Liberty At Last (The Liberty Series)

by James, Leigh

“Of course,” I said, and watched him sprint away. He was trying to outrun his demons. I wished he could. We were running five miles today — a cake-walk for them, a disaster for me — but I wondered if he would try to stay at that speed the whole time. Probably.

  “What’s the deal?” Matthew asked. I knew John trusted Matthew with his life. He didn’t keep things from him, so I didn’t hold back.

  “The doctor told them that Catherine isn’t crazy. Not medically, anyway,” I said, trying to keep breathing, talking and running. “They have no basis to hold her involuntarily.”

  “Are we going to try to keep her here?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t think he’ll do it. Eva wants to let her go, to make her own choice. I suggested getting charges brought against her so she can’t leave the country, but John didn’t like that idea.”

  Matthew laughed. “You’re gonna make a great wicked stepmother,” he said.

  “I don’t mean it in a bad way,” I said, huffing.

  “Is there a good way to mean federal charges?”

  “I just want to keep her safe,” I said. “Not for her sake. For John’s.”

  “I know,” Matthew said. “If she leaves and goes back down there, he’s gonna lose it.”

  “But that’s exactly what’s going to happen.”

  “Think about it,” he said, working it through in his mind. “She already hates him. If we keep her here against her will, what’s it going to solve?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, breathing heavily. “I just feel like I made everything worse. I wanted to give him some answers. I wanted to help him make his peace with what happened. But now there’s no chance of that. Not ever.”

  “He’ll be alright,” Matthew said. “It’s just a new reality for him.” He was quiet for a second. “We’re going to have to keep him really busy,” he said finally. “‘Cause otherwise he’s going to go down there and start blowing things up.”

  “That’s just great,” I said, inwardly shaking my head. I had achieved the opposite of what I wanted.

  “Maybe it is for the best,” Matthew offered. “At least now John knows she’s alive. And she’s happy. Even though it’s not what he would’ve chosen for her.”

  “You know he’s going to try to kill Angel,” I said. “It’ll eat at him forever.”

  “He can’t,” Matthew said simply. “Not if he ever wants his daughter back.”

  “She’s already gone,” I said. “She hates him. I didn’t see one thing that showed me she had any feelings left for him.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not ready to call it yet. Family’s a funny thing.”

  “But don’t you think —” I started.

  Matthew held his hand up. “Enough analyzing, Lib. We’ve got four more miles to go, and our time already sucks.”

  I shut my mouth and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.

  “I need you to work harder,” Matthew said. “I need you to give these next couple of miles everything you’ve got. Can you do it?”

  I nodded at him silently. I didn’t have a choice.

  John was a mess, but he was a quiet mess. If you didn’t know him well, you would never know he was heartbroken. But I knew, and Ian knew, and Matthew knew. We just all paid him the respect of pretending we didn’t.

  “Hey babe,” I said the next morning. I winced as I sat down at the breakfast bar next to him; my thighs were killing me. Ian looked over at me and gave me a look: He’s still not talking. Even last night in bed, he’d just held me, his face pressed against my shoulder.

  He didn’t want to talk about it.

  “Eva’s taking her back to California tonight,” he said suddenly. He sounded as if he was talking about the weather. “The doctors told her that her stay was discretionary. She’s decided to check out.”

  We were all silent for a beat. “Why is Eva taking her to California?” Ian asked. “She’d be much safer here.”

  “You mean she’d be further from the border here,” John said. Again, his voice betrayed no emotion. “Dad, she’s an adult. I can’t keep her safe from her own choices.”

  “Can we see her?” Ian asked. “I haven’t even spoken to her, John.”

  “You can go to Boston today if you want,” John said. “They’re not flying out until later tonight. I’ll call Eva.”

  “Aren’t you going?” I asked him, searching his face. He looked up at me and I could see all the pain he was feeling, even though his voice betrayed none of it.

  “I can’t,” he said. I’d never seen him look defeated before. It was frightening.

