Текст книги "The Rocker Who Betrays Me"

Автор книги: Terri Browning

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

C HAPTER S EVENTEEN

Annabelle

I knew the second he connected all the dots and found the truth. I didn’t have to see his eyes to know they were completely green now. He’d gone past his normal boundaries and he wasn’t coping well with what my daughter—our daughter—had thrown into his lap. His face twisted in agony and I was pretty sure he’d stopped breathing.

I took a sick sense of pleasure knowing how destroyed he was in that moment. That was the same feeling I’d had when I’d discovered I was pregnant two months after he’d left me without a backward glance and with a broken promise. That was how I’d felt when I’d fallen when I was six months pregnant and had been so scared I was going to lose my precious baby. And it was how I felt times ten million when five years later I’d nearly lost my reason for living.

Every time, I had tried to tell him what was going on, but he couldn’t be bothered to return my calls or even open a damn letter. Memories of pulling that letter out of the mailbox, the red stamp on the front saying ‘return to sender’ without it having been opened, still had the ability to slice at something deep inside of my heart. I’d needed him so much during those terrifying times and he wouldn’t give me so much as five minutes of his time.

My pleasure at his destruction lasted only five seconds. I couldn’t stand there, watching the man who still owned part of my soul falling into the abyss I knew he was so frightened of. His body started to shake and he took a stumbling step toward us. My instinct was to protect my child and I stepped in front of Mieke. He shook his head as if to clear it as he moved past us.

“Don’t leave,” he muttered. “Please…just don’t leave.”

Zander stumbled down the hall and struggled to open a door. Seconds later I heard him retching and my heart ached. Swallowing hard, I turned to face my kid. Concern darkened her green and gold eyes. “Is he going to be okay?” she whispered.

I cupped her cheek with one hand, rubbing my thumb under one beautiful eye. “Maybe not tonight, but he will be soon.” Zander was stronger than he knew and I wanted to help him deal with what must be a nightmare for him. “What were you thinking, honey? Why did you do this?” I was still trembling on the inside from how scared I’d been when I’d gotten that call from Noah.

Mieke’s chin trembled for a brief moment, her eyes continuing to travel down the hall to where her father was still throwing up. “I heard his voice when I talked to you this morning. I knew it was him, Mom. I just knew. Something inside of me needed to see him, to put a real person to the voice I’d heard. To the man you’ve told me so much about over the years. Don’t be mad. Please? I…I just needed to see him.”

I dropped my hand and closed my eyes. I’d never lied to her about who her father was. If she asked about him, I told her. She deserved the truth about the man who had helped me create her. I’d told her everything I remembered about him. Everything…except that he had destroyed me when he’d broken his promise to come back for me. But I knew she knew that. My girl was so special, she could practically feel the emotions in the air, and I knew she had known just how utterly broken I’d been when Zander had decided I wasn’t important enough. But I liked to lie to myself and pretended she didn’t know.

I stroked my fingers over her hair and asked the one question I was dying to know—although I was pretty sure I already knew the answer. “How did you know where he lived, Mieke?”

“It wasn’t hard to hack his email and bank accounts. I got his address off his bank statements. But I didn’t mean for this to happen,” she whispered. I blew out a frustrated breath through my nose. Damn it, she was too smart for her own good. It wasn’t the first time she’d ‘hacked’ someone to get the information she wanted. “I didn’t mean to upset him this much.”

“I know, honey. I know.” From down the hall I heard Zander groan, curse viciously, and then vomit again. “Sit down. I’m going to go check on your…dad.” It felt so strange saying that word, but once it was out it seemed so right that it made my heart ache all over again.

“Tell him I’m sorry,” she murmured as she sat. I didn’t answer her as I walked down the hall. She had nothing to be sorry for, but if she wanted him to know she was, then she could tell him herself.

Zander was on his knees in front of the guest bathroom toilet, his head in the bowl as he retched yet again. There wasn’t anything left in his stomach now and he was just dry-heaving. Seeing him like this gave me no pleasure and I was ashamed of myself for feeling it earlier. I wouldn’t wish this pain on anyone, especially not him. This was just the beginning, too. How was he going to handle knowing everything?

Finding a washcloth, I dampened it with cool water in the bathroom sink and knelt down beside him, wiping it over his brow. He jerked when I touched him, his tortured eyes lifting to mine as tears spilled down his face. “I didn’t know,” he muttered.

