Amy Chelsea Stacie Dee

by Mary G. Thompson

  Dee stayed in the car.

  I walked over to her door and pulled it open. “You have to get out, Dee,” I said.

  “Why?” Her face was in a bright spot of light reflecting off the cabin wall. It was blotchy and distorted.

  “Because I know you have to pee as bad as I do. And we have to eat.”

  Suddenly, Kyle was behind me. He pushed me aside with one hand, grabbed Dee’s arm, and pulled her out of the front seat.

  “Stop it!” Dee yelled. She twisted and writhed, but she was no match for him. He held her close from the back and lifted her so that her toes left the ground. “Stop! Stop!” she kept yelling, but he didn’t pay any attention. She might as well have been a pile of firewood he was carrying inside the house to burn.

  THERE IS ONE QUESTION nobody asks me. At first they asked about Dee, and about who took us, and about what happened to me. Now they’re dancing around those questions, just waiting for the right time to ask them again. But the question they won’t ask is: Why didn’t you run?

  There was a road.

  There was a phone. Kyle kept it on him, but there was one. I could have gotten it if I’d tried.

  I could have run in the middle of the night, down the road until I found someone. We were isolated, but we were in America. I could have walked far enough to find someone.

  Dr. Kayla, my therapist, doesn’t seem to think it’s a question.

  “It’s normal to feel like you can’t escape, even to feel a bond with the person who has kidnapped you. Many kidnapping victims don’t make a meaningful attempt to escape.”

  I say nothing.

  “It’s not your fault, Amy.”

  “I know.”

  “But if you feel like it was your fault, it’s okay to talk about it. It’s okay to feel that way.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s even okay to worry about what will happen to the kidnapper. Many victims worry, especially after many years.”

  I’m not worried about Kyle. I hate Kyle. If it were only Kyle, I would have told the truth in a heartbeat.

  • • •

  There was only one time I tried to run.

  Six days had gone by, but it felt like each moment was a year.

  There were tears and more tears.

  Bruises and a cut all down my left arm.

  Screams.

  A key on a lanyard around Kyle’s neck.

  A pair of scissors in the kitchen.

  I made it to the door before he woke up. My hands shook, but I got the lock open.

  I thought Dee was behind me.

  She was behind me, but so was Kyle. He was standing in the doorway holding her, his big arms wrapped around her neck and shoulders.

  “I’ll kill her,” he said. He didn’t even have to yell it. I had only gotten as far as the Subaru.

  “Go!” Dee yelled. Tears streamed down her face. “Go go go go!”

  Kyle clamped a hand over her mouth. “She’s my Stacie,” he said. “No one can take her.” He was crying, too. He clung to her. “I’ll kill her if you ever tell. She’s mine.”

  Dee’s eyes were still saying go. She wanted me to save myself, even if he would have done it. And I thought about it. For three impossibly long seconds, my legs braced themselves to run.

  • • •

  “I hate him,” I say, and my voice cracks. I grip the sides of my chair and try to hold the emotion back. I’m not supposed to show emotion here. I have to hold it in for them. Because he thinks they’re his, too, and he’ll never let anyone take them. My arms shake as I release my hands from the chair, let them fall back into my lap.

  “That’s also okay,” she says.

  “My mom used to tell me that I couldn’t hate,” I say. “She said I didn’t have to like everyone, but I did have to love them.” I think that was something she got from church. We haven’t done any praying before dinner since I’ve been back, I realize. I wonder if she would still tell me that.

  “There’s no way you have to feel,” says Dr. Kayla. “Hate is a natural emotion. I want you to feel whatever you feel. Recognizing those feelings is the first step in letting yourself heal.” She wants to ask why I hate him. I can tell. But she’s afraid I’ll shut down again. She thinks that I’m close to breaking.

  “I hate him,” I say again. I’m recognizing that feeling. It doesn’t hurt anyone for me to recognize it. “I hate him.” I stand up. “I hate him.” I pace around the room.

