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I leaned back against the counter. “She invited you to visit?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Just, whenever. Not for the funeral or anything like that. But I'd like to go see her.”
“Why?” My throat was raw, my tone clipped.
“Because of all the things I just told you about her,” she said. “Because I have a relationship with her. Because it will be different than when I went back before. Because I want to. ”
“Because you want to,” I repeated.
“I'm not gonna lie to you,” she said. She crossed her arms, a defensive sort of posture. “I don't want to lie about any of this. That's why I'm telling you all this. That's why I wanted to talk to you. To tell you, so it didn't seem like I was keeping it from you.”
I placed my hands on the counter to keep them from shaking. “You already went back once? Remember?”
“Of course I remember,” she said, frowning. “I just said I remembered. And it sucked. It wasn't the right time. Mom hated it. I hated it. It sucked. We probably shouldn't have gone. I wasn't ready to. And I know, I was the one who pushed for it. Well, I was wrong and I knew it. But now?” She shook her head. “Now it's different. I know who I am. I know where I belong.” Her eyes found mine and her gaze was steady. “Here.”
This should have calmed me, provided some reassurance, but it didn’t. Because all I could think of was Elizabeth leaving. Not just leaving, but returning to the place I thought she’d been stolen away to.
“So what else is there, then?” I asked. “What else is there to go back to?”
“I have no idea,” she said. “But that's sort of why I'd like to go. Just for a few days. To see Theresa, to just...be there. I don't know.”
If she was there, she wouldn’t be here.
Again.
I shook my head. “No.”
Surprise appeared on her face. “No?”
“No,” I repeated. “I don't want you going. You can email her all you want or do whatever. Text her, talk to her on the phone, I don't care. But, no, I don't want you going there again. And, Jesus Christ. I thought we settled all of this when you decided to stay here for school. I thought it was over.”
There'd been a moment in time when she'd considered going to school in Minnesota. I wasn't crazy about the idea, and it never really progressed beyond the what-if stage, but just the prospect had unnerved me. I didn't tell her she couldn't go to school there, but I’d never had to. I'd always hoped she'd stay and she had.
This felt different.
She rose from her chair and then slid it back under the table. “You know how old I am, right?” she asked. “Like, you get that I'm an adult and you can't just ban me from going to a state, right? I mean, unless you want to lock me in a room or something.”
“I don't want you going,” I said.
“I heard that part,” she said. Her mouth was set in a firm line, and she looked so much like her mother in that moment, I almost gasped in surprise. “I also heard the part where you said you're forbidding me from going.”
“How exactly do you expect me to respond to this?” I asked her. “I promised you I wouldn't get pissed, but what are you expecting from me? How do you want me to respond?”
“Maybe the way you did the first time?” she said, referencing the trip she took with Lauren. “When you ran interference with Mom and convinced her that it wouldn't be the end of the world if I went?”
“Totally different,” I said. “That was a one shot deal, and you did what you needed to do.”
And it had also been with someone who I knew would protect her.
And who would bring her back.
“I did what I needed to do then,” she said. “It's different now.”
“How?”
She rested her hands on the back of the chair. “Now I've got some distance. Alex is dead so I don't have to deal with him. I had other friends, Dad. Friends that I've never seen or spoken to since I ran away from there. But they were my friends. They weren't a part of that guy taking me and selling me. They had nothing to do with that. They were my friends.”
“Email them.”
“I'd need their email addresses to do that,” she said. “Which I can get when I go.”
“I don't want you going.”
“You said that,” she said. “You can't stop me, though.”
I started to say something, then stopped. She was right, of course. I couldn't stop her. She was old enough to make her own decisions and go where she wanted. I didn't have to like it, but I couldn't prevent her from going to Minnesota if she was really determined to do so.
And I really didn't like that.
I walked out of the kitchen toward the bedroom, grabbed my track jacket and pulled it on over my T-shirt. I pulled on my running shoes without untying them, the cuffs of my jeans caught awkwardly behind the tongues.
“Where are you going?” Elizabeth asked as I headed toward the front door.
“Out,” I snapped at her. “Definitely not to Minnesota.”
“Dad, come on,” she pleaded. “I don't want to do this this way.”
“What way do you want to do it then?” I asked.
She didn't say anything.
“You're right,” I said, zipping up the jacket with such force I was surprised the fabric didn’t rip. “I can't stop you. You're old enough now to go where you want to go when you want to go. So I can't do anything about that. All I can tell you is that I don't want you to go. You can do with that what you want.” I headed for the door. “See you later.”