Chapter 14 Chapter Fourteen

I'm sorry I missed my last few sessions, you were understanding when I called you to cancel and I really appreciate it, I have to say when you called me last week to ask how I was doing, I was really surprised - I didn't know a therapist could care so much about a patient, it felt so warm. After our last conversation, I think I need a break.It seems that I have finally talked about the saddest part of the experience-or rather, that part of the experience came back and hit me hard, hard.No, that's not quite enough, it came roaring, knocked me on my back, and pinned me down.Before, I never talked to anyone about how I felt about the death of the child. The policemen only wanted the facts.I also don't want to say more to reporters.A lot of people feel like they shouldn't be asking me about her, and I guess they're more humane people, but every once in a while, a stupid reporter or two crosses the line.

Sometimes I think they don't ask because they don't think it's possible for me to have loved her.I had just come back from my mother's house when I overheard her and Aunt Val whispering in the kitchen one afternoon.My aunt talked about something about my child, and then my mother said: "Yes, it is very pitiful that the child died, but judging from the final result, this is the best." This is the best?All I wanted to do was run into the kitchen and tell my mom how wrong she was, but I didn't know where to start.I covered my ears with the pillow, cried and cried, and fell asleep.

I felt like a hypocrite for making everyone believe that he killed the child and that I was an innocent victim when I knew all along that it was my fault that she died.Yes, you and I discussed this on the phone once, and I also really liked the article you emailed me about survivor guilt.The article makes a lot of sense, but I'm still thinking how lucky those people are that apply to this situation, alas, I'm not.I have already convicted myself that I did not protect her well, and no matter how many books or articles I read, this cannot be changed. I wanted to follow your advice and write a letter to my child, and when I pulled out the paper and pen, I just sat there at the kitchen table staring at the blank page.After a few minutes, I stare at the plum tree outside the window, at the hummingbirds flying back and forth by the tree, then turn my head and stare at the white paper in hand.I remembered that when I was first pregnant, I still felt that there would be a little devil in my stomach. Now, this kind of thought makes me feel extremely painful-will she feel it in my stomach?I try to think of happy memories of being with her instead of how she died and the brain won't cooperate and I keep reminiscing about that night over and over again.Finally, I stood up and poured myself a cup of tea.The damn letter paper and pen are still there. "I'm sorry" seems to be far from expressing my feelings.

For a few days after our last conversation, I did almost nothing but cry.Even the slightest thing can trigger my tears.I was taking Emma for a walk in the woods, and I would suddenly feel such a grief that I couldn't even stand up.Once, when we were taking a walk, I heard a cry that sounded like a child. I turned around and saw that it was a little crow on a cedar tree.The next thing I found was myself lying in the middle of the path, hands on the ground, face buried in the ground, tears streaming down my face, Emma nuzzled my neck, trying to lick my tears away. I seemed to be afraid that I would miss this grief. Suddenly, I jumped up and ran towards the house. The feeling of stepping on the dirt made me feel at ease.Emma ran ahead of me, her collar jingling, reminding me of our old runs together, another memory I loved but had forgotten.Now, I run every day until I'm sweating and the only sound in my head is the sound of my own breathing.

A week after we last spoke, Luke called me—he had called and left me a message asking me to call him back if I wanted to.I didn't reply.He stopped leaving me messages, and he still called me at least once every two weeks, even though I never answered.It's been almost a month since he last called me, right after I saw him with that girl, and I thought he'd never call again. I was doing laundry when the phone rang, and I ran to find the wireless handset.When I saw that the caller ID was his number, my already accelerated heartbeat became more and more violent. I almost put the receiver back, but my fingers pressed the answer button uncontrollably. I haven't figured out what the hell I am After doing something, I heard his voice, "Hello?".I didn't answer, and he asked again, "Is that Anne?", and I realized that I had been silent all along.

"Hello." "You answered the phone. I don't know if you..." He paused and I knew I should say something, something kind, I'm glad you called me or something. "I'm doing laundry." God, what am I talking about, I might as well say I'm on the toilet. "Did I disturb you?" "No, I mean, kind of, but it's okay. I can wash it later." "I saw you a few weeks ago, and I wanted to call you, but I didn't know if you wanted to see me." "Did you see me?" "You were walking out of a grocery store and I tried to catch up to you, but you were going too fast." I blushed.Hell, he actually saw me running from the store.

I waited for him to say something about the girl, but when he didn't, I said, "Really? I didn't see you. I just stopped to do some shopping. I was in a hurry. There was a lot of traffic in the store." Nothing I want to buy." We were all silent for a while, and then he said, "What have you been doing lately? I'm still looking forward to seeing your billboard for selling houses again." I originally wanted to say that the last billboard was still up when I was kidnapped place, but I didn't want to be so mean, so I held back.I know he didn't mean to hurt me.

