“It’s true we want you to choose to be here,” Evelyn said gently. “All Eric told Jesse was that he was free to pursue you if he wanted. It wasn’t always like that. At first we didn’t want anything like that going on. We wanted you to have as much control over your choices as we could give you, but then we saw how much you were attaching yourself to Jesse, so Eric told him it was okay.”
Naomi stayed silent. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the fingers moving through her hair.
“Do you understand what I’m saying?” Evelyn asked.
“Yeah, I think so, but that’s not going to bring Jesse back any faster.”
Her fingers stopped. “Maybe not, but what’s the rush?”
“I don’t know. I miss him. He’s been gone since before Christmas.”
Evelyn was quiet for a moment. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
Love. It sounded heavy and serious, but it was what she wanted more than anything in the world. She remembered how much Steve and Evelyn cared for each other. It was so
real.
She couldn’t even imagine what that must be like.
“I don’t know,” she mumbled. “Maybe.” What else was she supposed to say? That she didn’t think she could breathe without him? It sounded ridiculous.
Evelyn moved her hand to her shoulder, stroking gently. “It takes a long time to understand love. Nobody says you have to figure it out now or tomorrow, or even in a year. I hope you don’t think we’re trying to push you into anything. I’d never want that. The truth is,” she said with a catch in her voice, “I’ve never been happier in my life than I have been with you here.”
Turning, Naomi looked up at her. She thought of that night in the darkness when Evelyn had whispered to Steve that she couldn’t have asked for anything better. Confusion gripped her. “I don’t understand how I make you happy.”
Evelyn’s expression fell. Her fingers froze. “A lot of reasons,” she said softly. “I was hoping I could help you understand it someday—if you give me a chance. A girl can get awfully lonely with all these men around. That, and I’ve always wanted someone I can talk to like this. Steve doesn’t get it. He doesn’t do yoga, either.” Her face brightened and she winked, making Naomi laugh.
Naomi sat up and stretched. Leaving her room was sounding better. “I guess yoga sounds good.”
Twenty minutes later they were in the living room stretching their bodies into positions she wouldn’t have been able to accomplish a year ago. Now she was limber, like Evelyn. It felt good to breathe in rhythm with her. It almost took her mind off Jesse. Almost.
“How did you know you were in love with Steve?” she asked as they started another position.
Evelyn bent down to the floor. Her ponytail grazed the carpet. “It might sound strange to you,” she said as she stretched. “I’ve never thought of myself as ugly, but my scar is something that once someone notices it, they kind of stare—a lot. Steve never looked twice at it, not once, even after we went swimming and I had no makeup on. He looked at me like no other man had ever looked at me, and I knew.”
Naomi’s frame shook as she fought to hold her position. “That’s cool. It must be nice to have someone like that.” She wondered if Jesse could ever be like that, but then she realized he was already. Her heart nearly stopped at the thought.
“It is.”
They both stood from their positions and started the next in the series. Naomi glanced at Evelyn’s scar as they turned toward each other. “Can I ask how ... how you got it?”
She winced. “I knew you’d ask eventually.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, really.” She stretched her arms above her head and entwined her fingers. Naomi mirrored her movements and tried not to look at the scar. It was difficult.
“You don’t have to tell me.”
“My father cut me with a kitchen knife. That’s how he murdered my mother and my sister. Stabbed them. I’m sure Jesse has told you about that, at least.”
“A little bit.” She tried to focus on her position to keep herself from shuddering. Goose bumps popped up on her bare arms. A kitchen knife. It sounded awful.
“My father intended to kill me too, but Eric stopped him. He saved my life.”
For some reason, that surprised Naomi. She couldn’t imagine Eric rushing in like a hero. “Wow, how old was he?”
“Nineteen—barely in college.” Her eyes glazed over. “He happened to be home that weekend. I had never seen that side of him before—the violence, the absolute madness in his eyes, just like our father’s when he got angry. When he saw what our father was doing, something inside of him broke. He’s never been the same since, especially after I told him everything that had been going on for years.”
