Ghosts Like Us

She dropped the letter and watched in dismay as the blood-red words swirled towards the ground.

Dear God. She thought paralyzed in fear, He found me.

Shaking, she reached one hand out for the back of her friend’s chair and held her other one to her chest, as if she could keep her heart from leaping from her body. It’s been seventeen years since she heard from him. Seventeen years of paranoid peace and illusory safety.

“Adrianne?” Sharon walked into the kitchen with a curious frown on her weathered face. “Are you ok, honey? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Taking her by the arm, she guided Adrianne down into the chair and went to fetch her a glass of water.

A ghost? Adi laughed sardonically to herself. He’s not the ghost. I am.

“I’m alright,” she said after taking a large gulp of water. “Just received some bad news. Thank you so much for the water, I have to run, though – Honestly, Shar, I’m ok. I promise.” She added after seeing the skeptical look on her older friend’s face. Placing the glass on the table and standing up, she looked back over her shoulder, “I’ll come by tonight for wine and gossip and I’ll tell you all about it.” With a final wave, she closed the oak door before Sharon had a chance to reply.

Her strained attempt to maintain composure no longer necessary alone on the frosty Seattle sidewalk, she walked erratically towards her condo down the block. Glancing over her shoulder each time a car drove by, she reached into her pocket and unfolded the letter she grabbed off Shar’s tile floor before bolting.

Darling,

Meet me at 3:00 p.m. in Alighieri Park. I should think you are well enough aware of the consequences that would arise should you choose to ignore this invitation.

We have much to catch up on… Gracie sends her best.

All my love,

CM

It was already 2:00, and it took about 15 minutes to get to Alighieri Park from her house. That meant she had 45 minutes left of the life she fought so hard for. The one she killed to get. There was much to do.

Oddly enough, the life she so carefully curated over a seventeen-year period, was easily unraveled in the next 20 minutes. She quit her job with one carefully worded email, closed her bank account with one call, and canceled her Netflix subscription with a single click. Everything else would have to become someone else’s problem when she left. But that’s the thing when you build a hurried life on the fragile back of lies and deceit, it is oh so easy to tear down. She never let any relationship, work or personal, get deep enough to grow a root.

With the final 25 minutes of her life before her, she methodically began packing a bag. For clothes, she avoided anything with zippers or buttons, knowing he would discard them as soon as he could. In the back of her bottom dresser drawer, she knelt and pulled out the white linen dress she avoided looking at for seventeen years. It was wrinkled and creased, but still carried the smell of despair that permeated the commune where she used to don it. Sighing, she placed it in her duffel along with her most cherished possession, her mother’s gold wedding band, safely tucked in the inside pocket.

No point in waiting around then. She picked herself up off the floor where she knelt with her bag and glanced around the room. The nightstand she found two years ago at the flea market, the one she was so proud to put in her home because it was loud and pink and everything she was taught not to be from a young age, stared at her as if to say, ‘You don’t need to go back’. But she did. He would hunt her down and hurt anyone she knew and loved until she was under his thumb again.

Colson McLaughlin had been obsessed with her since she was a little girl. At first, it was cute. A best friend that turned into a crush, a crush that became love, a love that was so fierce, it left marks on her skin. She didn’t blame him, not fully. He was his father’s son, after all.

Carlisle McLaughlin taught him to be harsh and cruel. He taught him to want and to own and to expect submission. Carlisle taught all the men at Axiom the important lesson that you can, and should, expect women to fall in line. To behave. To be like their mothers, too scared to speak up, and too demoralized to imagine what that would even begin to look like.

And when that didn’t work, when women were strong and fierce, when they refused to bow at the feet of the men who abused them, they disappeared. Ghosts without a legacy. They didn’t speak of them, didn’t acknowledge the memories they shared, or the vacancies felt in their hearts after their departures.

Well, She thought with a small grin, most didn’t.

When Carlisle’s third wife vanished in February of 2007, she didn’t leave a note or a clue as to where she went.

“She was a selfish woman, Adrianne. She chose to ignore her duty to her husband. To her family. She wanted to pursue a life of sin and told me she was moving to San Francisco – wanted nothing to do with us. She left me. She left you, Adrianne.” Carlisle put his arm around sixteen-year-old Adi and sat with her on the worn iron bench in the garden that next morning. “Your mother could never love us as much as she loved herself." Adi cried with him that day. Freezing and fragile in the harsh winter air, she held her arms across her stomach, shaking with despair.

