She stared at me for a second, then shrugged again. “He did love you. In the way he could, I guess. He was obsessed with little pig figures. His favorite animal, for some reason. He gave you pig figurines on your birthdays and at Christmas. When he remembered, anyway. That stopped when he overdosed.”
At least it was something.
“That’s why I like pig figures,” I said, smiling.
“Yeah. You started collecting them. Then you started giving them to others too. Mostly to me, I guess. I never liked them much. Always reminded me of your father. But I didn’t want to tell you that, so I just took them.”
A memory flashed behind my eyes: me handing my first pig figurine to my old therapist, the one who’d later started collecting them. Cynthia was her name. And now it made sense why I’d liked her the moment she’d told me her name. I musthave been drawn to people with that name all my life. Maybe, somewhere deep down, I’d always known.
Daniel came back through the doorway, carrying a heavy cutting tool—the kind that looked like oversized scissors designed to shear through thick chains.
“Stretch your arms,” he ordered. His voice was clipped. Not cruel, but cold. Understandable, considering everything.
He knelt beside Cynthia and went to work. The tool clanked sharply against the metal. Daniel cut the chains from her ankles and wrists. The shackles remained.
“And those?” Cynthia raised her shackled hands in protest.
“I don’t know, Cynthia,” Daniel said tiredly. “I don’t have the keys. Right now, I need to throw my dad into the ocean and figure out how to lock the stone door to your room so you can’t sneak out again. After that, I’ll try to deal with it. You can walk, eat, drink, even shower. Be glad this is the worst coming your way right now, after everything you did.”
“I saved your life,” she snapped as she brushed past him, walking into the shrine room. “Fromthatmonster.” She spat on the floor, maybe even aiming for what was left of Michael. “That’s what I did, and nothing else.”
Cynthia slipped out into the hallway. Daniel and I followed her.
We walked her back to her small apartment. A faint sourness lingered near the sink where dirty dishes sat in a stack.
“You’ve got enough food for a few days?” Daniel asked.
She nodded.
“Good. I’ll check in when I can.” He shook his head. “And take your meds, goddamn it.”
His eyes flicked toward mine, as if he were asking me if I had anything I wanted to say to her.
But I didn’t. I had nothing left.
I looked at my mother. A woman who’d made choice after choice with the wrong men. A beauty queen who’d fallen first for a heroin addict, then for a sadistic millionaire. She’d tried to fix things. Tried to protect me. She’d sacrificed more than I could probably ever understand. Daniel had told me that she’d stayed here for years, thinking I was dead—just to be close to the place from where I’d vanished.
Standing in front of her now, I felt quiet, cold sadness. A heavy ache carved out my chest from the inside.
She didn’t deserve this life. And yet, this was the one she’d ended up with.
“Thank you, Mom,” I said softly. Then I turned to leave, unsure if I’d ever come back down here. Would Hudson wake up and tell the police everything? Would my mentally ill mother be locked in a cell for the damage that someone else had caused? For the cruelty that had driven her mad?
I didn’t know.
Just as I reached the door, with Daniel close behind, her voice stopped me.
“Emily!”
I turned around.
“Don’t come back here,” she said. “It’s not good. Not for me, not for you.”
I held her gaze for a few seconds, then nodded. The tears pushing at the back of my eyes stayed where they were—for now.
Daniel and I stepped into the stone hallway and closed the large rock door behind us. Once it settled into place and blended with the wall, he began tapping along the surface. A dull knock echoed back until a hollow tone returned. Daniel traced his fingers along the seam, then popped open a plastic cover that matched the stone perfectly.
“Hudson told me right before the storm that there was a lock here,” he said. “To calm my nerves, probably. But I guess henever actually used it, figuring she couldn’t get past the yellow door anyway.”
