No River Too Wide (8 page)

“If something came up we can go another evening.” Taylor smiled at Harmony’s visitor, who was holding Lottie. Then before she could stop herself she asked, “You look familiar. Have we met?”

“I’m Jan,” the woman said, and returned Taylor’s smile with a strained one of her own.

Harmony was looking back and forth between the two women, as if she was trying to decide what to say. Finally she shrugged. “Mom, Taylor isn’t going to tell anybody you were here. You don’t have to worry.”

Jan looked troubled, but she gave a short nod.

Harmony turned back to Taylor. “This is my mother, Janine Stoddard. She just arrived.”

“Jan,” the woman said. “I always preferred it.”

“I never heard anybody call you Jan,” Harmony said.

“Because your father preferred Janine.”

Taylor was trying to remember everything she knew about Harmony’s family life, but none of this was making sense. “Are you visiting?” she asked. “It’s nice to meet you at last.”

“I’m just here for the night,” Jan said.

Taylor realized now that Harmony had been crying and still looked upset. “Look, this is obviously a bad time for me to be here.”

But Harmony was already addressing her mother. “Mom, we can be honest about why you’re here. Taylor knows about Dad.”

Jan looked unhappy at Harmony’s words, and Taylor grew even more uncomfortable.

“I ought to leave,” Taylor said.

“Mom left my father. She finally managed to get away. And I’m trying to get her to stay here with me.”

Now Taylor was at a complete loss. “I shouldn’t be involved.”

“It’s complicated,” Jan said, as if she hoped that would put an end to the discussion.

“My father’s a scary man,” Harmony went on, ignoring Taylor’s protests and her mother’s obvious discomfort. “She’s been afraid to leave him for years, because she knew if he found her he would retaliate, and now that she’s done it, she’s afraid if she stays he’ll trace her here and take it out on me, or even on Lottie.”

Taylor wasn’t sure now whether she was feeling light-headed from the hot yoga or the conversation. Whatever it was, she suddenly felt weak-kneed. “I think I need a glass of water and a place to sit.”

Without a word Harmony motioned to the sofa and left for the kitchenette. Taylor gratefully took a seat while Jan walked back and forth with the baby.

“I know this sounds crazy,” Harmony said when she returned with a glass. “I’m sorry you walked into the middle of it.”

Taylor drank half the water before she finally rested the glass on her jean-clad knee. “He’s that bad?” She addressed the question to Jan.

Jan looked torn. She didn’t answer.

“You left him, but you can’t admit how frightening he is?” Harmony asked her mother. “Can’t you tell her how many times he hit you or how many bones he’s broken?”

“He’s possessive and...” Jan hesitated, then lifted her eyes to Taylor’s. “I’m afraid he’s capable of almost anything where I’m concerned.”

“Has he ever hurt anybody else?”

“He’s a successful businessman,” Harmony said. “He’s also a deacon in our church, and he used to be on the boards of two charities, maybe still is. I don’t think anybody really likes him, but they respect him well enough. Unless he changed after I left home, he was careful to save his fury for his family, mostly Mom. When he was angry at other people, his revenge was always more subtle or aimed at us.” She looked at her mother. “Is that still accurate?”

Jan looked distressed, but she nodded.

“He sounds like a monster,” Taylor said, and waited for Jan to deny it. When she didn’t, Taylor began to get the full picture.

She wished one of the other goddesses, Analiese or Georgia, had walked into this instead of her. They were both older and more experienced. Analiese was a minister, used to dealing with family problems, and Georgia was a school administrator who worked with difficult kids and their difficult home lives every day. Her own degree was in health and wellness promotion, and it had never prepared her for this.

But she was here, and they were not.

“What can I do?” she asked, when nothing more profound occurred to her.

Jan was a slight woman, rail thin and haggard, but now that she was inside, Taylor could see even more clearly the resemblance to Harmony. “There’s nothing
to
do. I have to leave. I can’t stay here.”

Her conviction was absolute. Taylor could hear it. “But where will you go?”

“I’ve laid plans. I’ve been...working on getting away for a long time, and I have help.”

“Mom says Dad will think she’s gone west.”

