Still Missing (11 page)

Water had to be brought up from the river in a bucket for the garden every day, but I didn't mind because it was a chance to run my hands through its cool currents and splash my face. It was almost the middle of June, and I figured I had to be close to nine months, but I was so huge I sometimes wondered if I was past due--I didn't know exactly when I got pregnant, so it was hard to calculate. On this particular day I dragged a big bucket of water up the hill and began to lift it up to pour over the plants, but it was warm out and I'd been working pretty hard, so sweat dripped into my eyes. I set the bucket down to catch my breath.

As I massaged my back with one hand, a cramp crawled across my belly. I ignored it at first and tried to lift the bucket back up. The pain hit again, worse this time. Knowing he'd be pissed if I didn't finish my chores, I took a deep breath and watered the rest of the garden bed.

When I was done I found him on the porch fixing a board and said, "It's time." We went back inside, but not before he checked to make sure the watering was finished. Soon as we walked into the cabin, I felt a whooshing inside me, a weird sensation of something letting go, and then warm fluid poured down my legs, onto the floor.

The Freak had read all those books with me, so he knew what was going to happen, but he looked horrified and froze at the entrance to the cabin. I stood in a puddle with stuff dripping down my legs and waited for him to snap out of it. But as the blood drained from his face, I realized I might be waiting awhile. Even though I was scared to death, I had to calm him down. I needed his help.

"It's totally normal--my body's supposed to do that--everything will be okay." He started pacing, partway into the cabin, then out, then in again. I had to get him to focus.

"May I have a bath?" Baths help with menstrual cramps, and I figured I had time--the contractions didn't seem that close together. He just stopped and stared at me wild-eyed.

"Is it okay? I think it would help." Still mute, he raced to the bathroom and ran a bath for me. I was getting the feeling he would have agreed to anything at that point.

"Don't make it too hot, I don't know if heat would be good for the baby." Once the tub was full, I eased my huge body into the warm water.

The Freak leaned against the counter in the bathroom, his eyes darting all over the place, looking at everything but me. His hands clenched and unclenched as if they were grasping at the air. This control freak stood trembling, tongue-tied, like a teenager on his first date.

In a gentle, even tone of voice I said, "I need you to move the bedding off the bed and put some towels down, okay?"

He raced out of the room, then I heard him moving around by the bed. To calm myself down, I tried to remember everything I'd read in the books and concentrated on my breathing instead of the fact that I was about to give birth in a cabin with no one but a freaked-out Freak to help me. The beads of water on the side of the bathtub became my focal point, and I counted the seconds it took them to drip down. When the water was lukewarm, almost cool, and the contractions were closer together, I called him--he'd been hiding out in the other room.

With his help I got out of the tub and dried off. The contractions were hitting hard and fast by this point and I had to lean on him so I didn't fall. When we walked back into the room, I stumbled and gripped his arm while white-hot pain wrenched my belly. The cabin was cold, and goose bumps broke out on my skin.

"Why don't you get a fire going while I get myself onto the bed?"

After I settled myself down and put a pillow behind my shoulders, I don't remember too much other than a lot of pain--most women get the option of drugs, and trust me, I'd have gone with that option. The Freak was like a sitcom husband, pacing around and wringing his hands and putting them over his ears every time I screamed--which was often. While I writhed around on the bed, chewing on the fucking pillow, he was in the corner at one point with his whole head tucked between his knees. He even left the cabin for a while, but I started screaming "HELP ME!" so loud he came back.

All the books said to start bearing down when I could feel I was close, but hell, everything in my body was telling me to push. I propped my back against the wall and pressed into it so hard I must have had welts from the logs on my back. With my hands on my knees, I spread my legs, gritted my teeth, and pushed. When I could breathe, I ordered him around. The more in control I was, the more he seemed to calm down--control being a loose term, considering I was covered in sweat and screaming out every order in between pushes.

