Unmissing(14)

For a woman who puts unquestionable stock in the concept of angels, does she ever wonder where Amber’s angels were when her number was called?

Maybe life is easier when you believe in something. I have no doubt my time with The Monster would’ve been a percentage point or two more tolerable had I clung to the belief that someone was watching over me, planning to rescue me when the moment was right.

But it was only ever me, The Monster, and a million miles of solitude.

No one came.

No one cared.

No one was looking.

He made damned sure I knew that, too—showcasing local newspapers that had stopped running stories about my disappearance, opting to replace that coverage with articles on property tax levies and visits from state senators.

In the blink of an eye, I became old news.

Erased.

Clocking out of my thoughts, I page through the crystal bible, landing on a chapter about carnelians—ugly little red-brown stones said to restore vitality, instill creativity, and intensify motivation. Fitting, seeing as how I came here to get my life back, and I’m going to have to get creative to do so. One could argue my motivation is intense, too.

So that’s how this works—confirmation bias. You take a generic word like “luck” or “surprise” or “fortune” or “gratitude,” attach it to a stone, and then apply it to whatever scenario matches your current situation.

Easy enough.

I flip to a different section, landing on the page for amazonite—a rock named for women warriors and said to protect the balance between strength and caregiving. If I were a married mother like Merritt, perhaps I’d identify with this one.

I don’t blame her for not believing me last night. I didn’t intend to show up at her door so late, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to turn around and walk five miles to town with nothing to show for my efforts.

Besides, I was hoping my husband would be the one answering the door. He wouldn’t have turned me away or denied my existence, that I know for sure.

I wanted him to see me like that—decrepit, homeless, but still very much alive.

In a perfect scenario, the newest Mrs. Coletto would’ve invited me in and the three of us would’ve gathered at their kitchen table. Leaving no detail spared, I’d have told them all about my nine years with the man I called The Monster, how I finally escaped, and everything that has led me to this moment.

Reclaiming my life is going to be a backbreaking process, emotionally excruciating at times, but after having been through hell and back, this should be a cakewalk.

I picture Merritt sitting in her state-of-the-art, well-appointed home with her bulbous belly. Her German luxury SUV still warm in the garage from her day about town. The ocean waves crashing outside her windows as the sun lowers in the sky.

I hope she’s considering what I said at the grocery store.

I hope she’s accepting the fact that I’m back—and that I’m not leaving.

I hope she’s contemplating all the ways to make this fair for all involved.

I also pray the next time we run into each other, she’ll actually listen to what I have to say—and then she’ll bring me to my husband.

Grabbing the stack of Delphine’s books, I take them to my new room. I leave the door open because my near-decade in captivity has made me borderline claustrophobic. Tossing the paperbacks on the bed, I head to the window. It’s barely fifty degrees out and the thing is drafty as hell, but I crack it a couple of inches anyway to feel some fresh air—yet another thing I’ll never take for granted.

I’ll likely sleep with it open tonight, too, and under a million covers to stay warm because those are yet another one of life’s little comforts I’ve gone without for far too long. Even on nights when the wind howled outside the cabin, The Monster would zip himself into a thermal, insulated sleeping bag while I shivered beneath a thin, dirty sheet.

He never liked for me to be too comfortable. He needed to make it clear that the cockroaches in the makeshift kitchenette would be better fed and given more freedom than me.

The Monster said it’d be cruel to give me hope.

I learned early on the difference between cruelty and evil.

I’ll take cruelty any day.

I devour the pages of Delphine’s crystal bible the way a preteen might devour a book about wizards and dragons. To think that people believe rocks can vibrate and project enough energy to gift their owners with health, wealth, and prosperity is nothing short of fantasy fiction.

The alarm clock on the dresser reads twelve past six when Delphine comes home. Out of respect, I come out of my room and meet her in the kitchen, where she’s already preheating her oven. A frozen organic vegetable lasagna rests on the counter.

As newlyweds, Luca and I lived hand to mouth and paycheck to paycheck most weeks, and our fridge was constantly stocked with those ninety-nine-cent individual lasagnas, the kind that smell better than they taste. I grew to love them. Not because they were delicious (they weren’t), but because it represented a time in our marriage that we would one day look back upon with nostalgia.

For the first three nights, The Monster didn’t feed me. In fact, he’d made it a point to eat in front of me.

It was three months, give or take, before I finally stopped thinking about that lasagna and what it represented.

“Hope you’re not starving,” she says. “These things are fabulous, but they take a good hour to bake since they’re frozen solid. I’d make something else, but it’s been a busy day. Didn’t have a chance to sit down once. A blessing, though, that’s for sure.”