Straightjacket (22 page)

Her favorite part of the day, though, was late at night when Caleb led her into the bedroom to show her how much he loved her. He was gentle and patient, which made her want him that much more. She was so grateful to him for showing her who she could be. They were as close to becoming one person as they could possibly be.

* * *

One morning, Anna woke up to a gigantic clap of thunder. She bolted upward, falling back on her elbow. Her mind, still dazed with sleep, couldn’t understand what the noise was at first, but when it happened again, she noticed the deep gray sky out the window.

She nestled her head back into her pillow and closed her eyes, listening to the drumming of the rain on the roof and breathing in the clean smell of the cotton pillowcase. The thunder came every few seconds. Sometimes it came fast and violent, while other times it was a gentle roll. Her breaths came slow and deep as she listened, no longer scared or surprised. The storm raged around them and she felt no particular way about it, like a bird outside might sit disinterestedly in its warm nest, ignoring the frenzy of the rain and lightning all around it.

Caleb slept through all of it. He lay still and perfect, his dark hair matted in some places and sticking straight up in others. She studied his face and loved every part of it—his pale skin, his long eyelashes, the rough stubble that had grown overnight. The word
angelic
popped into her mind, but she didn’t let it do anything to her.

Her mind was building the beginnings of a dream when she was woken up again.

Banging.

Starting and stopping.

Over and over.

It wasn’t thunder.

“Caleb,” she whispered, lightly shaking his shoulder. “Wake up.”

“Huh?” He turned onto his back and stretched. “What’s wrong?” he said, his eyes still closed. The banging sounded through the house again, and he opened his eyes.

“Someone’s outside,” she whispered. “Was anyone supposed to come by this morning?”

“No, no. Stay here,” he said, pulling on a pair of jeans over his boxer shorts. “I’ll go down and see who’s there.”

After he left the room, Anna sat up in bed and folded her legs up close to her body, resting her chin on her knees. She didn’t dare move an inch, not wanting even the rustling of the sheets to prevent her from hearing what was going on below. The heavy oak door cracked open, but the squeak of the screen door opening didn’t follow. There were muffled voices, one of which she knew was Caleb’s, but she couldn’t make out the other. It was deep, so she assumed it belonged to a man.

The voices got louder. Things felt wrong. She leaped out of bed and scrambled to get dressed.

“Damn sling,” she muttered as her arm caught inside her twisted T-shirt. She stuck her legs through her jeans and jumped up and down, trying to pull them up as fast as she could. Still trying to button her jeans with one hand, she stumbled down the stairs.

Caleb, naked from the waist up, stood at the door.

On the other side of the screen was her father.

She stood glued to the spot, stunned. Her breath caught in her chest. The shock made it so that she couldn’t even feel her heart beating. Her thoughts told her over and over that this must be a dream. She tried desperately to wake up, but the image in front of her didn’t disappear and kept going and going and going.

“I said I want to see my daughter right now,” her father snarled. “So help me, I will rip through this door!”

“I’m right here.” Anna’s body propelled her forward. Her father’s open umbrella partially hid her mother, whose eyes glared viciously back at her through the screen. The sight of her parents standing in this sacred place, brutally invading the life she’d created with Caleb, made her physically ill. But her body walked forward, despite herself.

“Anna,” her father snapped. “You go get your things and leave with us this instant.” Anna came up to Caleb, who wouldn’t move aside. He reached his hand behind himself, placing it on her hip and moving her gently behind him.

“Don’t tell her what to do,” Caleb barked. “She’s not going anywhere she doesn’t want to.”

“I’m speaking to my daughter, you sick son of a bitch! Step away from her.”

The muscles in Caleb’s arm tensed up, but his hand remained on her hip.

“Caleb.” Her voice shook. She lifted his hand off of her and took a step forward so that she was standing by his side.

“I’m not leaving,” she said to her father.

“What did you say?” His eyes narrowed into two slits, his face contorting into the very picture of malice.

“I said I’m not leaving.”