A lot of the actual birth is hazy, but I think I was in labor for a few hours--a lucky first-timer, and one of the few things on the mountain I had to be thankful for. I do remember that when I made him stay between my legs and help the baby out, his face was pale and covered with sweat, and I wondered what the hell he was sweating about since I was doing all the work. I didn't give a flying fuck about his feelings or mine--I just wanted this thing out of me.

When the baby finally came through, it hurt like a son of a bitch but it felt
so good
at the same time. Through eyes blurry from sweat dripping into them, I glimpsed The Freak holding the baby away from him in the air like he did with my rags. Shit, he didn't know what to do next. And the baby hadn't cried yet.

"You have to clean the face off and lay the baby on my stomach."

I closed my eyes and let my head loll to the side.

The tiniest of whimpers turned into really loud wails, and my eyes flew open. God, it was such an incredible sound. It was the first live creature I'd heard other than him in ten months, and I started crying. When I lifted my arms up, he handed the baby to me quickly, as though relieved to be free of the responsibility.

A girl. I hadn't even thought to ask. A slimy, bloody, wet, wrinkly girl. I'd never seen anything more beautiful.

"Hi, sweetie, welcome to the world," I said. "I love you," I whispered against her little forehead, then softly kissed it.

I glanced up and he was staring down at us. He didn't look scared anymore, he looked pissed off. Then he turned and left the cabin.

As soon as he left I passed the afterbirth. I tried to wriggle farther up the bed to get away from the wetness, but I was already near the wall, and when I tried to inch sideways, every movement hurt. So I lay there in an exhausted sticky mess with the baby on my belly. The cord needed to be cut. If he didn't come back soon, I was going to have to try to bite it off.

While I waited, I checked her over and counted all her toes and fingers. She was so small and delicate, and although her hair was ridiculously soft and silky, it was as dark as mine. Once in a while she whimpered, but when I rubbed my thumb on her cheek, she quieted.

He came back after about five minutes, and as he came toward me I was glad to see he didn't look pissed off anymore, just disinterested. Then I looked away from his face and realized he was holding his hunting knife.

Disinterest turned to horror when he saw the mess the afterbirth had made between my legs.

"I have to cut the cord," I said. But he stood frozen.

I slowly reached out with my free hand, and just as slowly, he handed me the knife.

I shifted the baby, then tore a strip off the sheet and tied it around the cord before cutting it. As soon as I did, she mewled, and the sound snapped The Freak out of his trance. His hand lashed out and bent my wrist back until the knife dropped on the bed.

"I was going to give it back!"

He picked it up and leaned toward me. I gripped the baby and tried to wriggle up the bed. He paused. I paused. Maintaining eye contact, he slowly wiped the knife off on the corner of a towel. He held the knife up to the light, nodded, then headed into the kitchen.

He helped me roll over and put fresh bedding under me. While he cleaned away the medical supplies, I tried to put my nipple to her mouth, but she wouldn't take it. I tried again, same result. Tears prickled in my eyes, and I swallowed hard. Remembering that the books said it took them a while sometimes, I tried again. This time when I pressed my nipple into her mouth a bit of watery-looking yellow liquid came out. Her little rosebud mouth opened and she finally latched on.

With a sigh of relief, I looked up just as The Freak came back to the bed carrying a cup of water and a baby blanket. Focused on the task, he didn't look at me until he'd set the cup on the side table. When he did glance over, his eyes went straight to the baby nursing from my exposed breast. His face flushed and he quickly averted his gaze. Staring at the wall, he tossed the blanket to me and said, "Cover yourself."

I draped the blanket over my shoulder and baby just as she made a loud slurping sound.

He took a couple of steps back, then spun around and headed into the bathroom. Soon I heard the shower running. It ran for a very long time.

He was quiet when he came back. He stood at the bottom of the bed and stared at me for a few minutes. I'd learned not to make eye contact with him when he was in one of his moods, so I pretended to be dozing, but I could still make him out through my eyelashes. I had seen his pissed-off look, his I'm-going-to-hurt-you look, and I'd seen him tune out completely, but this was different. It was thoughtful.

