33
Jessa
Nine hours buried
You ’ re a brave girl.
Those words felt sticky and wrong the second they came out of my mouth.
They weren ’ t untrue. Sage was brave. So what, then?
My heart lurched and I suddenly realized that it was the same thing I ’ d said to Soph that awful night.
For once, I let my memory go all the way back.
Matt pulled me halfway down the hall—headed for the stairs. I wanted to scream, wanted to pull away, but that would just make things worse. He only stopped digging his fingers into my arm when we heard Soph ’ s tiny voice call out, “ Mommy? Daddy? ”
This time, I knew she wasn ’ t talking in her sleep.
She was scared, wondering why her bedroom door was cracked open, wondering why there were scuffling noises and low voices coming from the hallway.
“ Tell her to go back to bed,” Matt hissed in my ear, his breath hot and sickly, whiskey-sweet and sour.
“ Soph, it ’ s okay, I was just checking on you and forgot to close the door. Go back to bed, baby,” I said in a voice that didn ’ t sound like it belonged to me at all.
“ But I had a bad dream,” she replied. “ I need a hug.”
I took a step away from Matt, toward her half-closed bedroom door, thinking that surely he ’ d back down now that Soph was awake and scared.
Instead, he tightened his fingers on my arm again and pressed the fireplace poker against my side as he whispered in my ear, “ You ’ re using your own daughter like a human shield, Jess.” He nudged me with the poker and I swallowed my scream. “ Stop it. You ’ re the one who fucked up, not her.”
If it weren ’ t for the countless times he ’ d accused me of cheating on him, I would ’ ve had no idea what he was talking about. I hadn ’ t done anything. Saying so wouldn ’ t help me, though. I knew that by now, from long before I ’ d started hiding under Soph ’ s bed.
“ Soph, Mommy is tired,” I said, doing everything I could to keep the tremble out of my words. “ Go back to sleep, baby. I ’ ll see you in the morning.”
If I see you in the morning. I couldn ’ t stop the thought from blooming before I shoved it away.
There was silence. Then that tiny voice again. “ Okay, Mommy.”
“ That ’ s a brave girl,” I managed as Matt pushed me forward a few steps, pointing at Soph ’ s door.
I reached out a hand and closed it slowly, so slowly, hoping maybe she ’ d call out again.
Instead, she sighed. A soft, little sigh that told me she really was going back to sleep.
Now, to my right, Bonnie sighed in her sleep, and the sound of it was enough to make the memory of Soph feel so real again that for the first time in ages, I didn ’ t try to stop the tears that poured down my cheeks and into my mouth, wide open in a wordless wail.
For just a few seconds, I let myself pretend that Sage—and Bonnie, who had nestled herself halfway onto my lap—were my daughters.
I tried to brace against the shuddering that came with the silent sobs, not wanting to wake any of the kids, but they were all so exhausted I suspected I could cry all night like this without waking them.
What were we going to do? Was there any way out of here?
My tears flowed faster, harder, as the panic in my stomach turned heavy and electric the same way it had that night in the hallway when I turned around to face Matt. That feeling that screamed run, get out, fight back, do something.
Except that the odds were so stacked, what could I even do?
I lost everything the last time I felt that particular flavor of desperation, urging me to do something .
I had, and I ’ d lost my sweet Soph who had once loved horses and friendship bracelets and bubblegum ice cream. Did she still love those things at nine like she had back when she was six? I didn ’ t know, and that thought made me cry even harder.
Getting custody again was technically possible. Only technically , though . As far as the courts were concerned, it involved saving up enough money to move out of the halfway house and into my own place. It also meant passing muster with the social worker who ’ d been assigned to supervise our visits for six months.
I ’ d quickly learned that those were the easy parts. For one thing, nobody wanted to hire a felon fresh out of jail. I ’ d started putting my maiden name and my sister Lisa ’ s address down, praying they only ran in-state background checks.
When I actually got the job with Bright Beginnings, I ’ d whooped with joy.
When I told Soph—at one of our supervised visits—that I ’ d be able to apply for custody again in six months or so, she ’ d cried.
