Chapter 32
Kittie
W hen my mom comes back to the hospital room, Dorian isn’t with her. My throat tightens, and heat prickles my eyes. Have I made a mistake? I know he’ll be back eventually; even if he has to sneak me out of the hospital in the middle of the night, he’ll be back.
But five days come and go, and he doesn’t return. After I’m discharged from the hospital, while my mom loads me into the car, I stare across the parking lot, searching for the black BMW, waiting for him to come for me.
I tell myself there are no other decisions I could’ve made. Everything I felt at the estate resulted from trying to survive, that’s all. I love Dorian, but something has to be wrong with me if I go back, right? With my freedom returned, I can make a clear, rational decision, no matter how painful.
Does he think I lied? I wonder. Does he think I don’t love him?
To protect him, I blamed Tucker. I heard Cory and Dorian speaking about it back in the forest. I couldn’t not blame someone; my disappearance had to be explained.
I told to the officer that I left the hospital in a daze all those months ago and ended up at my father’s house—the same small rancher where I’d spent many summers. Tucker wouldn’t let me go until a drive through the mountainside presented me an opportunity.
My story about falling out of the car and hitting my head remained mostly the same, but I fabricated another about escaping from him in the woods and then hearing a gunshot echo through the forest.
When asked about the details of my captivity, I used my childhood memories. Even if the timeline was wrong, telling someone what Tucker did to me was strangely vindicating. Maybe being confined inside a closet for hours at a time doesn’t sound as horrific happening to an adult instead of a child, but the crimes felt no less heard.
My mom’s wails of anger and grief led the cops to lighten up on their questioning after that. When I explained he hadn’t touched me inappropriately—just wanted to be a family again—it cooled my mom’s panic.
And now that we’re parked outside my mom’s house, with all of Tucker’s crimes accounted for and punished and my old life restored, I should feel happy.
But I’m not.
I chalk up the visceral pain clawing at me as leftover terror from my near-death experiences. Even once we go inside, the agony persists. It bogs me down enough that I can’t truly rejoice about my mom and I finally reuniting. I spent months missing her—and yes, I’m glad to have her again—but I can’t process anything beyond the blinding pain.
Guilt pulses beneath it all. How many nights did I cry myself to sleep, thinking I’d never see her again? How desperately had I missed her and my freedom? And yet, all I can do is scowl at the inside of my mom’s house the second we step through the door.
Everything remains unchanged—even the same layer of dust, albeit thicker, is untouched. The picture frames covering the far wall of my mom’s college years and holiday trips with her girlfriends seem unfamiliar, even if I’ve stared at them for years. The clutter, which I was sure I missed weeks ago, is overwhelming. Before, I thought I would throw myself onto the floor and kiss the worn carpet, but no relief comes to me.
The walls that surround me are strangers.
“I’ll start making dinner if you’re hungry,” my mom says as I slowly walk into my bedroom. She looks nervous as she follows me.
I can’t blame her—what could anyone say or do in this situation? I’ve been gone for so long; she might as well have brought a different person home.
Like the rest of the house, my bedroom remains undisturbed. It stares back at me with a full closet of clothes that no longer belong to me, nicknacks that have lost all sentimentality, and books that belong to another life entirely.
“Actually, Mom, I’m not all that hungry,” I tell her. Suddenly, a swell of sorrow weighs down my heart. “I kind of just want to lay down for a little while.”
My mom nods. I can tell there’s something on her mind, but she stays quiet, and I don’t have the energy to pry.
“I’ll be here if you need me,” she replies.
I don’t speak. I don’t trust my voice.
I close the door and look over the contents of my bedroom. The box of used postcards is still on the corner of my desk. I thought that maybe, out of all my possessions, these would make me feel at home. But the comfort they once offered me—an escape as someone else—only depresses me.
I knock them off the desk and send them scattering across the floor.
I make my way toward my bed, still made from the last time I saw it. I flop on the comforter. It doesn’t feel like my bed. It rejects me, as though all the corners in my room can tell I wish with my whole heart that it was another room.
I press my face into my hands and curl into a ball. Why does it hurt this much? I hoped I would be jumping for joy the minute I got “home” and could continue with the rest of my life…
But that’s the problem. When Dorian wanders into my mind uninvited, I realize in complete horror that I’m not grieving the time lost but the time I won’t get to have. My life with Dorian is over, and I’ll never see him again. I love him more than words can adequately express, and I love that house, Raney, and even Cory.
I haven’t lost seven months. I’ve lost the rest of my life from here on in. I’ll never be whole again.
The torrent of sobs rips through me. I weep loudly into my pillow, trying to calm myself down, but nothing could seal up the hole in me.
“Let’s go to the fair this weekend!” My mom’s shrill cry makes me jump.
I’m on the corner of my bed, curled in on myself with a book in my lap. It’s been three weeks since I last saw Dorian—an agonizing twenty-one days of which I counted the seconds. I expected to adjust, but every aspect of my old life remains uncomfortable, like a shell I no longer fit into but am desperately trying to settle back into.