My arms tightened around my daughter.

I'm in a weird-ass mood today, Doc. Wired up, mind all over the place, looking for answers, reasons, something solid to cling to, something
real
, but just when I think I've got it figured out and neatly filed under fixed instead of fucked, turns out I'm still shattered, scattered, and battered. But you probably already knew that, didn't you?

At least your office feels real. Real wood shelves, real wood desk, real native masks on the wall. And in here I can be real because I know you can't tell people about me, but I wonder if when you sit around with your shrink friends, talking about whatever it is you guys talk about, you want to just blurt it out.... No, forget I said that, you look like the type that went into the profession because you genuinely want to help people.

You might not be able to help me. That makes me sad, but not for me. It makes me sad for you. It must be frustrating for a shrink to have a patient who's beyond fixing. That first shrink I saw when I got back to Clayton Falls told me no one is a lost cause, but I think that's bullshit. I think people can be so crushed, so broken, that they'll never be anything more than a fragment of a whole person.

I wonder when it happened to The Freak. What the defining moment was--the moment when someone stepped down with the heel of their shoe and crushed both of our lives. Was it when his real mother left him? Would he still have been repairable if he'd had a nice foster family? Would he never have killed anyone or abducted me if his adoptive mom hadn't been such a freak herself? Did it happen in the womb? Did he ever even have a chance? Did I?

There was The Freak side of him, the guy who abducted me, beat me, raped me, played sadistic games with me, terrified me. But sometimes when he was thoughtful or happy or excited, when his face lit up, I saw the guy he
could
have been. Maybe that guy would have had a family and taught his child to ride bikes and made balloon animals for her, you know? Hell, maybe he'd have been a doctor and saved people's lives.

After I had my daughter, I even felt maternal toward him sometimes, and in those fleeting moments when I did see his other side, I wanted to coax it out. I wanted to help him. I wanted to
fix
him. But then I'd remember. He was a little boy standing in front of a hayfield holding a match, and he didn't need an excuse to drop it.

Right after the baby was born The Freak tossed me some cloth diapers, a couple of sleepers, a few blankets, and for a week barely spoke to me unless he was telling me to do something--he only let me rest in bed for one day. My first day up I got dizzy doing the dishes and he let me sit down for a few minutes, but then he made me wash them all over again because the water had grown cold. The next time I just leaned on the counter and closed my eyes until the feeling passed.

He never touched the baby, but when I changed or bathed her, he hovered and picked that moment to ask me to do something for him. If I was folding her laundry, he'd make me finish his first. Once, when I was about to nurse her while our dinner was simmering, he made me put her down and serve him. The only time he left us alone was when I nursed her. Not knowing exactly what was pissing him off, I picked her up and soothed her if she made so much as a peep, but his eyes only turned darker and his jaw clenched. He reminded me of a viper waiting to strike, and as I comforted my child, my insides hummed with anxiety.

When she was a couple of days old, he still hadn't mentioned anything about naming her, so I asked him if I could.

He glanced at her in my arms and said, "No," but later I whispered a secret name into her tiny ear. It was the only thing I could give her.

I couldn't stop thinking about the way he'd handled his jealousy and resentment of his adopted father. So when he was in the cabin I made sure I looked indifferent to the baby and only met her basic needs--luckily, she was a content and happy baby who never fussed much. But as soon as he went outside for his chores, I'd take her out of the blanket and look at every inch of her, amazed she came out of my body.

Considering the circumstances of her conception, I was surprised how much I was capable of loving my daughter. With my fingertips I traced her veins, marveling that my blood flowed through her, and she never squirmed. Her little ear was perfect for singing lullabies into, and sometimes I just buried my nose in her neck and inhaled the scent of her, fresh and sweet--the purest thing I'd ever smelled. Behind her pudgy left knee she had a tiny birthmark, a coffee-colored half-moon that I loved to kiss. Every delicate inch of her made my heart shiver with the overwhelming urge to protect her. The intensity of my feelings terrified me, and my anxiety grew with my love.

