by Sharon Sala
His heart sank. “Tory, sweetheart, it’s me, Brett. Let me help you, baby. Let me help you.”
She shook her head from side to side, unwilling to be touched. Slowly but surely her screams began to subside, not because she was calming down, but because she had cried herself hoarse.
Once more he tried to touch her, to help her out of the closet. She pulled away again with a frantic jerk, clutching the doll even tighter while murmuring something he couldn’t understand. Defeated, he turned to the landlord, only to see a uniformed officer clearing the room.
“I need an ambulance,” he said.
“Already done,” the officer said. “Who is she? Do you know her?”
Brett looked back at the wild, sweat-drenched woman clutching that old rag doll and felt his life slipping away.
“I thought I did,” he said softly. “But now I’m not so sure.”
***
There were people coming to take her away, just like before. She smelled them, even before she saw their white coats. They smelled like hospitals. She didn’t like hospitals. People went into hospitals, and sometimes they didn’t come back.
“Sweet Baby, Sweet Baby, Sweet Baby, Sweet Baby,” but the chant didn’t work. The people just kept coming. She turned away from the doorway, hiding her dolly under her arm. She didn’t want them to take Sweet Baby away again.
Someone touched her. She shut her eyes and flinched. “No, no, no,” she begged.
A voice, deep and low, kept making promises. But promises were nothing but words. Words didn’t mean anything, and neither did promises. There was a terrible pain in her chest, like a hole that kept tearing wider and wider with each passing breath. Someone was lost. She kept trying to remember the words to say, but they just wouldn’t come. If she could only find out where they’d gone, she would be all right. But the problem was, she didn’t remember who she’d lost.
***
A phone rang at the nurses’ station just across the hall as the sound of voices and laughter drifted into Tory’s room. Brett got up and closed the door, unwilling to disturb her uneasy slumber. He walked back to her bedside, staring down at her in the half-light, studying the way she clutched the rag doll beneath her chin.
She didn’t know me.
Every time he let himself think it, his panic renewed. He’d tried to excuse it. He’d even tried to ignore it. But when there was nothing else to distract him, the truth of the fact was right there. She hadn’t known him. She acted as if she didn’t even known where she was. By the time she’d screamed herself hoarse, she wasn’t saying much of anything.
Tory, baby, what happened to you out there?
He touched her face, then her hair, trying to find something of the woman he loved in this childlike creature curled up on the bed, but she was gone.
That damned picture of that tattooed man is part of this mess.
He had no facts on which to base the theory, but his instincts as an investigator told him he was right. When she suddenly shuddered, then sighed, Brett put his hand on her shoulder, wanting her to know that wherever she’d gone, she was not alone.
As he watched, her chin quivered, and a tear suddenly spilled down her cheek. Her lips were moving, repeating some word over and over. He leaned down, trying to hear what it was that she said, then frowned when he heard her whispering, “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy.”
The word startled him. To his knowledge, Victoria Lancaster had never known her mother. It had been his understanding that she’d been in the foster care system from the time she was a baby. He leaned closer and kissed the side of her face, then whispered against her ear.
“Come back to me, Tory. I love you. I love you. Do you hear me, baby? I love you very, very much.”
The little girl hated the dark, and it was dark now, just like she’d feared it would be. The house was gone. Sweet Baby was gone. Mommy was gone. There was no one left who loved her. There was no one left who remembered her name.
“I’ll die now,” she said, and lay herself down. As she waited, she could feel every part of her being turning in on itself, and she curled into a ball to make it easier to go.
But death wouldn’t come. As hard as she tried to stop them from happening, the breaths still came. Inhale. Exhale. Over and over, the treacherous draughts of air continued, taking away her last chance for escape.
She lay without moving, waiting for it all to be over. Tired. She was so very, very tired. If she didn’t move, maybe she would sleep forever.
And then she felt a touch, but that couldn’t be. No one could touch her, because she’d been left all alone. It came again, on her face, on her hair, near her ear. She shifted uncomfortably. If she wasn’t alone, then she wouldn’t be able to die, and she was tired, so very tired, of fighting.
Then she heard the voice. Faint at first, and soft—so very, very soft. She listened harder, unable to believe what she was hearing. It came again, more clearly now, and her heart surged.
Oh! Oh joy, precious joy! There! Again, then again! Love? Someone was promising to love her? If only she dared to believe.
Sunlight was coming through the half-open shades when she opened her eyes. Brett caught himself holding his breath, afraid to hope, afraid to speak for fear of starting this nightmare all over again. In the few moments before their gazes met, he wished he’d taken time to shave, or at least comb his hair. But it was too late now, and he was afraid to move. So he waited, watching her eyes as they focused on first one object and then another. And then she suddenly jerked and began yanking at the sheets, searching for the doll that had slipped out of her hand.
“Here,” Brett said softly, moving the sheet aside to show her where it lay. “There’s your baby,” he said softly.
