The Lonely (36 page)

Mom
grabs my arm and leads me up the stairs. She takes me to a room and opens the
door. It's cold and stale inside. It's a small girl's room. Ponies and rainbows
and a small bed with a Strawberry Shortcake blanket make the room cluttered and
homey. It doesn’t look like they have changed a single thing since the day I
left. I stroke Kitty and wonder how hard it must have been to have such a
constant reminder.

My
vow is broken instantly.

It
took me fourteen years to find my way, but I am home.

His
face is dirty and tired, but I've never been more in love with him. He points
with the child at the screen. It fuzzes out but then I can see them again. She
is beautiful and frightened.

I
wave, my family is behind me. We wave.

"We
miss you son." Dad shouts.

Eli
grins, his icy-blue eyes kill me. "Her name is Arielle. She's seven. We
saved her. The river near their home flooded. They were trapped." He
doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t need to I get the gist of it.

I
laugh, "Hi Arielle!" I wave. She looks frightened. "Your name is
very pretty." She bats her eyelashes and looks down. I look back at him,
"Did your khaki's get wet?"

His
eyes flash something. I see it in his eyes. It's a flash of something I've seen
before. It's terror. "They did." He licks his lips.

I
feel the fear cross my own face, "You be safe."

He
nods and swallows, "We're being careful."

"I
mean it. You've been there four days. How can you be so careless so
quickly?"

His
lips are playful again, "Yes mother."

My
Mom leans over me, "She's right, Eli. Be safe. We miss you honey."

I
love it. They love him. They don’t really know him, not the dark and scary
parts, but then again they don’t know those places in me. Only he does. Only he
has seen the darkness. Only he embraces the darkness inside of me and turns it
into love and light.

"We
better go. She needs to get back with the other kids." His eyes meet mine.
The little girl walks behind him. I see her look back at him and offer him her
hand.

He
points at me, "No. Behave. No crying. I miss you. Go torture that cat of
yours. She's had fourteen years of peace." He waves and the screen
freezes. His blue eyes and her hand extended to him are all that is left of the
picture.

I'm
brokenhearted but I'm home. I let them be enough. My Mom squeezes my shoulders
and my brother hits me in the arm, "Want a beer?"

I
laugh and nod, "Yup. Please." I need one. I finally get that feeling
of needing something, even if it's just a little.

He
passes it to me and sits across from me at the table. His blue eyes are worried
and distant. I look at him and take a drink, "You okay?" I ask in a
hushed tone.

He
shakes his head, "No. I think having you here is making it all real. For
years I pretended it was a sad story on a show I watched and not my life at
all." He smiles, "You're here and real and as annoying as I imagined
you would be."

I
roll my eyes, "Moving into an apartment with me and Shell wasn’t real
enough? I washed your boxers last week."

He
looks at me, "I may live with you until you're eighty. I can't let you out
of my sight."

I
grin, "The more comfortable we all get the meaner I will get." I
glance at Shell who nods, "It's true. Sometimes she's kinda shitty. She
has survival orphan syndrome moments still."

The
room is silent except for my laugh. Shell's face is white but I'm killing
myself laughing. Slowly smiles spread.

"Too
soon?" She asks quietly.

I
shake my head.

Lyle
nods, "Yeah."

I
laugh harder and mutter, "Survival orphan syndrome. It's so true." I
take another drink of my beer and grimace, "I still don’t love the taste
of this."

Jake
takes it and drinks it. I almost have a stroke, but I laugh when I see the
horrified look on Lyle's face.

Dad
brings me a glass of red wine, "Try this maybe. It's what your mother and
I drink."

I
take the warm glass and already dread putting it up to my lips. I feel my
throat thicken but take a deep breath. I tilt the glass and take a drink. The
wine is bitter and I shiver. Instantly I hate it, but want more. My taste buds
love it. The rest of me hates it.

I
take a second drink. I nod, "This I can do."

Shell
smirks, "My mom is gonna love this."

In
the middle of the conversation, Mom interrupts us. "Lyle why don’t you and
Jake take Michelle and Stuart and show them around town." Lyle looks like he's
about to argue but he doesn’t. She stands up and everyone follows him out of
the kitchen slowly. Mom sits at the table where Lyle was. She puts her hands
out and touches mine. Hers are so clean and soft. Her skin is ivory.
"Honey, I need to know. I need to know how it was. I know they don’t want
to know and I'm sure you don’t want to talk about it. But there is something
inside of me that can't let go until I've properly understood it."

I
shake my head, "It's okay." I look at the table. I can't look at her
and talk. I've worked so hard to push it all down and find the normal inside of
me.

I
grip the glass.

"Baby,
if you'd rather talk about it later, that’s okay. I just want you to know that
at some point I need to know." Her soft voice is soothing.

"How
much do you know?"

She
shakes her head, "Not much. Eli explained that you were kept at a place
you called the dirty house. That’s where he met you. I've obviously looked up
the Spicers on Google."

I
feel sick for her. I'm scared she's asking me to torture herself, but I talk
anyway, "It wasn’t bad for me. I have limited memories of the dirty house.
I remember the hole. They had a hole dug. It was round and dirty and it had a
thick board on top for a lid. The smallest amount of light could get through.
When Randy was edgy she put me in the hole. Only she could put kids in and take
them out. The hole was off limits to him. I was off limits. If he got angry or
edgy I was put in there. Laura would tell me it was for my own protection. My
memories are choppy but I know he never molested me or anything like
that."

She
sighs and wipes away her silent tears. "When your child goes missing, you
fear the worst. For you to be with the worst, well I assumed you
suffered."

