I frown, taking the final few stairs down to the hall. “What are you talking about?”
Her eyes close for a long time, an obvious attempt to gather strength. “He took me.”
My confusion keeps me still and silent. He took her? Who took her?
Opening her eyes, I see something that I haven’t seen in Esther before. Grit. I back up, wary of it. “The day I walked out on you, I wasn’t going forever. I was going to get drunk, maybe even high, just to ease the pain of my latest beating. And maybe to dull the one I’d get when I got home. But I didn’t make it home. Because he found me.”
I recoil and inhale sharply, blinking back my shock. Ernie took her? In London? I step back, shaking my head, not wanting to accept the slow-forming understanding. I can’t wrap my mind around this. “No.” It’s all my mouth will give me.
“I met a nice man in a back-street pub.”
“No.”
“The next thing, I woke up in a filthy bedsit.”
“Shit, no.”
“I spent months comatose on whatever they were pumping into my veins while man after man raped me.”
My hands come up to my head and cover my ears, like the bombardment of truths can be blocked.
“For three years, I endured violation after violation until I was kicked out on the street because I didn’t fall pregnant.” Every word she speaks is delivered clearly and levelly. She’s completely together, and I just know it’s because she’s prayed for this moment, for this opportunity, to tell me how it really was. After our initial reunion, we never spoke again about it. After she told me she never wanted to abandon me, I brushed off her pathetic claim and dismissed all her attempts to talk to me again. She was just here, cooking, cleaning, tending to me, without any gratitude or appreciation in return. It was a sick kind of punishment.
I think Esther sees that I’m struggling to unravel any words to speak, so she goes on. “I went back to our flat. You were gone. He was gone. Someone else was living there. I lived on the streets for two years. Then Carlo found me. I don’t know how. I saw his ring, was scared to death, but when I looked into his eyes, I saw softness, not evil. He wasn’t the man who took me from that pub. He never knew what his cousin did. He asked me about my past, and then, when he was certain who I was, he told me about you. Told me how he found you and what he did to your stepfather. He said you wondered where I was. Why I left. I just wanted to see you, be with you, to explain.”
I look away from Esther, caught between shame, confusion, anger, and pain. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I met Ernie before I met you.” She smiles when I shoot a stunned look to her. It’s a sad smile. “He recognized me. He told me that if I breathed a word, he would kill you. I wasn’t prepared to risk that. I was just happy to see you every day, even if you hated me.”
I wince, a vicious pain penetrating my heart. It’s the kind of pain that only Rose has ever spiked. And my father when he died. And now my mother. I look down to the floor, my head tangled.
“I love Rose,” Esther goes on. “She’s like me in so many ways. A survivor.” I look up as she backs away. “She deserves to be loved.” And then she turns and disappears into the kitchen, leaving behind the lingering, hidden meaning of her final statement. If Rose deserves to be loved, then my mother does too. The pain in my chest doubles, and I reach for my pec, pushing my clenched fist into it. If I could, I’d bring Ernie back to life, just so I could fucking kill him again. This time even more slowly. Painfully. And with more satisfaction. I can’t even comprehend the level of fear Ernie instilled into Esther for her to remain quiet all this time. It’s the same level of fear he depended on with Rose to keep her mouth shut. To remain loyal to Nox. To not share her dirty past. Or was he depending on her shame? Either way, he underestimated her. He underestimated me. And he underestimated our trust.
Fuck, I need Pops here to explain this madness.
“Hey, you okay?”
I look up and find Brad with a towel draped around his neck, his face wet. I cough my throat clear, looking back to the kitchen doorway. “Yeah,” I murmur, my mind spinning. I’m going to be fine. Everything is going to be fine. Returning my attention to Brad, I brace myself for the shock I’m about to encounter. “I asked Rose to marry me.”