Unbound (2 page)

“Hey
Sam,” he called out. “Time for a coffee break. Why don’t you flip the sign and
lock the door?” In the same tone, he turned his head away from me and said more
loudly, “You got the other one?” I remembered the bell ringing and realized
there was another customer in the store.

“Yeah,
I got him,” called another male voice from the back of the store.

The
man in black propelled me towards the counter with a slight push. On unsteady
feet, I stumbled behind it as Sam scrambled around me to lock the door.

Gulping
air into my lungs, I dug my nails into my palms, hoping the pain would keep me
from passing out.
 
Holding myself
upright on shaky legs gave me a perfect view of the other customer being
escorted to the front of the store. I felt my heart pause between beats as I
looked straight into his eyes. Eyes that I had seen in dreams and nightmares
for my entire life. A strangled gasp escaped my lips and I felt my legs give
way, only distantly aware that my body was collapsing in a heap on the floor.
Blackness settled on me like a thick blanket.

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With
no connection to the events unfolding around me, I felt unnaturally calm from
my head to my toes, as if I floated in a warm pool in the sunshine with my eyes
closed. Swimming slowly up from the darkness, I felt the relief that often
accompanies having your worst fears confirmed. Clearly, I’d lost my mind,
because I knew who those eyes belonged to and he wasn’t real. Smiling, I opened
my eyes, ready to embrace what I’d been running from, and towards, for as long
as I could remember.

Instead,
Sam’s face loomed over mine, his brown eyes still wide and startled. I stared
at him silently, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

 
“Rashelle, are you okay?” He tried to
pull me up by tugging on my arm, but before he’d even finished his question, he
turned to look over his shoulder. I followed his gaze and felt my heart sink.
We were completely alone.

“Where
did everyone go?” I was trying to connect the pieces, but I felt thick and
unreasonably calm, as if hold ups at the local convenience store were all part
of a typical day.

Instead
of answering, Sam left me standing on unsteady legs and peered out the front
door, his head swinging back and forth as he looked up and down the sidewalk.
Satisfied, he stepped back into the store. “They left.”

“Who
were they, Sam?” My heart jumped in my chest, pushing against this inexplicable
tranquillity, trying to find its usual panicked rhythm.

He
shook his head. “Bad men.”

“What
about the other customer? The tall one? Where is he?”

Sam
locked the door and moved quickly towards the back of the store, still avoiding
my eyes. “I don’t know Rashelle. He left too. But you’re okay? Not hurt?”

I
felt numb, as if my emotions had been wrapped in cellophane, but I wasn’t hurt
and I told him so.

“Shouldn’t
you call the police?” I felt curious about my lack of anxiety as I said that.
Why wasn’t I more frightened by what had just happened? Was this what shock
felt like?

“No
police,” he said, shaking his head.

Nodding
as if this was a perfectly reasonable response, I unlocked the door and left
the store. Standing on the sidewalk, I looked up and down the street, just as
Sam had. The rain had stopped and the last of the morning’s commuters had closed
their umbrellas and loosened their jackets. But the person I was looking for,
the one I always looked for, was gone. Again.

A
surge of disappointment pushed itself forcibly into my cloudy thoughts and I
sagged a little under its weight. The thought of going back to work, of
spending one more minute trying to make the best of this already horrible day,
was so unappealing that I reached for my cell and called Jane as I walked in
the direction of home.

“Rachel!”
Her voice beamed motherly concern at me through the phone. “I thought you’d
gotten lost. Where’s the milk?”

I
cursed silently as I realized the milk was still sitting on the counter at
Sam’s. Guilt bloomed up in my chest, riding shotgun to the uneasiness I was
beginning to think had made a permanent home there. “Hey Jane. Um, I’m not
feeling well?” It came out sounding more like a question than I’d intended it
to.

Fortunately,
Jane’s maternal instincts were in overdrive and she didn’t seem to notice. “You
did look flushed this morning,” she said. “Poor you! Where are you? Do you need
help?”

“I’m
around the corner. I um, didn’t make it all the way to the store,” I said,
sounding as pathetic as I felt. “I think I just need to go home and rest.” I
slumped my shoulders and then felt ridiculous as I realized she couldn’t see
me.
 

“That’s
probably best. You don’t seem yourself at all today. Take care, okay kiddo?”

I
thanked her, grateful for having an understanding boss and knowing that trying
to concentrate on my work would be pointless. It was always like this after I
saw him. Days could pass in a stupor, filled with half formed ideas and
unanswered questions.

Throwing myself on my bed when I got home, I crawled
underneath my blankets and felt just as sick as I had told Jane I was. The unnatural
sense of serenity had fled and was replaced by pangs of anxiety and self-doubt,
mixed with serious questions about my sanity. Reaching down, I pulled the paper
out of my pocket and twined it through my fingers, tracing each number with my
eyes, committing it to memory.

I felt weary as the tears came, tired of struggling so
hard to do what others did without trying. Tired of being different, tired of
being so broken. In a flash of irritation, I wiped my eyes and sat up, grabbing
my phone. Fingers shaking, I dialed the first few digits, then stopped, staring
at the black screen. What if being normal also meant losing him? I hit cancel
and put the paper under my pillow and flopped over on my stomach. I promised
myself I’d call tomorrow, knowing that this was only the lie I repeated to help
me get through another day.

As
I felt myself drifting to sleep, I tried to recreate that last moment in the
store, the moment he had turned around and I had seen his eyes. Eyes that I had
first seen when I was five years old.

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“Rachel!
Now please.”