While everything in the house hasn’t changed, my mom has. For days, she fluttered around, anxious and confused but never expressing what made her that way. I’ve tried to settle back into a routine of normalcy, but she can’t seem to relax, even after nearly a month.
Since the accident, I’ve been seeing a cognitive therapist. While there’s some worry that I might deal with some level of—as she referred to it— anterograde amnesia , I work with her weekly to try and gain a firmer ability to make new memories. It feels silly to do word memorization and recall, but it’s the only thing I leave the house for. Even though the doctor cleared me post-decompression surgery, my mom resolved to have me rest indefinitely.
I tried to apply for my old job back at Shop-N-Go , but she all but had a conniption. She won’t let me take care of the yard, try and fix the flush handle on the toilet, or take a look over her bank statements.
She’s so different than before, and in a way, I think I am, too.
What makes it worse is this new boyfriend of hers. I hear her talking to him on the phone every night, and she sounds like she misses him. She’s barred him from coming over to meet me because she doesn’t trust I can handle it. Sometimes, I catch her crying softly beneath the sizzle of the stove while cooking dinner. Her mental health has taken the same nose-dive trajectory that mine has.
When I don’t answer, my mom rambles, “I’ve got Hairspray on DVD, the one from Broadway? Scratch that. We’ll plan a trip to Broadway, just like I always said we would. Then maybe I can take you to see the Grand Canyon; you talked all the time about it when you were a little girl.”
When I lift my eyes from my book to her face, it dawns on me that guilt hangs over her—guilt to do with my father, guilt over my disappearance, guilt that there isn’t anything she can do to change it all.
I exhale evenly and stand, putting my hands on her shoulders to silence her. She frowns at me. We haven’t talked in all the time we’ve spent together since my return. She’s spoken at me, and I’ve stared wordlessly at her, waiting to wake up from this awful dream, but we haven’t talked .
Now, I realize this is more than trying to return to normal. My mom is cutting herself in half as if her suffering might change something. But I don’t want that for her. She’s never been one to take care of another person, but she feels like she must. It’s weighing down on her.
“Mom, nothing that happened is your fault,” I tell her. “I’m so sorry you were worried…that you still are. But putting your life on hold for me now won’t fix anything.” I cut her off before she can argue. “You have a boyfriend.”
After a second of processing, her face scrunches, and she says, “I don’t know what that has to do with anything.”
“You haven’t had a boyfriend in years,” I point out. “Especially one that you talk to every night! I want you to be happy, and if you bend yourself over backward to take care of me because you think you should, then you’re not doing what makes you happy.”
“Kittie, I…” my mom trails off. It sounds like she has a lump in her throat as she stares down at her hands. “I wish I could have been better for you.”
I smile reassuringly at her. “Mom, you’re a person. People are messy. We can’t go back and change anything—we have to do what’s best for us right now, right?”
It dawns on me that I have a choice now. And if I’m desperate to let my mom live her life, I have my own to consider.
“I’m moving in with Dorian, and I’m not changing my mind.”
Mom’s eyes light up with a new-found life. “But, sweetheart, you said—I mean, you need to take time to heal. You’ve been through so much.”
“It’s what I need right now.”
“But you barely know each other! So much might have changed since—”
She doesn’t finish and winces at the unspoken words.
“Life is short, Mom. I can spend it at odds with myself, trying to figure out what’s right, what’s wrong, and what’s healthy. I want to be with him, and he wants to be with me. Why would I waste any more time just for the sake of it, only for me to come to the same conclusion?”
My mom nods slightly, trying to smile again, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.
I lift her hand and give it an affection pat. “I’m not saying goodbye to you forever. I’m not going to disappear again, I promise. That’s all over now. And I hope maybe something new can grow from this.”
Even if she isn’t happy about my decision, she does help me pack my stuff. I don’t take much; I grab one of my mom’s framed pictures of us at the Duffey County Fair. The rest of my old things are better suited for a yard sale. Everything I need is back at the estate.
My mom’s kind enough to drive me, although she spends most of the journey trying to convince me to stay. When I don’t relent, she swears up and down that she always has a place for me. I appreciate it and know she means every word, even when it seems like a weight has fallen from her shoulders.
For the first time in my life, I genuinely feel she’s gotten onto her feet.
My mother drops me off at the estate at six in the evening. I expect Dorian to be home, so I talk my mother out of seeing him; he doesn’t need to deal with my mother’s anxiety, even if he’s to blame for its development. It’ll be a long time before I can make her feel okay again. I sense a lot of dinners at her kitchen table and weekend antiquing in my future.
I make it to the front door with a backpack in hand. The second my feet touch the porch, the pain dissipates. I steal a breath and knock.
For some reason, I expect Dorian to answer. Instead, when the door opens, I find Cory, who gawks at me in confusion. I stare back, thankful I waited a few seconds before throwing my arms around the first person to answer the door.
“Kittie?” he says in disbelief, looking me over.
I bashfully wave at him.
There’s a hollow thump in the next room. “Did you say ‘Kittie’?” a familiar voice calls.