I just nodded as I continued to wipe his face. I didn’t know what to say to him right then, so I remained quiet. He didn’t need words at the moment. Hell, I didn’t know what he needed. I knew nothing about this Zander.

“Knew I wasn’t good enough for you, Anna.” He let out a moan and closed his eyes as I wiped the cloth over his jaw. “I’m a fuck-up.”

I sighed and stood long enough to rewet the washcloth. Seventeen years ago, I would have argued with him, but I didn’t know how to defend him now. Maybe he had been a fuck-up back then and I’d just refused to believe him. Love was blind, and I’d loved him so much. When he’d left, I’d lost a part of myself that I doubted I’d ever get back.

I lifted the washcloth to his face again, but he grabbed my wrist, stopping me. “How much do you hate me, Anna?”

That question had me biting the inside of my cheek. Honestly, there had been times I’d thought I’d hated this man all the way to my core. And then I’d look at my daughter and realize that I couldn’t hate the man who had given her to me. Pulling my wrist free, I returned to wiping his brow. “Starting to feel better?” I kept my voice quiet, not wanting Mieke to overhear us.

“Don’t,” he muttered.

I frowned. “Don’t what?”

He scrubbed a hand over his face, pressing his thumb and index finger hard into his eyes. “Don’t be nice to me. Don’t take care of me. I don’t deserve it. I never did.”

“I can’t,” I whispered. Maybe he didn’t deserve it, but I couldn’t stop myself from helping him. I never had been able to. My heart would probably always be weak where this man was concerned.

“Mom?” Mieke called. “Is Dad okay?”

Zander flinched at the word ‘Dad’, jerking in pain like he’d been shot. “Fuck,” he muttered, rubbing his hand across his chest. “She’s killing me.”

I stared at him for the longest time, trying to decide how to explain Mieke to him. “We’ll be out in a minute, Mieke.”

“I like her name,” he said as he pushed up from his knees and sat on the edge of the tub. “How did you come up with it?”

I lowered my eyes to the cloth in my hand, concentrating on folding it perfectly so I didn’t have to meet his eyes. “It’s a Dutch variation of my middle name. Her full name is Mieke Zandria Cassidy.” I could feel his gaze drilling into the top of my head as I whispered her name. “She is part of me and you. I wanted her name to represent us both.”

“It’s a beautiful name, Anna.”

“I thought so too.” I looked up long enough to give him a brief, sad smile before turning my gaze back to the cloth. “She’s everything I’ve ever wanted, Z. I should tell you about her...”

“Does she have my OCD?” he asked, his face looking haunted.

I quickly shook my head, knowing that he’d always worried about passing his mental illness on to any child he might happen to have. I remembered him always telling Noah that he wasn’t sure he wanted kids when he was older, that he didn’t want to subject a poor kid with what he’d always had to live with. “She doesn’t have it.”

His body noticeably relaxed. “Thank fuck for that. Look, I want to hear everything about her. From both of you.” He scrubbed a hand down his face. “Give me a minute to clean myself up, babe. I can’t face her like this.”

Zander left me there and I watched him walk in the direction I could only assume was his bedroom. I set the damp cloth on the sink and went back to the living room. Mieke was sitting where I’d left her, but her face was full of anxiety. I sat down beside her and pulled her into my arms.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t realize… I’m sorry.”

I tucked her head under my chin and tightened my hold around her. “It’s okay, baby. You wanted to see him and I understand your need to. Everything will be okay. I swear.”

She let out a shuddery breath and we sat there in silence while we waited for Zander to come out of his bedroom. He was gone five minutes and when he sat down on the coffee table in front of us, he’d changed his clothes and his hair was damp from the shower. His face was still pale, but there was a new determination in his eyes. Eyes that weren’t all green anymore. There was more gold now and I was proud of him for grabbing hold of his control for his daughter.

Slowly, Mieke lifted her head and met her father’s gaze. She swallowed hard and gave him a tight smile. “I’m sorry I upset you. When I decided to come here I didn’t realize how hard it would be for you. I mean, I knew it was hard for me, but I didn’t know it would make you…” She broke off and sucked in another shaky breath. “I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about, Mieke. Ever. I was upset—am upset—but not at you, sweetheart.” He gave her a smile I remembered from our childhood; one I’d grown to rely on as we’d gotten older. It was full of so many different things that I knew our girl needed right then: reassurance, understanding…love.

