The Darkness of Perfection

by Michael Schneider

  The nightmares lessened once we were home again. Everything around me was familiar and safe.

  Our town was small and I knew the faces I saw on the streets. I spent the rest of the summer packing for college and saying goodbye to friends as we each went off in different directions to make our way in the world.

  I leaned against the rail, my forearms resting on top in front of me, and searched the crowd departing the ship, looking for her familiar form. She was easy to spot, even in the crowd; not that I didn’t know where she was every second of the day and night for the past four days. I knew it was irrational to think she could disappear within the confines of the ship, but I learned in the past that she was capable of slipping through the smallest of spaces just like a mouse, and I refused to take that chance again.

  I hadn’t seen her in twelve years. Back then her hair had been lighter, but would shine like a copper penny in the sunlight. It had darkened over the years to a beautiful dark blond, though her natural red highlights still shone in the sunlight. I was glad to see that no ink marred her beautiful skin as far as I could tell from the modest swimsuits she wore. While I carried no delusions that she was still a virgin, I hoped for her sake she was. I couldn’t think about anyone else daring to touch what was always meant to be mine.

  My father promised her to me the day she was born, when I was still too young to fully understand what that even meant. I saw her a few times when she was a toddler, when my father would bring me with him to conduct business with her father and to check up on her development. I was an adolescent and had no interest in the little girl who would try to gain my attention by handing me her toys to play with.

  I always brushed her away with indifference as I concentrated on my video game in order to entertain myself until we could leave her family’s small, cramped home. Maybe I was too soft, but one day I’d made her cry. I felt guilty about it. Even at the age of eleven, I wasn’t a total jerk. I endeavored after that to be nicer and would at least play with her for a few minutes each time I saw her until the inevitable boredom would drive me back to my video games.

  She was officially given to me when I was thirteen. Jayden had just turned five, so old enough to start learning, and I had just witnessed my first execution. My father threw a party to celebrate and Jayden was my gift. My father was proud of me for not sniveling like a baby when the man I had never met and who had never done me wrong died at my feet. My father never knew I spent that night throwing up in the bathroom downstairs while my mother held me in her arms, crying with me.

  He demanded ironclad strength in his sons, and my brother had never disappointed him, so I couldn’t either. I worked hard to earn his praise and respect, burying everything soft within me until I became the man he expected me to be. Jayden was the only one I lowered my guard for and showed any kindness to. She suffered from nightmares and cried at night for her mother from the tiny cot she slept in, in the corner of my room. To help ease her fears I let her sleep in my bed and let her have the ratty bear that came with her that she loved so much.

  My father expected me to look after her and teach her. My mother helped by teaching her the household stuff I didn’t know, but ultimately she was my responsibility. I didn’t have the first clue how to teach her. I’d never even owned a dog before, but Jayden relied on me for everything so I learned quickly.

  My father kept a large wooden crate in his office that he would lock her in if she acted out in any way. A heavy blanket was thrown over it so she was encased in darkness for the duration of her punishments. I had even put her in there myself several times, under my father’s watchful eye, though I hated every minute of it.

  I was supposed to mold her and train her to grow into the perfect wife to live in my world. How was a thirteenyear-old boy supposed to know what that even meant? I was too young to understand. I only knew that I liked the feeling I got when Jayden would look to me for approval with absolute trust in her eyes. I liked feeling like her hero who could make her smile. I was no hero. I was a villain, the same as everyone else in our world. I just hadn’t realized it yet.

  My mother tried over the years to teach my brother and me to be different; to be better men, and change our destinies. Our father was grooming us to take over the family business when he was ready to step down. My brother was quick to embrace the power our father possessed. After all, what could be better than being rich, powerful and untouchable? Knowing that men groveled and cowered at your feet, ready to do anything or give up anything just because you demanded it of them?

  Jayden’s father had done just that when he gave her to me.

  I didn’t have that realization until Jayden’s mother took her away from me. That was when I fully embraced the man my father wanted me to become. It was my idea to let her parents come to prove how good of a job I had done with her. It was my softness due to my mother’s whispered words over the years which lost me Jayden. Never again. If I’d been stronger like my father, Jayden would have never had the opportunity to escape for so long.

  We were able to track down the used car salesman who sold them their means of escape. After some persuasion, he told my father she’d used his computer to look up directions to Springfield, Missouri and gave us the make and model of the car she purchased. Years of searching every possible route between Houston and the state of Missouri, leaving no stone unturned, had come up empty. We even searched Arkansas and Oklahoma in case she stopped before reaching her final destination, but it was like they vanished into thin air.

  Her father was held accountable for his wife’s actions. She stole from my family, from me. Jayden was my property and I watched in cold indifference as her father paid for his wife’s crime with his life. I encased my heart and my feelings in ice, never allowing anyone close enough to be able to hurt or betray me again. I pushed my mother away and became just as cold and callous as my father and brother.

  I refused to accept my father’s attempts to replace Jayden. I would bed the whores available to me, but nothing more. My brother chose his wife when he came home from college, surprising everyone by picking the daughter of one of our servants who had been slated to be sold overseas to a private buyer.