Cory steps back partly into the hall and opens the door a little wider so I can see Raney poke her head out of the living room. She’s in elbow-length gloves and an apron, looking positively adorable.
“Hi,” I greet her, unable to fight a grin.
“Kittie!” she cries and runs for the door.
With the force of her bear hug, I’m shocked she doesn’t knock us both straight off the porch and into the dirt. Her arms constrict around me, and though it hurts a little, I don’t let go. She smells like bleach and lavender. Dorian isn’t the only one I’ve missed.
Cory has a hint of a smile. “Glad to see you’re well. I heard you were hurt.”
“I’m okay now,” I reply with a sheepish shrug. I absent-mindedly lift a hand and play with the patch of short hair behind my ear.
“What are you doing here?” Raney asks when she peels away from me, baffled and happy. “I thought you’d still be at home with your mom!”
I grimace at her words. “ This is my home, isn’t it?”
They glance at each other. Cory seems hesitant and worried. Raney, on the other hand, brims with excitement.
Some silent conversation occurs between the two until Cory steps out of the entryway and ushers me inside. “Dorian’s staying late at the office today. I can call him if you’d like?”
“No, I’d hate to bother him,” I say, venturing further into the house. The scent of the estate hits me immediately, and I fight the urge to cry. If my mom’s house rejected me, this place immediately embraces me. “Can I just stay here for a minute?”
Cory nods once.
“It really hasn’t been the same since you were gone,” Raney comments as she pulls her gloves off and shoves them into her apron pocket.
After Cory closes the door, we linger in the hallway.
“What do you mean?”
“Dorian’s been in a funk, and nothing can snap him out of it.”
My heart sinks. “What do you mean by a funk?”
When Raney’s smile fizzles out, she glances up at Cory and mumbles, “He’s been a little…distracted. He’s been drinking a lot; too much, really.”
A monsoon of guilt washes over me. I shouldn’t have refused to see him. If I suffered, then he probably has, too. Maybe more so.
Raney guides me into the living room, taking my bag from my shoulder. When I reach the sofa, I suddenly understand what they mean. There are several empty, or mostly empty, bottles of gin lining the coffee table. Crumpled paperwork is scattered across it. There’s a disregarded tie on the floor.
“Sorry,” she murmurs as I take in the sight. “I haven’t gotten around to cleaning this room yet. He’s been spending most nights here.”
I run my hands over the cushion of the sofa. If I spent every day while we’ve been apart crying, how has Dorian handled it?
I lift my eyes to Cory. “Would you please give him a call to come back? Don’t tell him I’m here; I don’t want to upset him before he drives.”
Cory fishes his phone out of his pocket before I finish speaking. He taps the screen a few times before holding it up. I hold my breath, clinging to the sound of ringing on the speaker. Dorian picks up just as I worry it’ll go to voicemail.
“Yeah?” His voice sounds exhausted and annoyed.
My heart races in my chest. I didn’t anticipate how good it would feel to hear his voice.
Unfazed by his tone, Cory says, “Sorry to bother you, but we’ve got a problem here that needs your handling.”
Dorian pauses before asking, “Is the house burning down?”
Cory wrinkles his brow, and Raney shakes her head. I’ve never heard him speak so brusquely, but it appears to be the new normal, given their reactions.
“No,” Cory replies curtly.
“Then I can handle it when I get back, can’t I?”
They exchange looks again. Recognition flashes in their eyes, and Raney suddenly grins ear-to-ear.
“Well,” she begins, leaning toward the phone in Cory’s hand, “it’s just that you told us to let you know if we found something of Kittie’s. We found this hair ribbon, and it’s not mine, so we figured we should ask you before throwing it away.”
“Don’t! Don’t—” Dorian clears his throat, embarrassed by the sudden burst of desperation. After a pause, he returns to an even voice that I haven’t heard in so long, “Please don’t dispose of anything that may belong to Katherine.”
“Sure,” she responds, still grinning. “It’s just that it was in this one bag that I think we missed during our initial cleaning. Maybe instead of spending all night at the office, you could come home at a reasonable hour and let us know how to proceed?”
“It’s late already,” Cory agrees. There’s a long silence that stretches between them. Eventually, he adds, “I believe there were a few clothing items. A blue dress, I think.”
Something makes a thud on the other end, followed by silence.
Glancing at his phone, Cory shrugs. “He hung up.”
I bite my lip. “Did that make him angry?”
“No,” Raney replies with a mischievous glint in her eye. “He’s on his way.”
“How can you be sure?”
Cory sighs. “I don’t enjoy stooping to your level. That felt like manipulation.”
“Oh, it absolutely was. But hey, it worked!” When I frown at Raney, she explains, “He may be a teensy bit on edge regarding your things.”
Before, I might have found it odd, but now I can sympathize. I have no idea how I would behave if I had reminders of him everywhere at my mom’s house. If I had something that smelled like him, I probably might have come back sooner.
Raney links her arm with mine and kites me toward the recliner in the corner. “How’s a game of Gin Rummy while we wait?”
Cory gathers the empty bottles from the coffee table, and the glass clinks together. He carries them deeper into the estate, and his phantom smile remains.