Over the next few months, Adi grew to accept it. Her mother left her. Though Carlisle was not Adi’s biological father, he took her in and beamed with pride when Colson announced their pregnancy that spring. Their little girl would be raised in a loving family. Sheltered and safe behind the twenty-foot-high wooden fence that protected the Axiom community from the sins of the outside world. She would grow up to be the perfect daughter, loving and gentle, and they would raise her to be humble and quiet. Just as Adi was taught. Then, when Carlisle thought it right, he would marry her to a nice boy who needed a good and obedient wife.

Adi remembered reading the book of sermons Carlisle kept at the house out in the garden one afternoon in May. Colson had gone with his dad to pray over a woman whose baby was tragically stillborn and offer their strength to the grieving family. At a little over three months pregnant, she was often left on her own to read or relax throughout the day. Carlisle’s wives would check in on her periodically, but she usually just killed time until Colson came back from his duties with his father. 

That day though, she was relieved to be left alone. The night before, she and Colson got into an argument about her absent mother. Adi knew not to bring her up, she knew she should be quiet, but she found something while he was at work. Sitting between pages of a nondescript prayerbook that lay on the bottom of the last drawer in her mother’s old vanity table, she found a gold ring.

Immediately, her senses rose up like the hackles of a nervous cat. This isn’t right, she thought to herself as she flipped the ring around in her hands, studying it. Her mom would never, never, leave this behind.

She’d heard the story of course, whispered to her on late nights when her mother was sure no curious ears were listening. At nineteen, Genesis Blackwell was living on the streets of Portland, after her parents kicked her out for getting knocked up by her twenty-one year-old boyfriend. She didn’t care though. Didn’t care that she might not have a roof over her head each night or that the home she grew up in and the people who were supposed to love her more than anything else in this world, had shut her out. All of it was trivial because she had him. He took care of her, made sure she ate, even if it meant he didn’t. Gen never felt fear with him by her side. When he came to her one evening with a grin on his face and held out that gold band he found in a dumpster, she knew with all her heart, that her life was perfect.

Things were great until that first winter. He came down with a cough, and at first, it was mild. But it lingered. Coughing turned into hacking, and before she knew it, he was gone. Alone, homeless, and pregnant, Gen thought her life was over until she met a handsome stranger who brought her hot teas and meals each time he walked by her pallet. That handsome stranger soon convinced her to travel with him to his farm and join him and his friends so they might help her raise the little girl growing in her stomach. Carlisle was generous and kind, and it’s no wonder Gen ultimately fell for him.

But she never forgot him. Adrianne never learned the name of her biological dad, but she knew her mom loved him with everything in her. She kept that ring a secret from Carlisle, and only showed it to Adi once, when she was very young. She told her it was a secret, and they must never speak about it again.

Seeing it there, in the pages of a forgotten book that afternoon, Adrianne began to question everything she was told about her mother’s abrupt exodus.

“But it doesn’t make sense!” She insisted to Colson when he came home that evening. “Why would she leave out of nowhere? She was happy! We were all happy.” Colson tried placating her with gentle ‘I knows’ and ‘She wasn’t right in the head’ but that didn’t work. Not anymore. Not now after seeing the ring.

When she didn’t stop, he became annoyed. He wasn’t used to her questioning him or raising her voice. Adi saw him become irate, and knew he had a short temper, but she kept going, insisting that something was wrong.

The first blow was quick. So quick, she didn’t even realize it had happened. The pain hadn’t even set into her cheek before his fist was coming at her again. Crying out, Adi did the only thing she thought she could, and cradled her belly tight as she curled in on herself on the ground.

They didn’t speak the next morning. He put out her makeup on the bathroom counter before he left and kissed her on her temple as he walked out the door. In the garden, she flipped the sermon book to the one Carlisle gave the week before her mom left.

The language he used was strikingly violent and aggressive compared to his usual words of peace and blissful servitude. He spoke of hellfire and damnation, of the danger of women with loose morals. He compared women to demons and warned men to be wary of their infernal temptations.

Her breathing was staccato as she turned to the sermon that he had given the week after her mother left. This one spoke of regret and pain. It was melancholic as he reminded his congregation that ‘good men can make mistakes. It takes a strong man to recognize a mistake and an even stronger man to know when he must fix it’.

Jumping up, Adi ran into the house and paced until Colson and Carlisle came inside a few hours later.

“Where. Is. My. Mother.” She demanded. Eyes flaming, she no longer cared to make herself meek or humble. She needed answers and she intended on getting them right then.

“Adi darling, why don’t you sit down? You look upset. What’s going on?” Wide-eyed, Colson approached her with his palms up as if she were a feral animal.