Her mother stepped forward in black slacks and a black fitted T-shirt, with a single string of pearls lying across her throat. She held her own umbrella, which poked her husband’s as she took her place next to him. He had no choice but to move slightly to the right, surrendering some of his spot to her.

“Anna, this is not up for discussion,” her mother said. “Get your things and get into the car.”

“No.” Why did they even
want
her back home? All she could see were two people staring back at her with viciousness.

“Fine. What is it you want?” her mother asked coldly. “A new car? An apartment when you go away to school? You can have it. Just get in the car.”

“I don’t want
things
. I’m staying here.”

“Anna, do you even know what kind of people you’re mixed up with?”

“I really don’t want to hear what you have to say about any of this.”

“Well, you’re going to hear what I think whether you like it or not. We did a little research and found out that your boyfriend here is psychotic, which he probably inherited from his mother. Do you know what happened to her? She killed herself, which really isn’t a surprise given her husband’s business ventures—”

“That’s enough!” Anna shouted. “You have no right—how dare you!” She was so angry she couldn’t even form a sentence. “Get out of here now!”

“I thought I raised you to be better than
this
.” Her mother sneered at Caleb as she said the last word. “Not only are you living here in sin, but you’ve mixed yourself up with a maniac—”

“Don’t talk about him like that!” Anna’s hands were shaking, her heart pounding fast and hard. She searched her mind frantically for a way to hurt them back and deal them a blow that would leave a deep scar. But she was so enraged she couldn’t think straight, couldn’t think of one thing to say to inflict even a small wound. Her mind and body were on fire.

“You want to throw your life away? Go ahead,” her mother said in an eerily calm voice. Her lips curled up into a spiteful smile. “To think I gave up everything to raise you, turning out like this. All you are is an ungrateful, spoiled brat who will never amount to anything.” The words passed through Anna, but instead of feeding the fire raging in her, everything in her went dead.

Caleb pushed Anna behind him and took a step closer to the screen door so he was facing Anna’s mother.

“Get out of here right now before I remove you myself,” he said slowly. Anna’s father took a step so that he stood in front of Caleb. Although the screen door separated them, they were only inches from one another.

“Who do you think you are, you little punk? I oughtta beat the crap out of you.”

“Go ahead.” Caleb straightened up and pulled his shoulders back. Instead of being one or two inches taller than her father, he was three or four. In her numbness Anna studied them closely, as if time had stopped long enough for her to see that her father wasn’t the way he’d always been.

Next to Caleb, he was small. And he was old. He might have been stronger than Anna all these years, maybe not, but it was easy for him to bully her. She’d let him. But Caleb was young and strong, and there was no doubt that he could hurt her father, badly if he wanted. In that moment, she stopped being scared of her father and saw him as a little man who was so weak, he took to bullying his own child to make himself strong.

“You’re not worth it,” Anna’s father said with a sneer. Then he turned to Anna. “And neither are you. If this is the life you want, go ahead. But don’t you
ever
come back to my goddamn house again. I don’t want to hear from you.” He spun around and grabbed Anna’s mother by the arm. “Let’s go,” he mumbled, pulling her off the front step with him.

“Shameful,” her mother hissed at her, and stepped out into the rain.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Anna sunk into the couch cushions. She crisscrossed her legs and hung her head down, her open hand covering her face. Her body was so tiny and fragile. Yet she was strong. The words her parents had used, they were meant to control her, and when that didn’t work, they were meant to destroy her. But she had resisted. Caleb doubted if he could have been that strong.

Her body trembled and uneven breaths proved she was crying, albeit silently.

“It’s all right. You’re amazing.”

She kept her face hidden in her hand, and through the crying, answered him. “I’m not amazing. I’m horrible.”

He wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on her shoulder. “What are you talking about?” he whispered into her ear. “You didn’t do anything wrong. There’s not one thing you did or said that you could ever regret.”

“That’s not true. I’m a horrible person.”

“How can you say that?”

