Chapter 33
Emma’s skull pounded with pain.
She was cold and tired and thirsty as she sat on the dirt floor with her head on her knees, a heavy blanket wrapped tight around her shoulders.
Who did this to me?
Someone had locked her up. But first they’d hit her on the back of the head, where she could feel a huge lump, and there was dried blood in her hair.
She had no memory of being hit or left in this little room.
She believed the attack had happened as she walked from Tommy’s barn toward his house because she remembered feeding Harley after dinner, but she didn’t remember making it back inside Tommy’s home.
Now she was stuck in some sort of weird room.
Or cell.
It wasn’t much larger than Harley’s stall.
The floor was dirt and the walls were plywood, making her feel as if it was part of a barn.
But she felt she might be underground because she’d yelled and banged on the walls, and they didn’t sound right.
There was something behind the plywood. As if another thick layer of wood or dirt insulated and kept the noises inside her room (cell).
There was a dim light bulb in the ceiling behind a layer of thick plastic.
She’d unsuccessfully tried to stand on a bucket to see if she could move the plastic and twist the bulb to turn it off.
She’d always only been able to sleep in a completely darkened room, and she suspected a night had passed because she’d been so tired and slept on and off for a long time.
It was disorienting to not know the time or see outdoors.
Her exhaustion had kept making her vision blur, and the crappy light had interrupted her sleep, waking her over and over.
And the cold. So much cold.
At least she still had her orange coat. The snow had been falling hard after she’d fed Harley. She recalled being outside the barn, wearing the coat and trying to catch a flake on her tongue like a kid. It’d made her cough, the falling snow was so thick.
I remember coughing. And then nothing.
She wondered if her attacker had watched her stick out her tongue.
Emma wiped her eyes, still shaken that someone had actually hit her and locked her up. The only people she could think of were the two who’d broken into her home that night. Clearly they’d had a goal in mind.
I think that was the same man who talked to Tommy.
Or was she completely wrong? Making connections where none existed. Perhaps she so badly wanted to learn who’d been there that she was making up things in her head.
Do I have a concussion?
“Maybe I’ve been here for three days,” she said to the light bulb.
“Or a week.” But she suspected she would be hungrier.
A few weird protein bars had been left in her room (cell), and she’d eaten one a while ago, finding it tasteless and dry.
Three bottles of water had also been left.
She’d drunk one. And then wished she hadn’t.
When she’d first woken and explored the room (cell), she’d looked in the bucket in a corner, hoping to find more food.
It was empty, and she immediately understood what it was for and that she wouldn’t have access to a real bathroom.
She’d waited until she thought her bladder would burst and then finally used the bucket.
Now when she was thirsty, she didn’t want to drink because she didn’t want to use the bucket. But she knew better than to get dehydrated, so she drank.
And used the bucket.
It wasn’t as if anyone was watching.
I hope.
The door to her room (cell) had no knob or window or visible hinges. Everything was on the outside. She’d crammed her fingers into every slight groove she could find in the door and the walls and pulled and yanked to no avail. Nothing would move.
It was a prison.
So she’d sat on the dirt floor and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders. She’d leaned against a wall for a while but discovered it was even colder than the floor.
She waited for someone to come. Surely they would bring more water and food and empty her bucket. If they’d wanted her to die, there would have been no supplies. They had a purpose for keeping her, but she couldn’t think of what it could be.
Perhaps this was God’s punishment for wishing her father would never return. She’d known those were bad thoughts, practically evil ones, because deep down she’d hoped he was dead. She deserved to be punished.
Maybe he’s in a cell too.
She hadn’t missed him. Not one bit.
Not like she’d missed her mother. Emma closed her eyes and tried to remember what her mother had looked like. Emma had been eight when she left, and her father had burned every single photo of her mother.
He’d told Emma her mother had left because she was a bad girl.
Emma had cried and cried, convinced it was because she’d broken her mother’s Christmas charm bracelet.
The bracelet she’d been told to never touch, but it was so beautiful that Emma couldn’t resist putting it on.
She’d sneak into her parents’ room and look in the little box of jewelry.
Emma didn’t care about the other bracelets and necklaces.
She only had eyes for the charm bracelet.
But she’d dropped it, and the candy cane and golden star had broken off.
The two charms had skittered under the bed after it hit the hard tile floor, and Emma had scrambled on her hands and knees to find the charms, terrified that she’d hear a parent coming down the hall any second.
With shaking hands she’d set everything back in the box, ridiculously hoping her mother would believe it had broken inside the box.
My mother wasn’t stupid.
Instead, her mother had left without saying goodbye.
She’d even left the bracelet behind instead of taking the constant reminder of what a bad daughter Emma had been.
It’d taken weeks after her mother left for Emma to gather the courage to look in the box.
The bracelet was right where she’d left it.
She stared at it for a long time and then snatched up all the pieces.
She scurried to her room with the bracelet gripped tightly against her chest and hid it deep inside a rip in her mattress.
A few years later she’d managed to reattach the charms. But the bracelet always stayed hidden, pulled out to look at only when her father was asleep. Or gone.
After that she’d tried hard to be a good girl for her father.
She did his laundry and changed his sheets.
She tried to cook but only knew how to open a can or put something in the microwave.
As she got older, she tried to make a few recipes, but her father never noticed.
He just assumed she’d heated a frozen meal. She stopped trying.
One time the microwaved meatloaf had still been icy in spots while cooked to rubber in others, and he’d been furious.
After shouting at her, he’d shoved her against the stove, and she’d slipped and fallen, landing on her hand and pinkie finger wrong.
The finger turned red and swelled and hurt horribly, but she didn’t tell him, terrified he’d get angry again.
She knew it was broken. The finger eventually stopped hurting, but it was always crooked, a constant reminder that she was a bad daughter.
A few years ago, when Uncle Tommy had been there for dinner, Emma had accidentally knocked over her water glass and it had soaked her dad’s lap.
He’d reached over and slapped her hard, nearly making her fall off her chair.
Uncle Tommy had roared and punched her father in the face, making his lips bleed and knocking a tooth loose.
He’d made her father swear to never slap her again.
But that night he’d spanked her and spanked her because she’d made him look bad in front of Uncle Tommy.
The stupid daughter.
Uncle Tommy didn’t come to dinner for two years after that. But every time Emma saw him, he always studied her, a small scowl on his face, and she knew he was looking for bruises. But her father was smart, and after that dinner he’d only left bruises that were hidden by her clothes.
Emma learned to fade into the background and stay under the radar in her own home, never calling attention to herself.
A talent she also used in school. She anticipated her father’s needs so he wouldn’t have to speak to her.
The home was spotless. A ragged but clean towel always within reach.
His coffee brewed before he woke. A supply of sandwiches in the refrigerator, easy for him to grab so he wouldn’t yell that there was never anything to eat.
She made herself scarce, so he would never have to think about her.
In her cold little room (cell), Emma adjusted her blanket and wished she had a heavier coat.
She decided to make a deal with God that if he got her out of this horrible place where she had to pee in a bucket, she’d never hate or complain about her father when he came home. She would be a good daughter.
Her fingers twinged as she tightened her grip on the blanket, and she stared at her crooked pinkie, remembering the long nights when it’d hurt so bad she’d believed it would turn black and fall off.
Sorry, God. No deal.
She’d rather stay in the cold cell than see her father again.