by Leigh Lennon
14
Present
One month after the first letter
Taylor
She settled in and watched Emmy and Dexter climb the smaller playground equipment but knew they would be trying to move to the play sets specifically for older kids. She studied Anna with those deep brown eyes and said, “Okay, how long will you last in this buggy of yours?” Anna just laughed at her and grabbed the little baby doll. Soon, it was a game of how many times Taylor would pick up the doll for her.
A woman positioned herself oddly near Taylor and Anna. Taylor was concerned when she didn’t see any children with the stranger who could have sat anywhere in the park but chose their bench. It always sent red flags up for her when adults were alone in the park but at least, she wasn’t a guy by himself. That’d be more alarming.
The woman laughed. “My little girl and I would play the same game for hours.”
She looked at the woman, and she appeared harmless enough. She wore big sunglasses that almost covered her whole face, but the sun was bright today.
“Your children are here with you?” Taylor asked.
Again, the woman laughed. “No. I guess it makes me a crazy person to watch other kids play.” Taylor gave her a “yes, sort of” look, but the stranger continued, “Actually, I haven’t been back here in years. Bellingham, to be exact. I drove by this park and remembered the many years my mom brought me here. Glad to see they got better playground equipment.”
“Oh, you grew up here then? Just coming back for a visit?” Taylor asked, sounding relieved at the innocent reason for this woman’s visit to this park childless.
“Sort of, I guess. I’ve missed it here.”
“I guess I could see sitting here, taking in your past,” Taylor admitted.
The stranger smiled at her and then looked at Anna. “Who do we have here?”
“This is my niece, Anna. I’m hoping to keep her contained for a while before I have to follow her everywhere. Then those monkeys up there are my son, Dexter, and my niece, Emily.”
“You are a good aunt to be taking them out, especially when you look like you could pop any day yourself.” The stranger’s eyes looked upon her growing stomach.
“Yeah, I guess. I still have six weeks left. Dexter wasn’t early, so I assume this little one won’t be either.” She was never a forthcoming individual, so the ease with which she had opened up to this woman surprised her.
“They are beautiful children. So very special. I bet you adore them.”
“I do; these are my husband’s sister’s children. I love her children, and she adores Dexter and will spoil Mikayla like crazy.”
Taylor saw the surprise in the lady’s eyes when she said that name. Then Taylor clarified the name with the stranger again. “You must know a Mikayla? We are spelling it M-I-K-A-Y-L-A, not like Michael with an A at the end. It’s after my husband’s sister who went missing many years ago. Anyway, we are still deciding if we will call her Mikayla or by her middle name of Jane.”
The stranger raised her eyebrows over her large glasses. “You don’t hear that name very often, and yes, I once knew a Mikayla spelled the same way many years ago. She meant a lot to me, really shaping who I am today. It was just a name from the past. I bet your sister-in-law, no matter where she is, will be honored.”
“I hope so.” She smiled, her body now relaxing with this stranger. “I’m Taylor, by the way. I never got your name.”
The stranger noticeably flinched at the idea of sharing her name, and Taylor observed this odd reaction right away. Finally, she said, “I was once a Mikayla myself.” With the odd words, this woman lowered her glasses. It could have been the way she phrased the sentence or the fact she held a faint resemblance to what Taylor would think her sister-in-law would look like twelve years aged and with dark hair. Or maybe it was the connection she’d always sensed with Mikayla, but she knew in a second, she was staring at her lost sister-in-law.
“What? I don’t understand? You are …?” She couldn’t finish her sentence.
The woman grabbed her hands and said, “Taylor, listen carefully.” She paused, grabbing something out of her purse. “I need you to get this to your mother-in-law. There are no prints on it, I can guarantee,” Colette said, handing her a letter in a Ziploc bag with her gloves on. “Please give it to her by herself. Don’t tell anyone,” she said in a quiet voice.
“Do you know what your mom is going through?” The high-pitch timbre of her tone radiated the anger in her voice.
“Yes, I think I do,” Colette reassured her.
“No one understands why you left.”
Colette grabbed Taylor’s hands tenderly then pulled her sunglasses farther down her face, looking straight into her sister-in-law’s eyes. “You, of all people, understand why I left.” Their eyes linked, and they both knew the truth of Colette’s words.
Pulling a piece of paper and a pen from the diaper bag, Taylor jotted down her own phone number. “Take this.” Looking up, Taylor scanned the playground for her niece and son, and suddenly exclaimed, “Crap, I need to get them. They are too far away from me.” Taylor was up in a flash, running after the crazy toddlers with her stomach shaking, holding Anna. Turning around, she cried to her sister-in-law, “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back.”
By the time Taylor returned to the bench, her sister-in-law was gone and the letter was tucked neatly into Anna’s diaper bag. What did Mikayla mean by her cryptic message? She wondered, Why would she ask me that? However, there was no hidden meaning to what Mikayla meant, and Taylor knew exactly what her sister-in-law intended.