"Then you may have to wait a while longer." "I miss driving past those billboards, your four-leaf clover sign always makes me smile." When I draw the four-leaf clover design on my billboards, business cards and car doors At that time, I thought I was very smart.My ad for sale was, "Anne O'Sullivan, Luck."Lucky is my sales pitch.Now, that's downright ironic. "Maybe one day, or I can do something else." Like jumping off a bridge, for example. "Whatever you do, you're going to be successful, and if you go back to being a real estate agent, you can make a comeback in no time. You're really good."

But not as good as I would like it to be, and not as good as my mother thinks I should be.During my time as a real estate agent, she would always show me ads from other agents in town and ask why I wasn't getting those listings.Mom said I wasn't as good as Christina, but not knowing Christina was a major reason I got into real estate.After high school, I worked a lot of shitty jobs—waiter, cashier, secretary—and then I found a job I loved designing ad pages for a newspaper for very little money, and by the time I was in my twenties Growing up, I was tired of living on the cheap.Mom, especially, was telling me all the time that Christina and Tamara were making a lot of money, and me, I wanted to make more money and drive a nice car.

“I’ve been seeing a therapist.” Gosh, it started with laundry and now it’s therapy, but I really don’t want to talk about real estate anymore. "That's great!" Yes, now, I can go to the bathroom during the day, I can eat when I'm hungry, I can talk to people about my dead daughter, and I can only sleep two or three nights a week in the closet.Isn't that good?I didn't say those bitter words out of my mouth, he just cared about me.Who am I kidding?I do need a therapist. "Are you still there?" he said, with a sigh. "I'm sorry, Anne. I said the wrong thing, didn't I?"

