No River Too Wide (5 page)

Had the Abuser been anything but kind and charming before we married, I think I would have been smart enough to back away. When we met I still believed I was worthy of a good man, a man like my father who would treasure and protect me. This man was knowledgeable and able to help me settle my parents’ estate, and he seemed to be all the things I wanted. Best of all, he stepped forward to help make the decisions that faced me. He helped me sell the house I had grown up in, helped me drop out of school without penalty so I had an opportunity to heal.

Now, of course, I know this was the beginning of a campaign to strip me of all my connections. My family was gone. Then my home. Finally my college friends. The investments he recommended were long-term, and while sound enough, yielded nothing for my immediate use. By then, of course, that hardly mattered. The Abuser adored me. He wanted me to be his wife. He would support me whenever I decided to finish my degree in early childhood education. We would have the kind of marriage I had witnessed up close.

We would be happy.

* * *

Janine hurried down the farmhouse path toward the road. She hoped leaving the house without waiting to see Harmony wouldn’t scare her. She had promised to tell Bea whatever occurred here, but she hadn’t factored in a lack of cell coverage inside the house. The disposable phone Moving On had given her wasn’t state-of-the-art, and she had nearly used up the minutes that had come with it.

The sun was going down behind mountains, something she wasn’t used to after a lifetime in Kansas. When she was a young teen, her parents had taken her on a camping trip to Colorado, and they had spent two blessed weeks cooking out, hiking and swimming in crystal-clear lakes. She had thought of that trip so many times over the years, sinking back into the memories when her reality was particularly bleak, lulling herself to sleep at night with dreams of a happier time.

The Blue Ridge Mountains were nothing like the Rockies. She wasn’t sure why her daughter had stayed in Asheville when the family who had invited Harmony to live with them had moved to California. Perhaps Harmony hadn’t been able to afford another move, or perhaps she had made so many connections she’d felt secure on her own. But Janine guessed that the natural beauty had affected her decision. The majesty of it, a more approachable majesty than the Rockies, would have appealed to a young woman from the plains almost as much as settling somewhere far from Topeka, a city that would be blighted forever by her childhood memories.

The air under a canopy of hardwoods was turning chilly, and Janine shivered inside somebody else’s jacket. Her body temperature dropped too easily now, probably as a result of the weight she had lost. Losing so much had been easy. She had always been thin, but in the past year her appetite had simply vanished. Her secret would never be marketed in diet books. During meals with Rex she had silently replayed her decision to find a way out of the prison he’d created. Fear of what lay ahead, as well as the consequences if he found her, had made it nearly impossible to eat.

Rex had noticed, of course, but he had seemed pleased. The shadow she had become was the wife he had wanted all along.

As she rounded a curve she wasn’t surprised to find Bea lounging against a tree casually observing the driveway. Tall, wiry, threatening enough that her male colleagues called her Grandma Grouchy, Bea was older than Janine, but even in her sixties she exuded a raw power that Janine found a bit intimidating. Bea
was
a grandmother, but she was more likely to teach hunting and fishing to her grandsons than to play dress-up with her granddaughters.

“You okay?” she asked when Janine got closer. “This the right house?”

Janine eased Buddy’s backpack into a more comfortable position. “I haven’t seen her yet, but Harmony’s here.”

“You okay, Jan?”

Janine gave a short nod. “The phone didn’t work inside, and I didn’t want you to worry.”

“You want me to wait?”

“You go on and settle in for the night. If this doesn’t go well...” Janine swallowed, because the rest of the sentence stuck in her throat.

“It’s going to be fine.”

“I’ll find a way into town, and I’ll call the hotline from there.”

“Just call me direct. I’m going to stay nearby and wait while you have that reunion. Things don’t go well tonight, you just give me a buzz, and I’ll come back. I don’t hear, though, we’ll need to be on our way in the morning early. So you have to let me know where to pick you up then.”

Janine realized she was crying. Bea didn’t seem surprised, and her voice softened a little.

“It’s always like this, honey. I’ve seen it too many times before. You been through too much. You been scared practically every minute for years now. You’ll still be scared some, but at least that part will feel familiar. And it will ease.”

Janine wiped her cheeks with her palms.

