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I had always thought when I got to the end of the journal that he would buy me a new one, not release me.
I didn’t think it was anything more than coincidence that the two events coincided, but it was as if I’d written a book, and I’d run out of space, so I had run out of captivity as well. I took the things out to the garage and loaded them into the car.
I don’t know why I didn’t try to beg more. I guess there was a part of me that knew I really couldn’t stay. He was giving me my life back and to refuse that gift was unthinkable.
I’d obeyed him so very long now that to receive an order, the instinct was to obey, no matter how much I didn’t want to. Not out of fear of punishment, but out of a desire to please him and gain and keep his favor.
Of all the things he’d wanted from me, this was the hardest to obey. I really had lost my mind. No sane person would be so horrified by the idea of freedom. But surely when I saw my family and friends again, things would be different, and I could put all of this behind me.
TEN
He didn’t have to forcibly remove me from the house because I knew he would and having a breakdown at this point wasn’t going to help. I had belonged to him, and now he was showing me how absolute that was by disposing of me like any other piece of property that had become of little interest.
The car he’d given me was a silver Mercedes, and truly it was a gift because what was the likelihood I’d bring it back? I dumped everything but the CDs into the trunk on top of a car emergency kit. A small shovel clattered when the journal hit it.
It took forever to get out of the driveway. It really did seem to go on forever. Part of me wondered if it was all an elaborate test to make me come back, but then I’d seen the absoluteness in his eyes, and there was no reason to show me my helplessness. I knew it; I’d taken it into the deepest part of my being, and I’d accepted it. No further object lessons were needed.
The car didn’t have a global positioning system, something I found odd. I ripped thethis journal belongs topage out of the red leather book and started writing reverse directions, like a trail of bread crumbs, recording where I went so I wouldn’t get lost.
After a couple of lucky and arbitrary turns, I came to a busier road. At least I’d found civilization again and
could ask for help if I needed it. Though I wasn’t sure I wanted to deal with the possibility of being recognized asthat self-help guru that had gone missing. So I kept going until I found the interstate.
When I finally got there, I discovered I was about thirty miles from home. Not starting from the interstate but including the bumble where I’d been. I’d assumed I was thousands of miles away from home in some remote location. To learn I’d been just thirty miles away from my house the whole damn time made me crave the freedom I’d thought I’d given up.
I’d been listening to one of the Middle Eastern CDs. The music hadn’t calmed me so much as made me want to turn the car around, but I didn’t. There was some tiny screaming sliver of me that still wanted to be free. Finally, I couldn’t stand the drums any longer.
I took the disc out but resisted the urge to break it, some part of my mind still convinced I might want to listen to it again someday in the future when the wounds weren’t as fresh. I turned on the radio and remembered it was Halloween.
I expected the date to make me feel giddy. Instead, driving through suburbia I found myself disconcerted by all the sensory input. The decorations. The kids running around in costumes at afternoon parties. I found myself bizarrely frightened of the imaginary creatures which within hours would be going bump in the night.
I couldn’t go to my house first. It was a rental, and somehow I doubted anyone would have kept up the rent for the almost six months I’d been missing. As I drove down the Magnolia-lined street my parents lived on, the radio ceased being background noise.
“A memorial service was held yesterday for self-help guru, Emily Vargas, as police still have found no leads to her mysterious disappearance. When contacted for comment, the family expressed a need for closure and would offer no more . . . ”
I nearly swerved off the road. They’d erased me. Just like my sister. What kind of family waits only six months before burying an empty box to just get on with it?
Surely most would wait a year, maybe even two. I understood how hard it had to be considering losing Katie like they had, but it felt like rejection, as if I had no place left in the world to go to.
I drove past the house and went to the cemetery. I searched the family plots until I found mine. It was surreal and more upsetting than I expected it to be, and I couldn’t help but feel completely betrayed by my family for acting so selfishly, for not thinking about how this might make me feel after what I’d experienced. How did they expect to explain it to me if I was ever found?
There were still-blooming flowers all around the grave, the dirt fresh and piled high. Some crazy part of me wanted to dig the coffin out, if in fact there was one. If there wasn’t, I couldn’t imagine what it was they’d seen fit to bury.
I tried to picture my family and friends wearing black, sobbing over my supposed death based on the fact that my parents couldn’t carry the torch just a little bit longer, and I was disgusted.
I stared at the gravestone.Emily Vargas: devoted friend, loving daughter, inspiring leader.My death was marked as the day before, the day of the funeral.
Goddammit!
I kicked at and scattered the pile of dirt. What the hell gave them the right to just kill me off? It was inconvenient for me to exist and be missing?
I don’t know if it was what they’d done, or if it was because of the inability to act out for so long, but the rage flipped in me like a switch. It was something I’d forgotten I had. I didn’t know I could feel anger like that; I hadn’t felt it in so long.
I threw flowers and arrangements as far as I could and fell to my knees digging into the dirt, clawing at it, as if clawing to get inside. It was the reverse of being buried alive. Maybe I should be in there and not out here under the open sky with the birds chirping and everything so innocent and bright.
I’d once seen a movie about someone buried alive that somehow escaped their coffin and clawed to the surface. They were buried in a pine box, but even so, one would think the weight of the dirt would make escape impossible. If the work of digging to a box was this difficult, I couldn’t imagine the reality of digging out of one.
Even though my progress was insignificant, I continued to dig. I didn’t care how impossible it was, I had to get in there. I remembered the emergency kit and retrieved the shovel from the trunk of the car, thankful for a master who was compulsively prepared for any traveling contingency.
