I hope she’s considering what I said at the grocery store.
I hope she’s accepting the fact that I’m back—and that I’m not leaving.
I hope she’s contemplating all the ways to make this fair for all involved.
I also pray the next time we run into each other, she’ll actually listen to what I have to say—and then she’ll bring me to my husband.
Grabbing the stack of Delphine’s books, I take them to my new room. I leave the door open because my near-decade in captivity has made me borderline claustrophobic. Tossing the paperbacks on the bed, I head to the window. It’s barely fifty degrees out and the thing is drafty as hell, but I crack it a couple of inches anyway to feel some fresh air—yet another thing I’ll never take for granted.
I’ll likely sleep with it open tonight, too, and under a million covers to stay warm because those are yet another one of life’s little comforts I’ve gone without for far too long. Even on nights when the wind howled outside the cabin, The Monster would zip himself into a thermal, insulated sleeping bag while I shivered beneath a thin, dirty sheet.
He never liked for me to be too comfortable. He needed to make it clear that the cockroaches in the makeshift kitchenette would be better fed and given more freedom than me.
The Monster said it’d be cruel to give me hope.
I learned early on the difference between cruelty and evil.
I’ll take cruelty any day.
I devour the pages of Delphine’s crystal bible the way a preteen might devour a book about wizards and dragons. To think that people believe rocks can vibrate and project enough energy to gift their owners with health, wealth, and prosperity is nothing short of fantasy fiction.
The alarm clock on the dresser reads twelve past six when Delphine comes home. Out of respect, I come out of my room and meet her in the kitchen, where she’s already preheating her oven. A frozen organic vegetable lasagna rests on the counter.
As newlyweds, Luca and I lived hand to mouth and paycheck to paycheck most weeks, and our fridge was constantly stocked with those ninety-nine-cent individual lasagnas, the kind that smell better than they taste. I grew to love them. Not because they were delicious (they weren’t), but because it represented a time in our marriage that we would one day look back upon with nostalgia.
For the first three nights, The Monster didn’t feed me. In fact, he’d made it a point to eat in front of me.
It was three months, give or take, before I finally stopped thinking about that lasagna and what it represented.
“Hope you’re not starving,” she says. “These things are fabulous, but they take a good hour to bake since they’re frozen solid. I’d make something else, but it’s been a busy day. Didn’t have a chance to sit down once. A blessing, though, that’s for sure.”
I worked in a restaurant waiting tables throughout my late teen years. Mom and I never had much food at home—wherever home was at the time—so I relished the ability to spend eight hours smelling delicious food. It was cheap diner fare. Flash fried and microwaved, mostly. But it was still better than stale cereal or expired condensed soup.
Never did learn to cook.
“I can try to make something,” I offer, spacing my words in hopes she picks up on my reluctance.
She waves a hand, bracelets clinking together. “Oh, angel, no. Not tonight. I’ve already got the oven preheating. I’ll take you up on that another time, though.”
“I put the groceries away—if there’s something you can’t find, let me know.” I grab an elastic from my wrist and tie my hair back in a long braid that tapers to almost nothing at the bottom. It’s well past my hips and in desperate need of a cut. Maybe tomorrow I’ll hack it off with a pair of kitchen shears, but today it’s the least of my concerns. “I read some of those books you left out. Interesting stuff.”
Her mouth stretches wide, and her eyes twinkle. “Isn’t it?”
“That’s moldavite, right?” I point to her necklace, the jagged green rock dangling from a tiny silver pendant. If I’m not mistaken, it’s a piece of meteorite said to be fifteen million years old—not a true crystal, but people tend to treat it just the same. That “bible” said it’s one of the most powerful change-inciting rocks a person can own and advised that it wasn’t a “beginner” stone.
“You are a quick learner, aren’t you?” She twists the pendant between her thumb and forefinger, flashing a sheepish grin. “I shouldn’t be wearing it as much as I have been lately. I know better.”
I wink. “Secret’s safe with me.”
“Guess I’ve been in a rut.” She exhales, staring over my shoulder with a blankness in her eyes. “Asked the universe for a change, to point me in a new direction. And then four days later, you walked in. Four is my sacred number.” She shrugs like she’s sharing a verified fact. “Do you ever find yourself seeing repeating numbers?”
“Never.” For almost ten years, I didn’t see a clock, a book page, a deck of playing cards, or a car license plate. I dreamed of them, though—for a glimpse of something ordinary, something outside those four brown walls.
Her rosy lips press flat. “Pay attention and you will. Signs are all around us, all the time. But you have to be looking, or you won’t see them.”
The oven beeps, and she wastes no time sliding the block of frozen lasagna across the middle rack.
“Oh, angel, would you mind taking care of this quick?” Delphine takes the drug test off the counter. She places it in my hands, cupping hers over mine and letting them linger for a tender moment, a silent apology perhaps.
Whatever makes her feel safe around me . . .
“I’ll be right back.” I disappear into the bathroom and come out with a clean sample two minutes later.
With gloved hands and the dip sticks spread across the counter over paper towels, she processes the test with the confidence of someone who’s done it a hundred times before. I watch, chewing the inside of my lip despite having nothing to be worried about.
A few minutes later, Delphine hums a pleased note. “Perfect. Absolutely perfect. I’m so proud of you.”
My lips part as I almost tell her I’ve never done drugs in my life, but I abort that mission because the point is moot.
Delphine collects the supplies into a small trash bag and cleans the counter before snapping off her latex gloves and tossing everything into the kitchen wastebasket.
“I was thinking.” Her back is to me. “Maybe tomorrow we could get you a cell phone? Maybe one of those prepaid ones since you don’t have ID? You definitely need something, though, angel. I’ll need a way of reaching you when I’m not at the shop. Plus, it’s just not safe in this day and age to go without a phone.”
I had a phone the day I was taken . . . in my backpack . . . tragically out of reach. Despite having that “lifeline,” I’m still standing here with her. Still rail thin. Still sporting more scars on my body than I can count. Still missing a molar. Still some wandering homeless woman gazing into the warm, glowing windows of my husband’s manse.
“I talked to my friend this afternoon,” Delphine continues. “She works at the vital records office at the courthouse. Said it could take a few weeks for your birth certificate to come in. Could take even longer to get your Social Security Card—but you’ll need your birth certificate to get that. It’s a whole process. But once you have both, you’ll be able to get an ID. Maybe even a driver’s license, if that’s something you’re interested in?”