Page 23 of Black Waters

Chapter Five

Revenge

Sitting on my back patio, starring at Whitney’s home, I held onto that damn photo of Constance as a reminder. My mother came outside to join me, so I put the photo into my front pocket. She didn’t know what was going on, and I preferred it that way.

Standing behind me, she massaged my overburdened shoulders. “You love Whitney.”

I inhaled deeply. Maybe because of my shoulders losing tension or because I was finally admitting the truth out loud, I felt stronger. “So much.”

After kissing the top of my head, she sat in the chair next to mine and also observed the massive home with a resident of one. “It’s hard to watch someone you love from afar.” She spoke with a conviction that made the hairs on the back of my neck rise. My mother’s accent rang through my soul… I slowly looked at her as if she were a stranger, a stranger who knew so much more than I did. She inhaled deeply, validating yet another piece of my growing web of truth.

“B-B-But you’re from Romania. What do you have to with Whit?”

After nodding, which I took as admitting I was correct, she stood. “Let’s go enjoy the blue water.”

Numbly, my feet shuffled as I followed her to our small rowboat. I held the boat steady for my mother and stepped inside, waiting to hear how my world, my reality, would be altered again.

I rowed in silence, understanding my mother wanted us somewhere we could not be overheard by drug dealers, Russians… I was almost too tired to care anymore. In the center of our blue lake, I looked around as all the blue became black and crept in, ready to devour me whole.

“I have a story I would like to share, if you would like to hear it.”

My answering expression must have begged for pity because my mother leaned forward and touched my face. “Such a brave boy, yes?” She was trying to encourage me to be strong. The pit of my stomach ached.

Numbly, I nodded.

She sat back and looked around before telling me a story that I would—could never forget. “I was taught the English language as part of my schooling in Romania. I dreamed of coming here to America. So when a young man offered me the chance, I grabbed it with stars in my eyes. What the young man forgot to mention to me was the price I would have to pay. He said we were in love… I believed him, Reether.”

The boat floated, slowly circling as if cradling us through the unfolding terrors.

“First I was taken to Russia. My fiancé said that he wanted his mother to meet the young woman who had stolen his heart before we moved to America and lived the dream.” After she said the word “dream,” my mother’s thoughts seemed to drift along with the boat. I waited patiently.

“It was not his mother I was to meet. It was his boss, the one who would sell me.”

My. Chest. Caved.

As I tried to catch my breath, my mother silently cried, continuing to share what I no longer wanted to hear. “The young man accepted his payment as I screamed for my lost freedom. That night was not the worst, but it was the scariest because, up to that point, I was naïve of the cruel world. My parents died too early. I was not a virgin, so I was not spared being shared amongst the Russians, who all wanted a turn with the beauty who would be sold for a high price.”

“Stop!” I cried, “Tell me this is not true, Mom!”

To know my mother—the epitome of all that’s good—was passed around like a treat and forced to have sex with men—oh, god! It was too much. Every circuit in my brain popped, trying to shut down horrid images.

She cried harder as her eyes closed, and she wrapped her arms around herself. “I wish, my son. I wish this were all a lie.”

The boat rocked as I went to my knees and laid my head in her lap, crying. “How—how are you here now?”

Her gentle touch caressed my hair, trying to comfort me as if I were the one who had been sold like an animal to a putrid owner. I think she knew that to hear that a mother had been abducted, abused, and used in the foulest ways was too much for her son to handle. “Shh, I’m okay now,” she tried to reassure me. “I never wanted you to know, but you must know what your father saved Whitney from.”

I looked up at her, utterly horrified that I could experience any more trauma than my heart already experienced. Tears kept rolling down her beautiful face as her soft hands cupped my hands that felt useless to protect what I cherished. “Yes, there are very sick men out there. Whitney was stolen and was to be raised to be a special kind of sex slave.”

I leaned over the side of the boat and threw up.

The sun was setting before I had the strength to speak again. I still sat on the bottom of the boat. My raspy, raw voice asked, “How do you know all this? And how are you with dad?”

Softly and tiredly, my mom answered. “Many years ago, I was shared with a business partner in the States. Harold—Crash’s father.”

I croaked out, “Why?” It was a dumb question, but I had to know why I was going to kill the Candy Man.

“His wife wasn’t willing to do the things I was specially trained for.”