  Dr. Kayla watches me and says nothing. She’s waiting for me to snap.

  “It must have taken a lot of courage to leave,” she says. “You need to give yourself credit for that.”

  I stop pacing and turn back to her. This is her way of asking. How did you get away, Amy? Where are they?

  “It’s hard to come back into the world,” she says. “And look at you. You aren’t wearing purple today.”

  “There weren’t that many purple clothes at the mall,” I say.

  Why do you like purple so much, Amy? Well, that one I can tell her. It won’t give anything away.

  “My name is Chelsea, you know, like the doll? And he had one that was wearing this purple dress.” And he had a Stacie doll that wore pink. “Chelsea had brown hair like me, and so she was me, and I had to look like her.” And the Stacie doll had blond hair like Dee. So Dee was Stacie.

  “How did you feel about that?”

  “I didn’t care what color I wore.”

  “How did you feel about getting a different name?”

  “I didn’t like it,” I say. I start pacing again. “I told him my name was Amy.”

  “What happened when you did that?”

  “He hit me.” He knocked me across the room. I wasn’t really hurt that time, but he could have hurt me. He could have killed me with a single kick.

  “Were you hurt?” Her expression is neutral. She’s lying in wait. Hoping I’ll give up a name, a place.

  “No.”

  And that’s it for the session. I walk out.

  • • •

  Kyle had a lot of dolls. Not a lot of dolls like a toy store. Not a lot by the standards of some ten-year-old girls. Lee, for example, had more dolls than Kyle. But Kyle had more dolls than a man should have. A man shouldn’t have any dolls unless they’re action figures and their purpose is so boys can pretend to fight each other. Is that sexist? I don’t care. Because Kyle never should have had dolls.

  He had several Barbies and their friends, including Chelsea and Stacie. He had ballerina Barbie, wearing pink. He had doctor Barbie and mermaid Barbie and bride Barbie. He had baby dolls—one called Lola and one called Dream and one called Brianna. They were all sitting on the bed in that one room, staring at us as we walked in.

  “Well, hello ladies,” Kyle said. He smiled at them.

  I ran to the bathroom. At that moment, I didn’t care about the dolls. All I cared about was emptying my bladder. It had been so long that it hurt to pee. And while the pee was flowing, all I could think was that Dee was out there with him, and I had to get back out there.

  He had let her go, but he was standing between her and the door. “I told you there’s no place to run to,” he said. “Why don’t you sit down with the ladies, and I’ll make us some dinner?”

  Dee ran to the bathroom. I stood outside the door and listened while she went, and once she was done, she didn’t come out. She started crying again, deep, guttural sobs. She wouldn’t come out for dinner, but I couldn’t help myself. Kyle had made spaghetti—whole-wheat spaghetti, I later learned, because Kyle thought white pasta was bad. I ate it, but I ate it slowly, because my stomach was so tight that it felt like there was a belt around my middle. I wasn’t sure I was breathing except when I opened my mouth to take a bite.

  He sat across the tiny table from me. “Your friend will be all right,” he said. �
�She’s just in a little funk.”

  “Are you going to kill us?” I asked. “They tell you if you get in the car with somebody, then you’re dead.”

  He laughed. It filled his whole narrow face, that big mouth smiling. His shoulders jiggled. “That’s a silly rule. What’s so special about cars?”

  I didn’t answer, but a tear rolled down my face. The hand holding my fork shook.

  “I can tell you’re a good girl,” he said. “All you have to do is be good. Better finish that.” He pointed to my half-full plate of pasta.

  “Someone will find us,” I said.

  He picked up my plate and with a single motion, dumped the whole thing in the sink.

  I could still hear Dee crying, and I started to stand up, hoping she would let me in the bathroom, and then we could at least be together.

  “Nope,” he said. “Sit.”

  I sat.

  Dee didn’t come out of the bathroom all night. Kyle locked the cabin door from the inside and put the key around his neck. This was before I saw the scissors, before I thought I had a chance to escape.