  “I’ll go,” Ian said, clapping him on the back.

  “I’ll go, too,” I said. She was the last person I wanted to see, and I was sure she wouldn’t be excited about my visit. But if she was going to disappear again, I had to talk to her one last time. I had to say I was sorry, even though I wasn’t — and I had to beg her to stay in touch with her father.

  “Really?” John asked me, looking at me skeptically. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  “I need to tell her I’m sorry,” I said. “About her foot, about some of the stuff I said…” My voice trailed off and I looked at him. “If I don’t tell her, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.”

  He ran his hand through his hair and stood up. “You sure you don’t just want to stay with me here instead? Misery loves company.” He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.

  “I’m gonna go,” I said, resigned.

  “Thank you,” he whispered into my ear, and I suddenly felt better about my decision.

  If Eva was surprised when she saw me, she gave no indication. Her hair was pulled back from her face today, but I still couldn’t see one single wrinkle. “Hello,” I said, sounding more friendly than I felt. I liked her less now. Not only because of her eerily smooth skin, but also because she was doing something to hurt John. It was inadvertent, but it was still unacceptable to me.

  “Eva,” Ian said, hugging her stiffly. He took a step back and immediately starting cleaning his glasses. He’d done this about thirty times on the ride here, so I was pretty sure they were already clean.

  “Why, Eva?” he asked, as soon as he put them back on. It was as if they were clean, they gave him courage. “Why are you leaving so soon? The girl’s just gotten here.”

  Eva’s eyes filled with tears and she took a shaky breath. “Don’t you think I know that?” she asked, the tears spilling over. “But she said she’s leaving either way. No matter what I say. I thought it was better to take her with me than to just…lose her again right away.” She really started to cry then, her nose running and everything.

  “She’s being impossible,” Eva said through her tears. She gratefully accepted the handkerchief Ian handed her. “She’s so angry. I keep trying to explain that we all love her, and that it’s been horrible not knowing if she was alive or dead. But it’s like she’s brainwashed.” She blew her nose again, and her mascara was smudged on her face, and I felt really bad about the mean thoughts I’d had just a few minutes earlier. It wasn’t Eva’s fault. Catherine was just breaking her heart, too.

  “But that’s not what the doctors are saying,” she said, shaking her head. “They said that it’s not Stockholm syndrome. She insists that Angel didn’t kidnap her — that he saved her from the people who did, and that she made a conscious choice to stay with him. The doctors estimate that she was only with her initial captors for under a month. They don’t believe she’s operating under any sort of delusions or coercion. They believe that she’s acting out of her own free will. And that she genuinely loves him.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, gently, patting her back. “It’s going to be okay.”

  I’d been saying that a lot lately.

  “Ian, do you mind if I go see Catherine now? I’ll only be a few minutes…then you can spend all the time with her you need,” I said, feeling a cold sweat suddenly appear in my armpits.

  Ian no
dded. “She’s not going to be very friendly, I’m afraid,” Eva said, apologetically.

  “It’s okay,” I said. I was used to it. She was usually a lot less than “not very friendly” — but I figured I could spare her mother this fact.

  “She’s in Room 212.”

  I hurried down the hallway. I wanted to get this over with, and get back to John and our training. I had so much to do, so much to learn, and in such a short time. I looked at my ring sparkling as I moved further towards Catherine’s room. I briefly considered pocketing it before I went into see her, but she would see it for what it was: cowardice.

  I walked through the open door of her room. She was sitting on the bed, still in a Johnny, inspecting her foot. “Liberty,” she said as I walked in. “I was just cursing you out in my mind. While I was looking at my gunshot wound. What a happy coincidence.”

  “Ha, ha,” I said. “Tell me how you really feel — no wait, don’t. Please don’t. I don’t have any cigarettes to help you express yourself.”

