by Ricky Fry
“I’m going to pass on the book deal.”
“Really?”
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I’ve decided to write the book myself. There’s a memoir writing workshop at Portland State. Who knows? Maybe it’ll lead to other things.”
Felicity looked at me over her raised coffee cup and scrunched up her nose. “Spencer Madison, you’re such a badass. And for the record, I’m expecting a signed copy.”
“Sure thing, Felicity. Sure thing.”
We strolled along the beach and talked. Felicity was full of questions about the future—questions about what I was going to do with the money.
I didn’t have many answers. I’d barely had time to think, not with finding a new place to live, the settlement arrangements, and a half-dozen follow-up interviews with the FBI. I’d even tracked down Jimbo the trucker and offered to pay him back a hundredfold.
He’d answered my call with the enthusiasm of a long lost relative but had been quick to turn down my offer.
“I told you,” he’d said in his casual way. “Just one friend helping out another.”
After some pressure, he’d finally agreed to let me establish a college fund for his daughter, but only after I’d promised to attend her graduation. I still thought about him often.
Felicity stopped walking and put her hand on my shoulder. “Silly me, I’ve been blabbering away for hours. Are you doing okay? You seemed a bit lost there.”
“It’s all so weird, Felicity.”
“Weird?” She cocked her head to one side. “I’m not sure I understand. But if you want to talk, I’ll listen.”
“Look around.” I motioned toward two young children and a spotted mutt—a boy and his sister playing and splashing where the waves sputtered out on the sand. “It’s so normal. Everything is just so normal.”
“That’s good, right?”
“I guess. But I don’t feel normal. I try not to be angry or resent people going about their happy lives, unaware of the horrors others live through. But sometimes I feel like I’m in a different place. Maybe it’s what soldiers experience when they come back from a war. In their heads, it’s still battles and bullets, but everyone else is eating ice cream.”
“What does your therapist say?”
“She says it’s going to take a while. I have to be patient and work through it.” I sighed. “Some days are better than others.”
“How are you sleeping?”
“Just fine.” It was true. I’d been sleeping through most nights like a log. There were no more nightmares of wooden boxes or deep lakes.
She put her hand on my shoulder again. “I’m always here for you if you need anything. Hey, how about another cup of coffee? That always lifts my spirits.”
“Actually, if it’s okay with you, I’d like to be alone for a little while.”
She smiled. “I understand. No problem at all. Meet you back at the hotel at seven?”
I watched her meander toward the hotel and then continued down the beach alone.
The sun was sinking lower in the west, staining the shimmering waves in pink and purple hues. In the distance, a lone rock rose up a hundred feet out of the water, standing in defiance of the unrelenting Pacific.
I closed my eyes and imagined I was that rock. Waves pummeled against me without end. But still, I stood.
Just breathe.
It was something I’d told myself often while locked away in the basement. It had served me well, always pulling me back to the present moment and quieting my spinning thoughts.
Breathe.
I stood on the beach for a long time, gazing out over the waves until the sun had sunk beneath the horizon and disappeared from sight.
Then I gathered myself up and headed back along the beach toward the hotel. It was late, and Felicity would be waiting for me. In the morning, we’d return to the city with its hustle and bustle—the endless demands. But for the first time in many months, I allowed myself to feel free.
There was only one thing left to do.
TWENTY-FIVE
It was late fall when I loaded up my Honda Fit and headed east on I-84. I’d purchased the car with the settlement money I’d received from Correctional Transport Company of America. It wasn’t fancy like Matt’s Audi, but it was mine.
Portland was behind me in an hour, the congestion of the city giving way to red and yellow forests on either side of the road. I munched on snacks and watched the scenery pass outside the window.
The highway wound its way along the Columbia River and the border of Washington and Oregon. I followed it to the junction of I-90, then headed northeast, in the direction of Spokane.
There was plenty of time to think about things out there on the road. It had been six weeks since I’d gone to the beach with Felicity, and with each day, I felt a slow return to my old self.
I’d even enrolled in the memoir workshop at Portland State and was making progress on my story. It felt good putting it all down in writing, as if by transferring my words to the page, I was finally leaving it behind me.
Maybe soon I’ll go a whole day without thinking about Travis.
I reached Spokane in five and a half hours, pulling off the road for a brief detour to a flower shop. The kind old woman behind the counter asked me the occasion.
“I’m not sure,” I said.
“Baby shower? Wedding?”
“Um, none of the above.”
“Well, what are you looking for, dear?”
I hadn’t thought about it much. “Something bright, I guess.”
