’d scribbled her name inside of the cover in crayon. Had she been as scared of those stories and as thrilled by them as I was and who had read them to her, I wondered?
This real house, on closer inspection appeared to glow, softly, lit from inside with a lamp in each of the front windows. It still looked like a fairy tal
e cottage to me, but a safe and cozy one — a full-size cuckoo clock a bit like the one back at the ranch. I couldn’t get inside the front door fast enough.
You’d think accustomed as I was to being in the middle of nowhere, I’d have been on fresh alert, but this was different. I swear my muscles began to relax the second I set eyes on the place.
“As you’ll see, when the rains start up again in all seriousness, these roads turn to mud,” Kate said. “Four-wheel drive’s the only option. Rest assured, we’re not accessible in any ordinary vehicle, or otherwise.”
She opened the door, holding out her hand to guide me out of the vehicle. “Put these on first,” she said, slipping my thick-socked feet into a pair of rain boots she’d pulled from the trunk. My legs had turned to jelly. I could barely walk. I was in need of physical support. All I wanted was to lay my head down, somewhere, anywhere on the inside of that door, to curl up in a warm spot and sleep.
Inside, Grace Place is as every bit welcoming as it looks from the outside, thick walls of exposed wood, a reddish-colored paneling with thick, overhead beams and those oldfashioned light fixtures. It’s hard to put my finger on it, other than to say it’s like someone has figured out how to stop time and to bar any bad stuff from the modern world seeping in through its walls.
A stag head hangs over the large stone fireplace, its big, old antlers intact. I looked at him that first time and he looked back at me, the pair of us, transfixed. “We’re safe now,” he seemed to be saying, you and me, the both of us here in this secret, hidden place. Whatever had happened, that was then and this was now.
Last remnants of the evening’s wood fire crackled in the hearth. The parlor, as I’ve come to know it, was warm and toasty. Still, I kept the blanket Marybeth had given me wrapped around my body like it was a shield, or a cocoon.
One of them, Kate, suggested we sit a while in a pair of high-backed, leather armchairs positioned on either side of the fireplace. Another two saggy, low-backed chairs faced inward toward the fireplace, a colorful braided-rug in between. I felt like I had stepped into one of those old-fashioned Christmas cards as I sank into one of the chairs closest to the fire.
Kate sat across from me, curling her legs up beside her while Jo went into the kitchen to make us some tea. Kate’s wavy, chestnut hair is cut to shoulder-length. It glowed in the firelight that night. I felt a spark of envy since my own hair had been hacked off so brutally. She sat without speaking for a while. I watched her closely as she tucked her hair into a neat ball on the back of her head with a band she’d slipped off her wrist. It was all so normal, so freakishly painless I half expected something bad to happen. It took my breath away to the point of feeling faint. Still, I was quickly at ease with Kate. I find her company comforting, reassuring, motherly almost, but not in a bossy way and nothing at all like being around my own mother.
Jo, on the other hand, she has a strength about her that makes everyone around her feel safe and strong, like she’s not taking any shit from anyone, in a good way. The way she carried herself across the room that night, I figured she was the practical, no-nonsense one of the pair, her short, blonde hair framing a friendly, open, freckled face.
They way they looked at one another, lovingly, the way they talked to each other, touching arms and squeezing hands, it was clear from the offset that they were together.
I drank tea while Jo started in on telling me more about the place. “You’ll meet the others in the morning,” she said. “It’s a bit of a maze on first impression, but don’t worry, you’ll soon find your way around.” Floorboards creaked underfoot. I remember how I inhaled the scent of polished wood and cedar candles. It smelled like home. Not the ranch, but home as in how I’d like it to be.
“After we took it on, Grace Place,” Kate explained: “we added four bedrooms and a bathroom to the early footprint of the house. You’ll meet your housemates in the morning.”
“Enough of that for now,” Jo said. “There’s plenty of time for you to get to know the place and all of us, Mia. As for tonight, what you need now is sleep.”
The two of them ushered me through a spacious kitchen. A polished wooden dining table filled a good portion of the room. It was set for breakfast. The seats of a set of carved-back chairs were tied with padded blue and white plaid cushions, the type I’ve seen on television sitcoms and in magazines but not in real life. We never had anything close to a decorative chair cushion for God’s sake, back at the ranch. This new scene appeared in crazy contrast from the stark, cold, commando kitchen at the compound, that’s for sure. Was it too good to be true? I rubbed my eyes in a mixture of exhaustion and disbelief, half expecting to wake from a dream.
Dried herbs hung from a heavy beam that looked like a converted log, wedged above the stove. I did a double take at several big bunches of rosemary and thyme, neatly tied with twine and hanging within reach of the big pots and pans stacked on a shelf above the range top.