She hurried back to her in-laws in hopes that the cool air would give her some sort of answer as to what to do next. She sat stunned for five minutes at first after Mikayla left. Thank goodness, no one wanted to kidnap the children in those minutes because they surely could have.
Her first instinct was to call the police, but Mikayla seemed all right, more than someone would be if she’d been abused. She needed to have a long talk with her mother-in-law but not with the children running all over the place. She formulated a quick plan, knowing right away that Blake wouldn’t like it, but she didn’t give a rat’s drunken ass what he would like at this moment. She knew the wrath of God was waiting for her at home after the way she stuck up for herself this morning.
Grabbing her phone, she watched Emmy and Dexter to make sure they didn’t dart off the sidewalk like toddlers were known to do and dialed her sister. Alyssa picked up on the first ring. “Alyssa, I need a big favor. Can you watch Dexter and Jenna’s two children? I’m not feeling well, and Libby is not either.”
As soon as Alyssa eagerly agreed, she called Jenna, who used Alyssa quite often to babysit. Jenna assured Taylor that she loved Alyssa and so did her girls. Even Emmy called Alyssa Auntie like Dexter did. Within five minutes of returning to the Millers’ residence, Alyssa had arrived for three excited children. She gave Alyssa the keys to her minivan and secured the kids in the car, leaving Taylor her beat-up Volvo. “Just take them to my house. Everything you need is there for Anna. What am I going to do when you finish your master’s degree?” she asked, teasing Alyssa that she finally made it five years in the same subject. “But for now, I will take all the help I can get when little MJ gets here. Of course, that is what we are calling her for now.”
Alyssa sneered, and Taylor knew she was in for Alyssa’s long-winded opinion. Hoping her sister would give her the condensed version, she was tired and had a lot on her mind. Alyssa always had an opinion about her life. “I’m not in the mood for one of your soliloquies,” Taylor stated.
“I was just going to say isn’t it weird to name your baby after a woman who now everyone is speculating left on her own accord?”
Alyssa had no idea how weird it really was especially now that Taylor had spoken with her daughter’s name sake. “You know Blake when he gets his mind set on something.”
“Oh, I know Blake.” Was that all Alyssa had to say?
“Yes, honey. I didn’t hear you come in. Where are the kids?”
“Alyssa took them. I need to talk to you.”
“Oh, dear, I’m not sure this is the best time.” Libby turned over in bed as her way of telling Taylor she needed to be alone.
“Libby, it’s about Mikayla.” Those words jolted Libby out of bed in a nanosecond.
Colette
“Are you okay?” David asked as he put down his keys on the dresser in the hotel they were staying at just twenty minutes on the British Columbia side of the Canadian border. “Are you all right, sweetness?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure. I saw my nieces and nephew, and they are beautiful. Dexter looks just like Blake.” At the sound of her brother’s name, she could see her husband’s expression dramatically change, and the vein in his neck pulsed, as it did whenever his name was mentioned. Trying to articulate her feelings concerning three little kids she had never met, she knew she loved them dearly. “And Jenna’s little girls ... Emmy looks just like her dad, and Anna looks just like Jenna.”
David walked behind her and enveloped her in his arms. “I’m sorry this is so hard for you.”
She turned her eyes toward him. “I’ve never thanked you for saving me from myself. You’ve given me a life free of fear. You know that, right?”
Pressing his hands against her cheeks, he sighed. “I justified what I did to you, but it hasn’t given you everything you want.”
She placed her finger to his lips as her way of saying nonsense. She kissed him, kissed him tenderly, then her need became more urgent. Pulling him down onto her, she grabbed his erection, stroking it until he came. David was easily aroused again, and it took him no time to push himself inside her. They made love like they had for the first time twelve years ago. Every time with David was like the first time, tender and loving, even if it was rough at times. Colette never doubted that she and their kids were the most loved beings in this world. It was due to the way her husband loved unconditionally.
In the beginning, her attraction was quite evident for him. She never regained her memory fully from the drugs he used to kidnap her, but she felt a connection to him that maybe dealt with his need to save her along with his guilt that he couldn’t help Evangeline. However, in the end, it was more than their attraction that led her to fall deeply in love with him; it was his level of care he took and still took today. She knew in his world, she was his everything, and to be put on a pedestal like that after years of verbal abuse felt like having the keys to a castle handed to her.
When she shed her old life and became Colette, they lived in a small two-bedroom condo as David worked his first two years at a hospital. There were long hours involved, but she was afraid if she left the apartment, the world would know who she really was. He’d come home and calmed her fears, walking her outside in the hopes he could teach her to blend in to everyday life as Colette Dubroise.
