Rachel, seeing the other woman’s desperate need to talk, offered a solution. “Would you like to go for coffee, maybe have lunch?” She hadn’t been eating much herself, but Mrs. Rawlins looked drawn and famished from lack of nourishment.
“Yes. I would like that. And please… call me Hannah.”
“I’m Rachel.” She left her vehicle to take the place next to the sickly woman, even taking her arm to help and guide her. In a short while, Rachel opened the door to a small, local café and led the way to a booth, urging Hannah to take a seat. When the waitress offered menus, she nodded, “Yes, please and coffee.” After seeing Hannah’s nod of agreement, she held up two fingers. “Make that two coffees.”
Surreptitiously looking over her menu at the other woman, the thought hit Rachel as to why in all that’s holy would she be having lunch with the mother of the woman who stole her husband from her?Not true! Don’t bullshit yourself.
Right.Correcting that notion, she admitted that Lily hadn’t stolen anything. Damon was a full-grown man, making his own choices. And he’d decided that Rachel and his family weren’t enough to keep him from cheating.
Suddenly, the strong smells of food cooking in the café made her mouth water, and her hunger became palpable. Bringing her attention back to the menu, she saw they listed a clubhouse sandwich, her go-to whenever she couldn’t decide what else to have. Probably unable to concentrate, Hannah decided to order the same.
Left alone with Hannah, Rachel felt suddenly weird and sensed the other woman suffered from the same emotion. Breaking the uncomfortable silence, she decided to tackle the situation head on. “Your Lily and my Damon were together. And I believe this has being going on for some time.”
Breathing deeply, Hannah’s weak smile showing how thankful she was that Rachel had opened the subject, Hannah rubbed at the evident pain in her forehead and agreed. “Yes. I was aware she’d met another man. Only this time, I sensed a difference in the relationship. Something I had to dig out of Lily. She loved your Damon. I mean truly loved him. He wasn’t like the others.”
Hearing that Damon had been loved soothed an ache inside Rachel, a relief that someone had cared about the man she’d turned away from… grown to dislike. “Others?”
“Men. Lots of men. To ease her strange and endless appetites. It’s a long story.”
“She sounds very… ahh, disturbed. I’m sorry, I don’t mean any disrespect.”
“None taken.” Hannah patted Rachel’s hand. “You’re a nice woman, willing to talk with me. I would understand if you hated me because of Lily.”
“Of course, I don’t. We can’t live another person’s life, nor should we be held responsible for their choices. Especially if they’ve been hurt by others.”
“I tried to tell my husband that, but he gave up and refused to listen. You see, my Lily had been abducted when she was ten years old.”
“Oh, no. I’m so sorry.” The image of her ten-year-old Rosie appeared, and Rachel sent a prayer of thankfulness for her innocent, beautiful child.
Once started, Hannah seemed unable to stop. “It was a horrible time. The men who took her were human traffickers. You see, we’d been in a small village in Mexico for a summer holiday when Lily went missing. The local police were aware of the problem and tried to help us as best they could but they were pretty much ineffectual. What destroyed us both was the fact that Lily hadn’t been the only tourist who’d been abducted. There were more than a dozen that year. Yet after weeks of searching, they found nothing. At our wits end, we returned to the States and hired a private detective firm that specialized in missing children, especially those taken in Mexico.”
“How long before Lily came home?”
“Three years. The longest years of my life. When they dropped her off, she recognized us but was never the same. She’d become the girl trained by animals to do awful, disgusting things to stay alive.”
“My God. One hears about such horrors but seldom faces it in reality. Did you send her to a psychologist?”
“For years. I thought they’d helped her move forward. And I guess they did. But she could never forget. And so she got into trouble… over and over.”
“I can imagine. Poor thing. Was she ever able to tell you about those times?”
“One night, when she’d overdosed for the second time, she ended up in the hospital also with broken bones and terrible bruises. That’s when she admitted that the scum who stole her childhood had been paid by the men who beat her before having their way. Now she let others do the same to her and couldn’t seem to stop.” Unable to restrain her sobs, Hannah hid her facein shaking hands. “My God, can you imagine what it’s like to hear your own child tell you she suffered through such things?”
Rachel reached across to touch Hannah’s shoulder. Her hands rubbed harder as the other woman described visions no woman should have to hear about her daughter. When Rachel couldn’t stand to listen anymore, her grip tightened, and Hannah seemed to understand. “I’m sorry. You don’t want to listen to such filth. I get carried away sometimes… or so my shrink warns me.”
“I’m sorry too. Look, I can’t understand what you must be going through. I’m not sure I can even go there to try. But I do feel awful about what happened to your Lily.”
Hannah lifted her face to stare into Rachel’s eyes. “Please don’t hate her. Those beasts broke something inside of my little girl. As much as Lily searched, she never found peace. Until she met Damon. The only time I ever heard her sound even slightly normal, even happy, were these last few months.”
Suddenly, Rachel remembered how the tensions around their house had lifted lately, how Damon had been kinder to her than he’d been in a long time. He’d seemed almost happy. Making up her mind, she let the words in her heart be spoken. “If Damon was able to help her in any way, well I can’t begrudge her that time with him. And since I do believe she made him happier, then I can live with their affair also. Just so you know, lately I’d realized I no longer loved him, and what upset me most was facing the disruption that it would cause to our lives.”
“Please. You don’t have to say that to make me feel better.”
“Oh, believe me, I’m not. I’m just finally putting into words what I’ve been feeling for a long time.”
***
Damon heard Rachel’s words. And he understood what she meant. He’d sensed her pulling away from him, from theirmarriage, and definitely their future. And he’d been okay with it. In fact, he’d recently decided the time had come for them to sit down and discuss things. Only as usual, he’d put off the unpleasant talk like he did all things that made him uncomfortable.