She showed me a bouquet of yellow daffodils, and I decided it was perfect. Its delicate fragrance filled the car as I headed west out of Spokane toward the little town of Moses Lake.
The GPS on my phone guided me to the place I’d been looking for. It wasn’t much more than a grassy field a few miles outside of town. A man at the gate gave me a map, and I continued on foot past row after row of marble and granite headstones.
I’d prepared myself well for the moment, but when I saw her name carved in red sandstone, I fell to my knees and cried.
HERE LIES RUBY ELIZABETH MONTGOMERY, BELOVED SISTER AND GRANDDAUGHTER. REST IN PEACE.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry, I couldn’t save you.”
Silence.
Then I saw her smiling face, and heard her laugh, felt her head resting gently on my shoulder. “It’s okay, Spencer. Everything is going to be okay.”
I stayed there for a long time. When I finally got back to the car, ‘I Will Survive’ was playing on the radio. I turned it up as I pulled out of the gravel parking lot and headed back to Portland, laughing and crying and singing along with the words. And I knew they were true.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
You Are Mine is a tough story about a young woman who learns to believe in herself despite impossible odds. While it’s a short book (as far as novels go), I can’t say it was easy to write.
Spencer endures some authentic horrors and challenges on her long road to freedom, and I felt them with every keystroke.
In the end, I fell in love with Spencer and the incredible resolve with which she overcomes seemingly impossible circumstances. As a reader, I hope you’ve come to appreciate her story as much as I have.
If this is your first time reading one of my books, thank you for giving it a go. Please consider leaving your honest feedback in the form of a review. I take the time to read each and every one of them.
For those of you who are returning readers (you know who you are), I extend my deepest gratitude. Without readers like you, there would be no stories to tell.
And so we’ve reached the end. This is the place where I’m supposed to sucker you into joining my mailing list with the offer of some free, bogus book.
But I’m not going to do that. I hate junk emails as much as you do. Instead, I offer newsletter subscribers the chance to review advance copies, and I promise to only send emails when I have something important to say (most
often whenever I publish a new book).
If I haven’t scared you away, and you still want to subscribe, head over to my website at rickyfry.com.
Wishing you all the best,
Ricky
Tbilisi, Georgia
October 15th, 2020
READ NEXT
Nancy Hardaway was in bed, propped against a pillow with the latest Vanity Fair clutched in her pencil-thin fingers, when she was startled by a loud thump coming from Baby Nora’s nursery. She lowered the magazine to her lap and nudged her sleeping husband.
“Byron,” she said, “something isn’t right in the nursery. Go and see what’s happened.”
Mr. Hardaway groaned and rolled over beneath the heavy comforter. “It’s probably just the nanny, my love. Maybe she dropped something.”
Whatever the nanny dropped must have been very heavy to make such a terrible noise. Just once, she thought, it would be nice to have a proper night’s sleep. Baby Nora had been nothing but trouble since they brought her home from Massachusetts General Hospital. It had only been six months, but Nancy Hardaway was thoroughly exhausted.
The nanny was supposed to make life easier. Compared to most first-time mothers, Nancy had taken a decidedly hands-off role in the raising of their daughter. She’d stopped breast-feeding the moment Nora’s first teeth had appeared, pumping milk with an expensive device and switching to formula not long after. It was an easy decision. She couldn’t stand the way Nora chewed and bit her nipples.
Tonight she was especially tired, and had hoped to get some rest before the charity fundraiser she’d be attending with Mr. Hardaway the following evening. The high society ladies could be so judgmental, and she didn’t dare show her face without at least eight hours of beauty sleep. The years had been kind to her, but still, she wasn’t getting any younger. After nearly a decade of trying with no luck, Baby Nora was a surprise. The last thing Nancy Hardaway had expected was to become a mother on the eve of her thirty-seventh birthday.
She listened again for any sign of the nanny stirring in the nursery, but there was only silence. She thought there should at least be footsteps, the sound of the young but plump nanny passing through the corridor on the way back to her room. And Nora—there had never been a baby who cried as often as Nora. Such a disturbance would certainly have woken her.
Thank goodness the sleeping pill she’d taken before settling in with her magazine had yet to work its modern magic. Just a quick check of the nursery and she’d be drifting off to sleep in a matter of minutes. She had an especially big day tomorrow. Though there were few things she loved more than socializing at charity events, they were always so much trouble.
She felt her way along the corridor in the dark, until she found the switch. The long hall was empty, the nursery to one side and the nanny’s room opposite. The nanny’s door was open. Nancy leaned over the threshold and peered inside. The light beside the bed was still on but there was no sign of the young woman. Perhaps, she thought, she was still in the nursery tending to Nora.