“But you’re not going west?” Taylor asked.

“She’s not going
anywhere,
” Harmony said. “She’s going to stay here, with her daughter and granddaughter. Dad’s not going to find us. I’ve been in Asheville since high school graduation, and he never traced me here.”

Taylor thought Harmony was being a bit naive. Motivation was a powerful factor. If Harmony’s father viewed his wife as property he’d been robbed of, he would undoubtedly do anything to find her.

“Do you have another place you really want to go?” Taylor asked Jan. She watched as Jan looked down at her granddaughter, and before she looked up again the longing on her face was clear and strong.

“It’s not about wanting to go anywhere. I just know I can’t stay here. And Harmony and Lottie can’t come with me. We shouldn’t be in the same place at the same time... Not until I know Rex isn’t looking anymore.”

“How will you know that?”

“People are watching him.”

Taylor liked the sound of that. “Then they’ll be able to keep track of where he is and when?”

“Not every moment.”

“But generally.”

Jan shrugged.

“Can you be nearby?” Taylor asked. “Where you and Harmony can see each other sometimes if you’re careful? At least until you know it’s safe?”

“It would be safer to be far away.”

“Okay, safer, maybe, but would it be safe enough to be, say, on the other side of Asheville, with somebody who knows you both?”

“I...”

“You?” Harmony asked.

“I’m twenty miles away, and you and I don’t see each other very often. We’re both too busy and it’s too far to be easy.” Taylor realized she and Harmony were making plans for Jan without consulting her.

She turned to Harmony’s mother. “Jan, I just moved into my father’s house in a quiet neighborhood. He’s living in a condo, and Maddie, my daughter, and I needed more room, so we bought his place, although he still uses the workshop out back, so he’s around a lot. Maddie’s eleven. We have an extra bedroom where you can stay.”

“I couldn’t—”

Taylor suddenly realized how ideal this could be. “Look, it’s not charity. Please don’t think of it that way. Maddie and I fought all the way over here because she hates the way I drag her to classes and meetings. I’m renovating an old warehouse, and turning it into a health and wellness center, and I can’t leave Maddie alone at night if I have to go over to the site or teach a class. Sometimes my dad or her father’s parents can stay with her, and sometimes she can go to a friend’s house. But on school nights that’s not a great idea. She thinks she’s too old for a babysitter. But if you were staying with us, anyway...” She let her voice trail off.

“Mom, that would work, wouldn’t it?” Harmony was pleading. “Taylor’s a good half hour away from here. If we were really careful we could still see each other sometimes. And I would know where you were and how you were doing. It’s perfect.”

“And if Rex finds me at your house?” Jan asked Taylor.

The silence was heavy for a moment, until Taylor sat forward. “We live in a neighborhood with people all around us. And you said yourself he’s only violent with his own family.”

“That’s not a guarantee.”

“He was never violent in public,” Harmony said. “I think—” She stopped.

“What?” Taylor asked.

Harmony looked at her mother. “If he located you and wanted to hurt you, Mom, he would make sure to get you off by yourself. He wouldn’t do it in front of anybody else or anywhere he might get caught. I don’t think there’s a chance he would want anybody to see or know what he’d done unless there was no other choice. He’s too smart to risk hurting strangers.”

“It’s taking too big a risk.”

Taylor’s mind was whirling. “Isn’t anywhere a risk? Are you going to live by yourself for the rest of your life because he might find you and hurt somebody in your house, or on your block, or in your city? You’ll always be near somebody. This is as good a situation as there is. We’ll be alert, and we’ll be careful, plus he’s got to realize that by now all kinds of people must know the story behind your escape, so he would be the first suspect if anything happened to any of us. I’ll get a security system. And if people are watching him in...” She looked at Harmony for help.

“Topeka.”

“Topeka,” Taylor said, “then with luck we’ll have warning if he leaves town, so we can be extra vigilant.”

Jan was shaking her head. “You have a child? You want to expose her to this?”

“I’ll tell you what. I’ll run this by a friend who knows more about this kind of thing than I do. But I think she’ll agree that Maddie and I aren’t taking much of a risk. If she doesn’t agree, we’ll figure out something else.”

