soon turned into a physical fight and he hit me several times. He had never physically hurt me before and it terrified me. I ran to my room and he came in several minutes later to apologize. His behavior the previous few months as a result of his alcohol abuse already had me scared of him. Now coupled with the fact that it had caused him to physically hurt me…I was terrified of him.”
Karen shifts in her seat and reaches down to sip from a glass of water. I watch her hand as she brings the glass to her mouth and her fingers are trembling.
“He tried to apologize but I refused to listen. My stubbornness pissed him off even more, so he pushed me back on the bed and started screaming at me. He went on and on, telling me that I had ruined his life. He said I needed to be thanking him for everything he was doing for me…that I owed him for having to work so hard to take care of me.”
Karen clears her throat and new tears form in her eyes as she struggles to continue with the painful truth of her past. She brings her eyes to meet mine and I can tell that the words on the tip of her tongue are almost too hard for her to release.
“Sky…” she says, achingly. “My brother raped me that night. Not only did he do it that night, but it continued almost every night after that for two solid years.”
I bring my hands to my mouth and gasp. The blood rushes from my head, but it feels as though it rushes from the rest of my body as well. I feel completely empty hearing her words, because I’m terrified to hear what I think she’s about to tell me. The look in her eyes is even emptier than how I’m feeling right now. Rather than wait for her to tell me, I just come out and ask her.
“Mom…is John…he was my father wasn’t he?”
She quickly nods her head as tears drop from her eyes. “Yes, baby. He was. I’m so sorry.”
My whole body jerks with the sob that breaks free and Karen’s arms are around me as soon as the first tears escape my eyes. I throw my arms around her and grasp her shirt. “I’m so sorry he did that to you,” I cry. Karen sits next to me on the couch and we hold each other while we cry over the things that were done to us at the hands of a man we both loved with all of our heart.
“There’s more,” she says. “I want to tell you everything, okay?”
I nod as she pulls herself away from me and takes my hands in hers.
“When I turned sixteen, I told a friend of mine what he was doing to me. She told her mother who then reported it. By that time, John had been in the police force for three years and was making a name for himself. When he was questioned about the report, he claimed I was making it up because he wouldn’t allow me to see my boyfriend. He was eventually cleared and the case was dismissed, but I knew I could never go back to live with him. I lived with a few friends until I graduated high school two years later. I never spoke to him again.
“Six years had passed before I saw him again. I was twenty-one and in college by that time. I was at a grocery store and was on the next aisle when I heard his voice. I froze, unable to breathe as I listened to his conversation. I would have been able to recognize his voice anywhere. There’s something about a voice that terrifies you that you’ll never be able to forget, no matter what.
“But that day, it wasn’t his voice that had me paralyzed…it was yours. I heard him talking to a little girl and I was immediately taken back to all those nights he hurt me. I was sick to my stomach, knowing what he was capable of. I followed at a distance, watching the two of you interact. He walked a few feet away from the shopping cart at one point and I caught your eye. You looked at me for a long time and you were the most beautiful little girl I’d ever seen. But you were also the most broken little girl I’d ever seen. I knew the second I looked into your eyes that he was doing to you exactly what he had done to me. I could see the hopelessness and fear in your eyes when you looked back at me.
“I spent the next several days attempting to find out everything I could about you and your relationship to him. I learned about what happened to your mother, and that he was raising you alone. I finally got the courage to phone in an anonymous report, hoping he would finally get what he deserved. I learned a week later that after interviewing you, the case was immediately dismissed by Child Protective Services. I’m not sure if the fact that he was the high up in law enforcement had anything to do with the dismissal, but I’m almost positive it did. Regardless, that was twice that he had gotten away with it. I couldn’t bear the thought of allowing you to stay with him, knowing what was happening to you. I’m sure there were other ways I could have handled it, but I was young and scared to death for you. I didn’t know what else to do because the law had already failed us both.
“A few days later I had made up my mind. If no one else was going to help you get away from him…then I was. The day when I pulled up to your house I’ll never forget that broken little girl crying into her arms, sitting alone in the grass. When I called your name and you came to me, then climbed into the car with me…we drove away and I never looked back.”
Karen squeezes my hands between hers and looks at me hard. “Sky, I swear with all of my heart that all I ever wanted to do was protect you from him. I did everything I could to keep him from finding you. To keep you from finding him. We never spoke about him again and I did my best to help you move past what happened to you so you could have a normal life. I knew that I couldn’t get away with hiding you forever. I knew there would come a day that I would have to face what I did…but none of that mattered to me. None of that matters to me still. I just wanted you safe until you were old enough, so that you would never be sent back to him.