We still had bath time every night, but she wasn't allowed in the water with me and The Freak never touched my breasts. After the bath, I nursed her on the bed while he cleaned the bathroom. When she was finished I laid her down in a little bed he'd put at the foot of ours--it was just a wicker basket with some blankets in it, like a dog bed, but it didn't seem to bother her.

I remembered a couple of my friends who had kids complaining about how they never got any sleep in the beginning, and I didn't either. Not because of the baby--she only woke up once a night--but because I was so terrified of what he'd do if she woke him up that I lay there listening to every faint sigh or the tiniest hitch in her breathing. I became adept at slithering to the bottom of the bed at the first signs of her waking so he wouldn't feel my weight leave the mattress, and like a dog nursing a puppy I'd hang my breast over the side, lift her up slightly, and feed her. If he moved or made any sound, I lay perfectly still with my heart pounding and wondered if she could feel it pulse through my breast. As soon as his breath evened out, I'd slither back up.

At bedtime, after she was down, he examined me and tenderly put cream on my privates, pausing to make soothing sounds if I flinched, his face sympathetic. He said we had to wait six weeks before we could "make love" again. When he'd raped me it was a hell of a lot more painful but somehow less disturbing. Sometimes I actually forced myself not to react if it hurt when he spread the cream, so he'd keep going. Pain was normal.

When she was a little over a week old I was cooking and needed two hands, so I was about to go put her down in her basket, but he stood in front of me and said, "I'll take her." My eyes moved back and forth between him and the safety of her bed--I'd been so close--but I didn't dare refuse him. After I gently placed her in his arms, he strolled away with her, and my heart climbed into my throat. He sat on the end of the bed.

She began to whimper, and I dropped what I was doing to stand in front of him.

"I'm sorry she disturbed you--I'll put her in her bed."

"We're just fine here." He bounced her up and down in his arms, and as he gazed down at her he said, "She knows I'm her father and she's going to be a good girl for me, isn't she?" She quieted and he smiled.

I turned back to the stove, but my hands were shaking so badly I could barely stir the pot--every once in a while I twisted around to grab some spices so I could keep an eye on things.

At first he just stared down at her, but then he unrolled the blanket and took off her sleeper so she was lying on his lap in only her diaper. I was terrified she might start bawling, but she just wiggled her arms and legs around in the cool air. He looked her over, grabbed her arm, then slowly bent it backward. Even though he wasn't doing it hard, my body tensed as I waited for her cries to fill the air, but she was quiet. He did the same with her other arm and legs--it was like he'd never seen a baby before.

His expression was calm, more curious than anything, and he was gentle when he wiped a bit of drool off her chin, even smiled, but the urge to go over and rip her out of his arms was powerful. Only fear of the consequences overrode it. Finally dinner was done, so I walked over on shaky legs, put out my arms for him to hand her to me, and said, "Your plate is ready."

It took him a second to give her to me, and as he passed her through the air a look crossed his face that I'd never seen before. He let go. For a heartbeat she was in the air, and then she dropped. I leapt forward and caught her just before she would have hit the floor. With my heart hammering my chest so hard it hurt, I clutched her against me. He smiled and got up to eat his dinner, humming a tune under his breath.

In the middle of taking a bite, he paused and said, "Her name is Juliet." I nodded, but no way was I naming her after his crazy mom. In my head I called her by her secret name, and other than you, I've never told anyone what he named her.

After that he picked her up sometimes, usually when I was doing something, like folding the laundry or cleaning. He always sat on the bed with her, rolled her onto her stomach, and then bent her arms and legs back. She never whimpered, so I don't think he was hurting her, but I still wanted to run over and grab her--only the knowledge that he might hurt her to punish me held my feet fast. Eventually he'd put her back in her basket, but once he just left her on the edge of the bed like a toy he'd grown bored with. My body broke out in a cold sweat every time he went near her.