I
shake my head, "No. It was just dirty and gross. They were bad people but
not to me. I was like a child to her."

"What
about the orphanage?"

I
can meet her eyes. I smile, "It was amazing in comparison. I learned a
million things I needed in life. I learned to be strong and to be grateful.
They didn’t have time to love us, but they never hurt us. It was easy there,
once I learned how to live there."

She
squeezes my hand and drops her face to the table. Her back shakes and jerks
with the sobs. I squeeze back, "Mom." I say softly. I rub her back
the way Shell rubs mine and let her sob until she can't anymore.

She
lifts her face, "I'm sorry." She sniffles and wipes her eyes. "I
just am so relieved. I don’t know how it happened and how it worked but you
seem so normal. I need to thank those nuns one day."

I
grin and fight back my own tears. I jump out of the chair and wrap my arms
around her.

"I
prayed every day we would find you, but I was terrified of what we would find.
I'm so grateful."

I
close my eyes, "Me too."

"You
needed teeth out. It was routine but we were so stressed. The enamel hadn’t
been good on your teeth. I breastfed you at night, I didn’t know it would rot
your teeth. They were just going to take out two and then fill the rest. They
don’t do dental work on two-year olds. They put you to sleep." Her voice
is muffled and sad.

"We
went and sat in the waiting room. I paced and gripped the bear. We'd brought
the bear. Lyle and Jake were being naughty. I was so tired and just wanted it
over with. But you never came out of that recovery room. The doctor came to
tell us you were fine and it had been routine and normal and you were sleeping
the drugs off. You would wake soon. But we never saw again. Not till Eli came
to us. He had a photo and a story. I doubted it all until I saw the
photo." She reaches into her back pocket and pulls out a photo of me,
taken at a bit of a distance. It's wrinkled and worn. I imagine she has held it
to her face a thousand times.

"I
thought I had died and gone to heaven that day. When he told us we couldn’t see
you yet, you had been traumatized and needed time to resurface, well I thought
I was going to murder him right then and there. I couldn’t believe that smug
little shit was keeping you from me. After fourteen years, I was dying to see
you. But your father agreed that it was better to try to pull you out of the
fake world you had created."

I
pulled back and nodded, "It was for the best. I didn’t feel like it at the
time, but it was."

She
wipes my hair away and I wonder if we look the same, red nose and puffy eyes.

"You
are so lucky to have each other. I've never actually seen a man love a woman as
much as he loves you, Sarah. I love your father and he loves me. We have
survived a lot of things, but I know in my heart of hearts our love is not as
intense as yours."

I
laugh. If only she knew. I shake my head, "He's just an intense person.
Trust me, I don’t think I'm capable of half the love he is. But I can laugh and
fun, where as he can't. He isn’t fun. Not in the way Jake and Lyle are. He's
intense in everything."

She
smiles, "He's been through so much. His guilt over losing you, when he
went for the police, has been unbearable."

"He
didn’t lose me. I assumed he had run off, hating me for shooting her." The
words sting on my tongue. It's the first time I've said it without bawling like
a baby.

She
kisses my forehead, "I don’t ever like imagining it all."

I
hug her again and melt into her.

We
fly back to Boston the next day. Mom packs us food for the plane and food for
our apartment. She hugged me so hard I thought I might die. She gushes about
coming to Boston and helping us decorate the apartment.

On
the plane I'm nestled between my brothers. I'm certain they booked the flights
with the seats confirmed this way. They're smothering me but I'm cool with it.
I'm certain eventually I will smother them back, with a pillow. But it won't be
today, well maybe. Jake is laying his head on my shoulder and mouth breathing.
I look at Lyle, scowling, "Gross." I whisper.

He
looks horrified, "That’s why I put you in the middle. I've done my share
of car and plane rides."

I
laugh and hang my mouth open, "Hurtful. I thought you put me in the middle
cause you wanted to be the big brother and protect me from sitting by
strangers."

He
nudges me, "Whatever."

I
smile and love him. We are soul mates. I pull out some hand sani and offer it
to him. He puts his hands out. I squirt his and then do my own. We rub our
hands together, the exact same way.

"Dad's
obsessed with it too."

I
laugh.

"Hey
so, Shell was saying you dated Sebastian Hollinger?"

I
nod, "Yeah. You know him?" I love that he calls her Shell.

He
raises his eyebrows, "Uh yeah. Everyone knows him. Quite the success story
there. His dad is a fisherman or something in Maine. We were in school at the
same time at MIT."

I
wrinkle my nose involuntarily, "He hates me."

He
raises an eyebrow, "Ended badly?"

I
nod, "Yeah. I came back from meeting you guys for the first time, at the
end of January. It was before Eli and I had decided we wanted to be together. I
had decided I just needed to be single. I told Sebastian I was taking myself
off the market to do some self-discovery, he was pissed. He felt like I had led
him on I think."

He
frowns, "What a wanker. Wait…did you lead him on?"

I
bite my lip and nod.

He
looks disappointed, "How could you?"

I
shrug, "I wanted him to be the one. He's normal and sweet and kind and
awesome and safe. No matter how hard I tried to make it work it didn’t. He
always saw the sad little orphan. I think he liked that I was broken. Eli
thinks I'm the stronger one. I like that. Plus we have a spark."

He
rolls his eyes, "Girls. You're so fickle. The right one. The magical kiss.
The special someone. The spark. It all equates to the same thing-bullshit. You
have your minds made up when you meet us. Forcing yourself to love us for who
we are is ridiculous."

I
raise my eyebrows, "Coming from the guy who hasn’t dated since twelfth
grade. Jake told me."