When Tory felt the old fabric beneath her fingers, she relaxed. Then she looked up, and the hole in her mind began to close. Her voice was raspy and weak, but her words were clear and distinct, and they healed Brett’s heart in a way nothing else ever could.
“Brett. I couldn’t find you. I thought you were lost forever.”
She knows me. Oh God… thank you God.
He put down the guardrail and picked her up in his arms, only then giving in to the tears he’d been holding back.
“Oh, baby, I thought I’d lost you, too.”
Tory held the rag doll tight against her breast and rested her cheek against the rock-steady rhythm of Brett’s heart.
“Don’t let them take Sweet Baby from me, will you?”
He rocked her where they sat, holding her close, then closer still. “No, sweetheart, I won’t let them take your dolly, I promise.”
“You keep your promises, don’t you, Brett?”
“Yes, Tory, I keep my promises.”
“I want to go home now. Will you take me home?”
***
It had sounded like a plan to Brett, but her doctor had had other ideas. Relenting slightly only after he’d learned that she wouldn’t be alone, the doctor had agreed to release her tomorrow, but not a moment sooner. They’d had to be satisfied with that.
Within the hour, the doctor had ordered a series of psychiatric tests and sent Brett home. On the way there, he’d made up his mind to do some checking of his own. Victoria had never talked about her past, and he’d respected her right to keep silent. But no longer. He didn’t want to lose her, and to make sure that never happened, he was going to find out everything there was to know about Victoria Lancaster.
***
Brett had pulled out all the stops. He’d called in favors and ignored red tape that would have stalled a lesser man. It had taken better than five hours, but the file now sitting on his desk was everything that had been recorded of Victoria Lancaster’s life to date. In Brett’s opinion, it was little more than a continuing horror story, interspersed with just enough reality to make it convincing.
Abandoned… six years old… mother disappeared without a trace… three days… no food.
He took a deep breath, skimming through a psyc
hiatrist’s opinion to get back to the facts.
When found, was hysterical for six days… mute for four months.
When Brett read that, he felt sick to his stomach. He kept thinking about how coming back to their empty apartment had caused her to relive the hell of her childhood.
He turned a page, and then another and another, reading about the waste of a child’s life and the promises made, and then broken, again and again. No wonder she didn’t trust. No wonder she wouldn’t let herself put down roots. Everyone she’d ever believed in had walked out on her or else given her back to the courts when her care became too much of a hassle. Victoria Lancaster hadn’t quit on life. It had quit on her.
He turned another page, frowning as he read through the report. It was one doctor’s opinion that she was withholding her anger by refusing to speak of her mother. It was another’s opinion that she’d been so traumatized by the abandonment that she didn’t even remember she’d had a mother.
Brett thought of his own childhood, of the constancy of his mother’s love and his father’s reassuring presence, of growing up with a brother and sister for companions, of never having to go hungry or cold, of holidays and birthdays and all the things that make a child’s life sweet.
Dear God. In the blink of an eye, that six-year-old child lost every anchor she’d ever known in life, and then, unknowingly, I repeated her hell.
Blinded by tears, he shut the folder and covered his face with his hands.
“Oh God, Victoria, forgive me. I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”
An hour later, he was at the hospital with the report in his hands. There were things in here that her doctor needed to know. Things that Victoria might not be able to tell him, not because she didn’t want to, but because she didn’t remember. Things that would help them heal her. He needed her well. He wanted her back—if she would have him. Just thinking about her loneliness made him angry all over again. So help him God, he would make sure no one ever hurt her again.
***
She was quiet on the way home. Brett kept giving her nervous glances as he negotiated the downtown traffic. Except for the presence of that rag doll in her lap, he could almost believe nothing had ever happened. When they stopped for a light, Brett patted her hand.
“Tory?”
She turned to him with a smile that lit his heart. “Hmm?”
“Are you all right?”
She sighed. Poor Brett. She didn’t remember everything, but from the tests she’d taken and the things she’d overheard, she must have pulled quite a stunt.
“Yes, darling, I’m fine.”
The light changed, and he moved with the traffic, still clasping her hand. But he couldn’t stay quiet. There were so many things he needed to say.
“Tory.”
“What?”
“I didn’t move to get away from you.”
Her smile was a little bit sad. “I know, but I wouldn’t have blamed you if you had.”
“I just thought if I gave you some space… if I let you…”
She squeezed his fingers, then lifted them to her lips.
“Brett. Stop. I’m the one who should be apologizing. I should have told you where I was going. I should have talked to you about finding Oliver Hale. If I had, maybe none of this would have happened.”
He shook his head. “No, baby. I don’t agree. I think it was only a matter of time before something inside you gave way. I’m just sorry I was the catalyst, that’s all.”
She nodded. “Apology accepted.”
He glanced down at the doll in her lap and at the desperate grip she had on the fabric of the skirt. Other than asking him not to let them take it away, she hadn’t mentioned the doll to him again. He decided to change the subject.
