the door, I’m just finishing making some bread. She’s all smiles, so I assume it went well. Happy to see her home safely, I walk over and greet her with a hug and a kiss.
‘Hey, sweetheart how did lunch go?’
‘It went better than I had hoped it would. We talked and I explained and they made me promise to tell the truth from now on. Of course I did as I really like them. I explained a bit about why I did the mail-order bride thing and how I came about finding out about it. Then we talked a bit about my dad and all in all I feel like it was a good conversation,’ she says with her arms still wrapped around me.
‘Good. I’m glad you guys worked it out. They’ll go home and tell their husbands and I’m sure I’ll hear about it in a day or two if they have any questions. But up here in the mountains, we tend to not ask too many questions. Well, at least the guys don’t, I think. They’ll just take it for what it is..’
‘Whatever you’re making smells delicious,’ she says letting go of me and heading into the kitchen.
‘We’re running low on bread, so I made some. It kept me busy, so I didn’t think too much about how you were down in town all by yourself. Oh, by the way, you got a phone call while you were gone.
Her eyes light up and I guess maybe she had been waiting for the phone call.
‘Aspen called that fast? I only just sent the e-mail before I left town. Did she leaves a number that I can call her back?’ she asks.
‘It was not Aspen, it was your uncle,’ I tell her as I go to the phone to grab the piece of paper I wrote his contact information on.
When I look back at Willow, she’s completely spooked. She’s white and seems to be having a panic attack. I can’t get to her side fast enough. But when I do, she collapses into my arms and I’m able to get her to the couch.
‘How the hell did he find me?’ she gasps.
‘Calm down. Take a deep breath. You two aren’t close? He made it seem like you were. I thought you gave him the number.’ I say trying to figure out exactly what’s going on here.
‘No, I want nothing to do with him,’ she says, taking a few more deep breaths.
‘All right. That’s it. I’ll deal with it. You don’t have anything to worry about. If he calls again, I’ll keep him away from you..”
As I hold Willow, she starts to calm down. I have so many questions running through my head. Why would he pretend that they were close? If just the mention of her uncle elicits this kind of a response from her, and upsets her this much, why hasn’t she told me about it?
It takes a while, but she finally calms down.
‘Why don’t you go do some quilting? I’ll take care of dinner tonight.’ I tell her, suggesting something that I know she loves to do.
But she doesn’t say anything. Nodding, she goes over to the sewing table and it’s like she’s completely shut down.
For the rest of the day, she’s off, not herself. She doesn’t talk much and I catch her staring into nothing. Every time I ask if she’s okay, she nods, but there’s no real emotion on her face.
It’s like she’s here, but she’s not. At the dinner table, she sits with me but mostly pushes her food around. When she catches me watching her, she takes a few bites, but I’m assuming she’s only eating to appease me. I’d give anything to know what’s going through her head right now, but every time I ask a question she just shrugs or shakes her head. Since she got home and found out that her uncle had called, she hasn’t spoken. I’m starting to worry and I’m not sure what to do.
Tonight we go to bed early and I figure I’ll wait and see how she is in the morning before I make any decisions. If this continues, I can always call Cole since he has medic training. He might have some suggestions or ideas.
Lying there side by side, neither of us speaks, but she at least lets me hold her hand. With that small connection, I feel slightly better.
I can tell the moment she falls asleep because her body finally relaxes. Hopefully, things will look different in the morning. Because I know I won’t be able to handle another day like this.
As I’m drifting off to sleep, Willow begins moving around. I’m wondering if she’s getting up to go to the bathroom when I hear a blood-curling scream coming from her.
Willow
I’m watching myself at my dad’s funeral. It’s like one of those out of body experiences. I see my black dress and all our friends there trying to be nice offering condolences. They’re telling me if they could help in any way to let them know. Then I see my aunt and uncle who are attempting to run the show as if they were any part of my dad’s life. Acting like they are a grieving family member when in fact my dad’s own sister wasn’t there for him when he lay dying. In fact, they haven’t talked in years.
As I watch all the guests slowly leave, my aunt goes into the kitchen to clean up. She’s attempting to look like she’s actually helping and impress the few that are left who are talking to my uncle. Without thinking, I go upstairs to my dad’s room and stand in the doorway looking at how everything is in the exact same place that he left it. The sweatshirt he always took with him when he went to go get chemo because he’d say how cold the place was hanging on the back of the chair in the corner that he liked to sit in and read.
In my mind’s eye, I can see every detail. His cologne is on the dresser, his watch on the nightstand, and even the last book he was reading sitting on the side of the bed where my mom used to sleep.
Wanting to get a smell of him, maybe even his cologne, I step into the room. I’m yelling at myself not to do it. Don’t step into that room alone. Turn around, hurry, and go back downstairs.
With every step I take into my dad’s room, I try to yell louder at myself.
‘Willow! Wake up! Willow!’ A far off voice is calling my name. Though it gets closer and closer and then louder.