  “Oh, I love it when you have an attitude. You’re just so fresh,” she said, fake playfully, scowling up at me in disdain. She went back to inspecting her foot. In my defense, it was a clean shot — it’d gone straight through, and the stitches appeared to be healing nicely.

  “Can you walk on that yet?” I asked, hating to ask her anything about it. Her response was going to be caustic. I could count on that.

  “Yes,” she said. “I can walk on it. I just have that ugly boot.”

  “Sorry about that,” I said, and I was, sort of. “I was so scared when I shot you,” I said, blurting it out in a rush. “I just didn’t want you to shoot Matthew. I didn’t want you to drag me down that dark hall.”

  “You just wanted to see my father,” she said, flatly.

  “I wanted to get the hell out of there,” I said, my voice rising. “I’m sure you can understand,” I said, motioning to the room. “I wanted to go home.”

  “You really are a fucking idiot,” she said, but for once she didn’t sound mean. She patted the seat beside her. I sat down and looked at her cautiously. Being this close to her made me sweat even more. “I understand exactly what you’re saying,” she said, like we were girlfriends having iced tea, discussing our similar approach to the SAT’s.

  Except you want to get out of here so you can run back to that darkness, I thought. But I didn’t say a thing. I just looked at her, expectantly.

  “Well, my husband is not as egregiously old as your fiancé is” she said. “But people have their concerns about him. They want to keep me from him.”

  “It’s not just that,” I blurted out. “We’re all worried that you’re not rationally making a choice to be with him. You were beaten, you were sexually abused — you have to be messed up from that. We’re worried that you didn’t know what you were doing when you married Angel.”

  “I knew exactly what I was doing.” She considered her foot for another minute. “Just ask the doctors here. They get it. Check my chart: no syndromes, no delusions, no coercion. And I think you knew that when we were in Mexico. You knew I wasn’t crazy.”

  “You’re wrong about that,” I said, the words tumbling out before I had a chance to pull them back. “I thought you were crazy, all right. Crazy all the way to the store.” I exhaled and clenched my fists. In a different life, under a different set of circumstances, I would have just belted her. It would have been awesome. But I was accountable to people other people now. Damn.

  “I told you: absolute loyalty,” she said. “If I don’t go back soon, he’ll just come for me. And it might not be pretty.” She stood up and limped to the dresser. She pulled out a tee shirt and a pair of jeans and started refolding them neatly.

  “They’re not that different, you know,” she said.“John and Angel. You think that just because Angel and his family sell drugs, they’re evil. They’re not. It’s supply and demand. Angel didn’t make the world. He sees the world as it is. Violence is violence, Liberty. You think my father has clean hands? Do you have any idea how many people he’s killed?”

  She sat down back next to me, closer than before, and I flinched. “Think about it,” she said. “Think about all the people he killed when we were in Matamoros. That was one day, mind you. You didn’t know him before. That’s the reason he was always so successful. He’s lethal. Just like Angel.”

  “John fights bad guys,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “He doesn’t kidnap people and kill them. He doesn’t take their money and leave them to die at the side of a river. He doesn’t sell drugs, ruining people’s lives.”

  “That’s pretty simplistic thinking,” she said. “Can’t say I’m really surprised. But do you understand that it’s all in your perspective? No matter who you kill, that person had a family. That person was living their life, in the way that they chose, and when you kill them, you’ve taken that life. So do you think that adding some sort of moral judgment is going to change the equation? Huh?”

  I looked at her blankly. John was not like Angel. She could make any argument she wanted, but in my heart I knew there was a big difference between the two of them…it was the difference between good and evil, light and dark.

  “Are you sure my dad wants to marry you?” she asked, looking me in the eye and wrinkling her nose. The chummy tone was gone.

  “Yes,” I said. My voice sounded young and petulant to my own ears. I didn’t know how she made me feel so young and unsure when she was only a little older than me. “Why are you asking me that?”