"No, no, it's not your reason, it's just, you know...something. How's the business of your restaurant recently?" "We have a new menu. Do you have time to try it? Customers seem to like it." We chatted for a while about the restaurant, and it felt like we were talking through a distorting mirror in a haunted house—everything was twisted, and we didn't know which door was safe to go out.And I just opened a door to danger. "Luke, I never said--I know I should have said--I'm really sorry I did that to you the first time you came to see me in the hospital. It's just..." "Annie." "The man who kidnapped me, told me something, and..." "Annie..." "I didn't know the truth until later." I kept refusing to see Luke, and Mom wondered why.Later, she told me that not only did Luke not have a new girlfriend, he had actually held a fundraiser for me with Christina at the restaurant where he worked to raise money for my search and rescue just a week before my return.Mom also said that the police had questioned Luke in the first few days of my disappearance, but he had evidence that he was working at the restaurant when I was kidnapped.My mother also said that although the police released Luke, many people still suspected that he was involved in my kidnapping and treated him like a suspect. I still remember how I reacted when that psycho told me that Luke had got a new girlfriend, while at the same time, Luke was suffering from the accusations and suspicions that everyone thought he kidnapped Me, but he kept trying to find me.Anyway, I should see him too. I went on to say, "Then, when you came to see me, I made a mess again." "Annie! Stop it, it's okay, you don't have to apologize." But I will. "And then, when you saw me at my mother's house..." I didn't know how to explain what happened.I had just been out of the hospital for two weeks and I was living in my old room at my mother's house when I staggered out one day when I heard someone talking in the kitchen, trying to keep Mom and Wayne quiet. With my mother's back to me, she was standing by the stove with a cauldron in front of her, and a man was standing next to her.The man was also facing away from me, and his mother was feeding him something with a spoon, and he was bending over.I was about to walk out of the room, but the floor creaked a few times.It was Luke who turned around. I vaguely heard my mother say, "Great, you woke up just in time! Luke was trying my new pasta, and he wanted to take my recipe and make it in a restaurant. I told him, If he wants my recipe, he'll have to name the dish after me." Her husky laugh mingles with oregano, basil, tomato sauce, and a lighthearted vibe hangs in the air. Luke's genuine smile, once one of the things I loved most about him, was now pale with shock.He'd seen me in the hospital, and I'm sure he'd seen pictures of me in the papers, but I'd lost a lot of weight after that, and probably looked even more in Wayne's old tracksuit. Emaciated.I have deep dark circles around my eyes and haven't washed or brushed my hair in days.Of course, Luke was even more handsome than I remembered.He was wearing a white T-shirt, showing the tan marks on his arms, and the muscle lines on his chest were also obvious.His black hair is neatly combed, longer than it was when I was kidnapped, and it shone beautifully in the bright kitchen light. "I brought you flowers, Anne." He pointed to a vase full of flowers on the kitchen table.Pink roses. "I put water in the vase for you, Annie Bear." Mom looked at the roses and narrowed her eyes—slightly, maybe others didn't see it, but I knew my mother.She was comparing them with the roses she had grown herself, and thought they were not as pretty as her own. I said, "Thank you, Luke. The flowers are beautiful." Those seconds seemed like hours, the only sound in the kitchen was the slurping of pasta sauce simmering on the stove, and then Wayne swaggered in and patted Luke on the shoulder. "Luke! Nice to see you, boy. Stay for supper?" Mom, Wayne, and I looked at Luke, who was blushing.He stared at me and said, "If Anne..." "Of course Annie hopes you'll stay," Wayne said, "it's good to have friends come to see her." Before I could speak, Wayne had put his arm around Luke's shoulders and led him out of the kitchen, "I I have something else I would like to ask your opinion on..." Leaving mom and I staring at each other in the kitchen. "Why don't you tell me first, Mom." "When should I tell you? You have never left your room." She shook slightly, and quickly put her hands on the table. I can see now that Mom's face isn't just flushed from the heat of the fire.Her eyelids drooped, and one, the right eye, drooped even lower than the left, as she had always done.I saw what her eyes were searching for, within reach of the back of a bag of pasta, and I knew it was a glass of vodka. I discovered that my mother's preference for alcohol seemed to reach new heights during my disappearance.Just a few days after I got back, I came out of my bedroom smelling a burnt smell, and I found a plate of what was supposed to be a peanut butter cookie in the oven, burnt, and my mom was sitting on the TV Before that, I fell asleep, and an interview with me was being replayed on TV—that was when I was just rescued.I really shouldn't be talking to anyone.I turned my face away and let my hair hang down like a curtain, blocking the camera.I turned off the TV. She was wearing a pink pajamas that showed part of her neck and chest.I noticed that her skin had started to wrinkle.In the past, her smooth skin has always been her proud capital, but basically every part of her body is her proud capital.She was clutching a bottle of vodka—the first sign that things really weren't the same, and she'd at least mixed it with a drink before.She must have fallen asleep watching TV because the cigarette was still burning in her mouth.The burnt ash on the cigarette butt was at least one or two centimeters long. When I stood there, the ash shook and fell off, falling on the bare skin on her chest.I stood there blankly, watching the cigarette butt getting closer and closer to her lips, wondering if she would wake up when it really burned her.I gently removed the cigarette butt, bent down again, and blew the ashes off her chest, tossed the burnt cookie, and went back to my bed.I thought she would drink less when I came back. Now, I'm standing in the kitchen, and she sees me looking at the glass of wine, and she walks up to the glass and blocks my view with her body.She stared at me as if she had bet on me not to say anything. "You're right. I'm sorry." It was easier to say that anyway. I didn't know how to get away with it, so I helped Mom bring dinner to the table, trying to avoid Luke's sight.He reached out and helped me carry the bowl, and I still remember the feeling of those hands touching me, and then, I remembered the situation when the pervert touched me with his hands, and I let go of the hand holding the bowl.Fortunately, Luke reacted quickly and caught the bowl before it fell on the table, all of which were watched by his mother. "Are you all right, Annie Bear?" I nodded, actually, I'm not okay at all.Sitting across from me was Luke, who was pushing the spaghetti towards me.I only noticed the clock