To her relief, her eldest child seemed to be in much better spirits when Martha arrived home. Shelley was there, although locked in her room, and only gave a rude cryptic reply when Martha told her she and Ellen were going to Phoenix and that she was not to leave the house.
Assigning Rebecca to take charge of dinner, Martha dashed out the door. She’d called David from her cellphone on the way home from work to let him know what was happening. She just hoped this wasn’t all a false alarm. She wasn’t sure how many of those they could handle.
“I’m sorry you have to go through this, sweetie,” she told Ellen as they sped toward Phoenix. She was elated that they might actually get the bastard. But she hated that this possibility was dependent upon putting a daughter who’d already suffered so much, through more pain.
“I’m not,” Ellen said. “I want that guy to pay for what he did. I just hope it’s him.”
Was all of this designed to help her daughter in some way? To help her grow and progress? Or if not designed, exactly, then leading to that result?
“It’s going to be hard to see him again,” Martha warned. Greg had given her a whole lecture on what to expect, to prepare her for Ellen’s natural reaction to what lay ahead. She’d already called Ellen’s counselor and set up an emergency appointment just in case.
“I know.” Ellen, staring straight ahead with her hands clasped stiffly in her lap, swallowed. “Just stay with me, okay, Mom?”
Reaching over to squeeze her daughter’s hands, Martha blinked back tears. “Of course, sweetie. Always.”
She’d never, ever, in a million days and nights of imagining, dreamed that motherhood could be so hard.
“You seem better today,” she told her daughter as they drew closer to Phoenix and Ellen started to look around. The last time Martha had been out with her, the girl had still been staring straight ahead. Watching where she was going, where she had to go, but letting the scenery pass her by. Was she more relaxed because she thought the man she feared was behind bars?
“I am feeling better.” There was almost a smile in her voice.
Taking her eyes off the road, Martha studied her daughter for as long as she dared. There was something different about Ellen.
An accepting, easier air that was almost reminiscent of the Ellen who’d left for work that long-ago January night.
“Okay,” Martha said, holding back a premature grin. “You going to tell me what happened?”
“I saw Aaron.”
Heart skipping a beat, Martha tried her best to play it cool. “You’ve seen him several times.”
“I talked to him.”
Their exit was coming up in five short miles. “Said hello, you mean?”
“No.” Ellen shook her head and glanced over at her mom, her lips tilted slightly upward. “I mean really talked to him.”
“And?”
“And…he knows.”
Thank God. “You told him what happened.” As far as she knew, after the initial outpouring that first night, Ellen had never spoken directly about what had been done to her.
“Yeah.”
“Everything?”
Ellen nodded. Her hands were still clasped between her knees, but she was smiling. “Things I haven’t been able to tell anyone. It was weird, Mom. It just all came spilling out. When I heard the stuff I was saying, I felt so humiliated I thought I was going to die…but then I didn’t.”
“Because of Aaron?” Martha was going to love that boy forever. And beyond. She owed him more than she’d ever be able to repay.
But then, if he ended up with Ellen, she figured there’d be nothing more he’d want.
“I guess,” Ellen said softly. “He didn’t care, Mom,” she said, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. “I mean, he cared, of course—it seemed like he cared as much as I did, as though it happened to him, too, not just me.” She paused, wiped the corner of her eye. “But what happened—he said it didn’t change me. I was just the same to him yesterday as I’d been…before.”
The tears were different now. Martha could tell that almost immediately. They weren’t tears of despair but of tenderness. And love, with sadness mixed in. But she knew they were healing tears just the same.
DAVID ALMOST WISHED he could refuse when he got the