Epilogue
One Year Later
“It’s okay,” I said. “I know this isn’t easy. But believe me. The hardest part is over. You took the first step, Celia.”
On the outside, she looked so frail. She kept her head lowered, her dark hair hanging like a curtain in front of her face.
Her entire body seemed designed to hide who she was.
She wore loose-fitting clothing that disguised her shape.
Her giant black glasses were too big for her face and she kept pushing them up her bandaged nose.
A broken nose that would need to be reset.
She wore no makeup. Bruises covered her arms, encircled her neck.
She had an oversized brown purse that she held on her lap, covering her body even more.
“I have nothing,” she said. “Only what’s in this bag. I don’t even have a toothbrush.”
“You have yourself. You have your life. And now you’re going to have a fresh start. I’ll help you with the rest.”
Celia looked around the room. I’d done my best to make it cozy, inviting. Warm hues. Soft lights. Plush carpet and comfortable chairs. Her eyes settled on the framed photograph on my desk. She smiled. “May I?”
I blushed. “Of course.”
She picked up the picture and traced the edge of the frame. “Your son?”
Warmth flooded me at the thought of him. We’d named him Patrick after my father. Patrick Bennett Manning had Lock’s brown eyes, a toothless grin, and a face full of mashed sweet potatoes as he sat on his proud father’s lap.
He came three weeks early during a February blizzard that shut Lasalle Harbor down for a week.
Lock wouldn’t let the nurses take him. He held him against his chest that whole first night while I slept in the bed beside them.
Lock remodeled the bedroom next to ours for his nursery.
He painted a jungle mural for him freehand.
His crib belonged to the uncle my son would never meet.
I put a hand over my stomach. I had a new secret there.
I was already pregnant again. We found out two days ago.
Dr. Wexler rightly predicted the second one would come easily.
“He’s beautiful,” Celia said as she placed the frame back on my desk.
She didn’t tell me where she came from. It was better I didn’t know.
But I knew she’d traveled a very long way.
Her abuser had followed her into the emergency room.
He probably told them Celia had taken another fall.
She was so clumsy, after all. A smart, brave nurse had picked up on the signs and got Celia into an exam room alone.
I knew Celia had read the poster on the wall there.
The one that told her to report a specific fake birth date when the nurse took her blood pressure.
A cry for help. A signal that she was in trouble.
An hour later, the nurse had given her three hundred dollars in cash. All she could scrape together from her own wallet and donations from a few other co-workers.
Then, while Celia’s abuser was filling out paperwork a social worker put in front of him, the nurse led Celia out a back entrance and put her in a cab.
Now, she sat in front of me. Alone. Scared. Having fled everything she knew for a chance to survive. To rebuild her life. To find out who she was again.
And I would help her.
There was no sign outside my office door. No website. No brochures. But there was a business card and a phone number. One we distributed only to social workers and certain healthcare workers throughout the country.
Celia had one of those business cards in her hand now. She clung to it, protecting it as the lifeline it was. She ran her thumb over the raised lettering identifying our agency. The one we didn’t advertise.