Coming home

chapter 8

“Elizabeth,” Claire repeated. “Your daughter?” She couldn’t seem to help herself. She had never heard the child’s name before. Claire had resented this child for years but never had a name or face to put with the child. She had made it a point to not ever see the child or to know her name. She was going to need more information. “Why? How? Wait, what?” she stuttered, sounding like an i***t, but she just didn’t know what question was more important right now.

“Just hear me out before you make a decision, please.” He waited for her to give him a go-ahead nod before he continued. “I’m having some problems with her and I don’t know what I’m doing,” he paused, trying to find the right words. “She has been acting out a lot here lately and I don’t know why exactly. I’m leaning toward it being an ‘at that age kind of thing’, but I’m not very experienced with kids. I’m not sure if that is it or if it’s something a bit more serious.”

Claire shot him a you got to be kidding me look. She knew he knew that he hadn’t explained anything. She wasn’t getting drugged into family problems. That was his and Nancy’s problem to sort out. Her getting involved, in any capacity whatsoever, wasn’t going to help out the situation.

“This sounds like something that you and Nancy need to work out and decide rather ya’ll need to put her in therapy or not,” she advised. And it wouldn’t be me, she thought to herself.

“That’s something else,” he added. “Nancy isn’t in the picture anymore.” He wondered how much he needed to tell and decided that if he told her everything about Nancy’s health issues, then she would see how serious this was for him. “It seems mental illness runs in Nancy’s family. Did you ever notice that Nancy never had anyone come to her house when we were in school?”

Claire thought for a minute and then said “No. I never paid attention.”

“Well, it was because Claire’s mom had issues back then. She was diagnosed with depression after Nancy was born. They had said it was postpartum depression, but it had never gotten better. It was too many years too late before the correct diagnoses of bipolar were determined. By then, Nancy was exposed to many unpleasant episodes that come with the illness.”

Luke eyed Claire to see how she was taking all of this in. When she gave another nod, Luke took a deep breath and continued. “This was around the time you left for college. This was also the time that Mr. Smith decided that they needed to move to better accommodate his wife. It also seemed to be the best for him. He had too much stress on him with the ranch and taking care of his wife all those years. He had said he couldn’t desert his wife, so he was deserting the ranch.”

Luke paused again. This next part wasn’t something he really wanted to relay. Claire must have seen that because she simply said “What’s your plan?”

Relief washed over Luke’s face, “Let Elizabeth help you. She is out of school for the summer. It helps you out and you can help me figure out if I have something to worry about,”

Claire tried to ignore the look of complete helplessness on his face. She tried to bring up the resentment she had felt towards this child before, but just hearing this story made her feel sorry for Elizabeth. She also tried to block out the need to help that came with her career field, but nothing was working. “Alright,” Claire almost whispered. Luke’s features softened into complete exhaustion.

* * *

Hiding in the woods until Luke and James left with Claire was the best option and it gave them time to think even if it made them wet. Thank goodness for the little hidden cabin. At least there was shelter from the elements and a place to regroup without interruption. They should have come straight here to begin with and they wouldn’t be in this mess now. Anyone who had known about the cabin was long gone by now. It was a blessing that the circle of people was small back in the day.

The cabin was tucked back in the woods and had been abandoned back before electricity was even around here. The family who had owned this property hadn’t even known about the cabin. It was like they didn’t even know that this piece of the woods had even belonged to them. When the cabin was stumbled upon back then, research was done to find out the original property owners and after that, it was determined it became a place of refuge. Refuge for when things get too tough to handle. This seemed to come more and more until everything went all dark.

The darkness was a blessing that was always hard to explain to anyone. It was like a reset button. It was a smooth like calmness that hung you in a limbo state until everything seemed normal again. No one seemed to understand that. The only thing everyone else seemed to want to do was push medications. Medicine didn’t stop the problems from happening. All that did was keep the smooth calmness of the limbo at bay.

The nagging thought of what could have happened today kept coming up. What if Luke or James had traveled the road instead of on horseback to look for Claire? And there was also no way of knowing right now if Claire had actually seen them or not. They had to get to Claire’s and figure out where everything stood before they could figure out the next move. At least the rain had been on their side today. They took a quick glance around the cabin to make sure everything was the same before they left out the door. Strange how some things become a habit without you even realizing it.

At Claire’s there seemed to be nothing going on inside, making it seem like there was no one's home. Maybe she had to stay overnight in the hospital. Maybe she had seen them and was at the local police station. Maybe it had been discovered already that they were in the area and there was a search going on right now. Just then, there was a shrilling scream that came from inside. Moving closer to the sound, they caught a figure coming across the yard at a fast pace, forcing them deeper within the shadows.

Damn, that was the second time today they almost got caught. They were going to have to start being more careful, but the risk of trying to get close enough to hear what was going on had to be chanced. Sliding along the wall until they were in ear shot was harder than they thought it would be.

“What happened? Is she alright?” came the voice that was identified as James.

“She’s fine. She just got startled”, the reassuring voice of Luke. Well, that was just great. Luke was here also. This wasn’t at all going to be helpful. Just knowing Claire was here and who was with her was all they needed to know from this conversation. They had to get to the area that Claire’s scream came from without detection and if James were to step off the porch now, he would spot them in a second. Slinking back into the dark, they made their way to the other side of the house to sit and wait for Luke’s return. Hopefully, they could overhear what they came to find out.

From the conversation they overheard, Claire had no memory of ever seeing them. That part of the luck seemed to be on their side. The thing that threw a wrench into things is that it seemed Elizabeth was going to be around a lot. While it was welcome to be able to keep tabs on her easily, it wasn’t exactly an ideal situation. Regrouping is a must now.