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“My six year old daughter was with her.”
His words were razorblades. The wound in my soul that had been slowly knitting back together split open again. My eyes snapped to his in the reflection of the mirror, but his had already moved away, returning to the road ahead. The tremor started in my jaw, and traveled to my bottom lip until my teeth were chattering as if an arctic chill had invaded the space inside the car.
In an effort to get a handle on it, I bit my lip hard enough to break skin. The smack of metal and salt hit my tongue. A lifetime of swallowing wouldn’t erase the taste of it––nor the sorrow.
“I don’t know what to say,” I mumbled and quickly licked away the tears coating my lips, tears I hadn’t even noticed leaking from my eyes.
“There’s nothing to say,” he replied in a tired voice. “This is just a bus stop. Some waiting to get on, some to get off. We attribute meaning to it because the truth is too frightening to contemplate.”
“And what truth is that?” My anger boiled up at the apathy I heard in his voice. Was this what losing everything sounded like? Was this what hopelessness looked like?
“That it’s all meaningless. There’s nothing other than what we see.”
We pulled up to the little church as the doors were closing. Gideon took a good hard look at it. “You still hang onto this––illusion? After everything you’ve been through?” His troubled eyes held mine. Pleading? Looking for answers? Or was I ascribing meaning where there was none?
I didn’t have to consider my answer. “With both hands.”
As I opened the car door, he turned and pinned me in place with his dark, hypnotic eyes. “Do I have to come inside with you, or can I trust you to come out in an hour?”
I had quite a bit of wrongs to account for. Sheepishly, I answered, “You can trust me. I’ll give you my promise, but I’d rather prove it to you.”
He gave me a quick nod in agreement, and just as quickly I was out the door and into the church, seeking peace and absolution. I thought about Gideon and all he’d suffered. Only later would I come to realize that sometimes, if we’re lucky, as the deepest wounds begin to heal, the scar tissue binds us together.
Chapter Nine
Once I was inside the church, my first order of business was to find the dear priest whom I had shamefully lied to in my escape and explain everything. After relaying the story from nuts to bolts, I pleaded, “Can you forgive me, Father?”
The priest smiled warmly, mischief lurking in his pale blue eyes. “You are in luck, madame. We specialize in forgiveness here.” Then he held up his hands, indicating our surroundings. The wide smile that spread across his face sent relief and gratitude sweeping through me.
The service started shortly afterwards. Even though the church was mostly empty, I sat in the back pew, an old, hard-to-break habit from all those years of being on the run. I also learned never to go to the same church too often or people would start to recognize my face and get nosy. The sound of the priest’s voice speaking in French lulled me into deep contemplation, my eyelids floating shut.
“Praying won’t help, you filthy bitch––neither will the man you’re fucking for protection.” There was profound hate in that quiet voice. Not even the lilt of a French accent could soften the vileness of those words. My eyes slammed open.
Sitting to my left, I looked into the cold, hard face of inspector Tribolet. A hand wrapped around my upper arm, meaty fingers digging into my flesh. Tightening his powerful grip, he yanked me closer to him.
“I knew you’d be back––eventually. You people are like cockroaches.”
Calling me shocked would be putting it mildly. While my mind threw up question after question, my voice was lost somewhere between disbelief and naked fear.
He made absolutely no attempt to hide the intense passion with which he hated me. That fact alone made my pulse gallop. The contempt on his face was only slightly offset by the lust lurking there as well––I didn’t know which was worse. “It’s almost impossible to get rid of you. But I will––I will send each and every one of you back to the shithole countries you come from one by one.”
Was this a nightmare? Was I still in the hospital trapped between reality and hell? He jerked me painfully to the end of the pew until I had no choice but to get up.
The service continued. Nobody noticed anything out of the ordinary. He tugged me to the side door. The priest, in the middle of the service, caught the scene and frowned at us. In total bewilderment, I stared back at him with my mouth gapping open, and still nothing came out.
