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“Okay.” He kisses her head again. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”
His face is pinched, and I recognize the same anguish I saw on my own face in the mirror for weeks after it happened.
He audibly sucks in a breath. “So fucking sorry, Sunshine.”
“Me too. But it brought me her.” I nod my head in Audra’s direction. I can be sorry that it happened. I can be disgusted with myself. I can hate Sean for doing it. For taking away my choice, for making me experience the terror and shame of my consent being stripped away from me. Of the brutality of it all.
But I can never be sorry or disgusted that she’s the result of it. Because that little girl cuddled into Harlan’s arms is my whole world. She’s my joy, happiness and reason for living wrapped in a tiny package.
Harlan nods before pressing a kiss to her head. “You’re right. She’s — you both — are miracles.” He hugs Audra to his chest a little tighter, his eyes closing as he soaks in the feel of her in his arms. When his eyes open, I see something I don’t think I’m supposed to.
Love.
He loves her. Maybe not like I do, but it’s there all the same. And that makes him a safe place for her more than anything else.
I sip more water as Harlan sways with Audra in his arms, and I soak in the picture of a man just loving my daughter in a way that she’s only gotten from me in her short life.
Maybe something good can come from a deer derailing my life. Because now? Now Audra has this — has him.
He turns to me. “Can I ask you a question? You don’t have to answer it if it makes you uncomfortable or you’re not ready.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“Can you tell me why you didn’t feel comfortable reporting him? Or calling the police.”
I go lightheaded at the question. The breath in my lungs backing up to sit heavier than a ton of lead bricks.
“Harlan. I couldn’t. Sean’s a cop.”
Chapter 22
Harlan
Afucking cop. Her piece of shit ex is a fucking cop. Her abuser is a fucking police officer. Someone sworn to protect and serve, and he failed at it completely with a person that’s supposed to mean the most to him.
Rage — pure unfiltered rage — threatens to take me out at the knees. The need to find this motherfucker and end his entire existence is the only thought circulating through my brain as I take in Maisie’s red, tear-drenched eyes — the hollow look of sadness sucking the life out of her gaze.
I focus on my own breathing, pulling in air and letting it out slowly while keeping my hold on Audra gentle.
He’s not here, there’s no handy outlet for my anger, and I won’t send Maisie running because I can’t keep a hold of my own feelings.
The fear in her eyes when she woke up in the hospital. Her reticence in talking to me once she found out my job, the way she flinches if anyone so much as moves fast around her, every ounce of her isolation makes sense now. She couldn’t ask for help, because he was supposed to be the help and took that and turned it into something nightmarish.
“Say something,” Maisie says, her gaze full of sorrow.
“Sunshine, you’re so goddamn brave.” My own voice wobbles and my eyes burn.
Skepticism creeps into the corner of her eyes. “I’m really not.”
“You are.” My tone is steel — nonnegotiable. She can think whatever she wants about herself, but she’ll never convince me otherwise.
“Harlan. I ran. I should have done so many things differently. But I ran.”
“Because you were scared — for you and for Audra. There’s no shame in retreating when you have something precious to protect.”
Audra wiggles in my arms. As if reminding us that she’s there. I set her back into her high chair and fasten the shoulder straps over her tiny frame before skirting into the living room and picking up a cloth crinkly storybook I picked up for her at the store. I drop it on the table and sit back down in my own chair.
Maisie eyes the toy but doesn’t say anything about it when she says, “Maybe there’s no shame in it, but it hasn’t been exactly easy to live under the radar and be terrified that every shadow around the corner is going to be — him. To be afraid that the next time I stop with Audra he’s going to be there waiting.”
