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Dead.
Alex Corzine was dead.
“I've stayed in touch with Theresa,” Elizabeth said. “I don't know if you knew that or not.”
My fingers ached as I squeezed the handle on my coffee mug. “I didn't.”
She hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. Just by email. I can't remember when she reached out to me. Was maybe a year and a half ago? I don't remember exactly when. But she sent me an email.”
“How'd she get your email?” I asked, immediately suspicious.
She frowned at me. “I don't know. Probably by looking for it? Facebook, Snapchat? It's not like I'm in hiding.”
That was fair, though there were times that I'd almost wished she was. She had been adamant, however, that she didn't want to be this person who hid from what had happened to her. Her case had gained a certain amount of national notoriety and every few weeks, we'd get a call from a journalist of some kind, looking to do a story. We would always politely decline.
But she had no interest in hiding who she was or what had happened to her. She was on social media. If friends asked her about it, she'd answer as honestly as she could. She would even make the occasional joke about it.
She'd dealt with it far better than I had.
“Anyway, she emailed me,” she said. “I emailed her back. We've just kept in touch.”
“Why?” I asked before I could stop myself.
She leaned back in the chair and folded her arms across her chest, rubbing at one of her elbows. “I don't know, Dad. Look, the whole thing is just weird, right? Among other things. But none of it was Theresa's fault. She was just a little kid. She thought I was her sister and I thought she was mine. In a lot of ways, she saved me in that house. I've told you that nothing every felt completely right, even if I didn't know what was wrong. But at least with Theresa, I had someone like me.”
I didn't think Theresa was anything like Elizabeth in any way, but I didn't say anything.
“I mean, we played together,” Elizabeth continued. “We watched movies together. I would sometimes have these nightmares and I didn't know what they were about at the time, but she'd come and sleep in the bed with me.” She chewed on her lip for a moment. “I know you don't want to hear this, but not all of my memories from that house are bad. What got me to that house was awful, but for a lot of years, Theresa was my sister.”
The fire in my gut was now a raging inferno. I understood what she was getting at, and I was grateful that her memories weren't all bad, but I'd never forgive anyone in that family for stealing years with my daughter away from me. It wasn't a hurdle I was going to get over, no matter what Elizabeth's feelings were toward them.
“So, we've been communicating,” she said. “Nothing serious or anything like that. I've told her what college is like, she's been telling me about her friends. We stay away from the past.”
I sipped at my coffee and said nothing.
“But she emailed me last week and told me that Alex died,” she said. “He had a heart attack in his sleep, I guess. He didn't wake up. She thought I'd want to know.”
“I'm sorry for Theresa, but I don't care that he's dead,” I said.
A muscle in her jaw twitched and she glanced back down at the table. “I know you don't,” she said softly. “And I understand why. I'm not sure how I feel about it. Sad isn't the right word. I haven't found the right word.”
“I'm sorry for that,” I said. “That it's having any sort of effect on you. And I'm sorry that you were taken from this house and put in theirs.” My voice cracked.
“Dad, no,” she said, holding up a hand. “This isn't about that, and I really don't want to get into it. I know you don't understand all of it and I get why. But it's different for me, and you can't change that.”
I'd heard that multiple times during counseling, that it was different for her. And while I knew that to be true, it didn't make it any easier for me to accept. The entire Corzine family represented my worst nightmare come to life. I didn't care that they'd provided her with a home or treated her well. I didn’t care that they’d loved her, or that they might have felt some of the same loss I’d felt when she finally returned home to Lauren and me. I would never be able to get past the fact that they hadn't asked any questions when she'd been delivered to them, hadn’t questioned where she’d come from. Despite what they had told me, I'd always believed that they knew something wasn't right.
Because of their actions, their choices, they'd always have the years that I didn't get.
And that was something I could never forgive.
I stood, and stacked her plate on top of mine. “I know, and I'm sorry it's so hard for me. And I am sorry for Theresa because you're right; none of what happened to you was her fault.”
“It really wasn't,” she said, nodding her head. “And I haven't spoken to either Valerie or Alex. Since Mom and I went to see them, I mean.”
A tiny arrow pierced my heart. She and Lauren had gone back to Minnesota after we'd gotten Elizabeth back. Elizabeth had asked to go back, to get some of her belongings, to maybe close some doors she'd left open. It had been a difficult trip for both her and Lauren, filled with frustration and tension and anger. We hadn't spoken of it much after that and Elizabeth had never brought it up.
“So it's not like there's been this going on behind your back,” she said. “I don't want you to think that.”
“I don't think that.”
“Good,” she said. She took a deep breath. “Anyway, Theresa thought I'd want to know about him. About...her dad.”
There was something in the way she hesitated, the way she’d tripped over those words, that sent my heart racing. “Okay.”
“But there's something else,” she said.
I set the plates on the counter and took a steadying breath. My heart was still pounding and I felt like I wanted to throw up. “Something else?”
“Yeah.”
I moved the plates from the counter to the sink. “Okay.”
“Dad. Would you look at me, please?”
I took another deep breath and turned around, looking at my daughter.
“Theresa invited me to visit,” Elizabeth said. She swallowed. “And I want to go.”