“Upset?” She scoffed, “Yeah. You could say that.” Turning to look at Carlisle who stood behind his son with a narrowed gaze, she raged “I know she didn’t just leave. What happened? What did you do?”

Carlisle smiled blandly, like she wasn’t acting crazed, and said “Let’s go into the kitchen, dear. It’s time you found out for yourself what your mother was up to.” He didn’t turn back as he marched proudly into the other room. As he expected, they followed him to the rectangular table and sat down.

“Your mother was a curious woman too, you know.” He rounded the table and walked towards the counter. “Always asking questions and demanding answers.” He turned on the kettle and started rummaging around in the drawers, most likely looking for a spoon for the tea he was trying to make.

Typical Carlisle. Unaffected by the mad ramblings of a woman. He’s making tea of all things. When I’m basically accusing him of something nefarious.

Colson sat quietly next to her, hanging onto every word his father spoke as he usually did.

“Maybe it’s something in your bloodline that makes you Blackwell women so obstinate,” he pondered. “The strong guiding hand of a man seems to be of no influence on you either.” He looked at the dark circles marring her skin, with something like disgust on his face. She knew though, it wasn’t disgust at what he most likely was imagining his son doing to her the night before. No. It was disgust at her.

She made Colson lash out. She disgusted him.

Incredible. She thought to herself. How could I have never seen this side of him before? What is going on here? What happened to my mom?

Colson stood up and walked around the back of her chair, his hands roughly gripping her shoulders. He pressed down harshly, holding her in place. Suddenly, all her righteousness faded and was replaced with icy dread. She placed one hand on her belly and tried her best to look demure and apologetic.

“I’m sorry, Sir,” she spoke meekly with downcast eyes. “I think pregnancy hormones are just making me miss my mom. I never meant to act out, I’m so sorry for the scene I’ve caused. I think I’ll go lie down and rest for a bit. I’m sure a nap will help me center myself.”

Shaking, Adi attempted to rise out of her seat, but Colson’s hands clamped down like manacles, forcing her to remain where she was.

“Dear,” Carlisle said finally turning back to face them, “I’m not sure a nap will fix this.” He held the tea kettle in one hand and opened the lid. “I fear we may need a more vigorous remedy for your sins.”

Before she could figure out what that might mean, she was screaming in pain as boiling water was dumped on her bare feet. “This hurts me more than it does you, my dear,” he yelled out over the animalistic sounds coming from her throat.

Colson jumped back, in either alarm or to avoid splashing water, at some point during the torture, but she was still locked in place. She couldn’t run if she wanted to. Through the rough sounds of her sobbing, she thought she heard Carlisle telling Colson to get her out of his sight and to keep her quiet, but she wasn’t sure.

It took two days for her to not feel like she was dying. Two days locked in her room in isolation, interrupted only by Carlisle’s first wife, Martha, bringing her meals.

She didn’t eat.

She didn’t talk.

She plotted.

On the third day, Martha was accompanied by Carlisle and Colson. Adi sat primly on the bed, with her hands tightly pressed together in her lap.

“Darling – ” Carlisle cut off whatever Colson was about to say and she was almost glad for it. She refused to even look at her husband. The man who swore to God, he would protect her and their growing family.

“Adrianne, my dear. How are you feeling?” Carlisle asked with faux concern.

“Much better. Thank you, Sir” she replied timidly.

“Good. Very good.” He got up and came to sit next to her on the bed. Placing a large hand on her face, he turned her head so she had no choice but to look him in his cold, dead, eyes. “Hopefully, you’ve learned your lesson, dear. Women are never supposed to speak to a man as you did to my son and me. You sinned, but I can see we’ve guided you back to the righteous path”.

Nodding, her hands shook as she slowly, carefully, unclasped them.

“Now, Colson is going to make sure this lesson sticks, but your poor feet should be ok for you to –“

She struck abruptly as he had turned to look at his son. With a tight fist, she jabbed the letter opener into his neck and leaped onto her bandaged feet. Colson unquestioningly ran to catch his father as he slumped forward off the bed.

Barefoot, Adi raced out of the house and never looked back.

For seventeen years she tasted freedom. But for seventeen years she was haunted by the shadow of her horrific actions. She saw Carlisle’s face in every man she met. She saw Colson’s every time she looked at her infant daughter.

Giving her up was hard but imagining her in the hands of her evil father was worse.

That’s why she so willingly walked towards Alighieri Park at 2:47 in the afternoon. That’s why she stood still, shoulders back, as a much older Colson made his way towards her.

He had her daughter.

Gracie, she thought desperately, I will not let them make you a ghost too.