Naomi looked at her with questioning eyes.
Evelyn took a deep breath. “I had decided to tell my mom about what my dad did to me and my sister whenever she was gone. Eventually, I had to tell Eric about it too. I’m sure you can guess what it was I had to tell them—what kind of twisted abuse I had to endure from my own father.”
“Yeah,” she said with a lump in her throat. “I heard about that kind of stuff happening to people I knew in high school. They were seriously scarred for life. I can’t even imagine.” She couldn’t, either. Her parents ignored her, but she suddenly realized how much worse things could have been. Then there was Brad. No, no, she had to try not to think about Brad.
“Yeah, I’m unable to have children because of it. He used to beat us if we resisted him, and I wanted it to stop. It was a bad idea. When he found out I had told our mother, he went after all three of us. He was drunk. He was always drunk. I’m lucky all I got was the scar.”
Sick to her stomach, Naomi lowered her arms and sat on the sofa. “I didn’t know about any of this,” she said as her eyes glazed over. “Brad hit me once, but I never realized how bad he used to treat me until I came here. I never saw it before.”
“You didn’t know any different. I know exactly how that feels.” She lowered her arms. “My dad is dead now. It finally feels like it’s over, but I’ll never be free until we move away from here. Italy was where I was happiest, and I’m dying to go back.”
“That’s why we’re moving there?”
Nodding, Evelyn motioned her to stand up and finish the yoga. She did, but she could barely concentrate on the positions. Her heart beat fast as she thought about where things might have gone with Brad if she had never been kidnapped.
TWO WEEKS later she was still thinking about it, but it had moved to a quieter place in her head as she lay sleepily on the loveseat in the living room. Mostly, she wanted to see Jesse again. The scent of red peppers and bacon was thick in the air. She pressed the pause button on her iPod when Eric walked in from the kitchen. He kneeled so she could see his face.
“Do you want two or three eggs?” he asked sweetly, and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. She stared blankly at him.
“Three.” She tried to breathe in the smell of Jesse from the couch pillow, from anywhere, but he had disappeared from everything.
Eric nodded and took his hand away from her ear. “Toast? Anything else? I’m cooking some bacon, and Evelyn bought some strawberries.”
She looked into his caramel-brown eyes. Not one spark of anger. They were so kind now, so concerned for her all the time, especially the last two weeks. He was trying his best to smooth over Jesse’s absence.
“If you put sugar on them,” she said, wondering if she should still be angry with him for kicking Jesse out of the house. She missed him. Wildly. She missed him sitting next to her at dinner, his smiles across the pool table, his voice when he talked about books. She wanted his arms around her again. Right now she felt like she was in limbo waiting for him to come back so they could work things out. Eric might have urged him to pursue her, but the longer she thought about her relationship with him, the more she was convinced he really did care for her. Maybe that was Eric’s plan all along, but she didn’t care. Nobody could plan emotions. Nobody could plan for a person falling in love, could they?
He curled his fingers around her wrist. “Sure thing. I’ll put lots of sugar on them.” He leaned closer. “Try to cheer up, okay? I know you miss Jesse, but you’ll see him again soon. I promise.”
“Really?” She sat up. “He’s coming back?”
He puffed out his chest and smiled. “Yes. He’s been staying with a friend, but I’ve told him he can come back now. I think both you and he needed some time away from each other to sort out your emotions. Everything’s going to be fine.”
Naomi nodded. He was probably right, but it didn’t make the separation any easier. She watched as he stood and switched on the television before heading back into the kitchen. Right now the weather report was on.
“The high today will be forty-seven with a low of nineteen. Low pressure could bring some snow later in the week.”
She hit play on her iPod and tried to drown out everything but the music. She was listening to a playlist Jesse had made for her the last time they downloaded music together—a strange mix of Mozart and Chopin, some heavy metal bands, and one band that combined the two genres.