“The day before I took you, I went to your house and no one was there. I went inside because I wanted to find some things that might comfort you once you were safe with me. Something like a favorite blanket or a teddy bear. Once I was actually inside your bedroom, I realized that anything in that house couldn’t possibly bring you comfort. If you were anything like me, everything that had a connection to him reminded you of what he had done to you. So I didn’t take anything, because I didn’t want you to remember what he had done to you.”
She stands up and quietly walks out of the room, then returns moments later with a small wooden box. She places it into my hands. “I couldn’t leave without these. I knew that when the day came for me to tell you the truth, that you would want to know all about your mother, too. I couldn’t find much, but what I did find I kept for you.”
Tears fill my eyes as I run my fingers over the wooden box that holds the only memories of a woman I never thought I would have a chance to remember. I don’t open it. I can’t. I need to open it alone.
Karen tucks my hair behind my ear and I look back up at her. “I know what I did was wrong, but I don’t regret it. If I had to do it again just to know you would be safe, I wouldn’t think twice about it. I also know that you probably hate me for lying to you. I’m okay with that, Sky, because I love you enough for the both of us. Never feel guilty for how you feel about what I’ve done to you. I’ve had this conversation and this moment planned out for thirteen years, so I’m prepared for whatever you decide to do and whatever decision you make. I want you to do what’s best for you. I’ll call the police right now if that’s what you want me to do. I’ll be more than willing to tell them everything I just told you if it would help you find peace. If you need me to wait until your actual eighteenth birthday so you can continue to live in this house until then, I will. I’ll turn myself in the second you’re legally allowed to take care of yourself, and I’ll never question your request. But whatever you choose, Sky. Whatever you decide to do, don’t worry about me. Knowing you’re safe now is everything I could ever ask for. Whatever comes next for me is worth every second of the thirteen years I’ve had with you.”
I look back down at the box and continue to cry, not having a clue as to what to do. I don’t know what’s right or what’s wrong or if right is wrong in this situation. I know that I can’t answer her right now. I feel like with everything she’s just t
old me, all that I thought I knew about justice and fairness has just slapped me in the face.
I look back up at her and shake my head. “I don’t know,” I whisper. “I don’t know what I want to happen.” I don’t know what I want, but I know what I need. I need a chapter break.
I stand up and she remains seated, watching me as I walk to the door. I can’t look her in the eyes as I open the front door. “I need to think for a while,” I say quietly, making my way outside. As soon as the front door closes behind me, Holder’s arms wrap around me. I cradle the wooden box in one hand and wrap my other arm around his neck, burying my head into his shoulder. I cry into his shirt, not knowing how to begin processing everything I’ve just learned. “The sky,” I say. “I need to look at the sky.”
He doesn’t ask any questions. He knows exactly what I’m referring to, so he grabs my hand and leads me to the car. Jack slips back inside the house as Holder and I pull out of the driveway.
Holder never asks me what Karen said while I was inside the house with her. He knows that I’ll tell him when I can, but right now in this moment, I don’t think I can. Not until I know what I want to do.
He pulls the car over when we get to the airport, but pulls up significantly further than where we normally park. When we walk down to the fence, I’m surprised to see an unlocked gate. Holder lifts the latch and swings it open, motioning for me to walk through.
“There’s a gate?” I ask, confused. “Why do we always climb the fence?”
He shoots me a sly grin. “You were in a dress the two times we’ve been here. Where’s the fun in walking through a gate?”
Somehow, and I don’t know how, I find it in me to laugh. I walk through the gate and he closes it behind me, but remains on the other side of it. I pause and reach my hand out to him. “I want you to come with me,” I say.
“Are you sure? I figured you’d want to think alone tonight.”
I shake my head. “I like being next to you out here. It wouldn’t feel right if I was alone.”
He opens the gate and takes my hand in his. We walk down to the runway and claim our usual spots under the stars. I lay the wooden box next to me, still not sure that I have the courage to open it. I’m not really sure of anything right now. I lay still for over half an hour, silently thinking about my life…about Karen’s life…about Lesslie’s life…and I feel like the decision I’m having to make needs to be one for all three of us.
“Karen is my aunt,” I say aloud. “My biological aunt.” I don’t know if I’m saying it out loud for Holder’s benefit or if I just want to say it out loud for myself.