  “Because you’re pretty naive,” she said and shrugged again. “But I can understand that you’re supporting his delusions. You’re cheering him on along the moral high ground because you’re too dumb to see the truth, and he needs that.”

  I clenched my fists. It really would be easier if I could just punch her. But that isn’t what we came here to do, my inner voice admonished. Lovely of her to show up.

  “This isn’t what I came here to do,” I said, choosing to ignore Catherine’s taunts, even though they stung.

  “Then why did you come?” she asked. She was now casually inspecting her nails.

  “I wanted to say I was sorry,” I said. I willed my voice to be steady, but oh, did she ever get under my skin. I was boiling, but I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of letting it show.

  “I’m sorry I found you if you didn’t want to be found, I’m sorry you got taken here. I’m sorry if it’s all brought back painful memories for you. And I’m sorry I shot you,” I said.

  I’m totally not sorry about shooting you, I thought. But I was genuinely mostly sorry I’d found her.

  “Thank you,” Catherine said. “But your apology is self-serving. It doesn’t make me feel any better that you’re sorry. In fact, it reinforces what I just said.”

  “Which was what?” I asked, sounding weary and exasperated to my own ears.

  “You’re just doing my father’s bidding,” she said. “You want to make things okay between us so you can beg me to stay in touch with him.”

  I sighed, giving up.

  “Yes — and also to beg you to talk to Ian today. And be nice,” I said. “Especially since you’re just saying goodbye. It won’t kill you.”

  “I’m fine with Ian,” she said, getting up again and re-folding some more clothes and putting them neatly into her suitcase. “You can send him in when you leave.”

  “What about John?” I asked, standing up. I looked at her warily.

  “You know, we never got along,” she said. “We were never close. He can pretend he’s been broken-hearted for the past six years…but really, what was he missing? I wasn’t in his life, anyway. And that was his choice, Liberty. He was the adult.”

  “You can’t forgive him?” I asked, losing hope.

  “I do forgive him,” Catherine said. “I just don’t want anything to do with him. Or you. So I guess this is goodbye.”

  “I doubt it,” I said, as I walked out the door. “I don’t have ve
ry good luck.”

  “How is he?” I asked Matthew later that night. I ran into him on the way to the house.

  “About the same,” he said. I squared my shoulders and took a deep breath. This wasn’t going to be pretty. Concentrate on the good things, my inner voice suggested. Look at the bright side: at least she’s gone.

  “Hey babe,” he said when I went into the kitchen. Tonight he was drinking a glass of red wine, which I took as a sign of improvement.

  “Hey,” I said, going to him and hugging him hard. “You know what I just realized?” I asked.

  “What?” he said, pulling me onto his lap. His sounded a little better, and his body seemed less tense. Maybe he was relieved she was gone, too.

  “I get really grouchy when I’m away from you for too long,” I said brightly, masking my disappointment at how the day had turned out. “And I’m starving. I get really grumpy when I’m starving, too.”

  “Ian didn’t feed you?” he asked. “Dad, did you forget that Liberty’s on an eating campaign?” he called out to his father, who was still in the entryway.

  “I fed her,” Ian said, coming into the kitchen. His face softened at the sight of me on John’s lap; we had discussed the need to cheer John up on the way home. “I took her out for Pho. Delicious. And we had fresh spring rolls with mint. But apparently, that’s not enough food for the little lady.” He winked at me.

  “It was delicious. Thank you again. But I’m afraid I’m still starving,” I said, getting up to dig through the refrigerator. I pulled out turkey, mayonnaise, hot pepper cheese, pickles and lettuce. I got the good bread out of the pantry. I turned around and John and Ian were both studying everything I’d pulled out intently; John had a pleading look on his face.

  “Can I have one?” he asked hopefully. “I skipped dinner.”

  “Of course you can, babe,” I said. “You can have whatever you want.” He smiled at me for the first time in three days and it made my heart thump. I love that man.

  “Can I have one, too?” Ian asked timidly. “I seem to have regained my appetite.”