When I worked in the garden he let me take her outside with me, nestled in a little blanket tied around my neck. I loved being out there with her, seeing the vegetables I planted grow, smelling earth warmed by the sun, or just rubbing my hands over the down on my baby's head. Saying I found some happiness up there feels wrong, because it's like saying it was okay--it was
never
okay. But when I had my baby I did feel happy at least some of the time every day.

The Freak never let me outdoors unless he was working out there as well, but he usually had something going on, chopping wood, weatherproofing the shutters, staining some of the logs, so I made it out often. He wanted me to repaint the rocking chairs from the porch, and I took them down to the river with me to work on while I enjoyed the sun with my daughter.

If he was pleased with me, he let me just sit by the river when my chores were done. Those were good days, days when I wished I had a sketch pad to capture the contrast of my baby's milky-white skin against the emerald-green grass, or the way she scrunched up her face when an ant crawled over her. Images of fireweed in bloom, sunlight dancing on the river, and the reflection of fir trees on its surface made my hands itch to paint. I thought if I could just get all that beauty on paper I'd have a way to remember there was still an outside world to return to when things got bad in the cabin, but when I asked The Freak for a sketch pad he said no.

Because it was warm, he had me doing laundry in the river every couple of days--he was big on conserving water. The stupid baths he made me take every night used up a ton of water, but I never said anything. Hell, I liked the way river water and sun made the clothes smell. A rope strung from an apple tree someone must have planted years ago to a corner of the cabin served as our clothesline. That was The Freak and me, a regular pioneer couple.

I first noticed the mallard duck floating around the edge of the river, where the water slowed down, before I had the baby. Sometimes other ducks were with him, but usually he was alone. If The Freak wasn't looking in my direction, I stopped what I was doing and admired the duck. The first couple of times I went down to the river to wash clothes or just to sit, the duck flew off as soon as he spotted me. But when my baby was a week old I sat on a rock to rinse out some blankets and enjoy the feel of cool water on my hands, and the duck just moved to the opposite side of the river and paddled around, pecking at the water, catching bugs.

The Freak came down and handed me some bread. The gesture surprised me, but I was happy to be allowed to feed the duck.

Over the next few days I coaxed the duck closer and closer with the bread. Soon he was taking it out of my hand. I wondered if he ever flew over my house. He was a reminder of life beyond my narrow existence, and I couldn't wait to get down to the river to see him every day, but I was careful not to let my excitement show. Practiced indifference was becoming second nature--I'd learned the hard way that letting The Freak know I liked something was the quickest way to end it.

He never let us out of his sight or running distance, but he usually left us alone down at the river. Sometimes I was even able to tune out his presence enough to convince myself I was just relaxing by the river on a typical summer day, smiling at my daughter's growing awareness of the world. Before she was born, I'd wondered if she'd be able to sense the evil around her, but she was the happiest baby I'd ever been near.

My eyes had stopped searching the clearing for avenues of escape. I wouldn't be able to move fast carrying her, and I knew my fears of what he might do if he caught us were probably tame compared to the reality.

When my daughter was two weeks old, The Freak came down to the river and crouched near me. As soon as the duck saw him it backed away from my hand and swam into the middle of the pool. The Freak tried to tempt him closer with bread, but the duck ignored him, and a flush crept up The Freak's neck. My breath trapped in my throat, I prayed the duck would take it, but he didn't, and finally The Freak dropped the bread and headed back up to the cabin, saying he had to get something ready for dinner. The duck came right back.

I heard a sickeningly loud explosion as his beautiful head blew up in front of me. Feathers floated in the air--landing on me, on the baby, on the river's surface. Through the ringing in my ears, I heard screams and realized they were mine. I jumped up from my crouch and spun around. The Freak stood on the porch with a rifle in his hand. With my hands clamped over my mouth to hold in the screams, I stared at him.

"Bring it inside."

My mouth struggled to form words. "Why did you--" But I was asking the air. He'd already left the porch.

With my baby's wails expressing my own feelings, I waded into the river and grabbed what was left of the duck. Its head was practically gone and its poor bloody body was upside down, floating downstream.