I know that everyone is staring at us as we walk down the aisle to get off the plane. The children are confused. I have no idea what I’m going to tell them. I have no idea what I’m going to tell Russel.
We pass the man in the Hawaiian shirt. My skin bristles. I feel dirty and exposed just being within arm’s reach. I hold my breath, as if the air surrounding him might somehow be contaminated. It was the same way I used to hold my breath when I’d hear Henry coming down the stairs first thing in the morning. I was never certain if he’d be in a good mood or not.
I’ve read a few articles about women who’ve survived the kinds of things I have. A lot of them talk about how important it was to get therapy after what they’d been through. I never saw a therapist myself. Couldn’t stand the thought of sitting in front of some stranger reliving everything … everything …
I actually haven’t told anyone the full truth.
I learned to hide the emotion, at times even from myself, but my hatred and loathing for Henry grew with each passing day of my captivity. It’s hard to imagine now that I could despise him so much and still ache for his pain. Still mourn his tragic family life. I don’t pretend to understand how or why it turned out that way, but that’s what happened.
I had no idea two full years had passed since my kidnapping. I’d lost track of time. Didn’t know if I’d been in Henry’s basement for four months or four decades. It all felt exactly the same to me.
It was the day I finally learned the truth about what happened to Henry’s daughter. I’d grown so used to Jennifer’s disappearance being such a mystery, I think I actually forgot sometimes that Henry was mourning the loss of a real flesh-and-blood human being and not some phantom he’d created in his mind.
“You snuck out of the house that night,” he tells me. There’s something strange in his voice. I don’t think he’s drunk, but there’s something not quite right. Sometimes he calls me Jennifer, and other times he talks about her as if we’re separate people and always have been.
“I would have let you go if you asked me.” His voice is so pained my heart feels like it’s going to bleed dry. “I would have driven you to make sure you got there safely.”
I know he doesn’t really expect me to answer him back, so I simply sit and listen. I’m not thinking about his daughter. I’m not thinking about how strange it is that he’s finally decided to talk about what happened to her after all this time I’ve been with him. I’m thinking about how sad he sounds, about how desperately I’d like to find a way to make him smile. To ease his pain.
“She was stubborn. There was a boy there that she liked.” The words jog a distant memory, the vaguest of notions that at one point I also was a teenage girl who had crushes and went out to parties and did things I hoped my parents would never find out about.
“You were beat up pretty bad.” He’s staring at me now, but there’s something strange in his eyes, like he’s not really looking at me at all. I feel exposed. Vulnerable. For a second, I want to ask him to stop, but then I think that maybe if he gets the rest of this story off his chest, it’ll finally bring him the relief we’ve been searching for.
“I went out looking for you. I searched everywhere. And there you were, in the woods behind your old school. I swear I didn’t lay a finger on you. It wasn’t me, but they wouldn’t believe me. Police asked me all kinds of questions. Why I went out looking for you myself instead of calling 911. Why two girls said they saw me pick Jennifer up from that party even though I said she ran away. Why I couldn’t show them the next day exactly where it was I’d found you so they could test the crime scene themselves. Why I brought you home and didn’t think to take you to a hospital right away. I had no idea the injuries were that bad. She was in bad shape, Jennifer was, but I thought she was drunk. Heaven and everything blessed forgive me, but I thought she was drunk and that’s why she was so floppy in my arms. Kids do that, you know. Teens do that. But they did an autopsy and there wasn’t a drop of alcohol in your system, my little pineapple. I’m sorry I ever even suspected you. You hadn’t been drinking, but I didn’t know that. I thought you just needed to come home. I thought you needed to sleep it off.”
Henry’s voice is cracking, and my heart aches so much it’s decided to hold still. I can’t erase the words you say next. Can’t stop you when you start to cry.
“The next morning, I wanted to let you sleep in. By the time I started to get worried, you were cold. Heaven help me if it’s not the blessed truth. You were already cold. I called 911 right away then. Screamed at them to get me an ambulance. Begged them to help you, but they couldn’t. It was too late by then. But that wasn’t all. It was bad enough losing you. Then everyone thought I’m the one who did it. I was in a bad way after Jennifer’s mother died. Lost my job. Didn’t function too great. One doctor said I had an illness in my brain, but he was a quack.
“I’d gotten angry with you before. I guess you even told the school counselor you were worried for me. You had every right to tell her those things, by the way, and I’ve never blamed you, but by heaven that counselor took your words and twisted them and told the police that you were scared of me. Can you believe it? Scared of me. And they couldn’t understand how if it happened the way I said it happened that I could have just put you in bed to die. Heaven help me, Jennifer, but I swear I had no idea you were that bad off. You’ll never forgive me, but you have to know how sorry I am. I love you so much, pineapple. I’ve never stopped loving you.”
And something clicks in my head right then. Memories of home, of love, of my parents. It’s like I’ve been living under a shadow and the spell is finally broken.
I look at Henry, who’s begging me to believe him, whose cries have turned into sobs, and I wake up from a two-year-long hypnosis.
“I believe you,” I say, gritting my jaw because I truly want to gag on the words. “I know you didn’t mean to do it.” Except I’m lying to him. For the first time in Henry’s basement, I feel like my brain is working clearly. Call it survival instinct, or maybe it was the answer to all my mother’s prayers, but I realize now that I’ve been duped by a crazy man.
A man who’s not only crazy but a murderer.
“I believe you,” I repeat, even though I’ve put the pieces together to know exactly what happened to Henry’s daughter so many years ago. The way he talks about it, the way he lets things slip out, this bizarre explanation he’s trying to get me to believe, I can read through the lines and finally know what happened.
Jennifer sneaked away from home. That part’s true enough. She went to a party, probably flirted with that boy Henry mentioned she liked. And the rest is easy to piece together. Henry realized what she’d done. Either he went looking for her himself or waited until she came home. Where he found her didn’t matter as much as what he did next. Beat her to death. Then put her in her bed. Turned off his alarm and waited until she was completely cold before he called the police the next morning and made up an elaborate story about driving all around town and finding her battered body in a field.
I know it’s true as clearly as I know my name isn’t Jennifer Harris. I don’t belong here. This isn’t my home. There’s a life and a family and a future beyond these cement walls, and somehow I’m going to get myself out of this prison. Henry won’t let me leave without a fight, but if it comes down to his life or mine, I’m going to win my freedom no matter how much it costs.