Nikolett took a steadying breath, then started talking.
At first, it was calm and measured, the facts-only version of her life. Expectations were she’d marry and raise children, maybe work for her husband’s family’s business, but her primary role in life would be wife and mother. She didn’t question that, or the way her father treated her, until she got her hands on books that opened her world. Her father was normally strict about what she read, but she had an e-reader full of books in English and he didn’t read that language. She started imagining another life for herself, so when her father wanted some religious thing and was planning to sell her to the artisan creating the piece, she objected.
Eric waited for her to finish, then asked, “Did you kill him, or did you run away?” He paused to consider. “Maybe killed him then ran away?”
“That’syour question? Not, did my father suspect the artist was a pedophile, or?—”
“Of course he was a fucking pedophile and your father knew it. The man wanted to marry a twelve-year-old, and your father thought it was a good idea.” Eric snorted. “I’m not saying your father was a fellow pedophile. I’m betting he thought of you as a possession instead of a person.”
Nikolett gave him an odd look.
“Errr. I mean to say… I’m sorry that your father was an asshole.”
He decided to shut up before he said anything else stupid.
“More like livestock, not a possession,” Nikolett said after a moment. “You don’t beat a chair or a pot, but you might beat a horse or mule.”
Eric bent his knees, resting his forearms on them and bracing himself. That image of a young Nikolett was back, flickering in his imagination, but now her face was bruised.
“He believed that obedience to God was the most important thing, and for me that also meant obedience to him.”
“How often did he hit you?” Eric asked softly.
“He would slap my face twice, hard, every Sunday before service, ever since I can remember. He said it reminded me to be humble and obedient. He only started beating me when I was older—eight, nine.”
Eric clenched his fists, then forced himself to relax. “There is no age when it’s okay to hit a child.”
“I know that now, but when I was young…” She shrugged, then rattled off something he didn’t understand.
“I need to start doing my Hungarian lessons again, because I didn’t recognize a single word of that.”
“That’s because I wasn’t speaking Hungarian—that was Romanian. My father’s father was from Romania. My father was born in Hungary, but he was Romanian, and we were members of a small Romanian Orthodox Church. It’s the Bible verse about how if you don’t discipline your child, you spoil them.”
“Fucking religion,” Eric muttered.
“Well,” she said with a note of forced cheer, as if this conversation were over. “Now you know what?—”
“Nikki,” he chided.
“What?” She wouldn’t look at him.
“If that’s all you’re ready to tell me that’s fine, but I can feel you trying to hold it in.” Eric reached over and undid the wrist restraints with two quick tugs. “I’m not going to keep you here if you don’t want to be, and I’m not going to force you to talk to me if you don’t want to.”
She was tight with tension, almost vibrating, and still didn’t look at him. Then she slowly tipped her head to the side, resting it on his arm. She seemed to deflate, like a soldier setting down their heavy shield.
“He wanted to be important. For him that meant being on the parish council. But we weren’t wealthy, weren’t important, even in our little town. Every Sunday, we’d come home and he’d be so angry. He had a…” Her voice broke a little. “A cane. I think that’s how you would technically define it.”
He couldn’t just sit here anymore, not when he could hear the waver in her voice as she tried to keep her words clinical.
Eric hauled her into his arms, wrapping her in a tight hug and pressing his face into her hair. “I’m so sorry he hurt you. He should have protected you.”
She took a breath, and when she exhaled, it was a sob. “It was just a stick, a thick stick. It was an old broom handle?—”
“Abroom handle? Fuck, Nikki…”
“I’d curl up in a ball. Try to be small. Be quiet.” As she spoke, she drew her knees up, shoulders hunched. He doubted she was consciously mimicking the way she’d had to protect herself when she was young, but she was trying to curl up. He curved around her, protecting her as she protected herself. “I’d cover my mouth with my hands so I didn’t make any noise.” When her handsmoved toward her mouth, he gently caught her wrists. Bringing her hands to his mouth instead, Eric kissed her palms, then the tip of each finger.
She was looking at him with big eyes, luminous with tears.