Just like him, she thought, concentrating on the hard, driving beat of intense guitars and drums layered against an ethereal mix of piano and female vocals. Everything mysterious about him suggested violence, but it was hidden from her beneath everything beautiful she craved about him, especially the way he touched her—as if nothing else in the world mattered but her. The violence was so hidden, in fact, that she didn’t care about anything he had ever done wrong—or was doing, for that matter.
She settled farther into the loveseat and readjusted her earphones. The smell of cooking eggs drifted through the room. She knew Eric was doing everything he could to please her. They all were. She liked being fussed over. She liked the attention. She liked that she didn’t have to worry about anything else going on in the outside world. If Jesse returned, life would be perfect again. She could get back to a place where she didn’t think about her mother and father anymore. Brad was only a shadow now. Her parents could be too.
The song on her iPod ended.
“Yes, but is there any truth to the reports given at the beginning of your daughter’s disappearance? You have both admitted—”
Another song began, loud and suddenly annoying. She slammed her finger on the pause button, sat up, and stared at the TV with wide eyes.
There she was, sitting on a sofa under the bright lights of the
Today Show,
dressed in one of her cream colored suits with her hair twisted into an elegant knot at the nape of her neck. Her hands were folded gently in her lap as she stared at the male host asking her a question. Naomi could tell she was irritated, a certain little twitch at the corner of her mouth before she spoke. Naomi hadn’t realized she knew about that twitch, how ingrained it was in her memory. She couldn’t recall making a note of it before.
“Of course there’s truth to the reports,” Karen answered calmly, professionally. “There has been a little more pressure about Naomi’s disappearance than other missing children because ....” She paused, narrowed her eyes and twitched her foot with one short jerk before glancing at Naomi’s father next to her on the sofa.
“We are both constantly in the public eye,” she continued. “We’re successful, isn’t that right? It leads straight to your question if we neglected our daughter or not, and all I can say is that yes, because of our careers, we did.” She leaned forward. “That doesn’t mean we don’t love her, and it doesn’t mean we can’t try to correct the mistakes we’ve made in the past.”
The host acknowledged her answer with a brief smile and gestured to both of them. “Hence the reason you’re here with us this morning. We’ll talk about the foundation you’ve started in a few minutes, but let’s discuss Naomi’s photographs first. We wouldn’t be speaking with you if they hadn’t garnered so much attention.”
Naomi’s stomach churned. Her vision blurred. Her mind reeled. She could hardly focus on the TV now that the reality of what she was seeing hit her like an explosion deep in her heart. It finally burst, exactly like the green and yellow fireworks a few weeks ago. Only this time there was one loud, deafening boom that shook the entire center of her being.
That doesn’t mean we don’t love her.
Her parents were a distant memory suddenly rushing back—surreal, candid, and tangible. Was it true? Were they on national TV telling the world how they felt about her? Had they done this before? Was Eric lying to her every time he handed her an article and told her with saddened eyes that they were hopeless, inadequate, irredeemable?
No, he hadn’t lied. She remembered him seeming very surprised, even upset.
The TV screen faded to a picture of a bright red starfish clinging to a craggy, black rock. Her starfish. Her picture. Something about a contest and a national magazine. It hadn’t won, but then her mother kept entering more and more photos into contests, and this one finally won. Then one of the judges found out she was missing.
As the screen faded back to her mother, Naomi hardly saw her sitting under the lights. She could only see her in her bedroom in a white gown, eyes sparkling when she bent to kiss Naomi on the cheek. “Thanks for helping me with my zipper.”
Naomi never saw her eyes that way again—until now, as she began to speak.
“The foundation is something we’ve started to help families with missing children. Many families aren’t in a financial situation to continue searches on their own once the police or FBI stop investigating—when there is no more evidence or leads. The foundation we’ve started—Naomi’s Hope—allows families to keep searching when all other hope is lost.” Her face practically glowed with something Naomi had never seen before—pure happiness. Jason, grinning next to her, put a hand on hers.