Zander held out his hand and she didn’t hesitate to take it. His smile didn’t waver as he looked at her. “Tell me about yourself. I want to know everything about my daughter.”

Mieke’s eyes quickly locked onto mine, as if she were almost frightened to talk about herself. I tried to mirror Zander’s smile. “How about I start from the beginning?” She nodded and I cleared my throat. “Mieke was born three months early. She and…her twin sister.”

My eyes were on Mieke’s but I could practically feel Zander’s reaction. The air went completely still around him and I gave my daughter a watery smile. Thinking about her sister always ripped open old emotions and memories that were painful.

“We have another daughter?” His voice was raspy, but I didn’t so much as blink, not daring to break eye contact with Mieke when she needed me.

I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “No, we had another daughter. Mieke and her identical twin were born three months too early because I’d fallen and it put me into labor. They couldn’t stop it so they had to take both babies by C-section.” A tear spilled from Mieke’s green and gold eyes, and I lifted a trembling hand to wipe it away. “There were complications. They were too early and I nearly lost them both.”

“Go on,” he whispered roughly, encouraging me when I would have stopped. The memories were overwhelming me.

“The doctors knew there was going to be no helping Michelle… That’s what I named her, Michelle Anna Cassidy. I used a variation of your middle name and my first for her,” I explained.

“It’s beautiful, Anna.”

“She was. Even as small as she was, she was so beautiful. Just like Mieke.”

“Wh-what happened?”

“Mieke’s lungs were better developed than Michelle’s, but there was a hole in her heart…and other complications with it. The doctor said that even if I’d carried to full term, that Mieke’s heart would still have had issues.  Michelle’s was perfect, but there were so many other complications with her that there was no way to help her. The doctors came into my room and told me that I could lose one daughter…” The first tear fell, but I didn’t bother to wipe it away. Every time I cried for Michelle, I never wiped away the tears. It felt like I was wiping away her memory if I did. “…Or both. I didn’t understand what he was telling me at first, and I was barely out from under the anesthesia, but I remember the doctor looking at Noah and explaining that they wanted to give Michelle’s heart to Mieke.”

Without releasing her father’s hand, Mieke tugged her shirt down until the top of her scar was visible on her chest. It was just a faded white scar now, not the angry red it had been for the first years of her life. As she’d grown, the scar had gotten smaller, but it was still a big scar. “Mom didn’t lose her, Dad. Michelle is still alive as long as my heart beats.”

I glanced at Zander then. Saw the way his whole body seemed to shudder in agony. I knew how he was feeling. It was like your heart was bleeding. Every time I looked at Mieke, I felt that way. I expected him to jump up, to turn away from us, as his eyes filled with tears. When he didn’t, but just tightened his hold on Mieke’s hand, I was surprised but proud of him.

We were all quiet for a long moment, each of us lost in our own thoughts. Finally I cleared my throat and went on. “Noah and Chelsea gave Michelle a funeral. Mieke and I both had to stay in the hospital for a long time afterward—Mieke much longer than me, of course. They buried Michelle beside my dad, which was pretty close to Gram and Gramps too, if you ever want to go see her.”

I hadn’t known until after my brother had buried Michelle that Zander’s grandparents had died. He must have kept it out of the papers, probably to make sure I didn’t go to the funeral. At that time, it had just been one more blow to my heart. I had hoped to take Mieke down to West Bridge and share her with her great-grandmother, if not her father. I knew Gram and Gramps would have loved her… And yeah, I knew the old lady would have beat her grandson with a spoon the second she found out he hadn’t been in contact with me since he’d left, not letting me tell him he was going to be a father.

“I do,” he choked out. “Soon.”

I nodded. “Okay.” I went to visit her every Sunday when I was home. Yet another reason I didn’t know if I was going to be able to take Emmie Armstrong up on her offer. Maybe if I could work from Tennessee, like I’d been doing, but not if I had to be in California so often. I knew she’d said that becoming partners didn’t mean I had to leave Nashville, but I had a feeling that California would be where I was most needed.

“I got to go home when I was six months old, Dad.” Mieke continued when she realized I was reluctant to go on. I didn’t want to get to the other part. I didn’t want to remember…

“I looked like a little drowned rat with no hair, but by the time I was two I was where everyone said I was supposed to be. The doctors always said I’d be tiny, but by the time I was four I was taller than average. Mom says I’m still a shrimp because I get my height from you and I should probably be taller.” She smiled for him, the one to reassure him this time. “And because I have Michelle’s heart, I like to think that I can live enough for both of us. I try to, anyway.”

