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She has a brother?
Catherine looks out over at the small lake. “Oliver saved me from the streets, from drugs. From things the drugs blessedly didn’t allow me to remember.”
“Come on,” Lisa calls once more. “Chitchat while we get out of here for a while.”
I get into a different white BMW, not Thomas’. This must be Lisa’s, as she’s driving. We leave the land — compound? — and as we drive, I see signs of where we are, a small town about an hour or so outside the city. Somewhere I’d never have been able to afford to live before.
“So, my brother didn’t want to tell you,” Lisa begins, “but if you stay, and Mother doesn’t have to use the shocks on you, he will likely begin letting you out of the basement for a bit.”
Wait … Thomas is heractualbrother?
“You have no real clothes except the nightgowns, so we are gonna go buy you some,” she continues, as if she didn’t drop a bombshell on me.
“I don’t have any money,” I say.
Catherine turns to look at me and smiles. “Honey, you’re part of the community now, of the church. We all take care of our own. Thomas is making sure you’re cared for.”
My heart stutters at that, but not in a bad way. Thomas is making sure I am cared for? No one has done that for me. Not since I was twelve.
Lisa parks outside of an outdoor shopping center and we get out of the car. Freedom. All I have to do is find a police officer and—
“Do you think even if I let you out, you’d escape me? The police are in my pocket, you stupid cunt.”
If I go to the cops, they’ll have to contact next of kin, and Mike is listed as my guardian somewhere, somehow. I may be an adult, but they will still contact him. He can’t know I’m alive, or he will finish the job.
“Diana.” Lisa’s sharp voice shakes me from my reverie. “If this is too much, we can just walk around or something.”
I shake my head. “No. It’s not that. I’m sorry.”
The women exchange glances but don’t say anything as we head into a store that sells casual designer clothes.
“You’ll need some casual clothes, and a few nicer outfits for church,” Catherine tells me. “Church is mandatory twice a week, three times if we have baptisms. Wednesday nights and Sunday morning; Saturday afternoon if we do three days.”
I remember going to Saturday evening Mass sometimes with Mom. Dad wasn’t Catholic, so he never went with us. That stopped when he died; maybe Mom didn’t believe in God anymore.
I wasn’t sure I did, either, but someone sent that woman to rescue me after Mike dumped my body in the alley. She didn’t find me by accident.
“Can I ask a religious question?” I ask, not realizing I am even going to say that.
“It would be better put to Father Oliver or even to Thomas; he’s training under him, you know,” Lisa commented.
“But we will do our best to answer,” Catherine adds.
“Why would God save a person from a horrible fate just to put them in a worse one, and then a worse one?”
Lisa’s shrewd blue eyes see right through me. “Is it really worse, or is it just difficult to face yourself and the sin that seeped into you like a bad smell?”
Don’t listen to her,the little voice begs me.You’re still with a man who controls you and hurts you!
Yeah but … he also sees the good in me. The potential.
I nod and we drop the conversation, both aloud and the one in my head.
Catherine and Lisa are what seems like professional shoppers. They know fashion, and they know just how to dressme to look classy and cute and not overdone. I never really had a style of my own. I was twelve, then Mike had me, then I had to look a specific way for the streets.
“Oh my goodness, wear that the rest of the day!” Catherine says when I exit the dressing room in Calvin Klein with a denim, button-down t-shirt dress.
Lisa glances at my bare legs. “Okay, gotta ask—”
