today. How he’s moved in with Sean’s mother, married her even, and I’m so happy for them both. Unlike my mother, so obsessed with purity and sin, and who spent most of the time in an imaginary world of her own making, Sean’s mom is a caring and down-to-earth woman. Even in the depths of grief for her own lost husband, she was still able to be kind to me.
Sean blows up an inflatable bed and we lay side by side as I tell him about my life in the community. Even though he tries to hide it, I see the rage boil inside him. His fists are tight and his shoulders tense up when I tell him about running.
About how the State Police found me, a sixteen-year-old runaway. There’s no way I could have been telling the truth about the abuses that I’d seen and suffered, and returned me straight home. There’s no way I could have been telling the truth, they said.
I tell him about the beating, the bruises that took weeks to fully fade, but which left no permanent damage, and about the week I spent in the penance box.
I fall silent after that, unwilling, perhaps unable, to tell more; to tell him about my second run. Sean’s hand on my knee gives me strength. The warmth and caring in his eyes lends me courage.
“I ran on foot that time,” I begin in a voice so flat and dead it could be coming from beyond the grave. “I left from the compound, in the middle of the night.” I’m hardly even in my own body anymore as I recite the rest of the tale, or at least as much of it as I can force myself to remember.
Running away on foot in the middle of the night, fleeing through the woods toward the main road. Standing on the side of the road, thumb out to every passing vehicle and praying for one to stop, but cursing God when the truck that stopped was the wrong one. Sobbing as Brother Lucas and Jeremiah got out of it, trussing me up for the ride back to the compound.
The next day, when Father Emmanuel stood in judgement over me. When my own mother begged for harsher punishment, but in the end, even she blanched at his eventual decision.
I know, intellectually, what happened that sunny afternoon. I know that my own mother helped to hold me down for it. I remember the horror in her eyes, and how it changed to righteous rage when Father Emmanuel touched her shoulder and an engine sputtered to life. I know that something was driven over my leg to break it, but mercifully, my mind won’t let me face the rest. There’s only a vast, misty gray area after that.
What little I can remember is bad enough, though, and heaving, racking shuddering sobs take away my voice, but Sean’s strong arms ground me and bring me back to Earth.
“And this,” he says, in a voice as cold and implacable as an avalanche rolling downhill, “is how they taught you a lesson?”
“Yes,” I reply in a tiny voice. “It drove the point home, don’t you think?” It’s the standard thing I say, bitter and cynical. It’s a terrible joke. I know it’s a terrible joke. I can’t help it, though. I giggle, and I hate myself for it, but the giggling turns wild and I can’t stop.
Sean’s chest rises under my face as he takes a deep breath in preparation to say something.
“No,” I say, cutting him off before he can speak. “No, no, no. Do not tell me that it’s normal to laugh about that.” I’m still breathlessly laughing about the terrible joke. Drove the point home! Hyuk-hyuk!
“It is, though.” Sean’s eyes are far away. “It is normal. The worst things in life? The hardest things to live with? Those are the things we have to laugh at. If we can’t? They’ll eat us alive. Destroy us.”
After that, what else is there to say?
The hours tick away. I’m wrung out, completely. Adrenaline and emotion have left me absolutely drained.
Day fades to dusk, dusk to night, and through it all I stare at his face, studying every detail. Memorizing it. There are so many lines that weren’t there before. Scars. Wrinkles. I wonder if I’ve aged as much but am unable to see it. Somehow time is always gentler with men, it makes them look mature.
It’s been an intense day and despite all my efforts to