Holder wraps his pinky around mine and turns his head to look at me. “Your dad’s sister?” he asks, hesitantly. I nod and he closes his eyes, understanding what that means for Karen’s past. “That’s why she took you,” he says, knowingly. He says it like it makes complete sense. “She knew what he was doing to you.”
I confirm his statement with a nod. “She wants me to decide, Holder. She wants me to choose what happens next. The problem is, I don’t know what choice is the right one.”
He takes my entire hand in his now, intertwining our fingers. “That’s because none of them are the right choice,” he says. “Sometimes you have to choose between a bunch of wrong choices and no right ones. You just have to choose which wrong choice feels the least wrong.”
Making Karen pay for something she did out of complete selflessness is without a doubt the worst wrong choice. I know it in my heart, but it’s still a struggle to accept that what she did is something that should have no consequences. I know she didn’t know it at the time, but the fact that Karen took me away from my father only led to what happened to Lesslie. It’s hard to ignore that Karen taking me indirectly led to what happened to my best friend—to the only other girl in Holder’s life that he feels he let down.
“I need to ask you something,” I say to him. He silently waits for me to speak, so I sit up on the concrete and look down at him. “I don’t want you to interrupt me, okay? Just let me get this out.”
He touches my hand and nods, so I continue. “I know that Karen did what she did because she was only trying to save me. The decision she made was made out of love…not hate. But I’m scared that if I don’t say anything…if we keep it to ourselves…that it will affect you. Because I know that what my father did to Les was only done because I wasn’t there, taking her place. And I know there was no way Karen could have foreseen what he would do. I know she tried to do the right thing by reporting him before she became so desperate. But what happens to us? To you and me, when we try to go back to how things were before? I’m scared you’ll hate Karen forever…or that you’ll eventually begin to resent me for whatever choice I make tonight. And I’m not saying I don’t want you to feel whatever it is you need to feel. If you need to hate Karen for what happened to Les, I understand. I guess I just need to know that whatever I choose…I need to know…”
I attempt to find the most eloquent way to say it, but I can’t. Sometimes the most simplistic questions are the hardest to ask. I squeeze his hand and look him in the eyes. “Holder…will you be okay?”
His expression is unreadable as he watches me. He laces his fingers through mine and turns his attention back to the sky above us.
“All this time,” he says, quietly. “For the past year I’ve done nothing but hate and resent Les for what she did. I hated her because we led the exact same life. We had the exact same parents who went through the exact same divorce. We had the exact same best friend who was ripped from our lives. We shared the exact same grief over what happened to you, Sky. We moved to the same town in the same house with the same mom and the same school. The things that happened in her life were the exact same things that happened in mine. But she always took it so much harder. Sometimes at night I would hear her crying. I would always go lay with her and hold her, but there were so many times I just wanted to scream at her for being so much weaker than me.
“Then that night…when I found out what she did…I hated her. I hated her for giving up so easily. I hated that she thought her life was so much harder than mine, when they were the exact same.”
He sits up and turns to face me, taking both of my hands in his. “I know the truth now. I know that her life was a million times harder than mine. And the fact that she still smiled and laughed every single day, but I never had a single clue what kind of shit she had been through…I finally see how brave she really was. And it wasn’t her fault that she didn’t know how to deal with it all. I wish that she would have asked for help or told someone what happened, but everyone deals with these things differently, especially when you think you’re all alone. You were able to block it out and that’s how you coped. I think she tried to do that, but she was a lot older when it happened to her so it made it impossible. Instead of blocking it out and never thinking about it again, I know she did the exact opposite. I know that it consumed every part of her life until she just couldn’t take it anymore.
“And you can’t say that Karen’s choice had any direct link to what your father did to Les. If Karen had never taken you away from him, he more than likely would have still done those things to Les whether you were there or not. It’s who he was. It’s what he did. So if you’re asking me if I blame Karen, the answer is no. The only thing I wish Karen would have done differently…is I wish she could have taken Les, too.”
He wraps his arms around me and brings his mouth to my ear. “Whatever you decide, baby. Whatever you feel will make your heart heal faster…that’s what I want for you. That’s what Les wants for you, too.”
I hug him back and bury my head against his shoulder. “Thank you, Holder.”
