“I was only asleep for a few minutes. Emmy had been sick and I’d been up with her for two nights straight.  She was watching cartoons when I drifted off on the couch.  When I woke, she was gone. I went all through the house looking for her. I even checked in the backyard, thinking she might’ve gone out to play on her swingset.  But she wasn’t there.  And neither was Ryan.”  My words are coming faster, my breath more frantic.  My voice hardly sounds like my own.  It sounds shrill and shaky.  “I don’t even remember climbing the stairs. I only remember praying that she was okay, that he didn’t have her.  That’s when I heard her scream.  It sounded exactly like the one you just heard.”

I close my eyes. I have to force myself to calm down, to remember that she’s safe.  That we are hidden away where no one can find us.  Not even Ryan.

“He had taken off her pants and her panties and w-was holding her down, t-t-trying–”

“Stop!” Cole snaps.  “Please stop.”  His voice is tortured, as tortured as I feel.

I drop my face into my hands and I let the sobs come.  Deep, gut-wrenching, painful.  They come from a part of my soul that I haven’t visited since it happened.  I can’t.  For Emmy’s sake, I can’t.  The anger overwhelms me. The fear incapacitates me.  But Emmy needs me, so I have to be better than that. I have to be stronger.

“When Lucy saw what I did to Ryan’s face, when she heard what he was doing when I found him, she took me to town the next day, gave me five hundred thousand dollars and told me to disappear.  She didn’t like that Ryan wanted me so much.  Wanted Emmy.  It wasn’t fun anymore.  At least not for her.  But that was fine with me. Anything to get away.  And so we did.  Emmy and I disappeared.  That was two years ago.”

Cole turns to me, a mixture of rage and heartbreak on his face. I see it clearly despite the tears flooding my eyes.  As always, he watches me for a bit first, but then, he walks to stand before me.  Slowly, he kneels, taking my hands in his. He stares down at them as though they might speak to him at any moment.  Purposefully, he brings each finger to his lips, kissing them one by one. When he’s finished, he lifts his eyes to mine.

“Eden, I…” he begins.  His voice is low. Gruff.

He doesn’t finish his sentence. Instead, he pulls me onto the floor in front of him and draws me into his arms.  He holds me this way–both of us on our knees, my cheek pressed to his chest, his lips pressed to my head–for so long that I know the rhythm of his heart better than my own.  Mine starts to follow it, matching the pace, beat for beat.

We breathe together, beat together, hurt together, closer now than we were even when his body was buried deep inside mine.  Right now, we are the same. We are two broken people, finding strength in each other’s remaining pieces.  We’ve both lost so much, paid so dearly for what we have left, for what we were allowed to keep.  Maybe, just maybe, it’s enough to make a whole.  Our pieces.  Together.

It’s minutes, hours, days later when Cole speaks again.  “Is that why she doesn’t talk?”

I nod against him.  “Selective mutism.  She hasn’t talked to anyone except me since the day I pulled Ryan off her.”  My voice is a whisper in the quiet, like the patter of rain in the halls of a mausoleum.

“And the nightmares?”

“They’re getting less and less. She pulls out of them more quickly, too.  She’s still sucking her thumb, though.  Something she only started doing again after Ryan.  The doctors say that with time and safety and normalcy, she’ll heal.”

There’s another long pause.  I hear the steady thump of Cole’s heart, the even wisp of his breathing.  And then I hear his eerily cold, “If I ever lay eyes on him, I’ll rip his throat out.”

I squeeze my eyes shut against the notion of seeing Ryan again.  “He can never find us.  Never.  I can’t risk Emmy.  I can’t risk him trying to take her away.”

“I would never let that happen.  He’d have to kill me first.”

His tone is ferocious, but it doesn’t scare me. It makes me feel as safe as the strong arms that haven’t let me go since I told him.

“Momma?” comes a sleepy voice.

Cole freezes, like we’re two young lovers caught making out under the bleachers by the principal.  “Shit,” he hisses softly into my hair.

I disentangle myself from Cole’s arms and turn toward Emmy. I don’t want to jerk away guiltily, like we were doing something wrong. We are simply kneeling on the floor, hugging.  No harm, no foul.  My daughter has just never seen good, healthy affection between a man and a woman before.  She might be surprised or confused.  I’m just glad we weren’t doing anything else.

Nice, Eden. Nice.  Good, solid parenting.

 “Come here, baby,” I tell her, holding my arms open. She rubs her eyes sleepily as she trots across the living room and launches herself into them.  She’s up a little earlier than usual, probably because of her nightmare.

I can feel her craning her neck around me to look at Cole, who has backed away a few feet.  He has an innate feel for not making her uncomfortable, an intuitiveness that must come from having been a father once upon a time.

“Are you hungry, monkey?” I ask, stroking Emmy’s silky hair.

I feel her nod.

Just then, I hear a click and the lamps come back on.  “The power’s back on!” I tell Emmy.  “Are you a magician?” I ask, tickling my fingers up her side.  She flinches and I hear a tiny giggle, but she’s still draped over my shoulder.  Probably watching the mesmerizing man behind me.   “Cole came to fix us breakfast.  How about we get your belly full and then go make a snowman out in the yard.  Sound good?”  Emmy pushes away from me, her bright eyes shining happily into mine.  She nods again.

She looks past me to Cole. She doesn’t have to say a word to convey her thoughts perfectly.  Her expression and body language say it all.  Her eyebrows are raised, her eyes are wide and she’s practically vibrating with excitement.

I glance over my shoulder at Cole, who is now sitting on the edge of the chair.  “I think that means hurry,” I loud whisper.

He stands, a smile playing with the edges of his gorgeous lips.  “Who likes French toast?”  Emmy raises her hand enthusiastically.  “Can you show me where your bread is?” he asks. He’s not pushing her to talk, which is good, but he’s engaging her in a casual manner, which is also good.

Maybe Cole will just be good.  For both of us.  Only time will tell.  And time is something we have plenty of.

TWENTY

Cole

I EXPERIENCE A collision of emotion when Emmy steps cautiously out of her mother’s arms and walks toward me.  At first, every feeling is the soft kind, the kind that decent people feel toward a child.  But when she puts her thumb in her mouth, knowing what causes her to do it brings on a fresh stab of rage. It cuts through my sternum and goes straight into my heart like a sharp spear.  In this moment, if I could find him, I would gladly rip apart the man who did this to her. I’d tear him limb from filthy, disgusting limb.

But then another shift happens.  When Emmy reaches me, she curls her tiny fingers around mine and pulls me with her toward the kitchen.  Rage is immediately forgotten, replaced by the soothing comfort that this little girl brings to the battered parts of my soul.  Looking down at her, it’s almost like having Charity back.  At least a little bit.  And I can’t help thinking that maybe I can do right by Emmy, that I can somehow make up for what happened with my own daughter by saving someone else’s.  But it will never undo what I did.  It will never bring back the life I stole.

I’m aware of Eden’s soft gaze on us as we walk together into the kitchen.  It’s a warm feeling, as though her happiness and security shine out from her like rays of heat from the sun.  I glance back over my shoulder when Emmy steps in front of me and points up to a cabinet.  Eden’s smiling, like I expected she might be, but even from here I can see the tears in her eyes.  It makes me realize that I never want to see any pain or sadness in them.  Never again.  Only contentment.  Or desire.  Or love.