Hold Me Close(96)

“I’m going to try.”

She manages to sit. She can feel him through the darkness, though they’re not touching. “I can help.”

“Not with your wrist, you can’t.”

“If the two of us try...” Effie says but stops herself. She doesn’t believe it will work, and it will hurt her arm. She lies back on the bed.

Time passes. At least, she thinks it does. The ache in her belly grows as fierce as the throbbing in her arm, at least for a while until both fade. There’s only darkness. Only silence.

Effie is very, very cold.

“Effie. I want you to know, I love you. I hate Daddy for all of this, but if he hadn’t taken you, we’d never have met. You know that?”

“I know it,” Effie answers, or at least she thinks she does. She feels as though her lips are moving, but it could be her imagination.

“I love you, Effie. I will always love you.” Heath’s hand in hers.


His fingers are like ice, or maybe that’s hers. Either way, there’s no warmth between them except what she remembers from when he kissed her. Heat is a memory.

And there is light, faint, from the other room.

A woman’s voice, querulous, curious. Calling out a name. Then a strangled cry. The thud of an overturned table. Shadows stretch and tease. Effie sees a silhouette. Long hair. The sickly-sweet stink of a familiar perfume.

“Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh God, oh God!”

God stopped caring about them, Effie thinks, while beside her, Heath struggles to get up from the bed. The light stays on. Heath is on the floor. Someone’s in the doorway, and then they’re gone.

More time.

Another voice. More light. Bright, this time. It hurts Effie’s eyes through her eyelids, and she tries to cover her face with her hand, but she can barely wiggle her fingers.

“Hello? Holy shit.” The voice is garbled. Staticky.

A figure looms over her. He wears blue. He has a gun, but he puts it away and puts a hand on her, gentle, but the pain flares and Effie screams. Or tries to scream. She has no breath for it.

“You’re okay,” the police officer says. “I’m Officer Schmidt. I’m here to help you both. You’re going to be okay.”

* * *

Blinking, Effie gasped for breath. She was going to pass out. Her fingers gripped the wooden railing hard enough to make the wood creak. A splinter gouged her with a small sting, but no real pain. She misjudged the last step and went down too fast, onto...

Carpet.

Soft, thick carpet in a plush royal blue. The basement was well lit with hanging pendant lamps in multiple colors. One big space broken up by several wooden pillars, but nothing else. No other rooms. No walls.

Everything she’d been expecting was gone. She moved forward on numb feet into the center of the room. Here it was, their living space. Here, that fetid bathroom. Here, the tiny decrepit bedroom where they’d spent so much time. All gone, replaced by fresh white walls and the lingering scent of floral air fresheners. From one corner, a small dehumidifier hummed. Two small windows hung with pretty, gauzy curtains let in a bit of filtered light. Like the frame of the door upstairs, the wood around these had been painted, but if you looked closely enough, you could see the places where nails had once punctured the wood to hold in place the boards that had covered the glass.

It was gone, everything was gone, there was no remnant here of what had happened, and this was worse, somehow, even than Daddy not recognizing her. Effie went to her knees there in the middle of the room. Then her hands, too. Bent over, pressed her forehead to the carpet, waiting to see if she was going to scream or wail or faint or die.

With her eyes closed, it was dark, but she could still sense the light. Above her head came the familiar creaking step, step, step. That had not changed, and oh, what f*ckery, that she should take comfort from that. Effie pushed herself up onto her hands.

Get up, she told herself. Get up, Effie. You didn’t come here to be a prisoner again. Get the f*ck up and go upstairs and walk out that f*cking front door.

There are no more locks.

Shaking, she managed to get one foot beneath her. It wasn’t enough. She couldn’t make herself stand. Her fingers dug into the carpet, all the way to the scratchy base. A staple poked her. She dug her fingers deeper, seeking that pain.

“...Miss? Are you all right?”

Get up, Effie. You’re making a fool of yourself. You need to get up right now.

She turned her head, trying to smile. “Yes, yes, I...”

“I know you,” the woman said. “Oh. God. I know who you are.”

* * *

“My mother left my father when I was twelve and my brother fifteen. She wouldn’t tell us why. There was no joint custody. We never saw my dad after that, except maybe once or twice a year for holidays, and then he always came to our house and sat in the living room while we opened our presents or whatever. My mom wouldn’t talk to him, but she never left us alone with him, either.”

The woman’s name was Karen. She was older than Effie by about ten or twelve years, but you wouldn’t have guessed it if you put them side by side. They were about the same height. They had the same color hair. Karen’s eyes were deep brown, but aside from that, they might’ve been sisters.

“He’d been in the hospital for two weeks before they found you. The infection from that untreated stab wound. It almost killed him.” Karen paused to pour them both mugs of tea. She’d chased out the Realtor and everyone from the open house so she and Effie could sit in the kitchen and talk alone.