The Marsh King's Daughter(10)

But there were other times I could have brought it up. Maybe not on our first date, or our second, or our third, but sometime after the getting-to-know-you train was moving down the tracks and before we stood at the rail of the Pictured Rocks tour boat, knowing without having to say it that we were now a couple. Definitely before Stephen got down on one knee on a rocky Lake Superior beach. But by then I had so very much to lose, and I could no longer see what I had to gain.

Stephen shakes his head again. “I give you all the space in the world, and this is how you . . . Do I say anything when you go bear hunting? When you stay in the woods by yourself overnight? When you disappeared for two weeks when Mari was a baby because you needed time alone? I mean, whose wife goes bear hunting? I would have worked with you on this, Helena. Why couldn’t you trust me?”

It would take a thousand words to begin to answer him fully, but I come up with only two. “I’m sorry.” And even to my ears, the words sound lame. But they’re true. I am sorry. I’d apologize every day for the rest of my life if it would help.

“You lied to me. Now you’ve put our family in danger.” Stephen brushes past me and goes into the kitchen. The side door bangs. I can hear him shifting things around in the garage. He comes back with a suitcase in each hand.

“Pack whatever you need for yourself and for the girls. We’re going to my parents’.”

“Now?”

Stephen’s parents live in Green Bay. It’s a four-hour drive, never mind the multiple bathroom stops you have to make when you’re traveling with two small children. If we leave now, we won’t get to his parents’ until at least three a.m.

“What else are we supposed to do? We can’t stay here. Not with a murderous psychopath on the loose.” He doesn’t say a murderous psychopath who also happens to be your father, but he may as well have.

“He’s not coming here,” I say again—not so much because I believe it, but because Stephen has to. I can’t stand the idea of his thinking I would willfully and knowingly do anything that would jeopardize my family.

“Do you know that? Can you promise your father won’t come after you or the girls?”

I open my mouth, then shut it. Of course I can’t promise. As much as I might think I know what my father will or won’t do, the truth is, I don’t. He murdered two men to escape from prison, and I never anticipated that.

Stephen’s hands clench into fists. I get ready. Stephen has never hit me, but there’s always a first time. Certainly my father never hesitated to hit my mother for less. Stephen’s chest swells. He draws a deep breath. Lets it out. Takes another, then lets that out, too. Picks up the girls’ pink princess suitcase and turns on his heel and stomps off down the hall. Dresser drawers bang open and closed. “Daddy?” Iris says plaintively. “Are you mad at Mommy?”

I grab the other suitcase and head for the master bedroom. Pack everything Stephen will need to stay at his parents’ as long as he has to and carry the case into the living room and put it by the front door. I want to tell him that I understand how he feels. That I wish things could have been different. That it’s shattering me to see him drawing away. But when he comes back with the girls’ suitcase and walks past me to carry both cases to the car like we’re strangers, I don’t.

We button the girls’ sweaters over their pajamas without speaking. Stephen slings Mari over his shoulder and carries her to the car. I follow, leading Iris by the hand. “Be a good girl,” I tell her as I lift her into her booster seat and buckle her in. “Listen to your father. Do what he says.” Iris blinks and rubs her eyes like she’s trying not to cry. I pat her head and tuck the well-loved stuffed animal she calls Purple Bear beside her, then go around to stand by the driver’s side door.

Stephen’s eyebrows go up when he sees me. He rolls the window down.

“Aren’t you going to get Rambo?” he asks.

“I’m not coming,” I say.

“Helena. Don’t do this.”

I know what he’s thinking. It’s no secret I dread going to his parents’ under the best of conditions—never mind showing up with the girls in the middle of the night because my father is an escaped prisoner. It’s not only the effort of having to pretend to be interested in what interests them even though we have absolutely nothing in common; it’s the gauntlet of rules and manners I have to navigate. I’ve come a long way from the socially inept twelve-year-old I once was, but whenever I’m around them, Stephen’s parents make me feel like I haven’t.

“It’s not that. I have to stay here. The police need my help.”

This is only partially correct. Stephen would never accept the real reason I have to stay behind. The truth is, sometime between the officers’ first question and when the door closed behind them, I realized that if anyone is going to catch my father and return him to prison, it’s me. No one is my father’s equal when it comes to navigating the wilderness, but I’m close. I lived with him for twelve years. He trained me, taught me everything he knows. I know how he thinks. What he’ll do. Where he’ll go.

If Stephen knew what I was planning, he’d remind me that my father is armed and dangerous. My father killed two prison guards, and the police are convinced he’s ready to kill again. But if there’s one person who is not in danger from my father, it’s me.