Hold Me Close(84)

Effie drank the cool, sweet water, letting it fill in all the leftover space in her stomach. “If there’s something you want to know, Becky, you should ask me now. I’m f*cked up on tequila.”

Becky gave a small, uncertain laugh. “No, I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s not any of my business.”

“Here’s the thing.” Effie went to the fridge to help herself to another glass of water. “Nobody asks anymore. In the beginning, when I first came back, it was all anyone could seem to talk about. But it’s been fifteen years, you know that? Most people don’t even remember it happened.”

“But you do,” Dee said quietly.

“Me and a bunch of freaks who talk about me on some sicko forums,” Effie said flatly. “And women who go to moms’ groups.”

The silence would’ve been way more awkward if she hadn’t had so much to drink, but all it did now was make her laugh. Becky bit her lower lip, looking away. Dee frowned.

“I was thirteen. I was coming home from my art class. He grabbed me and took me into his van. He hit me on the head and jabbed me with a needle, and I woke up in a basement lit only by these weird f*cking orange lights. I should’ve run away from him, you know? And I tried. But my mom had made me wear these new shoes—” Effie kicked out a foot to demonstrate “—and I had blisters. And he was fast. Nobody even saw him take me, at least that’s what the story was. I mean, I was missing for three years. He kept me in a house not twenty minutes away from my own. If someone had seen him take me, don’t you think they’d have said something?”

Becky winced. “That’s horrible.”

“Yeah.” Effie nodded and drank half the glass of water, then added ice. She looked at both women. “They did a documentary on it. Part of one, anyway. They interviewed a whole bunch of people about him. They interviewed his ex-wife. His kids. The neighbors who called the police, finally.”

* * *

“Oh, my God! Oh, my God, what the hell? Where’s Stan? Who are you? What the hell?”

The woman’s words echo in the basement, hurting Effie’s ears. It’s been days without food. A week since the last time Daddy came into the basement. They’re down to the last scant cups of water in the jug. They’ve been huddling together for warmth. Heath hasn’t spoken for hours, though the rasp of his breathing tells Effie that at least he’s still alive. The woman’s voice echoes around them again, and then there’s some muffled shouting. The thud of feet on the stairs.

A cool breeze.

Then there’s light, a faint square in the blackness. The door.

The door is...open.

* * *

“But I didn’t talk to them about it,” Effie continued. “They offered me money, but I didn’t need money. I had my dad’s life insurance. I always wondered if my dad knew he was going to die young. If that’s why he paid for that policy for me. I never asked my mother how long he’d had it.”

Becky stared, but Dee drew her own glass of water to gulp before saying, “They talked to my mom. She didn’t make it into the final cut of the film, but I remember them interviewing her in the kitchen.”

Effie searched for some affront, some offense, but couldn’t find any. “Most of it they got wrong, anyway. The forums do, too, all the time, because of it. The guys who made the documentary thought they had all the facts, but they didn’t. So those freaks who post online about it, about my art, about everything...they think they understand the significance of it all, but really they’re going by that movie. My paintings,” she added when Becky looked confused. “They have hidden designs. People collect them because they’re part of this group that idealizes victims of crimes. Or I guess the criminals. I don’t know. I stopped looking at that forum a long time ago. It’s disgusting.”

“I’m sorry,” Dee said.

Becky coughed. “Yeah, shit, Effie. Me, too. I didn’t know.”

“It’s like it’s a big secret.” Effie couldn’t stand the thought of drinking any more water, so she dumped it in the sink and set the glass carefully, carefully, on the counter. It would’ve been easy to shatter the glass with her tequila-infused fingers. She looked at both of them. “Only it’s not, really.”

Becky opened her mouth as though to say more, and Effie waited for it. Fuck, she wanted it. She wanted to talk about this, finally, to get it all right out there so they could gossip about it if they wanted to, or maybe f*cking forget it the way she wished she could. Because Mommies and Margaritas might be the lamest f*cking name for a group of friends Effie had ever heard, but f*ck all if she didn’t want to be invited back. She wanted friends. She wanted to giggle over movie stars and eat tortilla chips and she wanted, goddammit, to bitch about a husband who didn’t like it when she spent too much money on eyeliner.


So she waited for Becky to ask a question, something, anything, so that Effie could tell her whatever it was she wanted to know. Instead, Becky’s phone buzzed from her pocket. With an apologetic look, she took it out.

“Gene’s in the driveway,” Becky said. “Are you sure we can’t give you a ride? It’s late. And it’s cold.”

Effie uncurled fingers she hadn’t noticed she was clenching. She nodded. Took a deep breath. Gave both Dee and Becky a smile that made her face ache but that must’ve passed as genuine because neither of them seemed to mind.