“You do, sweetheart,” I assured her. “You do.”

Zander nodded, agreeing readily with me. “Yeah, honey. You do.” His gaze turned to me all of a sudden. “That was why you called Rich. Because of the babies… But what happened later? Why did you wait until then to try and call me again?”

I closed my eyes. Remembering what had happened when I’d lost Michelle was hard to face every day, but at the same time I’d always been thankful for what time I’d had with her. I’d gotten to hold her for a few minutes before they had taken away both my babies and only returned with one. What had happened five years later…? That’s the one memory I hated to remember. It was the one that I woke up in a cold sweat to some nights.

“It’s okay, Mom.” Mieke squeezed my hand and I opened my eyes, smiling for her. It would always ever be just for her when I smiled with those memories running through my head.

“You’re scaring the hell out of me here, Anna.” Zander’s voice growled at me. “What happened? What put that look on your face and how the fuck do I erase it?”

I opened my mouth but the sound of the doorbell stopped me. I frowned, glancing at the clock on his wall beside the television. It was nearly midnight, so who the hell could be at his door? Jealousy shot painfully through my chest. Was I about to come face to face with one of Zander’s many lovers? I didn’t know if I could handle that after just ripping my heart open by telling him about our daughters and then having to face the near tragedy of losing Mieke five years later.

“That’s my food,” Mieke surprised me by saying as she got to her feet. “They had your card on file so I charged it to that. Is that okay, Dad?”

“Yeah, that’s fine, sweetheart.”

She rushed to answer the door. Zander and I stayed where we were, our gazes lovingly watching our daughter. She said something to the delivery boy and then set the two bags of food on the table by the door. After the boy left, she stepped halfway out the door and pressed the doorbell thirteen more times.

Zander chuckled. “I guess you really did tell her all about me.”

“I never lied to her when she asked about you, Z. She deserved to know.”

His jaw clenched and he nodded, but didn’t say anything more.

Returning to us, she grinned at her father. Setting the two bags on the coffee table beside Zander, she started taking out cartons of delicious-smelling Chinese food. Finding the egg rolls, she stuffed half of one in her mouth before continuing her task.

“Are you going to eat all of this by yourself?” Zander didn’t look like he believed it could happen, and I threw my head back, laughing for what felt like the first time in forever. He frowned at me. “You mean she can?”

“And more,” I assured him.

 

C HAPTER E IGHTEEN

Zander

My kid could put away some food.

My kid.

I never thought I would say those words, but watching Mieke stuff the last egg roll into her mouth, I realized it felt right. She was so beautiful, so full of life, and completely perfect. When she’d told me about Michelle always living as long as her heart still beat, I’d lost my shit. It had taken everything in me to stay where I was and not run back to the bathroom. But I knew I couldn’t do that. She needed me. Annabelle needed me.

While she ate her noodles, fried rice, and honey chicken, she told me a little more about herself. Annabelle remained mostly quiet while Mieke spoke of her childhood. I now knew she had to wear braces when she was twelve, but only for a year. I now knew she liked raspberry sherbet, and hated pickles. I even now knew that she was a year ahead in school and would be graduating this year from high school. My kid was some kind of freaking math genius and she had her pick of colleges.

I liked hearing Mieke talk, but what I really needed right then was to know what had happened when she was five. What had put that haunted look on Annabelle’s face? What was worse than losing one of our babies?

I waited until Mieke was leaning back against the couch beside her mother. Her stomach was finally full and she had a content smile on her face. The second I asked about it, the small smile that was on Annabelle’s lips disappeared and Mieke sat up a little straighter, but she looked more concerned for Annabelle than anything.

“I’d just turned five,” Mieke said, her tone soft as if she were afraid to speak too loudly. “Mom was out of town with Uncle Noah for a charity concert and I had a field trip to the Parthenon in downtown Nashville. Aunt Chelsea was supposed to go with my class, but Ben was sick and she had to take him to the doctor.”

“Ben?”

Mieke smiled a little easier this time. “My cousin. He’s a year younger than me, and my best friend. He has a sister, Audrey. She’s three years younger than me.”

“Do they look like Noah?” I asked Annabelle, curious about my old friend’s kids. Did they look like him, like Mieke looked like me? Or did they look like Chelsea?