above my head, which told me that it was not time to eat, but my empty stomach was screaming with hunger. During the meal, my stepfather kept telling Luke about his latest business plan, and my mother interrupted him every now and then, asking if Luke had noticed the fresh celery in the garlic bread she baked.Oh, and she seems to have said that she grew those celery herself.Wayne said a couple of more words, then stopped, taking a big bite.Mom was on the go. She rattled on how to make the perfect spaghetti sauce, touched Luke's arm every twenty seconds, and brought Luke with him whenever he asked a question. Encouraging expression, smiling at him. After everyone finished their plates, they started chatting, while the plates in front of me were still full.Then Wayne said, "Annie's better." We all stared at him, and I thought, better than when? Luke said, "Rowling, this is really delicious, and you're right, our restaurant's food can't compare to yours." Mom put her hand on his arm and said, "I told you so, didn't I? If you were nice to me, maybe I'd tell you some of my secret recipes." There was another hoarse laugh. "It would be my great honor if you could tell me the secret recipe of cooking, but now I want to talk to Annie alone for a few minutes, is it okay?" He turned his head and looked at me, thinking of being alone with him Getting along, I felt that the blood in my whole body was coagulated, and I couldn't speak in my mouth.No, you can't.Really, really, no. I'm not the only one surprised.When Mom and Wayne heard this, they both raised their heads suddenly, like puppets being held by strings.Mom's hand, which had been on Luke's arm, jerked back as if it had been burned. "Then I'll go clean the kitchen." No one stopped her, and Mom pushed the chair back sharply, scraping the rug, and she grabbed some dishes.Wayne got up to help, and when they went into the kitchen, I heard Wayne say something about giving the kid some privacy and letting the mother go out for a cigarette with him.I couldn't hear Mom's answer, she sounded unhappy, and after a while I heard the kitchen door opening and closing, and then the two of them walking outside on the patio.For a second, Mom peeked at us through the glass door between the kitchen and patio, and when I spotted her, she ducked. I proceeded to twist the pasta on my plate with the fork.Luke kicked me under the table, then cleared his throat.I let go and the fork dropped to the plate with a thud, splattering ketchup on me and, worse, his white T-shirt like a bloodstain. I jumped up to get a tissue, but Luke leaned over and grabbed my arm. "It's just spaghetti sauce." I looked down at his hands on my arm, and tried to free him.He let go immediately. "Too bad. I'm sorry, Annie." I rubbed my arms up and down with my hands. "Can't I even touch you?" Luke asked. I blinked in desperation, trying to hold back the tears, but when I saw the light in his eyes, the tears couldn't be held back anymore.I sat down heavily. "I just can't. Not yet..." His eyes were begging me to explain to him, begging me to share my feelings with him like I used to, and I couldn't. "I'm just trying to help you through this, Annie. I feel so useless. Isn't there anything I can do to help you?" "No!" It was said so angrily, so meanly, his face contorted as if I had punched him.He couldn't do anything, nobody could do anything.It's the very thought that makes me hate him so much one second, and hate myself for feeling that way the next. There was a sad smile on his lips.He shook his head and said, "I'm such an idiot, aren't I? I just thought if we could talk, then I might understand..." I'm in my own pain and I just want to hurt someone else: "You can't understand. You'll never understand." "Yes, you're right, I may not be able to understand. But I want to try." "I just want to be alone." My words hung in the air between us like flies over the dead bodies of our love.He nodded and stood up.My heart is crying, I'm sorry.I take these words back.I did not do it on purpose.Please stay. He had already opened the glass sliding door.He thanked his mother for having him for dinner, said he had to go back to the dining room, and said he would definitely ask for the secret recipe, which sounded so polite and courteous.I sat there blushing, full of shame, full of remorse. Then I saw him standing in the doorway, turning the handle and saying, "I'm really sorry, Anne." The sincerity in his words really hurt me deep inside, and I thought I'd never There will be no feeling anymore.I turned around, walked away from the handsome, kind man, and walked to the end of the living room without even looking at him.I went into my bedroom, heard the front door close, and heard him pull the truck away.If I was angry, I would drive really fast, but he didn't, he drove slowly, full of Yoyo's sadness. Now, a few months later, he cuts me off on the phone and says, "Stop it, Anne. You don't need to apologize to anyone, least of all to me. I was wrong. I shouldn't have Just showing up to you like that. I shouldn't be rushing you. I've blamed myself over and over. That's why I keep calling you. I know, otherwise, you'd be blaming yourself too." "I treat you so badly." "You have the right to do that, I don't care about your feelings. That's why I try to keep my distance, but maybe you are not ready to talk to me? If not, I will not be angry. I promise ’” That’s how we’ve always been—he’d say I love you, and I’d hate to say the same thing to him, and after a year of our relationship, I’d just say, you promise? "I want to talk to you, but I don't want to talk about what happened in the past." "If you don't want to talk, don't talk. Otherwise, I will call you often. If you want to talk, you can answer the phone and we can chat casually. You can talk about whatever you want. Okay? I don't want to force you , we can do the same as before." "Okay. I mean, I'll try. I want to give it a try. I've been talking to my therapist and Emma all this time, and I'm kind of annoyed." His soft laugh broke the The tension between us. Then we talked about Emma and Diesel, his black Labrador.Finally, he said, "I'll call you in two days, okay?" "Don't feel compelled to fight." "No, don't feel compelled to accept it." "I won't either." He called again the next day and again this week, doc, we just had a simple, casual chat, mostly about the restaurant and the dog, and I still don't know how I feel .I like chatting with him, but sometimes, I hate him.Why is he still so nice to me?I do not deserve.He needs to learn to say no.His kindness made me both love him and hate him.I want to hate him.I was like a freshly stitched wound, and every conversation we had would tear the stitches apart, revealing the wound, and all I could do was sew it up again. On top of that, his kindness made me feel even more stupid, because the reason I was afraid to see him again turned out to be that he might touch me.Just thinking about it makes my armpits sweat.How could I do this to him?This is the Luke who catches the spiders in the sink for me and throws them outside.It's all just ridiculous.If I can't even get along with someone like Luke, then I'm hopeless.I might as well pack up my pile of garbage and move straight to the madhouse.