She remembered the first time she’d burnt dinner; in her mind, she felt he would lunge after her or call her horrible names to demean her, but he grabbed her purse and his wallet along with the keys and said, “I felt like taking my beautiful wife out for dinner anyway.”
On their way to the restaurant, he grabbed her hand. “You actually did me a favor, you know that, Cole?”
“How, by destroying one of our best baking pans?” she joked.
“No, now I will be the envy of every man in the greater Edmonton area. One look at you and they will know I won the lotto on brides.”
He could always make her feel needed and desired. It carried over to every aspect of their life, and as she made love to him, she knew he certainly made her feel as if he could never live without her. More importantly, she could never live without him.
Libby
She pulled her legs over and out of bed with the urgency to hear what her daughter-in-law was about to tell her concerning Mikayla. “What? What do you mean?” Did her ears hear what her daughter-in-law just said?
Taylor approached Libby, sitting next to her on the bed. “Libby, what I’m about to share ... I need to warn you at this point you can’t tell another soul. Maybe Adam and only if you both can agree to keep it to yourself.”
“Taylor, you are making me nervous.”
Grabbing a plastic bag from the diaper bag and handing it to her mother-in-law, Taylor began, “Here, Libby.” She offered no explanation as Libby took the bag with the letter in it.
She didn’t speak and neither did Taylor. She opened the letter and gasped when she saw the signature at the bottom in her daughter’s handwriting. She looked at the typed letter and took in every word as if it were the gospel.
Mom,
I need you to promise me that you will keep this to yourself. Share it with Dad but no one else. I know I’m asking a lot of Taylor to keep this from Blake, but I have my reasons for reaching out to her. That is between her and me.
But regarding you and me, I need you to understand I made the decision, but it has nothing to do with you. I needed a new life, and I found it. I want to see you, but I’m fearful you will involve the cops, and I’m telling you right now, I will disappear, and you will never see me again. I need your word now, silently that you will let me leave in peace when I come to find you. But I don’t want to live without you anymore. I want you to be a part of my life. It may not be in the way we envisioned, but we can make it work. I’m not being held against my will. I love my life, and the family I have. Please come to Vancouver B.C. tomorrow to Queen Elizabeth Park; specifically, the dog park, at three.
I’m sorry if this upsets you. Mom, I love you very much. My only regret to the decision I made many years ago was that it would hurt all of you.
Mikayla
She needed answers, and she had many questions. “Taylor, where did you get this?”
Libby recognized how apprehensive Taylor was to share all the details with her. Not able to keep eye contact with her mother-in-law, Taylor finally spoke, “Mikayla came to me. She sat next to Anna and myself at the park with the kids.”
“Mikayla is here in Bellingham?” she asked, grabbing the telephone.
“I doubt she is anymore. I didn’t have a chance to say good-bye to her. She left when Emmy and Dexter were wandering off too far from me, and I went to get them. When I got back, the letter was in the diaper bag.”
“I need to call Fallon.”
Grabbing the phone from her hands, she said, “No, Libby, let’s think about this. She wants to see you. Do you want to risk this?”
Her ability to think straight was just as impossible as trying to get her hands to stop shaking. “Did you know it was her?”
“Only after we started talking about names for the baby, and I told her we were naming her Mikayla. She took her large sunglasses off, and she said at one time in her life that was her name. She looked different than the face you all had aged for her missing person pictures.”
“Different?”
“Like she had some work done to alter her face a little, and her hair was dark, not the blond she had when she was younger. It was almost auburn. Once I could concentrate, I could tell it was her.”
Libby still couldn’t get over Taylor’s news. She didn’t want to believe her daughter would willingly leave. There had to be more to the story, and she wasn’t sure if Adam would keep this a secret.
She remembered when Mikayla was a young girl, she’d run up to her and squish Libby’s cheeks and tell her, “Mommy, when I’m older, I’m going to live next door to you. Mr. Cheswick will just have to sell his house to me.” Now, Mr. Cheswick had long passed away, and Mikayla wasn’t living next door to her. She willingly left Libby to grieve the loss of her, not knowing if she was dead or alive all these years. Wha
t had Libby done to Mikayla to warrant such behavior?
“Taylor, what did she mean she had her own reasons for reaching out to you?”
“I honestly don’t know, Libby,” she said quite confidently, almost too confidently for Taylor’s personality.
“Did she say anything else?” Taylor stood quietly, replaying the conversation in her mind. “I asked her if she knew what you were going through.” Taylor paused. “Um, there is more, Libby. As you suspected from the second letter, I’m sure she has children, at least one.” Libby felt she would crumple at that news. Never had she imagined her daughter would be living happy and healthy, and in her mind, because of this, she never thought children were a possibility until just recently.
“What do you mean?”
“When she approached me, it freaked me out that she had no kids on the playground. She told me she grew up close to the park and that her mom took her there all the time.”
“I did,” she confirmed.