He holds me silently while I think about the decision that isn’t even much of a decision anymore. After a while, I pull away from him and lift the box into my lap. I run my fingers across the top of it and hesitate before touching the latch. I press on it and slowly lift the lid as I close my eyes, hesitant to se
e what’s inside of it. I take a deep breath once the lid is lifted, then I open my eyes and peer down into the eyes of my mother. I pick the picture up between my trembling fingers, looking at a woman who could be no one else but the person who created me. From my mouth to my eyes to my cheekbones, I’m her. Every part of me is her.
I set the picture down and pick up the one beneath it. This one causes even more emotions to resurface, because it’s a picture of both of us. I can’t be older than two and I’m sitting in her lap with my arms wrapped around her neck. She’s kissing me on the cheek and I’m staring at the camera with a smile bigger than life. Tears fall onto the picture in my hands, so I wipe them off and place the pictures in Holder’s hands. I need for him to see what I so desperately had to go back to my father’s house for.
There’s one more item in the box. I pick it up and lace the necklace through my fingers. It’s a silver locket in the shape of a star. I snap it open and look at the picture of myself as an infant. Inscribed inside the locket on the side opposite the photo it says, “My ray of Hope.”
I unclasp the necklace and bring it to the back of my neck. Holder reaches up and takes both clasps while I pull my hair up. He fastens it and I let my hair down, then he kisses the side of my head.
“She’s beautiful. Just like her daughter.” He hands the pictures back to me and kisses me gently. He looks down at my locket and opens it, then stares at it for several moments, smiling. He snaps it shut and looks back into my eyes. “Are you ready?”
I place the pictures back inside the box and shut the lid, then look back up at him confidently and nod. “I am.”
Holder walks inside with me this time. Karen and Jack are on the couch and he has his arm around her, holding her hand. She looks up at me when I walk through the door and Jack stands up, preparing to give us privacy once again. “It’s okay,” I say to him. “You don’t have to leave. This won’t take long.”
My words concern him, but he doesn’t say anything in response. He walks a few feet away from Karen so that I can sit next to her on the couch. I place the box on the table in front of her, then take my seat. I turn toward her, knowing that she has no idea what her future holds for her. Despite the fact that she has no idea what choice I’ve made and what’s going to happen to her, she still smiles at me reassuringly. She wants me to know that she’s okay with whatever I chose.
I take her hands in mine and I look her directly in the eyes. I want her to feel and believe what I’m about to say to her, because I don’t want there to be anything but truth between us.
“Mom,” I say, regarding her with as much confidence as I can. “When you took me from my father, you knew the potential consequences of your decision, but you did it anyway. You risked your entire life just to save mine, and I could never ask for you to suffer because of that choice. Giving up your life for me is more than I could ever ask of you. I’m not about to judge you for what you did. The only appropriate thing for me to do at this point…is to thank you. So, thank you. Thank you so much for saving my life.”
Her tears are now falling even harder than my own. We wrap our arms around each other and we cry. We cry mother to daughter. We cry aunt to niece. We cry victim to victim. We cry survivor to survivor.
I can’t begin to imagine the life that Karen has led the past thirteen years. Every choice she made was for my benefit alone. She had assumed once I turned eighteen, that she would confess what she did and would turn herself in to face the consequences. Knowing that she loves me enough that she would be willing to give her whole life up for me almost makes me feel unworthy, now that I know that two people in this world love me in that way. It’s almost too much to accept.
It turns out that Karen really does want to take the next step with Jack, but she was hesitant because she knew she would break his heart once he found out the truth. What she wasn’t expecting is that Jack loves her unconditionally…the same way she loves me. Hearing her confess her past and the choices she had to make only made him more certain about his love for her. I’m guessing that his things will be completely moved in by next weekend.
Karen spends the evening patiently answering all of my questions. My main question was that I didn’t understand how I could have a legal name and the documents to back it up. Karen laughed at that question and explained that, with enough money and the right connections, I was conveniently “adopted” from out of the country and obtained my citizenship when I was seven. I don’t even ask her for the details, because I’m scared to know.
Another question I needed the answer to was the most obvious one…could we get a TV now. Turns out she doesn’t despise technology nearly as much as she had to let on over the years. I have a feeling we’ll be doing some shopping in the electronics department tomorrow.
Holder and I explained to Karen how he came to find out who I was. At first, she couldn’t understand how we could have had such a strong connection at that young of an age…strong enough for him to remember me. But after seeing us interact for a while longer, I think she’s convinced that our connection is real now. Unfortunately, I can also see the