That
morning, my mother had stood at my bedroom door, arms folded. “I’m going to
start counting.”

Leaving
my motley crew of stuffed animals stranded on my bed, I darted to the hall
closet, pulled my coat off the hanger, jammed my feet into my boots and quietly
slipped under her arm towards the sidewalk.

A late
November wind ripped the few remaining leaves from the trees to mingle with the
garbage that coasted along the curb in front of our house.
 
Realizing that I’d forgotten my mittens,
I shoved my hands into my pockets and hoped she wouldn’t notice.

We
stopped at the park on the way, sitting on the cold, hard bench while she drank
her coffee, watching as the squirrels scurried across the ground, foraging the
last scraps of the harvest while the weather held.

My
mother and I filled in the long hours until my father came home as best as we
could. Like toys discarded in the playroom, we only truly came to life when my
father walked through the door at the end of the day. Busying ourselves with
household tasks, we allowed the minutiae of ordinary life to distract us for as
long as possible, until – with the banking done and the dry cleaning
dropped off – we would wander over to the park to wait. And watch.

That
day, the first time I saw him, we hadn’t stayed at the park for very long. My
mother had grudgingly begun her overseas Christmas shopping that afternoon,
hoping to package up and ship off the gifts for her Scottish in-laws ahead of
the holiday rush. Thoroughly uninterested in helping her pick out pyjamas for
my cousin Dawn, I trailed behind her as she impartially flipped through racks
of polyester nightgowns. With my eyes squeezed tightly shut and one hand
stretched out in front of me, I used the belt of my mother’s winter coat like a
lifeline. Fumbling along cheerfully, I was pretending I was blind.

Eventually
growing tired of my game – mostly because my mother had stood in one
place for so long – but also because my arm was starting to ache from
holding it out in front of me, I let my eyes slide open and turning my head
slightly, was stunned into stillness.

Past
the racks of children’s clothes, near the entrance of the department store, lay
a Christmas village built completely out of gingerbread. Almost as tall as I was,
the walls of the houses were stacked upon cotton candy snowdrifts – the
crystallized sugar a fair mimic of ice warmed by the sun. The warm smell of
cinnamon wafted under my nose as I gazed in wonder at the chocolate wafer
streets that had been patterned like cobblestones and lined with candystick
light posts. At the end of the street, a licorice car was stopped at a cherry
red lollipop stop sign.

Captivated,
I drifted towards the village, staring at the snow-capped peaks on the roof.
Was it icing? Tentatively, I reached out with one finger to touch the outer
edge of the sugary wall and stopped, suddenly aware of the slack in my other
hand. Looking back, I stared uncomprehending at the tan belt that lay on the
floor like a sick snake, no longer attached to my mother’s coat. No longer
attached to my mother. She was gone.

Looking
around wildly, stomach clenched and eyes stinging with soon- to be- shed-tears,
my hands fluttered up from my sides like two startled birds from a hedge. With
a sickening lurch, I realized I was alone.
 
I caught a glimpse that day, understood the fragile wall that stands
between our sense of security and anonymity. Between being loved and being
annihilated by loneliness.

Seconds
before I melted down into a hysterical, I want-my-mommy kind of panic that only
young children are capable of, I felt a hand rest comfortingly on my head.
Gazing up, I saw a man with kind grey eyes staring down at me. He wore leather
gloves that were soft on my hair and he smelled really good, like new wool and
musk.

Looking
back, I realize I should have been scared. Instead, I’d admired the long tartan
scarf he wore loosely wrapped around his neck, underneath his long dark coat. I
had almost reached out to touch it as he knelt down beside me, wondering if it
was as soft as it looked. The man with the grey eyes that smiled, even though
his mouth did not, said, “Don’t be afraid,” and I realized I wasn’t.

Something
about his deep, warm voice was familiar and I thought maybe he knew me, or
maybe he was a teacher at my school, because I wasn’t really feeling shy, like
I usually did.
 
Instead, it felt
like he liked me. I think it was because he looked right at me, and not through
me, like most adults do with kids.

As
I looked silently back at him, he reached for my hand and placed it firmly in
his own. We walked to the counter of the department store together, this tall
man with the nice-smelling leather gloves and kind eyes. He waited his turn in
line and then smiled at the clerk and inquired politely if she might make an
announcement.

Glancing
up at him, I’d felt completely safe, as if nothing had ever been more natural
than to be hand in hand with a stranger in the mall. I would have left with
him, if he’d asked me to.
 

Instead,
he had leaned down to me and whispered, “Stay safe, Rachel, I’ll be watching
for you,” and then he walked away, leaving me with the department store clerk.
She looked very disappointed that he didn’t stay.

But
the reason I remember that day so clearly, the reason I think I remember this
at all, is because I am sure, certain in fact, that I never said a word.

I
never told him my name.

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My
eyes were open for a full second before I remembered where I was. What day it
was. The evening light cast pale shadows across my walls. I sat up, stunned
into a stupor from a nap that had stretched through the afternoon and into the
early evening.
 
Turning lights on as
I moved through the apartment, I checked the front door and noticed my mother’s
work shoes weren’t on the mat where she usually put them. More than likely
she’d picked up a double shift at the hospital. She did that all the time. Why
not? It’s not like she had anything, or anyone, important to come home to.

Moving
into the living room, I stood by the window staring out at the streetlights and
early evening traffic, watching for her car and knowing it wasn’t coming all at
the same time. I could feel gloominess wrapping around me like a blanket and
shaking my head, I moved swiftly to my bedroom and changed quickly into my
running clothes, fearing that losing any more ground today would be disastrous.