  I went to the bathroom and sat down outside it. “Dee,” I whispered. “Dee.”

  The door opened a crack, and I crawled in. She wrapped her arms around me, and she was still crying. Maybe there isn’t a limit, I thought. Maybe she can cry forever. And that was when I started, not just the few scared tears that had been coming and going, but full-on sobs. In a cabin that small, I’m sure Kyle must have heard us.

  • • •

  Kyle made us stand in the middle of the single room, next to the little kitchen table. I tried to hold Dee’s hand, but he pushed me away from her, leaving a couple feet between us. He looked from one of us to the other, eyes lit, as if this were a huge, momentous occasion. He held up the brown-haired doll. She smiled at me in her purple dress with hearts on it. “You’ll be Chelsea,” he said. He put the doll down on the kitchen chair and picked up the blond one, the one in the pink skirt and the pink blouse. “And you’ll be Stacie.” He grinned at Dee. “Stacie is my favorite.” He ran a single large finger over the doll’s hair.

  I didn’t say anything then because I was hungry. I hadn’t eaten since the night before, when he’d thrown half my meal out. Now there were three boxes of cereal sitting on the little table, waiting for Kyle to finish talking.

  He put the Stacie doll down next to the Chelsea doll. They were in a row of Barbie and her friends, all sitting facing forward on the chair, all smiling.

  “What’s your name?” he asked Dee. He leaned over her.

  She burst into tears. I didn’t know how there could physically be tears left.

  “What’s your name?” he said again.

  “Stacie,” she whispered.

  “That’s wonderful, Stacie,” he said, and he put his arms around her. He pressed her face to his chest, and she stood there, shaking. He patted her head. “My little Stacie. We’re going to be happy,” he said. “Aren’t you going to be happy?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  Not letting go, he turned to me. “And what’s your name?”

  “Chelsea,” I said. I wanted the food.

  “Good.” He smiled. “Which cereal does Chelsea like?” He pointed to the table. The three cereals were a generic brand, each one bland and boring and healthy.

  I walked to the table and poured myself a bowl of dry wheat sticks.

  “All right, what about you, Stacie?”

  Dee was shaking, wiping tears from her eyes. Kyle’s hand on her shoulder couldn’t hold her still. She didn’t answer.

  Kyle guided her over to the table and pushed her down into a chair. He poured her a bowl of the same cereal I had.

  She sat there and stared at it.

  “Dee—” I started.

  Kyle grabbed my bowl from the table and tossed the cereal in the sink. He glared down at me. “What’s her name?”

  “Stacie.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Stacie.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Stacie.”

  Dee shook in her seat.

  “Stacie,” I said. “You have to eat.” We’re going to get out of this, I thought. I tried to tell her with my eyes.

  “Stacie, honey,” said Kyle. He kneeled down next to her and took one of her hands. “You’re my precious little girl. You have to be strong. Now why don’t you take a bite?”

  Dee picked up the spoon in her other hand. She scooped up some cereal, but her hand was shaking so much that by the time she got it to her mouth, most of it had fallen out.

  “Try again, honey,” Kyle said.

  She tried again, and again almost all the cereal fell out. She stared at me, and she was saying something with her eyes, but I couldn’t tell what it was. I didn’t think it was, Yes, we’re going to get out of here. I thought maybe it was, He’s going to kill us, or We’re going to die, or maybe nothing that coherent.

  Just play along, I tried to say. We’ll think of a way out.

  She closed her eyes and took a bite, but it only took a few seconds. She threw up right there on the table.

  • • •

  That night, I was on a pile of blankets on the floor, and Kyle lifted Dee up and dropped her on the double bed. Dee screamed, and Kyle told her it would be all right. He told her she was his precious little girl. She screamed and cried, and she said the word stop over and over. But he said It’s all right, and Shhhh, and It’s all right. Stacie, it’s all right.

