Nowhere to Hide(91)

“I see. And Cav? Does he feel similarly?”

“Yes, he does love exploring the caves,” Lia admitted,”

“I know you were caving while in Costa Rica. It must have helped you a lot.”

Lia knew she was referring to her struggles with the attack. “Yes, it did. It’s a very healing hobby for me, Dilara.”

“I can see the results of it right now. To me, that’s amazing.”

“Maybe you’d like to go with us? We could show you how to do it.”

Laughing, Dilara held up her manicured hand. “Oh, no! You’ve discovered the chink in my armor. I’m claustrophobic! I can’t stand being in enclosed places and I could never go into a dark, wet, small place like a cave. I’d panic.”

Lia’s heart went out to her. “I didn’t know,” she murmured, reaching out to touch Dilara’s arm. “Were you always that way?”

“No, dear, but when I was six years old Turkey had an earthquake. You know Turkey has earthquakes quite often?”

“Yes.”

“I was with my mother in an old mosque they wanted to repair and save. She was going to give the owners money for repairs. It was a very old building in a small town, inland and north of our home. We were down in the basement when an earthquake struck.” Dilara grimaced. “We ended up being trapped there for two days before they found us and dug us out. I can remember the earthquake’s roar, the feeling of ground heaving, and then everything falling in on us.

Luckily, there was an old, sturdy wooden table that my mother had the wits to drag me beneath. A huge amount of bricks and mortar fell on us but we were shielded by the table. I remember choking on the dust, and the darkness terrified me. I couldn’t breathe and began to panic. My poor mother held me and told me it would be all right. But at six, I didn’t believe her.”

“That must have been awful,” Lia sympathized. “No wonder you’re afraid of small, dark places. I would be, too. Did you have any way to call for help?”

“No, we didn’t. And I was dying of thirst, and cried so much that the tears stopped forming in my eyes. My mother was beside herself because I was so frightened.”

“Were you hurt?”

“No. My mother had a broken arm, but she never let me know it. After they found us and dug us out, I saw how swollen and bruised her arm was. At six, you don’t realize very much about other people,” and she gave Lia a wry look.

“Of course not,” Lia agreed. “How long did it take you to get over the shock of that, Dilara?”

“Many, many years. Originally my room at my parents’ villa was very small, an inner room without windows. I remember that first night when my mother tucked me into my bed and I cried my eyes out. I said it felt like I was trapped in that mosque basement again. I refused to stay in the room, leaving my bed and went out into in the hall. There my mother found me the next morning, sleeping on the swing out on the patio. There were nice, fat cushions on it and it was during the summer, so it was very warm. I slept well out there. My parents wisely moved me to a new bedroom in another part of our villa, with huge windows and lots of light. I was very happy there, and I could sleep and not feel as if the walls were closing in on me.”

“It’s so amazing, Dilara. Looking at you, no one would guess you’d had such a devastating experience. You’re so self-assured!”

Patting Lia’s hand, she said, “We all have scars, my dear. Some are just better hidden than others.”

“You’re right,” Lia agreed quietly. “How did you handle the feeling of being buried alive?”

“A day at a time,” Dilara said. “I was traumatized, of course. The claustrophobia was subtle at first, but by the time I was twelve, I realized how imprisoned I was by it. I’d look at every building and assess it. If it seemed too small, too dark, or if I had a bad feeling about entering it, I didn’t. My father finally sat me down one day and had a long talk with me. He was very loving about it, but he told me I had an invisible jail cell I carried around with me.”

Her lips twitched. “He painted me a very visual picture of what was happening to me and I got it.”

“What did you do, then?” Lia asked, interested for her own reasons.

“I realized the only one who could change this was me. I started challenging myself, Lia, like going into places I feared. I walked through my fear, and I must tell you, it wasn’t easy. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Sometimes, I’d cry, just standing in a small, enclosed room. It terrified me, but I’d stay because I didn’t want to live in a self-made, invisible prison. I was becoming afraid of my shadow.”