Back at Bruce and Bonnie’s place a million years ago, I’d helped hang heavy clusters of cannabis buds to shrink to half their size. We had hung weed from washing lines strung in the drying sheds. I learned how to place the buds in paper bags to cure, after they’d dried. By the time the weed was ready for trimming it was all crispy on the outside, still slightly moist on the inside.
“Culinary herbs,” Jo said, smiling. She had noticed my gaze as it lingered on a big bunch of dried rosemary. “We are completely substance free here at Grace Place, just so you know.”
I nodded. The last thing I needed was another godforsaken raid in the middle of the night.
“The predecessor of this old stove was a wood burner,” Kate added.
I wanted nothing more to do with the outside world. If they’d told me to curl up in the corner on the kitchen floor that night, like little Cinderella herself, hell, I’d have been more than content to do so. I was warm, I was fed and I was done in — almost, but not entirely. It was only as they readied to leave me in my room that I dared tell them about Jazmin. “She’s out there, somewhere, I don’t know where. I can’t give up on her. I won’t rest until I see her again.”
The women exchanged a concerned look. “You are welcome to tell us however much more you are ready to share in the morning, Mia.” Kate said, “but for now, try to get some rest.” The bedside lamp cast a reassuring glow as she closed the door softly and left me to my thoughts, completely alone as I lay in the narrow bed in the small, snug room, unsure what to make of it all. Deep yellow and cherry-red checkered drapes that matched the bedspread were pulled across a narrow window set high into the buttery yellow wall. I stayed perfectly still for some time as I fixed my gaze on the door, not daring to move for fear that I would break the spell. My head began to spin. My feet hurt. I was suspended in place, pinned to the bed, my mind in one moment back at the compound, in the truck and plunged into the river with the brown sludge waters of hell gushing in around me, a pair of bulging eyes staring back.
I pinched my arms and tried desperately to conjure a picture of myself back at the ranch, eating supper at the kitchen counter. I couldn’t see my face in that familiar scene. That night it came to me that it was another me, a new Mia I’m gonna have to insert into the picture. The old Mia is gone and she isn’t ever coming back.
It’s not that I don’t want to see my mom, to have her give me one of her big, annoying bear hugs I’d squirmed away from over the past few, awkward years. My biggest fear is that when I do see her, this hard shell I’ve built up will crack open and I will lose it completely.
I had no idea this sort of place existed. No matter how much I’d thought I hated it, the dead end of it all, I’m fully and painfully aware by now of how sheltered and protected my childhood had been on the ranch.
How clueless I was. Now, I’m one of these girls, these women, the ones with the stories many never get the chance to tell. Well, I’ve had no choice but to spill the beans, confess the most part of what went down, though it has taken me some time to open up and ta
lk about it. I have others to think about. Jazmin and the kid inside of me for starters, the two of them are worth way more to me than my guilt and humiliation multiplied by a thousand.
Anyway, I am not so ashamed, despite of it all. I owe that to Grace Place, not just Kate and Jo, but all of the others here like me. Girl power. You better believe it. There is nothing that women cannot do.
It was dark when I woke up. Rain. So much fucking rain, it seemed like it would never stop. It took me a while to gather my bearings. Waking up and my being aware that I was alone in a room that was light years from the compound was almost impossible to believe. I snuggled up under my protective stack of covers. If I could have, I would have stayed in that position for days.
It was frickin’ insane good luck my having run into Marybeth and Malcolm out at the river. I do believe I would have frozen to death out there, if not, freaked-out and soaking, my bare feet all bloody, unable to carry me much farther beyond the stretch of road I’d found them at, minding their own business, listening to Peter, Paul and Mary for God’s sakes in the middle of the redwoods as they’d sat there grilling sausages in the open air.
Someone up there was looking out for me for sure. Maybe I’d been punished enough for my stupidity. The universe works in mysterious ways, right? Just when you think you’re the biggest loser in the world, you get a break and you’d better fucking grab it.
My only hope was that Jazmin had made it to as safe a place as this — I prayed her good karma had come through, I guess I was willing it on her, unbeknown to me just as she was laying the groundwork to get herself out. I vowed I would never ask for anything more for the rest of my life.
Someone had placed a giant, fluffy blue robe at the foot of my bed while I’d slept. I must have fully been out for the count, or I’d have surely jumped in fear of being tracked down.
I rolled out of bed and slipped the thick robe over a fresh pair of flannel pajamas Kate had handed me the night before. They were lemon scented, like heaven, pressed and neatly folded, along with a pair of terry cloth, one-size-fits-all slider slippers she’d taken from the top dresser drawer. I knew it was real, what had happened, seeing as the messed-up soles of my feet were hurting like hell beneath the bandages, though they healed way faster than I thought, in the days and weeks that followed.
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