  He could continue the Harrison empire with his own kids if they ever had any. It was unrealistic, but if I couldn’t have Jayden, then I wanted no one. I’d built her up in my mind over the years as the ultimate in perfection. The perfect beauty. The perfect complement to my home. The perfect companion. The perfect wife. Anyone less would never be good enough in my eyes.

  From the moment I gazed into eyes the same rich color of jade that she was named for, I knew my waiting hadn’t been in vain. Fate was rewarding me for my patience. Our surroundings faded to gray. I didn’t notice the tropical beauty around us, the magnificent sunsets over the ocean, or the opulent décor of the ship. I only saw the beauty she had become.

  My imagination failed to do her justice. She had grown to be more beautiful than I could have ever dreamed. She made people smile just by being in her presence. Her eyes shone when she laughed and made you want to act like a fool just to encourage her laughter to continue. She was affectionate with her family, and gracious and kind to the crew members who waited on her. I couldn’t help but picture her on my arm and overseeing the care of my home with her beauty and grace.

  My thoughts were interrupted by my friend Daniel leaning against the rail beside me.

  “You realize it may not even be her,” he said for the hundredth time, playing devil’s advocate and trying to make me see reason. He was my closest friend and confidante over the years. He was there and knew my feelings about Jayden. “Be real for just a minute, would you? I mean, what are the chances? She disappears for all these years only to turn up on your cruise, running smack-dab into you? That’s a million-to-one shot in the best of circumstances. You wouldn’t even play those odds, and you know it.”

  He blew out a frustrated breath at my silence, knowing his words fell on deaf ears, and rubbed his face
in annoyance. Daniel had followed in his father’s footsteps and taken over as the family attorney upon his death. It was his job to offer counsel and handle all our legal affairs. He also dealt with the Feds who’d been snooping more and more into our affairs over the last couple of years.

  “Nick, man, I just don’t want to see you do something stupid that draws attention to your family right now. You can’t afford rash actions.”

  “It’s her.” I said with conviction, my eyes never leaving her. I saw my men waiting in the distance to fall in behind her family. They would continue watching over her until everything was ready, and then I would bring her home. “I want those background checks on her family. I want to know who that man is. We both know where her father is.”

  I had no clue who the man was she was calling “Dad” or the boy she said was her brother. Her father was dead and rotting in the foundation of one of the high rises in downtown Houston, and she never had a brother; she was an only child. I didn’t recognize her mother, either. I never paid attention to her the few times I saw her as a kid, and she looked nothing like the old photograph I’d seen in my father’s office in the city. None of that mattered though; the scar was all the proof I needed that she was my long-lost Jayden.

  I absently rubbed my left thumb and forefinger together, remembering the feel of the line of slightly puckered skin on the back of her neck that assured me there was no mistake. Jayden had been with me four months when she received that scar.

  “Dad, how long does she have to stay in here this time?” I had asked, trying so hard not to let him knowhow worried I was about her. I knewshe was terrified and I only wanted to get her out of there. I wanted to take her back to my room and let her have her stuffed bear that I kept hidden in my closet.

  I tried not to show concern as I knelt in front of the wooden crate beside his desk. Her small fingers clenched and unclenched around the slates that made up her tiny prison as she tried to reach me. She had one eye pressed against the opening and I could see she was crying.

  She’d dropped my hot chocolate the other day when she brought it to me. The cup was too full and it sloshed over the rim and burned her fingers, causing her to drop it. The problem was, my father was walking by her on his way to the table at the same moment, and it spilled on his pant leg. He needed to get to a meeting, and was forced to miss breakfast because he had to change his suit.

  “Three more days should teach her to be more careful,” he answered calmly as he looked over his newspaper at me. She’d already been in there a day and a half. I picked up another small slice of apple from the plate on the corner of his desk and held it just out of reach of her fingers like he taught me. When she was being punished, the only food she could have was from mine or my father’s hand. I hated this. She had to beg before I could give it to her.

  “Pweethe. I’m so-sowy fo spiwing your ch-chochowat,” she whimpered as she struggled to reach the apple slice.

  My father viciously kicked the side of the crate repeatedly with his boot, causing her to scream and sob loudly. “Stop with the baby talk. Say it right or you get nothing,” he snapped angrily. When she was terrified, she would stutter and revert to sounding like a baby. Before she was given to me, I never noticed she had a speech impediment. She actually had a pretty extensive vocabulary for a five-year-old, and could even read a few words. It didn’t help that she’d also lost two front baby teeth recently.

  “Nowtry it again,”he ordered.

  I cringed as I heard her gulping air rapidly, trying to calm herself enough to say the words correctly.

  If she couldn’t gain control of herself, she would soon be vomiting in that tiny space, and then the crate would be moved to another room so the smell didn’t bother my father. I was forced to be a part of these punishments so I could learn howto control her on my own in the future.

  “Please say it right,” I whispered as I pleaded to her with my eyes.