The moment I opened my eyes I realize I was having a dream, well, more like a nightmare. I was back in that horrible day, and right now my husband’s alarmed look is what greets me.
‘Sweetheart, you’ve got to tell me what’s going on. It’s affecting you so much that you’re screaming out in your sleep. Please tell me. Open up to me and let me help you.’ Bennet is pleading with me, raw emotion filling his face and voice. Turning myself into his chest, I start ugly crying. Holding me tightly, he rubs my back and kisses the top of my head. All this emotion I let out, soaking his chest with my tears. I’ve had to be strong for so long and I’m tired, so tired. Eventually, my sobbing turns from emotion to release. Then guilt hits me for keeping this from him for so long.
‘I’m so sorry… I was going to tell you… I’m so sorry… I’m so… so sorry…’ I blubber into his chest between tears.
‘You didn’t have to tell me anything you didn’t want to, I told you that and I meant it. Even though I still mean it, if it’s affecting you this much, I think it’s going to be better for you to get it out. Why don’t you lean on me for a change?’
‘Growing up, it was just my dad and me. The only family he had left was his sister, who’s married to some high-up politician. They never got along and for the longest time, they never even talked. At the time of my dad’s funeral, they hadn’t seen each other in over five years. Nothing. They didn’t talk, and he was happy to have her out of our lives. Once when I asked my dad why, he said she changed when she married him. Also, he told me they just weren’t good people. I trusted my dad and I never had any reason to question it.’
The memories from the nightmare are still so vivid in my head, this is the last thing I want to be talking about, but I know it needs to happen.
‘The day of the funeral my aunt and uncle showed up as if they had been this loving family to my dad his whole life. They acted like they were the ones that helped him through his cancer and that they were there when he died. Most of our friends knew it wasn’t true. Everyone there knew my father didn’t have a relationship with his sister and we all just ignored her. Because heaven forbid the politician and his wife didn’t show up to her brother’s funeral. It was a publicity stunt, but I just didn’t have the energy to call her out on it or deal with it, so I let them stay.
As everyone was leaving, she started cleaning the kitchen and putting on a show for the last few people that were there. I disappeared up to my dad’s room. I had left it just the way he had. Everything was in the same place that he had left it. But I was missing him so much and all I wanted was to smell his Cologne and pretend for a moment he was alive. Maybe he would walk into his room and hug me. Unfortunately, it was not him that walked into the room. It was my uncle.
After he closed the door behind him, he used his body to block my exit. Then he started saying all this stuff about how he knew about my dad’s medical bills and how my dad had asked him to take care of me. Without a doubt, I knew that it was all absolute bullshit because my dad had been preparing me to take care of myself and he would have never asked my uncle to take care of me. Of all the people that he could have reached out to, he would rather have asked the stranger off the street that my uncle and I knew it.
As my uncle talked, he would get closer and closer to me, Even though I tried to move away, he wouldn’t let me. He kept spouting on about how I was now his responsibility and kept talking as if I was his property.
When he got close enough, he grabbed my arm and threw me face-first down on the bed.’
I squeeze my eyes shut not wanting to remember what happened next and I can feel Bennett’s entire body tense.
‘He got his pants open and my dress flipped up. I was struggling to escape and not making any headway. He hit me a few times and then when my aunt came in to talk to him, I used that moment to get away. Of course, I called the police because there were refusing to leave the house. Even after I filed the report, and they took photos of my injuries, the bruises and a busted lip, he should have been charged at least for assault, but it got buried because he’s a high-powered politician with some bad cops in his back pocket.
They did make him leave the house and told him to stay away from me because it would be better for his campaign if he wasn’t connected to me. But that’s all they did.
The judge wouldn’t even give me a restraining order. I pitched a fit to any police officer that would listen, and I guess I pitched enough of a fit that I caught my uncle’s attention. Then he started calling me, making threats about how I better change my story and how nothing happened, and it wasn’t what I was making it out to be.
After that, I packed up anything I wanted to keep, selling the rest, and sold the house to pay off my dad’s medical bills. Then I went into a women’s shelter that had security. When I told them what happened, they made sure that my uncle wasn’t allowed anywhere near the building. Then Aspen invited me to stay with her, which was great because my uncle didn’t know about her. That’s was my main reason to sign up for the mail-order bride website. I wanted out of Chicago at any cost. Even if it meant marrying some old fat ugly man and having a mundane life being nothing more than his housemaid.’
‘Well, you’re here now and I will protect you at all costs, fancy politician or not. We do things a lot differently here on the mountain and you’re not alone anymore. Not only do you have me, but you have eight other people that will make sure that you are safe and many more in town who will protect you without even knowing you.’
‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I was really just scared that you wouldn’t want this kind of trouble at your doorstep, and you’d kick me out and move on. The longer I went without telling you, the harder it became. For what it’s worth, I had made the decision to tell you before I had lunch with the girls. But that phone call threw everything off.’