She stopped to listen outside the nursery door. It was strange, the old house being so quiet. The door creaked as she pushed it open and a chill ran down her spine. In the faint glow of an old table lamp, she saw a plump figure spread on the floor beside the crib. The twisted face of the nanny stared up at her, a look of horror frozen in her motionless eyes.
Nancy Hardaway screamed. She’d never seen a dead body in real life before, but the young nanny certainly looked very dead. A slight trickle of blood oozed from the lifeless woman’s mouth and pooled on the hardwood floor beneath her.
“What is it, Nancy?” Mr. Hardaway appeared in the doorway with a golf club in his hand.
“She’s dead, Byron. She’s dead.” It was the only thing she could think to say.
“Call 9-1-1.” He knelt beside the bleeding woman and shook her limp body, called her by a first name his wife had never once used during the nanny’s short time in their employ.
Nancy couldn’t move. She couldn’t think. As she watched her husband pumping up and down on the young woman’s chest, the only thing that filled the panicked space of her mind was the loud thump that had surely been the woman’s body as she keeled over on the hardwood floor.
And there, in the crib at the center of the room, Baby Nora smiled up at her—a tiny bundle wrapped in swaddling blankets—with a peculiar look of satisfaction on her glowing, angelic face.
It was only later, long after the flashing lights and siren of the ambulance had pulled away from the Federalist façade of their Beacon Hill townhouse, that the Hardaways learned their daughter’s nanny was indeed quite dead. They’d have to wait for the official report, of course, but the investigator from the medical examiner’s office said it appeared as though she’d died of a sudden brain hemorrhage. “It’s quite rare,” he told them, “for someone of such a young age.”
“Oh, dear.” Nancy thought it was terrible. She wondered what the other society women would say. As far as she could recall, no one had ever lost a nanny before, with the exception of the McDowell’s nanny, who’d died in her sleep. But the tough old Scottish woman had been seventy-nine, long overdue for retirement. Such things happen, and nobody had faulted Lisa McDowell.
“We’ve been unable to locate her family,” said the investigator. “Perhaps you have their contact information, or at least something we might find useful?”
She was almost ashamed to admit she knew so little of the woman who’d spent the previous three months sleeping under their roof. “I’m sorry. I was never very good about those things.”
“I see.” He scratched his chin and scribbled notes in a little pad. “Did she ever mention anything to you about her state of health?”
“What do you mean?” Nancy had always just assumed the young woman was perfectly normal, if not slightly overweight.
“Was she unwell? Did she say anything or visit a doctor?” He’d already searched the nanny’s room for any signs of a health condition and had found nothing, not even a bottle of aspirin.
Nancy still wasn’t thinking clearly after such a distressing incident, but she recalled a conversation they’d had in the kitchen one morning while Inez, the Hardaway’s long-time housekeeper, prepared breakfast. It was difficult to forget the look of fear that had gripped the young woman’s face.
“She’d complained of having frequent nightmares—such terrible nightmares.”
The investigator didn’t look up as he continued writing in his notepad. “What sort of nightmares?”
“She wouldn’t mention specifics.” It was true. The nanny had been reluctant to describe the nature of her terrifying nighttime visions. “She’d wake in a fright. I heard her screaming from our bedroom down the hall.”
“Interesting.” He scratched his chin again. “I’m not sure it has anything to do with a brain hemorrhage, but we appreciate any details you can provide.”
“Of course.” She’d considered firing the nanny on more than one occasion—on the nights when she’d been woken by the woman’s screams. Nora’s frequent crying was bad enough. Her husband had convinced her otherwise, if only to save themselves the trouble of finding a new nanny. But a new nanny was now exactly what they needed.
The investigator finished taking notes and they were left alone in the quiet space of the house. Nora was sound asleep. Nancy, whose sleeping pill had finally taken effect, was utterly exhausted from their ordeal.
It was nearly morning. The high society ladies of Boston would surely notice her absence at the charity event, but it would be even worse to explain the sudden death of their nanny. She imagined their faces—wrinkles smoothed over by Botox injections—as they feigned sympathy, each secretly delighted it hadn’t happened to them.
“Oh, Byron.” She rested a hand on her husband’s broad shoulder. “This has all been so dreadful. What am I going to tell the ladies?”
“It could be worse.”
“How could things possibly be worse than this?”
/> “Just think,” he said. “At least you’re not the nanny.”
He Comes in the Night, a supernatural horror novel by Ricky Fry, is available from Amazon in Kindle and paperback editions, or wherever fine books are sold.
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