Alik studied her profile as she drove. She was working her jaw by clenching and unclenching so the muscles moved angrily. She didn’t wear a lot of makeup, but her long lashes could be seen thick and heavy even in the dim light of the dashboard. Her nose was beautifully shaped—straight except a small upturn at the little tip. Everything about her looked dainty and fragile, but Alik knew better.
“Tell me about life at the Facility.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m ashamed of my life there.”
“It’s part of what made you who you are. You probably had a lot of bad stuff happen to you there. I just want to know you better, but Farrow…nothing you say about your life then would stop me from caring about you now.”
Farrow just shook her head.
“Don’t you trust me?”
“Don’t do that, Alik.”
“Do what?”
“Try to bait me.”
“Listen, Farrow. I care about you. I don’t have an ounce of malicious intent going on here. I do have a sense that some really horrible stuff happened to you—that you were made to do. I’m not a trained professional, but I know talking it out will help you heal.”
“How did this conversation turn to me?”
“Why shouldn’t it?”
“Because I’m much more comfortable talking about you,” Farrow blurted.
“But you won’t even hear a compliment.” His voice dropped to a whisper.
Farrow bit her lip hard enough to taste blood. They drove in silence for a while, Alik determined to keep the ball in her court.
“Please talk to me?” he pleaded softly.
Miles slipped under the car and just when Alik was about to give up hope for a serious conversation with the girl who’d captured his heart, she spoke.
Her voice was barely above a whisper, haunted in its effort to put her pain into words.
“I was left without parents at age six, young enough to be sent off to an orphanage, old enough to feel the pain of abandonment. My mother,” Farrow swallowed hard and began again, “My mother was beautiful. Her hair was long and raven’s wings black. She would sometimes wear it loose. It would hang in waves down the length of her back. But usually she wore it braided and up in a bun on the back of her head. She was a social worker…believe me, the irony isn’t lost on me.” Farrow glanced at Alik’s earnest eyes.
Farrow continued with a sigh, “She would come home from a long day at court where she was an advocate for the children and collapse into our worn sofa. I would make her a glass of iced tea and she would sip it quietly. Now I know she was trying to forget the events of her traumatic day—all those children falling through cracks in the system.
“Back then, I was just a little girl desperate for her mommy’s attention. I would climb on the back of the sofa and carefully pull the hairpins out of her bun, one at a time. She wore dozens to keep her wavy hair in place for her very professional job. Judges don’t put up with any casualness. I thought I was very sneaky about it, but she must have known every minute what I was up to, undoing the bun and braid—a pile of hairpins growing beside me. By the time I had her hair emptied of pins, it would fall beautifully—still a little damp from the washing she had given it that morning.”
Farrow smiled softly, her eyes glistened with tears her memories were coaxing from her.
“The night before my sixth birthday, we were going to the grocery store to buy eggs and flour for the cake Mommy was going to make that night. She’d spent the whole day at work, Alik, and she was tired. But she had promised me we’d make the cake that night, and I pouted until we got in the car to head out to the store, though I knew she was tired.” Farrow swallowed hard, but continued.
“We were listening to a beautiful song. I didn’t know it at the time, I was far too young, but it was classical music—Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata’ was playing repeatedly. My mother was humming with the piano’s melody when our red light turned green. Mom pulled forward. Headlights glared through her side of the car. There was an earthshattering crunch. I remember hearing the windows explode.” Farrow visibly shivered.
Alik wanted nothing more than to hold her in his arms to soothe her sadness. But he knew she needed her space as she told her story, so he just watched and nodded sadly anytime she glanced over at him.
“I awoke in a hospital. They told me she was killed. I never got to say goodbye.”
“I’m so sorry, Farrow.”
She pursed her lips and blinked a tear away. “My dad had already died. He was in the US Army stationed in the Middle East when I was a baby. He never even saw the land mine that flipped his truck, killing him instantly. So I never knew him. I had no other family. As an orphan, I was sent to the state. No one wanted to foster an angry six-year-old girl, at least, not for long. By the time I was seven, Dr. Williams had somehow acquired me and two other kids from the orphanage. He brought us from California to Germany.”
Farrow stopped talking abruptly. Alik knew the real story was what happened next.
“Then?”
Farrow sighed deeply before continuing.
Chapter 49 Cell #4—Sloan