“We did a good job for you,” Bea said, retrieving a tissue from a pocket and handing it over. “It’s not likely he’s gonna find you. And the house burning down, that was a stroke of good fortune.”

“No, I shouldn’t have burned those photos.”

“Might have been divine intervention. You just being able to squeeze through the first flames without damage to anything but that old coat of yours. That tank going up like some kind of atom bomb.” Bea smiled as Janine finished wiping her eyes. “And now nobody knows if you burned up or ran away or anything else. Including old Rex.”

“They’re looking through those ashes for no good reason. I know he wasn’t in the house.”

“Think of it as good practice for the fire department, forensical training.”

“But where
is
Rex? Why hasn’t he come forward?”

“This point in your life? You need to stop thinking about Rex, and start thinking about yourself and that girl of yours.”

Janine couldn’t imagine a life in which Rex was not the central figure. “I’ll always be looking behind me.”

“We’ll be keeping an eye out on your behalf, and we’ll get in touch right away if we hear anything you need to know. I’m as sure as I can be that the trail we left won’t lead him in your direction.”

Janine didn’t know what to do next, but as if she sensed that, Bea stepped forward and put her arms around her for a brief hug. “Now you get on back there and have that reunion. Call me if you need me tonight, but be ready to go at first light.”

A whole night with Harmony. If Harmony would have her.

Janine shivered, and not from the cold this time.

Bea started back toward the road, and Janine knew she had to return to the house. She was sorry she had left, because walking up the driveway the first time had been hard enough.

“Hello? Are you still here?”

Janine whirled at the sound of her daughter’s voice somewhere behind her. She started toward the sound, picking up speed as Harmony called again. “Hello!”

“I’m right here,” Janine managed. “I’m coming.”

She rounded the corner and saw her daughter’s familiar figure half loping toward her, the tall, slender body, the long blond hair flying out behind her. She forgot she had ever been frightened that Harmony would reject her. She forgot she’d had serious qualms about coming to Asheville, because now Rex might find their daughter. She could only think that this was her beloved child, whom she had feared she would never see again. And somehow they had been given this moment.

“Mom!” Harmony paused a moment as if making sure she was right. Then her face lit up. “Mom! It really
is
you!”

They were in each other’s arms in a moment. Janine was laughing, but she felt tears running down her cheeks, too. “Harmony. I thought...I thought—”

“I didn’t think I would ever see you again.” Harmony held her away but gripped Janine by the shoulders. “I thought you were dead!”

Janine had hoped Harmony wouldn’t learn about the fire, but the fear that she
might
hear of it had brought her to Asheville. In the end she had realized she had to prove, in person, she was still alive.

“I’m okay. I—” There was so much. Where did she start? Janine realized she was floundering.

“But the house burned to the ground,” Harmony said. “I just found the story on the internet. You weren’t there when it exploded?”

“I was... I mean I wasn’t. I was there when the fire started, but I got out.”

“Was Dad there?”

Janine couldn’t tell from Harmony’s tone what she hoped the answer might be. “No, he was... I don’t know where your father was.
Is.
I don’t know a thing except that I used... Well, he didn’t come home that night. I—I’d already made plans to leave him, but not quite this soon. Things weren’t quite in—” She stopped.

“You’d made plans?”

“Is there somewhere we can talk? I can’t stay more than the night, but there’s so much—” Janine couldn’t seem to finish a sentence. She was drinking in her daughter’s lovely face.

“What do you mean, you’re not staying?” Harmony tightened her grip on her mother. “Of course you’re staying. Please don’t tell me you’re going back to Kansas.”

“No. No! It’s just—” Janine shivered.

“I’m sorry. You’re cold. We can go up to the house.” She shook her head. “No, we’ll go to my apartment because it’ll be quieter, but I have to get Lottie first.”

“Lottie? Is she...?” Janine’s voice trailed off. The question she’d been about to ask seemed inconceivable, but she knew so little about Harmony’s life. She knew there must be a baby, but not whether the child was a boy or a girl.

“Lottie’s my daughter,” Harmony said, rescuing her. “Charlotte Louise, but she’s Lottie Lou or mostly just Lottie.”