Jan still looked torn, but she didn’t say no.

“How careful have you been?” Taylor asked. “How good is the trail that’s supposed to lead him out West if he looks for you?”

Jan looked away. “It’s not complete yet. I...I left before we had everything in place.”

“But?” Taylor heard that word in Jan’s voice.

“The people who are helping me are very good,” she said at last.

“They’ve done this before?”

Jan nodded.

“With success?”

She nodded again.

“Jan, I think you have to take another chance.” Taylor got to her feet and held out her arms for Lottie, who held out her own and went right into them. “You left this man and you arranged for help to do it. You made it all the way here to be with Harmony and see your granddaughter. You’re resourceful and obviously careful, and you’re being helped by people who are both, as well. We can be both, too. Don’t sell yourself short, and don’t sell us short. We can make this safe for everybody and help you get a new start.”

“It’s asking too much.”

Taylor looked at Harmony, whose eyes were welling with tears. Then she looked back at Jan, whose eyes were beginning to brim, too.

She settled Lottie on her hip, and lightly rested her free hand on Jan’s shoulder and squeezed. “I owe your daughter so much, Jan. I’ll tell you the whole story once you’re settled in your room at my house. But let me do this for Harmony. Let me do this for you, okay? Let me do this for
me.
”

Chapter 7

From the audio journal of a forty-five-year-old woman, taped for the files of Moving On, an underground highway for abused women.

Before I married, were there signs that all wasn’t what it seemed? Were there moments when my confidence in our happy future was shaken?

Had I been educated enough, wary enough, perhaps, I might have wondered why the Abuser was in such a hurry to put a ring on my finger. Or why he often planned surprises on the nights I intended to spend with my friends. Or why he suggested we begin a family immediately after we married instead of waiting until I completed my degree. I might have wondered why the house he bought had no immediate neighbors, or why he worried so frequently and loudly about our city’s dangerous traffic that I began to question my own ability to drive through it.

But the Abuser and his kind are masters of subtlety and excuses. He was in a hurry to marry because he loved me so much. He always seemed genuinely sorry that I’d made other plans when he arrived for a surprise date. Why not have children while we were young, so we could still travel and enjoy ourselves after they left home? Didn’t I love the countryside, where I could have a larger house? Not only was the country lovely, but I was safer there, outside the city, with all its hazards.

In those early months, before we said our vows, he never lifted a hand to me. He rarely even lifted his voice, although he did talk over my comments frequently enough that alarm bells should have sounded. Nor was he aggressive or belligerent when we were in the company of others. Not that we often were. The Abuser wanted me all to himself, and like the romantic girl I was, I thought that showed how much he loved me.

He was often critical of others, but less often of me. When he did criticize, his words were framed as suggestions, patiently issued, lovingly meant. He wanted the best for me. A friend I’d chosen, an activity I loved? Perhaps there were better options.

I can’t place all the blame on the man I chose to marry. I wanted to be loved and taken care of. I wanted to believe that someone could turn my sadness to joy, and I could be happy again. I had never learned one of life’s most important lessons. I am responsible for my own happiness. Letting somebody else take on that responsibility was like diving into murky waters without checking for rocks or sharks.

* * *

Jan stared out the side window of her new bedroom at a narrow pergola adorned with hanging flower baskets.

“Like I said, this was my father’s house,” Taylor said from the doorway. “He’s an architect and of course, he can’t leave anything alone. This used to be a pretty standard little ranch house, but when he finished, it was sort of modern Asian, sleek, stark....”

“It’s anything but stark now. It’s lovely.” Jan turned and saw that Taylor’s arms were filled with fresh linens. She made a pretty picture, chin-length dark hair falling forward, sheets and blankets piled in front of a willowy body. Before Jan could take them, Taylor set them on the white bedspread.

“Oh, it was lovely when he finished it, too, but Maddie and I wanted something a little warmer. It was pretty masculine. So we painted the siding cream, added shutters to match the porch pillars and planted flowers everywhere. A lot of the furniture was Dad’s, but we added pillows and slipcovers, rugs on the floors and lots of things on the walls. We tried not to go overboard, though. We wanted simplicity. Not too girly.”