I reached into my pocket and pulled out my own phone, the one we’d bought when I started working at the diner. I pulled up the browser and then looked up at Leah.
“What’s her name?” I asked.
“Enid Roxborough?”
I typed it in with the place, and immediately found a picture. “Is this her?” I asked, turning it to Leah.
She covered her mouth with her hands, nodding quickly. “Yes.”
I pulled out one of the prepaid phones next, typed the number for Enid’s work into the contact list, then handed it to Leah.
“Take your time,” I said. “It’s fully charged. And really…you can come with us?—”
“I need to stay for now,” she said. “For the kids. For the women. I’ve been talking to Sarah, and she said…she’s been telling me all about how Mr. Daley wasn’t like this before, how he used to beat her—” She paused. “I want to be there for them.”
I watched her for a moment, then I reached out and took her hands in mine. “Leah,” I said, “that’s remarkable.”
She shook her head. “It’s just what needs doing.” Then she looked at the phone I’d handed her. “I’ll call my sister. Maybe she can help from the outside. Connect us with resources.” She paused. “I think most of the women want to stay, but not…not the way we were before. With us in charge now. And they want to be able to send the kids to school, to the doctor?—”
“We can make all of that happen, and I’ll be here for you,” I said. “I promise.”
She nodded, squeezing my hands once before letting go.
We found three more women before we left. One who took a phone and slipped it straight into her apron pocket without a word, eyes down, like she was afraid to be seen wanting it. One who told us to leave and meant it—not angry exactly, just done, her whole body closed off in a way I recognized and didn't push against. And one sitting alone in the back room of the main house with two small children climbing on her.
I sat with her for a few minutes.
Didn't say much. Just sat.
Sometimes that was all you could offer.
Wyatt and Haven had done what they came to do—the boy's ankle turned out to be a stress fracture left to heal wrong, and they'd assessed three other children while they were at it. Nothing life threatening. Nothing that couldn't be addressed now that someone was paying attention.
We left our numbers with everyone who would take them.
On the way out, I stopped at the gate and looked back.
The homestead sat quiet in the late afternoon light. Ruth was still in the garden. Smoke spiraled up from the chimney, and children moved between the buildings, playing together, oblivious.
It looked exactly the same as it always had.
But the gate was open.
I turned around and got in the truck.
“Okay?” Forrest asked.
I thought about Leah with the phone pressed to her chest. Sarah's rolling pin. The woman in the back room. The children.
"Not yet," I said. "But I will be."
He nodded.
Stetson pulled out onto the road and the cedar closed behind us and I faced forward and didn't look back.
TWENTY
Forrest