She nodded. “Ben is his double, but Audrey looks more like Chelsea.”

I turned back to Mieke. “Okay, so you were on a field trip?”

“After we walked through the Parthenon we had lunch out on the lawn. I ate my lunch and then some of the other kids started playing. I didn’t want to, so I stayed on my blanket and fell asleep. The teachers were more concerned with watching the ones running around than me.” She shrugged. “So they didn’t notice when someone grabbed me.”

Annabelle let out a whimper and I instinctively grasped her hand as my heart started racing. “What?” I didn’t mean to shout, but I didn’t have control over the volume of my voice right then.

Mieke nodded as I felt Annabelle tremble with the memories. “There had been a lot of visitors at the Parthenon that day. One of them was a woman who’d just lost her daughter to cancer. When she saw me just lying on the blanket, she took me.”

Annabelle stood up so quickly I didn’t know how to react. She combed her fingers through her long, pale-blond hair, scattering the streaks of hot pink. “I can’t,” she whispered. “I just can’t do this.”

“Anna?” I’d never seen her like this. It gutted me to see it now. The look on her face told me she was reliving a nightmare. She was shaking and looked so pale it was as if what Mieke was telling me had happened only the day before and not nearly twelve years before.

She turned to face me with eyes that were wild. “Some psycho took our baby, Z. She just took her in the middle of a crowded place and no one even saw her. She had her for two days. Two. Days. Do you know how that feels? Do you? To have the reason you get up in the morning missing and not knowing if she’s okay? If she were cold or scared? If someone was hurting her?”

My throat tightened and I couldn’t breathe, let alone speak, so I shook my head. I had no clue what she had felt then, but if it was half as bad as what I was feeling right then, just hearing about what had happened, then I could imagine.

“This girl?” She pointed at Mieke with a finger that shook. “She is my reason for breathing and I couldn’t wrap my arms around her. I couldn’t hold her and tell her everything was going to be okay. She was scared and alone with a woman who could have done anything to her. At the time we didn’t know if it was a man or a woman, a pedophile or what. The local cops brought in the Feds, but they had no leads and after the first day they told me that statistically I wasn’t ever going to get her back.”

“Mom, I’m okay. It’s over. That was years ago. She didn’t hurt me.” Mieke tried to soothe her mother, but Annabelle shook her head and let out a sob that cut me to the quick.

She turned accusing eyes on me. “I didn’t want to believe them. I refused. I tried calling you. I tried so many times to just get you to speak to me for a minute. Two seconds. Anything. Our baby was missing and I n-needed you.”

I reached for her, unable to not touch her a second longer. I grabbed her trembling hand and pulled her down onto my lap. A broken sob seemed to tear from her chest as she clung to me. “I needed you,” she whispered.

I buried my face in her hair, letting my tears fall. “I know. I know.”

“You b-broke your promise.” If she had hit me, I couldn’t have hurt more. I almost wished she would hit me. Beat the shit out of me. I needed it, fucking deserved it. Maybe the physical pain would relieve some of the emotions choking the air out of me right then. “I needed you—we needed you and you just left us. You didn’t want us.”

“I did want you,” I groaned into her hair. “I wanted you so bad I hurt.”

Annabelle shook her head, still sobbing. “No. If you had, you would have come back. You wouldn’t have broken your promise.”

I didn’t argue with her. There was no use right then when she was so distraught, and I didn’t have the emotional strength to go down the road of what I’d been feeling back then—what I still felt now. All my energy was focused on Annabelle and how she was falling apart in my arms.

A soft hand touched my arm and I lifted my head just enough to see Mieke standing beside us. She had one hand on my arm, but the other was rubbing her sobbing mother’s back. “Please don’t cry, Mom.” Annabelle’s sobs abruptly stopped but turned into little hiccups that tortured me just as bad as her sobs had. “And don’t take your pain out on Dad. If he’d known, he would have been there with you.”

Hearing her defend me like that to her mother shamed me. I didn’t deserve her taking up for me like that. I’d left her mother and, in my refusal to face my pain and self-hate, I’d essentially left Mieke as well. I’d failed them both. I deserved everything Annabelle threw at me and so much more.

Eventually Annabelle cried herself to sleep, her arms still wrapped around my neck. I lifted my eyes from the beautiful girl, who had turned into an even more exquisite woman, to meet my daughter’s tired gaze.

Mieke gave me a sad smile. “She always does this when she remembers…” She broke off and shrugged. “I guess it exhausts her.”

