“I’m sorry, Nancy, but your son will always be a monster in my eyes, and he is a very real monster to Lilah. The night before we escaped, he was getting high, as usual. We were hiding in the bedroom, and she needed to pee. We tried to walk around him and his friends, who spent the day getting high.” I look down at my lap, not sure if I can do this, but Jackson squeezes my hand and that’s all the encouragement I need.
“He needed money for more drugs, so he sold me to his dealer for his next fix. They tied me to the bed, where he beat me and then raped me all night long. All the while Lilah was locked in a dark closet with no food, no water, scared out of her mind. That is who Adam Fletcher is to us. He’s not the dandelion-giving, love-professing boy you raised anymore. He is the monster who terrorized me and my daughter for years.”
Tears are streaming down her face, a nonstop flow that she cannot stop with the Kleenex in her hand.
“That is the man you are sitting there trying to defend to me. I was not his wife or his girlfriend. I was his victim. But no more. I have Jackson now. He is the one who fought with my demons. He showed me not all men are monsters.” Looking right into his eyes, I say, “He is, without a doubt, the best thing to ever happen to me.”
I don’t even finish talking before he bends down, kissing me.
“I love you,” he whispers in my ear. “You are so brave.”
“I’m so sorry,” Nancy says. “I…I had no idea what you two went through. That my son put you, put his daughter, Lilah, through that.” She shakes with the force of her sobs.
I get up and go to comfort her. Not for Adam but for Jackson.
I sit next to her, and we both hug each other as we cry. She, for the son she lost, and me, for the monster I escaped.
I don’t know how long this goes on, but the doorbell rings three times in a row. When Jackson opens the door, Lilah marches in grumbling. “I starbing, and Ms. Brenda says no eating till you come home.” She is followed in by a smiling Brenda.
As soon as she sees my face and tears, Brenda’s expression changes. She’s in mother bear mode, ready to battle. She moves to stand by me, but I smile at her to let her know it’s okay.
“Lilah, come say hi to Ms. Nancy.” I hold out my arms for her, and she sits on my lap.
“Hi, Ms. Nancy, you hubry?”
“Umm, I am quite hungry. What did you cook?” she asks her, gently stroking her hand over Lilah’s hair.
“I no cook, but Momma cooked her chili for Ackson,” she says matter-of-factly.
“Really? That’s my favorite. Do you think I can come over and eat, too?” She looks from Lilah to me, making sure it’s okay.
I smile, nodding my head and bringing Lilah closer to me. “We would love for you to join us.”
“Okay, let’s go eat,” Lilah says, jumping off me and heading over to Brenda to take her hand, pulling her toward the door.
I get up and reach out to take Nancy’s hand. “I suggest we go before she eats all the corn bread.”
She places her hand in mine, and we walk over to my house where she spends the rest of the night getting to know her granddaughter. I spend the rest of the night falling more in love with her son.
Chapter Forty
Jackson
It’s been six weeks since I found her beaten in that alley, and today is the day she finally gets her cast off.
It’s been three weeks of us being together whenever I am not working. I spend every night with her, no matter what time I get in. I always go straight to her bed.
I also have a serious case of blue balls. My showers have gone from warm to fucking ice cold.
Every single day is some form of torture. It’s getting harder and harder not to push her. Right now, for example, we are sitting in her doctor’s office. She is wearing a flowery summer dress, and I know the only thing she has under it is a lacy thong.
She is also getting more comfortable with me. Coming out of the shower in just a towel, and she’s not so quick to cover up when I come in and she’s changing.
The doctor calls her in and cuts off her cast. Opening it up, the powder dust is all over her legs. The doctor throws the cast in the garbage and then examines her wrist. It looks so fragile. The skin is a yellowish color from being in the cast for so long.
He makes her bend it left to right and then back and forth. His examination takes a good ten minutes before he gives her his instructions. “Looks good. It’ll be sore for the next few days since it’s been immobile, but you should be back to normal soon.”
With a nod, he walks out of the room. Bella keeps moving it in circles, getting it working again.
“How does it feel?” I ask her from my spot against the wall so as not to get in the way.