“They’re right. I’m ungrateful and selfish and—”

“Stop it.” He pulled her hand off her face and forced her to focus on his own. “You are none of those things. You’re allowed to decide how you want to live your life. The way they spoke to you—it’s disgusting. No one deserves to be treated like that.”

“Sometimes I do,” she said, so quietly he almost didn’t hear.

“Don’t talk like that. You deserve everything that’s good. You’re the best person I’ve ever known.”

Her sobbing started all over again.

His hate for her parents burned inside him. All they wanted to do was kill her spirit and everything that was good in her. He’d given them another chance to inject their venom into her. How could he have let that happen? He shouldn’t have let them talk to her, should have closed the door, should have…he didn’t know what.

“This guilt—I just can’t live with it,” she said breathlessly through the crying. “I feel like it’s eating a hole through my stomach and my chest. I can’t—I just want it to stop.” She was becoming frantic. He didn’t know what to do, how to make it stop. All he
could
do was hold her while she cried, her head nuzzled into his chest.

“There’s no reason for you to feel guilty. You didn’t do anything wrong. You’re so good. You’re so good.” Her breathing slowed, her body was relaxing, and she fell into him.

“You’re my world. I’d do anything for you. I love you, Anna. I love you more than anything.”

She came up from his chest. Her cheeks were flushed and stained with tears, her eyes puffy and red, and she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

“I love you,” she said back, and kissed him deeply.

* * *

Throughout the rest of the day, Anna slowly recovered from the shock of her parents’ visit. Although they didn’t talk about what had happened, she was more quiet than usual. Caleb was patient with her and tried to do for her what he could to bring her back into their world.

It rained all day, so they sat together in the study, Caleb at the desk sketching and Anna wrapped up in a blanket on the small sofa reading
East of Eden
. By dinnertime she was brighter and stronger, like she’d put a bout of a bad flu behind her. She insisted on cooking, scoffing at Caleb’s suggestion that he try, and after that he felt easier for the rest of the night.

The sun returned the next day, and with it came Anna’s full recovery. She was anxious to return to the outdoors, so they decided to take the rowboat out and go fishing. Armed with two fishing poles, a net, and a small box of bait, the two headed down the path to the lake. The earth gave way beneath Caleb’s flip-flops, the dirt still soft and damp from the rain. There was definitely a different smell to the air, the smell that only comes after a storm, and he breathed it in and felt relief. Her parents would leave them alone now. They could live in peace.

The rowboat was there waiting for them at the edge of the lake, its underside half-buried in the sand. Caleb yanked its cover off and the rainwater that had pooled on its top gushed onto the ground. The oars lay parallel to one another inside the boat.

“Can you hold these?” he asked, handing her the oars once she was settled. She laid them across her knees, and he shoved off from the shore. Just as the cold water from the lake began to run over his feet, he jumped inside the boat, barely missing his fishing gear. The oars cut gently into the surface of the water as he rowed them into the center of the lake.

“This is so beautiful,” Anna said. She slid over to the side and reached her hand out until her fingertips were skimming the water, leaving a trail behind them.

“This looks like a good spot,” he said finally, laying down the oars. He attached the bobber to the line of one of the fishing poles. “So do you know what you’re doing here?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Then I guess today’s your lucky day. You’re going to learn how to fish from an expert with, I’d say, almost twenty years of experience.”

“Hmm. So you’ve been fishing since you were born?”

“Yes, yes I have.”

“And in your expert opinion, hot dogs are the best kind of bait?” He ripped a chunk off of one of the dogs and stuck it onto the hook.

“Are you kidding me? Who doesn’t like hot dogs? You’ll see. They’ll be fighting each other for a piece of this,” he said, handing her the pole. “Now go ahead and cast your line.”

“Huh?”

“Whip it into the water.” He laughed. “I’ll show you.” With one fluid movement, he flicked the line so that the bobber plunked easily and practically without a splash into the water.

“I can do that, wise guy.” She whipped the line above her head and slammed the bobber against the surface of the water, splashing them both.