I brushed my lips over Annabelle’s forehead and stood with her in my arms. “Come on,” I told the girl. “You and your mom should get some sleep.”

I carried Annabelle down the hall to my bedroom and laid her in the middle of the king-sized bed. Pulling the covers over her, I glanced at Mieke who was standing on the other side of the bed. “You two take the bed. I’ll take the couch.”

I had another bedroom, but I’d turned it into my music room. It had my keyboard and guitars in it. I’d fix that in the morning, I promised myself. I wanted Annabelle and Mieke to stay with me for as long as they were going to be in California. I didn’t want to waste another second away from them.

Mieke lifted her green and gold gaze from her mother, startling me yet again with their unique blend of the two colors. Her eyes couldn’t be labeled as hazel; there was too much green. The gold was just enough to catch your attention and hold it. “Would you… Will you lie with us for a little while? I’m tired, but I don’t think I could fall asleep right away.” I blinked, surprised by her softly spoken question, and she bit her bottom lip. “Please? Just for a little while?”

Giving her a nod, I climbed in on the right side of the bed beside Annabelle. Instinctively, I wrapped an arm around her and pulled her against my chest. She let out a soft, shuddery breath and burrowed against me as if she was desperate to get closer in her sleep.

Mieke kicked off her shoes and turned off the light as she climbed into bed on the other side of her mother. With the door still open, I could see her worried face as she watched me holding her mother so close. “She acts so strong that sometimes I forget how vulnerable she really is.” Mieke stroked a hand down Annabelle’s arm, seeming so much older than she really was.

We lay like that for several long minutes, both of us quiet as we watched Annabelle sleep. My gut was churning, my mind racing from what Mieke had told me earlier. Maybe I hadn’t been there to feel the fear when my daughter had been taken, but I felt it right then. Annabelle must have lost her mind…

“How did they find you?” I couldn’t help but ask, my mind stumbling over all the things that could have happened to my little girl when she’d been snatched.

The hand that had been stroking up and down Annabelle’s arm lifted to her mother’s hair, combing her fingers over the hot-pink strands. “Mrs. Viars didn’t hurt me, Dad. So don’t torture yourself about that, okay?” She continued to stroke Annabelle’s hair, as if she needed to soothe her mother even though she was sleeping. “She took me to her home and fed me mac and cheese, played Barbies with me. I was scared, but only for a little while. She was nice but distraught from the loss of her daughter. Later they told me that it was because I reminded her of her little girl that she took me. Her mind was protecting her from the pain of the recent loss, and seeing me confused her.”

I swallowed around the lump in my throat, relief washing through me as she told me about her time with this Mrs. Viars woman. “But how did they find you, sweetheart?” I needed to know or I knew I’d never get another second of sleep for the rest of my life.

Mieke smiled, as if knowing how badly I needed her answer. “Mrs. Viars’ sister came to check on her two days after she took me. When she saw me and realized I was the little girl the entire state was looking for, she called nine-one-one. She didn’t want the cops to scare me, or her sister to get hurt, so she told them to be gentle. A woman, a Fed I guess, knocked on the door a few minutes later and took custody of Mrs. Viars.” She shrugged. “I don’t remember a lot after that. It became kind of crazy. I remember a cop picking me up and wrapping a blanket around me because I was still in Mrs. Viars’ daughter’s nightgown and it was chilly outside. I remember being a little scared about all the strangers and the flashing lights of all the cop cars. One woman might have come into the house, but there were at least twenty cop cars outside.”

“Was…your mom there?”

“No. They wouldn’t let her come to the scene. The cop put me in the back of an ambulance and let me play with his badge on the ride to the hospital. He stayed with me while a doctor checked me over to make sure I wasn’t hurt. Someone brought her and Uncle Noah to the hospital.” I saw her chin tremble and lifted my arm from around Annabelle to pull her closer.

“Mom was a little hysterical at first, but when she saw me she tried to keep her calm. I remember her smiling even though she was crying pretty hard. She grabbed me and wouldn’t let me go. She had never squeezed me that hard until that day. She had always been so careful when she hugged me up until then. Uncle Noah was crying too, and I thought that was crazy because I’d never seen him cry before. Seeing his tears scared me more than anything else had during that entire time.” She swallowed with difficulty and continued with a whisper. “It was only then that I realized something bad had happened. That what had happened to me had been something some little girls didn’t come back from.”