“No. I’ve found peace with that. I didn’t enjoy it, but I’d do it again if I had to. In some ways that was the easiest thing to come to terms with. That was the thing everyone commended me for—finding the bravery to escape regardless of what I had to do. That was the topic no one was afraid to address. It’s the things no one wants to talk about, the things everyone avoids, that you hold inside like a dirty secret that might somehow be your fault.”
She looked up at me. “But you don’t feel that way anymore.”
I shook my head. “No, not anymore.”
We were both quiet for long minutes, her head resting over my heart. I wondered if she was thinking about her own secrets, the things she had held inside for so long.
“Will you tell me about your parents?” she asked.
I smiled. “They were the best parents in the world. My dad was quiet, a thinker. And my mom was this Chatty Cathy. She couldn’t go anywhere without stopping to have a conversation with about ten people.”
“What else?” Her voice sounded wistful.
“She loved to read. She always had a paperback in her purse. Sometimes I’d look around at games when the other team was up, and she’d have her nose in a book.” I smiled at the memory, at the knowledge I’d gotten my love of books from her.
She was quiet for a moment before she whispered, “It must have been such an awful, terrible shock to find out they’d passed away while you were gone.” Gone.
“Yeah.” It was half word, half breath, and I was silent for a minute at the memory of George breaking the news to me in that cold police station room, of the awful, aching grief that had followed. “But later … later I wondered if maybe having two extra angels on my side helped me escape that basement, you know?”
Her head tipped back, and the shocked look in her expression made me pause. Was she thinking of her own angels? Who had she lost? She looked down again, resting her cheek on my chest. “What are you thinking, Ellie?”
“I …” She shook her head slightly. “Nothing. That’s just a … nice thought.”
“What about you? Are your parents still alive?” I remembered what she’d said about how her dad had treated her, and stilled as I waited for her to answer. The moment had been so peaceful, and I didn’t want to destroy that. But I yearned to know all about her, everything, the good and the bad, all the things that made her who she was.
“I guess my dad probably is,” she said. “I wouldn’t know. I left his home right after I graduated high school and haven’t spoken to him since.”
A lump formed in my throat. I’d noted she hadn’t mentioned her mom at all. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m over it.”
Are you, Ellie? I don’t believe that and I don’t think you do, either. My heart felt heavy, and we’d had a lot of heavy lately, and so I rolled her over, startling her and making her laugh. I smiled down at her before kissing her quickly, and the mood lightened.
I rolled off her again and we faced each other, our elbows on the blanket, our heads propped in our hands. I picked up a piece of her hair and rubbed it between my fingers, marveling at the silky texture. Lying here in the sunlight, it was a mixture of gold and red. “I’d want our children to have your hair,” I murmured. “It’s too beautiful not to be passed down.”
She looked briefly startled as she blinked at me. “Me, a mother?” She shook her head gently, bringing more of that honey-hued hair over her shoulder as she laughed. But her laugh was shallow, no joy contained within it.
I regarded her. “Why not? Don’t you want kids someday?”
“I … I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it.” She bit at her lip, looking off over my shoulder. The expression in her eyes was something close to fear. But why?
“I think you’d make a great mother,” I said softly, leaning forward and kissing her again. I believed she had a heart full of love to give, whether she realized it yet or not. I’d seen the tenderness inside her, experienced her gentle nature. I was experiencing it now.
I leaned back, and the look in her eyes softened. After a moment, she asked, “How did your interview with Chloe go? Do you still feel good about it, now that you’ve actually experienced it?” I knew she was changing the subject, but I was okay with that. I’d learned that Ellie would confide in me when she was ready and not a moment sooner.
“Yeah. It did feel good.” I considered her question a few seconds longer. “It felt good to be able to talk about what happened to me and feel the true sense of having moved past it. Some of the stuff we talked about brought up difficult memories, but I was okay an hour later, you know? In the beginning, it took such a long time to bounce back when some memory or another assaulted me. Now … I feel like I’m the one in control.”
She nodded, and I couldn’t dismiss the pride in her eyes. It warmed me, made me feel good, as if my survival was an accomplishment I could claim. She opened her mouth to say something but then closed it, obviously reconsidering whatever she’d been about to say. I watched as several expressions moved over her face. “Ellie, you can ask me anything. The things I told Chloe are yours, too, if you want them. There isn’t anything I’d give to her that I wouldn’t give to you.”
She smiled a sad sort of smile. “I’m just not sure what to ask. I guess … I guess just how? How did you survive that kind of horror?”
I licked my lips, looking off into the field behind her, thinking how familiar this seemed to me in a strange, distorted sort of way. Lying with Eloise in the daffodil fields. “When I was first abducted, I was terrified of course. I was traumatized and confused and desperate to get out of there. But after a while, it was the boredom that started eating away at me. I knew that if I hoped to get out of there someday, I had to stay sane. I had to keep my mind occupied. I did math in my head a lot, but it didn’t help the loneliness.” I paused, thinking back to those days, remembering them as the most desolate of all the time I’d spent down there.
“One day I was scratching something into the wall with a penny I’d found on the floor, when a big chunk came loose.”
“You started digging a tunnel?” she asked, her eyes wide.
I chuckled. “No. I was in a basement. I could have chipped through the entire wall over the course of fifty years and I’d still be underground.”
Her face fell, the look in her eyes horror stricken, obviously imagining—maybe for the first time—the details of the situation I’d been in.
“I’d been carving with my dad since I was little. I had some skill for a kid, some promise anyway. I had the penny and I found a paperclip, and I used them to carve a figure, crude at first, but all I had was time and so I worked on it. I started over several times with smaller pieces I got from different places—behind the radiator, behind some boxes of old clothes he had down there, in dark corners—that wouldn’t be noticed, and I made a set of figurines and named them for the things I loved. I was so afraid I’d forget what love felt like, and they helped me remember. They were a royal court of hope and they were my friends. My only friends. They were the reason I didn’t break. They kept my mind and hands occupied and my hope alive. They reminded me that there are sparrows in the trees and fields of daffodils, and best friends, and even though I was in a cold dusty box, I might see those things again and that faith kept me alive until I did.”