Chapter Sixteen #4
I snuffled and continued, “But Daddy shook his head, holding his side, the blood all over his hands. He said he couldn’t have her, that Deacon Ridley would have to kill him first. Lila was sixteen, too young in South Carolina to get married without parental consent.
Deacon Ridley just laughed. He knew he only needed one parent to sign off.
He turned to Mama. He kneeled before her and put her chin in his hands.
He looked at her for a moment, and I wondered what he saw.
If he saw the woman she used to be—the woman he at one time wanted.
Mama didn’t move. And I wondered what she saw too.
I couldn’t help but blame her for everything.
She started this. There would have been no Deacon Ridley had she not brought him into our home.
Mama told him to take her, that she would go with him.
That Lila was just a child. It could be like it once was, she said.
I could tell she meant it. But Deacon Ridley just laughed again.
He looked at his men, and they laughed too.
He didn’t want her. She was old now, used and dried up, he said. ”
I readjusted my position on the bed, and Jackson placed his arm around me.
“Then Mama’s expression changed. It hardened into something I had seen before, and I braced myself for what would come.
She called Deacon Ridley a fool and laughed in his face.
Told him that Lila was pregnant and that it wouldn’t look good if she showed up pregnant so soon after the wedding.
His face dropped, and he slapped Mama so fast she didn’t see it coming.
Daddy tried to move, but Deacon Ridley’s men started punching and kicking him.
Deacon Ridley grabbed Mama’s face again, pressing his fingers into her chin, and he slapped her cheek again and again.
Mama took the hits, laughing. Deacon Ridley was breathing hard and sweating from the effort.
Then he stood, wiped his forehead with the handkerchief he kept on him, and walked over to Lila, kneeling before her.
He looked hurt, but he didn’t say anything.
He rose, looked at his men, some silent instructions passing between them, and left. ”
I stood, pushing myself out of Jackson’s embrace, and paced the small cabin, feeling the sadness rising within me.
The tears arrived, but I spoke through them.
“We knew they were going to kill us. But we didn’t know how, didn’t expect it to be by fire.
They took us back to our bedroom and locked us inside.
I’m not sure how they started the fire, but it got hot quickly.
I freed myself and began trying to open my door.
I wanted to save Lila. I got the door open, but the flames were too high.
So I had to retreat and go out of the window.
That’s how I got the scar, by jumping out.
Once I got outside, I saw that Deacon Ridley and his men were still there, watching the trailer burn.
There was nothing I could do. I couldn’t make a scene trying to get Lila from the outside.
I ran and hid in the woods, hoping Lila got out. But she didn’t. None of them did.”
I stopped talking abruptly. I had reached the limits of what I could safely reveal. You know there’s more—much more. But that was enough. My heart could take no more.
Jackson stepped quickly to me, pulling me square in front of him. His eyes burned into mine. “Leigh…you couldn’t have saved them.”
His statement hit me like a slap, and I pulled back sharply, shaking my head. “How can you say that? If I had…”
His voice was steady, almost too calm. “You couldn’t have saved them.” He repeated it again like he wanted me to know this, wanted to plant the thought deep inside me and wanted it to root there. “You couldn’t have saved them.”
I shook my head more fiercely, tears already stinging the corners of my eyes. “I watched them burn to death! I heard Lila’s screams. She was waiting for me to come get her, protect her like I always did! They died because I didn’t save them. I should have gone back into the house. I should have—”
“If you had gone back in, you probably would have died too,” he cut in, his grip tightening around my shoulders. “You couldn’t have saved them.”
When his words finally sank in, a sob escaped me, blasting the dam I had been holding back for years.
Tears poured from my eyes and my shoulders shook.
Jackson didn’t let go, pulling me into his arms, allowing me to cry—for the pain I had been holding, for my family, for Lila, and for the life I’d lost after that night.
“What happened was not your fault,” he whispered, smoothing my hair back, the hold of his other arm tight. “You hear me? It wasn’t your fault.”
“Without them, I’m invisible. Lila was the only person who saw me.” The ache of the loss of her now more real than ever. “She’s the only person who knew me, who loved me. I wasn’t invisible to her.”
Jackson pulled me away from him and forced me to look into his eyes. “You aren’t invisible. I see you. I see you, Leigh.”
I broke even more, like a thunderstorm. I cried in Jackson’s lap until the tears ran dry, until the ache in my chest started to ease. Eventually, he guided me back to the bed.
“Don’t go,” I whispered, trembling. “Please.”
“Never,” he said, a soft promise as he tucked in behind me, pulling the quilt over us.
The last thing I remembered was his warm body close to mine and the comfort of knowing I wasn’t alone in the dark.
I blinked my eyes open slowly, and the world came into focus.
Jackson lay beside me. For a moment, I wondered again if I was dreaming.
But as the memory of last night surged through my mind—my confession, the rawness of it—I realized it was no illusion.
I had spilled my truth. And Jackson was here, with me. He’d never left.
“You’re still here,” I whispered into the air.
“Where else would I be?” he said sleepily, startling me. I hadn’t realized he’d heard me. His fingers brushed a stray lock of hair from my cheek. My heart fluttered.
“I don’t know… That was a lot to learn about me,” I said. And I wasn’t done. There was more to my story, and I wondered if Jackson suspected it. If he would ask questions.
He didn’t right then. Instead, he draped his arm over my hip. “That was a lot for you to share,” he said softly, his fingertips tracing a path along my hip bone. “To carry that for so long… How do you feel this morning?”
How did I feel? I had slept better than I had in months.
Maybe ever. And I now know that was true.
After that night, I never sleepwalked again.
I took a deep breath, and the exhalation felt long and simple.
It wasn’t effortless, but easier. I reached for the memories, the pain, and they did not return void.
They were still there but lessened and quieter.
“Free.”
I didn’t know if that was the right word for it, if that was what freedom felt like. It seemed too simple for what I had shared. But I would have been lying if I’d said I didn’t feel different, feel a burden lift, even if only a little.
And now I know that was the right word.
“I’m proud of you,” he said, pressing a kiss to my forehead, his lips warm against my skin. “It feels good, doesn’t it? To let it all go. To take a full breath and it not hurt.”
I looked at him, astonished by his ability to know exactly what I was feeling, know the rhythm of my thoughts, the space between what I’d said and what I hadn’t.
And in that quiet moment, in the early morning just before the sky began to lighten, the darkest part of me, splintered, scattered, and broken, began reconvening and mending. And everything taken from me, I reclaimed. My heart. My soul. They belonged to me again.
And a tiny seed inside me had finally started to sprout.