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Sitting in my new SUV at a red light by a large intersection, I see Christian for the first time. It’s been six months and four days since I fled my hometown.
I always wondered if he would stay away. Or not.
He’s in his car, a window rolled down, by the opposite side of the street.
My heart speeds up so fast I nearly faint. It feels as if the skin on my back shrinks. As soon as it turns green, I step on it, weaving through the traffic, more concerned with what’s behind me than in front, and almost crash into the back of a truck.
I’m eight months pregnant and I nearly killed us both after seeing a mere glimpse of her monster of a father.
That night I cry bitter tears. Tears of fear, tears of a longing I had buried. I don’t know if I believe he’s going to kill me anymore. So much time has passed, and Salvatore didn’t want me killed, but I’ll never trust Christian again, and it hurts so bad.
I don’t see him again after that one time.
I live in limbo.
My daughter kicks at my ribs and wants to get out. It’s time. Time for life to change again.
Strangers’ hands on my naked body. The pressure builds and builds. My daughter wants to meet me, fighting to get out. I don’t need anesthesia. I brush them off when they try to convince me. Pain is my friend. Pain makes me float. Pain brings death, and now it also brings me life.
A warm little body on my chest. A tired old soul peers at me with dark eyes. So tiny. So vulnerable. And Ifeel.Real joy. For the first time in nine months there’s something in me that isn’t only frozen fear. The love is instant, the connection unfathomably deep. It doesn’t matter how she came to be. She isn’t him.
A tiny part inside has defrosted, the part reserved for Cecilia Jackson. There has never been a prouder mother walking the streets of Chicago.
I call my mom. There has never been a happier grandmother. Or more confused. I have barely spoken to her, and I didn’t tell her I was pregnant. She vows to come, talks about moving here. I need to deflect that. I can’t have anyone from my old life be seen with me. Mom can never know the truth. No one will. The secrets I carry are too dangerous.
A couple of times I’ve felt the skin on my back prickle. But I haven’t seen him, and I’m not sure I’m imagining things. Sometimes I want to see him. Sometimes I want to show him his incredibly beautiful daughter. Just once. Just to show him what he’s missing out in life. Sometimes I dream of him, of his hands on me, coaxing responses out of my body that make me wake squirming, flushed and with a deep feeling of regret.
One day a decision is made for me again, flipping the little life I have on its head.
A note on my kitchen table when I return home after a long walk with Cecilia.
A note on my kitchen table.
A note on my kitchen table with a phone number.
I’m sorry. In case you ever need me.
The realization that I need to leave town is made in seconds.
I take out all the money I can get my hands on, cut my credit cards to pieces and ditch my phone. A neighbor helps me carry down a few items and load them.
I leave two letters on the table. One for Chloe with instructions to sell my house, or rent it out. One for my mom, telling her I love her, and to not look for us. I think at least Chloe will read between the lines and understand what must have happened. Mom… Mom will be hurt, but I can’t think about that.
At four in the morning, I buckle Cecilia up carefully next to me, grab my emergency bag, hop in the car and drive.
I go north. I have no plan, I just drive. Maybe I’ll stop where the tank runs dry. I don’t know. No one checks me at the border to Canada. I cut my passport in pieces too and burn it.
In a tiny town not far from the border, I find my sanctuary. I pay for my little house in cash. It doesn’t cost much. No one knows our real identities. For the first time in a very long while a sense of peace settles in me and I can breathe again.
On a clear day I can see the US across the valley. I don’t look for it. I’m never going back.
Christian
Salvatore puts people on the lookout for Kerry, and it doesn’t take long until we track her down. She resurfaces in Chicago after three days, withdrawing money from an ATM. I almost laugh from the irony.
Chicago.
The home of the Russo/Salvatore clan. The city where our grandparents landed and worked themselves to an early death in a dirty factory, hoping to build a better life for their children, my mother Bianca, and her brother Luciano.