“I had all your things moved to the new house yesterday. You’re going to love it. There’s a lot more room and a great place for your—”
“I don’t care where I live, as long as you’re there, too.”
He nodded, then gave her a lopsided grin. “Now you tell me.”
She almost laughed. But when Brett turned the street corner and pulled into the second driveway on the left, she stiffened and clutched at the doll.
“Is this it?”
Brett nodded, holding his breath as he watched the expressions changing on her face, from unease at unfamiliar surroundings to a quiet acceptance of the simple red-brick house and the neat green hedges separating it from the houses on either side.
“I like it,” she said.
He exhaled.
***
She slept in Brett’s arms, clutching him as tightly as she’d clung to that doll. When bedtime had come, he’d waited, wondering if she would take it to bed, too, and had been more than surprised when she’d put it in her dresser drawer instead.
“You sure?” he’d asked, as she’d turned around to come to bed.
“If you promise not to snore. Sweet Baby never snores.”
“Is that her name?”
Tory ran her hand across the surface of the drawer and then nodded. “I think so. Anyway, it feels right.”
“Was it yours… from before, I mean?”
She looked up, and the lost expression on her face broke his heart. “I don’t know why I know it, but I know she’s mine.”
“Where did you find her?”
She closed her eyes, picturing the cellar and Stinger Hale’s face. “In an old man’s house.”
Suddenly Brett knew which old man she meant.
I’ll be damned. The man with the scorpion tattoo.
“Was he related to you, honey?”
Her hand shook, and for the first time since coming home from the hospital, she felt a little afraid.
“I don’t know. They said his name was Oliver Hale. One man even knew him as Stinger. But I don’t remember anything about him.”
“What did he do when he saw you?”
She dug her fingers through her hair in a gesture of frustration. “That’s just it. I didn’t get to see him. His landlady let me go through his things.”
Brett looked startled. “Hell, Tory, that was dangerous. What if he’d come back and caught you?”
“Oh, no. It wasn’t like that. She said he was in some prison. He owed her back rent. I paid it to get to go through his things.”
He smiled at her. “Very resourceful, honey. I might have done something similar myself.”
“I know. I remembered you telling me once that sometimes your best clues came from where someone lived, rather than what you were told about them.”
“Good girl,” he said, and patted her on the knee.
But Tory was too dejected to take the praise.
“Brett?”
“What, baby?”
“He had my doll. If he meant nothing to me, then why did he have my doll?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart, but it’s okay. When it matters, you’ll remember.” And then he changed the subject. “Come here to me. I’m needing a hug.”
After that, there had been no more talk of Oliver Hale. And now she slept beneath the shelter of Brett’s arm while he worried himself through the night. There were still too many unanswered questions to suit him, and he wasn’t a patient man. Granted, Tory didn’t remember the man from the picture, but Brett had ways of finding his own answers.
***
“You said Oliver Hale was in prison, right?”
Tory looked up from her newspaper and nodded. “That’s what LeeNona Beverly told me.”
Brett’s mouth dropped. “Who?”
Tory frowned. “I guess I didn’t tell you about her, did I?”
Brett shook his head. “Honey, up to now, you haven’t told me much of anything. But if you want to find out what the hell’s going on in your head, then I think it’s about time that you did.”
She tossed the paper aside and stood up. “You know, I think you’re right.”
She took Brett by the hand. “Let’s go outside. I think better there.”
Hours later, he was still wrestling with the notion that what she’d told him hadn’t clarified anything. In fact, it only served to confuse him even more.
What she remembered of her dreams were nothing more than bits and pieces of nightmarish horrors. And she’d learned nothing from LeeNona Beverly that really mattered, except maybe the fact that Oliver Hale had relocated to Iowa from Arkansas about the same time that Tory had been abandoned. Add to that an old rag doll that kept secrets better than the Pope and they weren’t much better off than when they’d started.
At that point, he made up his mind. He was going to talk to Oliver Hale.
Ten
Tory stood naked before the full-length mirror on the back of the bedroom door. Her stare was appraising, almost judgmental. The woman looking back at her seemed wary, almost afraid. But of what? Tory wondered. The woman couldn’t say.
Tory looked again, past the questions in her eyes to the face itself, looking for abnormalities that would echo the ones in her mind. Fortunately, Tory Lancaster’s outer self gave away nothing of what was going on inside her head.
She lifted her arms, noting the firm tilt of her breasts as she stretched her fingers toward the ceiling. Then she turned, viewing herself first from one side and then the other. She sighed, dropping her arms to her sides, then running the palms of both hands across her belly.
Too skinny.
The whorl of hair at the juncture of her thighs was a thick, wheat-colored nest in which was hidden her womanly parts. She frowned. Secrets. Always secrets. Why did everything have to be a secret? Wasn’t it enough that her own mind was keeping things from her? She leaned forward, pressing both hands against the face of the glass, staring deep into the wide blue eyes of the woman in the mirror.
Where did you come from? Who are your people? Why can’t you remember anything about your childhood that matters?