  “I’m s-s- sorry for sp-sp-illing your cho-chochocwat,” she sobbed even as she reached again in vain for the apple still held out of her reach. I closed my eyes in dread as I heard her gag and the sound of her retching inside the crate.

  “That’s it! Maybe another few days added to your punishment will fix that defective tongue of yours,”

  my father snarled at her, kicking the side of the crate again. He threw the apple slices in the garbage can in front of her, making her cry even harder. He picked up his phone, calling for a servant to come move her crate to the room next to his office. He threwthe blanket over the top of it so she would be in darkness until he chose to remove it.

  I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of sirens blaring loudly and spotlights flashing past my windows. Someone had breached our home security. I ran down the stairs in my pajamas, ignoring the guards swarming the house and yard armed with automatic weapons. My only thought was to get to Jayden and make sure she was safe and reassure her. I opened the door to the room where her crate sat in the middle of the floor and ran to it, dropping to my knees, and threw back the blanket.

  “Jayden, it’s okay. I’m here. You’re safe. Don’t be scared.” I didn’t stop to think how ironic those words sounded in my ears. Here I was telling her not to be scared of the sirens or someone breaking into the house, when she was locked in a crate by my own hand.

  It took me a minute to process the sight in front of me. The crate was empty; the jagged, broken slat proof of how she got out. I scrambled to my feet and ran back through the house shouting for her. I didn’t want her to leave me. She was my friend and my life was lonely without her.

  The dogs found her an hour later, hiding in the horse barn beyond the fence. Her feet were cut and bleeding and full of thorns from running across the field, which had slowed her escape. She had scratches and a nasty cut on the back of her neck either from squeezing past the broken slat of the crate or crawling through the barbedwire fence. It needed fifteen stitches, resulting in the scar on her neck.

  My father replaced the wooden crate with a metal cage the next morning, and she spent a month in it for her attempted escape. After she was finally released from her cage, she strived to do everything right and never attempted escape again until her bitch of a mother took her from me.

  She paused on the dock and turned back, some sixth sense alerting her to an unnamed danger. She scanned the crowd above her until she locked eyes with me. She gave me a small, timid smile before quickly turning away again. I noticed she shifted a little closer to the man she called “father,” slipping her hand into the crook of his arm like he would protect her from me. No one could save her now that I’d found her. She belonged to me and she would be mine again, very soon.

  I left the sidewalk and crossed the damp grass, dropping my backpack on the ground before sitting down and leaning my head back against the tree. I closed my eyes and fought back the tears that threatened to overwhelm me, still clutching the evidence of my failure in my hand.

  Taking a deep breath, I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket, hitting the speed dial without even looking. My thumb knew who I needed.

  “Hi sweetie! Well, how did it go?”

  I sniffed when I heard how proud she sounded, knowing it was going to turn to disappointment in the next few seconds. “I failed, Momma. I got a fifty-four on my test.”

  She sighed, and I pictured her sitting on the steps of our back porch taking a break from working in the yard as she talked to me.

  “I’m sorry, JJ. I know you’re upset. Can you talk to your professor to get some extra tutoring or something to help you understand what you got wrong? Is there a study group you could join?” she asked gently.

  I shook my head, even though she couldn’t see me. She didn’t understand. Mom never went to college; she dropped out after the sixth grade to help her parents and because of the way our life turned out, she could never change that fact. But she never let limitations set by others stop her from learning. She always sat with me and Kevin when we did our homework so
she could learn with us, and Dad always encouraged her, never making her feel ignorant because of her lack of a formal education.

  My mom was one of the bravest and smartest people I knew, but she didn’t understand the pressure I was under. College was so hard on so many levels. I’d been here two weeks and I still didn’t really know anyone. My roommate stayed with her boyfriend more times than not at his apartment across town, and my classes were filled with teens going wild with their first taste of freedom from parental rules and curfews. I had a few people I talked to in class, but making friends was always a slow process for me. It took me a long time to open up, but once I did then everything was fine. It was just going to take a while.

  “JJ, talk to me, sweetie,” Mom coaxed. “What are you really upset about?”

  I didn’t want to tell her I was still having nightmares and that I occasionally got a creepy feeling like someone was watching me. I didn’t want to tell her I thought someone had been in my room. Nothing was taken and it could easily have been my roommate just moving things around. That would only make her worry needlessly, so I stuck to my school problems.

  “I’m not cut out for this, Momma. It’s too hard. I thought this was what I wanted; to leave home, be a grown-up, and make it on my own without you or Dad being my safety net,” I confessed. “But I’m not strong. I’m not a grown-up. I’m just a stupid country mouse and I have no business being here. I should’ve stayed home and gone to school with Kevin and my friends. I wanna come home. Will you come get me?” I cried.

  “Jayden Ann White!” she scolded. “Now you listen to me. You’re not stupid. You are so incredibly beautiful and smart. You’re just in a new situation and it’s going to take some time to find your way.”

  I could almost feel her arms holding me, sheltering me from the world like she’d done every day of my life. I could feel her love flowing through the phone. “I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but going away to school was the best thing for you. You needed this to help you discover who you are.