“I have to tell you something,” I say. We’ve had a lot of hard conversations, more than any child should have had to endure, but I don’t know how to start this one.
She glances at me. “Did you and Greg break up?”
“What? No.” I notice she looks upset about the idea and tuck it away for another time. I can tell she likes him, but Greg and I are only casual. I hope she isn’t getting too attached.
“Something happened today,” I say.
Now I have Sophie’s full attention. “What?”
“I had to call the police because someone broke into Mrs. Carlson’s house, but it doesn’t seem like anything was stolen.” I take a breath. “I’m pretty sure it was your dad.”
She looks shocked. The pen rolls out of her hand. “Why would he go there?” Then she meets my eyes and I see the awareness settle in. “You think he wanted to hurt you?”
“I don’t know what he wants.” Yes. Yes, I do. “Did you notice anything out of the ordinary today? See any cars driving by our house or parked nearby?”
She shrugs. “Everything was normal.” She stares down at her drawing, notices where there’s an ink splotch, blots at it with her finger.
Normal. Such a simple word, and something our lives will never be. I get up and look out our front window, check the shadows under the maple tree. I turn around, pause for a moment to take in the comforting sight of our cozy living room, the sagging couch we found at a garage sale and covered with a multicolored afghan, the coffee table we made out of driftwood we dragged home from the beach, the paintings we collect from secondhand shops, our choices based solely on whether they make us smile—from a bright bouquet of paper flowers to a group of whimsical owls perched on a snow-covered branch.
After Sophie and I ran away, we waited in hiding for a year before Andrew’s case went to trial. We lived in cheap hotels all over BC, surviving on loans from Chris and some money I earned doing cash jobs. I couldn’t risk him finding us while he was still out on bail. We even stayed on the border of Alberta for a few weeks. I’d wanted to cry every time Sophie packed her little suitcase and asked, “We’re moving again?” It was even harder when she stopped asking and packed silently.
When Andrew was finally convicted, we took the ferry from Horseshoe Bay up the coast until we reached Dogwood Bay, a tight-knit community built on a hill facing the ocean. I fell in love with the quaint shops and pubs down in the city center where you can see the dark blue ocean and coastal mountains stretching for miles, taste the salty mist in the air, then order crab pulled up from the water and watch the float planes land, white froth spraying out from behind.
Sophie and I needed a home, needed to be close to the ocean, and a couple of hours from my family. The only way to Dogwood Bay was by float plane from the island or an hour-and-a-half ferry ride from the mainland. We could be happy here, I thought. We could be safe.
I come back to sit beside Sophie on the floor. She’s drawing, her face still. She has that ability, same as Andrew, to tuck everything far in behind her eyes and disappear for hours. The difference is she’ll come dancing out again, with the right touch or question, blinking as though she’s emerged from a dark cave and wondrous about where all the time has gone.
“What are you thinking?” I say.
“Dad. The night of the accident. Do you really think he would have killed you if he found us?” She turns to look at me, her eyes searching my face.
“I think he would have tried, yes.”
“But why would he want to hurt you now? You said he’s stopped drinking. He didn’t hurt you when he was sober.” I thought I was doing the right thing by sharing everything Chris had heard through the grapevine about Andrew’s life, but now I have serious regrets.
“He didn’t hurt me physically when he was sober, and I know this is hard to understand, honey, but it’s like drinking was just an excuse for him. Even when he was sober, he was jealous and cruel and threatened to hurt me if I ever left him. I was terrified.”
I remember how hard it was to explain to her that her father had gotten into a car accident when he’d been drinking and someone died so he had to go to jail. She would still ask to visit, no matter how many times I told her it wasn’t a safe place for a little girl. I’d shielded her so well from his drinking, his anger. She only knew him as a loving father and she missed him. Finally I told her she could write letters and draw pictures and give them to him when he was released.
When she was old enough, I told her more about our marriage, how jealous and controlling he’d been, how many chances I’d given him, but that he was an alcoholic and violent and nearly killed me. That’s why running away was the only option—because I was scared. She stopped asking about him. When I was putting clothes away in her closet one day, I found the box with her letters pushed all the way to the back. I hated how relieved it made me feel.
“It’s been so many years, though,” she says.