woman in the passenger seat of Sophia’s car. When he’d first approached her on Friday evening about taking her to see Sophia and Bryson, he hadn’t been sure what she’d say.
“I’m glad you felt up to coming with me.” He’d thought that the hour-long drive might be too exhausting for her, but she’d insisted that she would be fine.
“I’m not really an invalid,” she told him. “It’s just that after breaking my hip twice and not having it heal correctly, it was better for me to stay in the care home since my house isn’t exactly wheelchair friendly. But it all worked out because now Sophia and Bryson can make my house their own.”
“That was very generous of you to let them stay in your house.”
“They needed it,” she said, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see her watching him. “Has she talked much to you about her life?”
“Well, I know that she’s from a large family,” Ryker said, though he suspected that wasn’t what she was asking.
“That is definitely true.” Then, instead of telling him about Sophia’s life in the cult, she began to tell him about when Sophia was a baby and how it was that she ended up closer to her grandmother than her own immediate family.
As her grandmother told him about her past with Sophia, Ryker came to understand a whole lot more about the woman he loved. He didn’t feel like the older woman was revealing anything she shouldn’t because this story was certainly hers as much as it was Sophia’s.
All he could think about was how it had been for Sophia, with her quiet, gentle personality, to be part of a large, and from what she’d said, boisterous family. It would have been very easy for her to fade into the background.
He knew from his experience that the loudest and most forceful people got the lion’s share of attention. It was easy for them to demand that people listen to them because their personalities supported that aggressive approach.
Callie was a good example of that in their family. Silas, on the other hand, was more reserved and quieter, rarely getting into debates with anyone.
As the middle child, maybe it wasn’t too surprising that Ryker fell in the middle personality-wise as well. While he didn’t seek out attention the way Callie did, he could hold his own if he needed to. Especially with her.
“I don’t think Sophia trusts her own judgment these days,” Nana said, interrupting his thoughts. “Particularly with the people she allows into her and Bryson’s lives. Which is probably why she basically has no friends at the moment.”
Hearing sadness in the older woman’s voice, Ryker glanced over at her. “Didn’t she have friends from when she lived in New Hope before?”
“Yes, she did, but it seems these days that a lot of the young people end up leaving town for college or better job opportunities. I think that’s what happened with some of her friends. I think the bigger part of it, however, is that she’s ashamed of what happened.” She paused. “Has she talked to you about that?”
“She’s told me about Ezekiel and the cult,” he said.
“Good. That tells me that she trusts you—as much as she trusts anyone these days—and that makes me happy.”
“Did you wonder where she was those five years she was gone?” Ryker asked.
“I knew where she was,” Nana said. “I hired a private investigator to find her when it seemed that she’d dropped off the face of the earth. It didn’t take too long for him to figure out where she was, but it was impossible to gain access to her. From what the private investigator was able to determine, she never left the compound. He spoke to others who were also trying to find their children at the compound, and they reported the same thing.
“The only people who left appeared to be very loyal to the cult and would divulge nothing when approached by family members. All I could do was pray that something would happen to free her from the situation.”
“And then the compound was raided.”
“Yes. When I heard that on the news, I saw it as a definite answer to prayer. It took a bit to get her back here. I think she was scared to come home, but this is where she needed to be in order to heal.” Nana fell silent for a moment, then cleared her throat. “I needed her here so I could see that she