  • • •

  The next day, I told him my name was Amy, and he kicked me. I told him someone would find us, and he threw me against the kitchen counter. He didn’t try to patch my cut, and he didn’t give me any food.

  The day after that, I agreed my name was Chelsea.

  Three days later, I made it as far as Kyle’s car.

  And then Stacie stopped screaming.

  THE SAFEST THING to do would be to stay in my room with the door closed. The more I talk to the people around me, the more chances there are that I’ll slip up.

  In the week since my dad came home, he’s looking like my dad again. Under the gray hair, behind the extra padding, there’s the man who used to take me fishing on the real river, the part where the fish really liked to bite. There’s the man who taught me how to ride my bike, and pooh-poohed the training wheels my mom wanted me to use. There’s the man who took Jay and me on camping trips in the mountains. And also the man who cracked jokes at dinner and made my mom crazy by tracking mud through the house, and who listened to hip-hop music in the garage.

  He left before we woke up in the morning.

  He was always home for dinner.

  He helped me with my homework.

  He read to me.

  He always listened when I talked.

  He smiled a lot.

  He was a real father. The kind every kid deserves to have. The kind who doesn’t have moods, doesn’t lash out, doesn’t punish them by tossing their food. Doesn’t hit them. The kind who loves his kids’ mother for all the right reasons, who loves her because of who she really is.

  There’s another kind of love. It’s the way you love the things you own, like your sports car or your favorite outfit—or your dolls. Some people would say it’s not really love at all. But they never saw the way Kyle looked at Stacie. They never saw the way he held Lola in his arms and smiled, the way his eyes lit up as he told her what a precious little doll she was. How angry he became when we didn’t act like dolls were supposed to. There’s a kind of love that’s just like hate, that won’t let go, that doesn’t give but only takes.

  That wasn’t the way my dad loved me, or the way my dad loved my mom, once.

  They tiptoe around each other, as if they don’t know what to say.

  There are six years of history, unspoken. Ri
ps and tears and cracks and mountains between them.

  The safest thing would be to stay in my room, but with them here, I can’t do that. I can’t do that because even though they’re as broken as I am, they still love me and each other. I can feel it in the way my mom’s hand cups the carrots she’s chopping for the stew she’s making, which was one of my dad’s favorite dinners. I can feel it in the way my dad stands in the kitchen door, nervously fingering the broken trim. I remember that he used to do that while Mom cooked, and he’d be talking about his day at work. He didn’t talk in a steady stream like Lee—and Dee. For him it was burst of information punctuated by quiet. A complaint about a client followed by a joke, followed by Mom’s soft laughter, followed by Dad rubbing his hand along the trim. Then Dad would say something else, and Mom would reply. There was always laughter.

  Now Dad stands in the doorway silently. Jay, who used to be a bundle of energy, always running around, sometimes racing through the kitchen between Mom and Dad, sits on the couch, also silent. He sits with his arms crossed, and when he sees me coming from the hallway, he looks away. It’s not supposed to be like this. He’s supposed to call me a stupid name, ask me what I’m doing, ask me to play a game with him. But I’d settle for him to say anything to me at all.

  I sit down on the other end of the couch. “Hey.”

  He still won’t look at me.

  “What’s going on?” I think that’s what you say to people when you’re trying to just say hello, but it sounds strange coming from my mouth. In the last six years, I don’t think I ever said it.

  Jay picks up the TV remote, then puts it down again.

  “I’m sorry you can’t watch TV,” I say. It’s still banned in our house because of all the news about me.

  “Did you have a TV?” he asks.

  “No.”

  “That sucks.” He fiddles with the remote.

  But that wasn’t what sucked. I did miss it sometimes. I wanted something to pass the time, to give me a moment of escape. Because I had something to escape from, while he was here, safe and sound. Free. And he can’t appreciate it. I want to tell him that at least it wasn’t him, at least he got to grow up with a home and parents and school and, yes, TV.