“Who’s taking care of her?”

“Rilla has her. Rilla’s my employer. I live and work here as her assistant.”

“It’s so beautiful. The land. The house.”

“You look tired, Mom. Let me take that.” Harmony hooked a hand under the strap of the backpack and tested the weight. “It’s heavy.”

“Because I have Buddy’s scrapbook inside, but it’s, it’s...” She didn’t want to explain all the details of how she’d gotten away.

“Buddy’s scrapbook?” Harmony seemed surprised.

“It’s all I had left of him.”

Harmony slipped the backpack down Janine’s arm, and Janine gratefully relinquished it. With the loss of twenty pounds had come a significant loss of strength. And the last week had exhausted her.

“Lottie.” Janine managed a smile. “It’s beautiful. I bet
she’s
beautiful.”

Harmony slung the pack over one shoulder and began walking back the way she’d come. “How did you find me?”

What little energy Janine had was flagging dangerously. She touched her daughter’s hair and catalogued the obvious changes. Harmony had a gold stud in her nose and several piercings in each ear. Her hair was longer. “I need to sit. Can we talk when we’re settled?”

“I’m sorry. Of course. I’ll show you where my place is, and you can wait there. It’s no farther than the house. I’ll get Lottie and join you.” She hesitated. “You won’t leave? You’ll be there waiting?”

“I promise.”

They had reached the farmyard, and Harmony pointed to a building that looked like a garage, tucked not far from the house. “My apartment’s at the top, and the door is never locked. We’ll be right there to join you. I’ll make you hot tea.”

“With lots of milk and sugar?” Janine tried to smile, because whenever she and Harmony had been given the gift of time alone together, that was one of the ways they had celebrated.

“All you want.”

Janine started toward the apartment. Beyond it in a fenced pasture two horses grazed, one lifting a dark head to watch her. In the distance she saw what looked like a garden, although she couldn’t tell for sure because the sky had grown darker in the brief time she’d been here. The garage was painted the same dark spruce as the house, but the stairwell and the garage doors were painted a red so dark it was slowly turning black as twilight descended. Someone, maybe even her daughter, had planted a wide bed of black-eyed Susans and coneflowers along the side of the stairs.

She was so grateful Harmony had landed in this healing place, but she knew so little, not what had brought Harmony here, or how she had coped until she had a job and a place to live. Until now she hadn’t even known her grandchild’s name.

Instead of going upstairs, she sat on the bottom step and listened to the music of crickets as the sky quickly darkened. From the house she thought she heard the voices of children. How old was Lottie? Certainly not old enough to be one of them. Did Harmony help care for the others, too? So many questions, and even if they stayed up talking all night, so little time for answers.

The front door opened, and Harmony came out carrying a child with a blanket thrown around her against the chill of the descending night. As she watched, Harmony turned and spoke to a woman who was now standing in the doorway. Then she started toward her apartment.

Janine stood and waited for them to join her. When Harmony got close enough she pulled back the blanket, and Janine glimpsed her granddaughter for the first time. She immediately saw the resemblance.

“She looks like my baby pictures,” Janine said, reaching out to pull the blanket back a little more. “And she looks so much like you, although her hair’s darker.”

“Rilla warned me the woman waiting for me might be my mother. She said we looked so much alike. All of us. That’s how she knew.”

Janine didn’t ask to hold Lottie, but Lottie held out her arms to her grandmother, and without a word Harmony boosted her closer so Janine could see her better.

“Oh, you are such a beautiful baby,” Janine said, tears filling her eyes again. “And I guess after what I just said about her, that’s bragging, right?”

“She wants you to hold her.”

“May I?”

“Who better?”

Janine took the soft little bundle and placed her on one hip, tucking the blanket securely around her. “How old is she?”

“Nine months. Just.”

“I’ve wondered every single day since you told me you were pregnant.”

“I could have told you myself if I had been allowed to call.”

Janine heard the note of disapproval, but she understood. “Right after you left, your father did everything but hire a detective to find you, Harmony. If you had called while he was there? He would have started searching all over again, beginning with the number you called from. That’s how I found you. The people who helped me get away also helped me trace the last number you used, and eventually they traced you here.”