They weren ’ t happy tears, though.
“ She ’ ll come around,” Lisa had assured me. “ She ’ s just having a really hard time. The therapist says she ’ s doing lots better. Soph just has to process all of this in her own way.”
It was a pretty way of saying an ugly truth.
And the truth was so, so ugly.
Soph had been living with Lisa in Idaho the whole three years I was in prison in Utah. And as much as I adored Lisa for that—and for everything else she ’ d done for me—I secretly hated her for it, too. Because the only letters I ever got while I was in jail were written in her handwriting, not Soph ’ s. I loved and hated the photos I saw of my little girl, getting older and more grown up and farther away with each passing month, smiling at my nieces and nephews and sister like the lifelines they were.
Soph had never wanted to talk to me over the phone. Not even once, the entire three years I ’ d spent locked up.
The rain pounded harder overhead on the metal sheet covering the bunker, drumming louder and more violently.
I cried more violently too, letting the sound cover my sobs.
I ’ d only ever told the story of what I ’ d done that night one time. On the third day of the pre-trial hearing, when I ’ d changed my plea to guilty.
Things weren ’ t looking good for me. The jury was going to convict. There were no witnesses who could testify to seeing evidence of physical abuse. I ’ d covered my bruises far too well. And as for the emotional and sexual abuse? It was my word against a dead man ’ s.
That morning, the prosecution offered me a plea deal with an expiration of four hours. Three years in prison, versus the possibility of life if the case went to trial.
My lawyers urged me to take it. They ’ d never seen a deal that good.
It would mean that my daughter—a witness for the prosecution—wouldn ’ t be forced to testify against her own mother in a trial that might drag on for months. She was the only one who ’ d seen what had happened that night.
Accepting the plea would mean I ’ d get out of prison while she was still in elementary school. The other alternative—that I ’ d never see her again—was unthinkable.
So I ’ d accepted the deal. Then I stood in front of the judge at a plea hearing and told him everything that happened that night. Every awful thing, in exchange for a charge of voluntary manslaughter and three years in prison. I told him how I ’ d pulled away from Matt when we were halfway down the stairs, when he dug the fireplace poker into my side just hard enough that I whimpered. How then he ’ d done it again, harder, as if to prove a point. “ Shut up,” he ’ d said. “ You ’ ve been putting this off long enough.”
How I ’ d known then, deep in my bones, that I might have said goodnight to my daughter for the last time.
How that was enough to make the panic burn so hot, I ’ d snatched the poker before I fully realized what I was doing.
I grabbed the staircase banister with my free hand, leaning against the wall and kicking wildly at Matt, connecting hard with his groin.
I hadn ’ t aimed there.
I ’ d just been trying to get him away from me, trying to create enough space so that I could run back upstairs and lock myself in the bedroom with my cell phone, call the police, anything but let myself be dragged down to the basement.
Matt made a strange, high-pitched oof sound, and I knew instantly that I ’ d hurt him and embarrassed him at the same time.
While he was drunk. While he was already on a mission to punish me.
The fireplace poker flew against the wall with a bang as he stumbled down a step. The handle landed at my feet.
As he reached for it, he sucked in a breath and said the words that turned my panic up all the way into the red. “ I ’ ll fucking kill you for that.”
He let go of my arm as he groaned, bent in half on the stairs.
I ducked and grabbed the poker.
I swung as hard as I could, knowing I ’ d have one chance before he grabbed it back. I didn ’ t want to hit him. I didn ’ t want to hurt him. It was as if I were watching myself from somewhere outside my body, like in a TV show.
The sharp end struck his neck, ripping into the soft skin where his pulse was popping fast.
He made a gurgling noise. “ Jessa, stop—” and reached for the poker. I pushed him away, watching little drops of red fly back at me from the sudden gush of blood that had opened up at his neck.
I stared in horror at what I ’ d done.
As he fell, before the crack that broke his neck, he screamed my name one more time.
It almost covered up the sound of the tiny voice at the top of the stairwell screaming, “ Daddy!”