BooksBarbecue
Back Don't Look for Me
Chapters (62)
  1. Cover
  2. Copyright Notice
  3. Dedication
  4. Chapter One
  5. Chapter Two
  6. Chapter Three
  7. Chapter Four
  8. Chapter Five
  9. Chapter Six
  10. Chapter Seven
  11. Chapter Eight
  12. Chapter Nine
  13. Chapter Ten
  14. Chapter Eleven
  15. Chapter Twelve
  16. Chapter Thirteen
  17. Chapter Fourteen
  18. Chapter Fifteen
  19. Chapter Sixteen
  20. Chapter Seventeen
  21. Chapter Eighteen
  22. Chapter Nineteen
  23. Chapter Twenty
  24. Chapter Twenty-one
  25. Chapter Twenty-two
  26. Chapter Twenty-three
  27. Chapter Twenty-four
  28. Chapter Twenty-five
  29. Chapter Twenty-six
  30. Chapter Twenty-seven
  31. Chapter Twenty-eight
  32. Chapter Twenty-nine
  33. Chapter Thirty
  34. Chapter Thirty-one
  35. Chapter Thirty-two
  36. Chapter Thirty-three
  37. Chapter Thirty-four
  38. Chapter Thirty-five
  39. Chapter Thirty-six
  40. Chapter Thirty-seven
  41. Chapter Thirty-eight
  42. Chapter Thirty-nine
  43. Chapter Forty
  44. Chapter Forty-one
  45. Chapter Forty-two
  46. Chapter Forty-three
  47. Chapter Forty-four
  48. Chapter Forty-five
  49. Chapter Forty-six
  50. Chapter Forty-seven
  51. Chapter Forty-eight
  52. Chapter Forty-nine
  53. Chapter Fifty
  54. Chapter Fifty-one
  55. Chapter Fifty-two
  56. Chapter Fifty-three
  57. Chapter Fifty-four
  58. Chapter Fifty-five
  59. Chapter Fifty-six
  60. Chapter Fifty-seven
  61. Acknowledgments [TK]
  62. Also by Wendy Walker

I think about this while I lie in bed staring at the cracks of light that sneak in through the seams of the plywood. It covers the window from the outside. Sometimes I pull the draperies closed so I can pretend it’s just a window. Other times I don’t want to pretend.

On the frame of the bedroom doorway, he has installed a metal grate—a second door with eight vertical bars and four horizontal ones. There is a small piece that can open at the bottom with a latch on the other side. Another panel is at the same height as the door handle and it, too, has a lock. A lock with a key.

The bedroom is now a prison.

“Sorry about all this,” he said on the day he let me out of the back room. “It’s my fault, really. I should have remembered to turn off the phone.”

* * *

It has been fourteen days since the night of the storm. Two days in the house, thinking I would go home. Five days locked in the dark room with the tile floor, knowing I wouldn’t. Seven days in this bedroom, wanting to die. But knowing I can’t.

Everything now is about keeping this man away from my family. Away from Nicole.

I stare at the streaks of light and assess the state of my mind. On each of these nine days since leaving that back room, it has surprised me and I have come to view it as a separate entity. Separate from my body. Out of my control in every way.

Some mornings, I wake up not remembering where I am and I feel what I used to feel before the night of the storm—what had come to feel normal after five years, but which I now recognize as numb. It only lasts a moment before reality washes through me like a wave of nausea. That is how I feel today, on day fourteen. And I have the answer my mother never told me. What life is like when you have killed your own child. Numb. I see it now for what it is, because now it washes away with the horror of my captivity.

On other mornings, I wake up startled and I jump from the bed and stand with my back to the wall. I let out small gasps of air with cries of despair that I cover with my hand. I am alive with desperation. But I am alive.