Finding Eden (5 page)

"How? Where?" she squeaked out. Before I could answer, Molly came rushing back into the room and knelt down on the floor and put a damp, white washcloth on Carolyn's forehead.

Molly's eyes shot to mine. "Are you really
her
?" she asked. "Like, how? My
God
! Do we need to call someone? What's the protocol here? Jesus!"

"I'm sorry." I offered her a small smile. "I didn't even ask. Are you my step-sister?" I remembered the letter Felix gave me telling me my mother had never had more children, but perhaps her second husband had. My brain was buzzing.

Molly shook her head. "No, I'm your cousin." Her eyes widened. "Oh my God! My cousin is alive." She put her hand to her chest and took a deep breath, composing herself. She shook her head back and forth, almost as if she was trying to remember who she was. "Um, I've been living with Carolyn since my mom, her sister Casey, passed away five years ago."

"Oh, I'm so sorry." I frowned. "It's so nice to meet you."
This feels surreal.
Molly stared back at me as if she was thinking the same thing.

I looked back at Carolyn as her head shook back and forth and she pulled on my hand so I would help her sit up. She came up slowly, breathing out and leaning back on the couch as the washcloth slipped into her hands and she handed it to Molly. We both watched her carefully. She gripped my jeans, almost clawing at me although I'd let go of her hands. Her eyes swept over my face, down my body, and back up to my face. "Eden," she breathed out. "My girl."

I nodded my head. "Yes."

"You're so beautiful," she squeaked out, her hand coming up to my cheek as she touched me tentatively and then pulled her hand away.

Her eyes moved down to the locket I wore around my neck and she gasped out. "The locket!" she cried. Her eyes flew back to mine. "Your father and I gave you that for your sixth birthday." Tears coursed down her cheeks and her hands trembled as she reached forward to touch the small round piece of jewelry.

I nodded, tears coming to my eyes, too. I had known it was mine the minute I saw it.

Molly, who had stood up, returned now with a small glass of amber liquid from the bar on the other side of the room. She handed it to Carolyn who wiped her cheeks, glanced quickly at the shot, and then downed it in one gulp, breathing out and relaxing back into the couch again, her eyes returning to me.

I looked back at Molly who was downing a shot as well. Her eyes got big and she motioned her head to the bottle asking if I wanted one. I shook my head and returned my attention to Carolyn–
to my mother
.

"How? Where?" Carolyn asked again, only this time her voice was stronger, calmer. "Eden," she breathed out. Her face crumpled. "Did anyone hurt you?" She grabbed at me and I grasped her hands. "Please tell me no one hurt you. Were you safe? Please tell me you were safe." Her voice sounded pained, desperate.

Had I been hurt?
Yes.
Had I been safe?
No, not at all.
But I didn't say that because the explanation of both answers was complicated and required more than I had in me to give right at the moment. Instead I said simply, "Hector, I was with Hector."

Carolyn squeezed her eyes closed for a few seconds and then opened them. "You escaped from Acadia," she whispered.

I breathed out. "You saw it on the news? You saw Hector?"

She nodded. "There have never been pictures of Hector Bias, which I'm sure you know, and I didn't know him by the name Hector. But I recognized the
description
of Acadia. I notified the police on your case, but they said," she moved her head from side to side again, "there were so many bodies
. . . so many of them unidentified." Her eyes flew up to mine. "How did you escape before
. . ."

"I didn't," I said. "I was there."

Carolyn's eyes grew big with shock. "You were
. . . But
how
? How did you survive that? And how did you find me?"

"I'll tell you all of it, all I can remember anyway." Taking her hand, and relishing the fact that I was touching my mother, I continued, "I want to know what you know as well, and I have so many questions, too." I hoped Molly didn't really see the need to call anyone, especially the police. I wasn't ready for that course of action yet. I needed time to prepare.

Carolyn gripped my hand and nodded her head. "Yes, Eden, whatever you need. Eden
. . . my daughter
. . ." She started to cry and as she looked at me, her cries turned to sobs. Molly sat down on the couch and leaned forward to hug Carolyn. I watched them for a moment and then they both grabbed my shirt and pulled me toward them. We sat crying and hugging as the world somehow continued to spin around us.

********** 

Twilight descended on Cincinnati as we sat together on the poolside patio. All around me potted flowers perfumed the air and the water sparkled in the dwindling sunlight. Soon the curtain of night would be closed. I turned to my mother and Molly. "And that's where I've been living for the past three years, with Felix and Marissa. I've been teaching piano. I even have a few more clients now, I make some money. . ." I trailed off as I took in their shell-shocked expressions.

It had been the very first time that I'd uttered a word about Acadia since I stumbled away from it that day
. . . and though I'd relayed it all in a colorless voice, my emotions carefully tucked away, for me, it was another small survival. I let out a big breath.

"My
God!
" Molly said. "That's
. . ." She swung her eyes to Carolyn. "She's been ten minutes from us for the past three years now."

Molly's statement hit me in the gut and I could tell it affected Carolyn the same way. I wasn't sure how to feel. In one sense, the knowledge that we'd been so close and not found each other brought a certain grief with it, but in another sense, if I had found my mother right away,
somehow
, I'd have missed out on my time knowing Felix. And I couldn't wish Felix away, I couldn't.

Carolyn grabbed for my hand again and squeezed it. "Oh, my sweet girl, you lived through hell, Eden. Truly, you survived hell." Grief passed over her face, but she took a deep breath, paused, and continued, "Like I said, I went to the police when I heard about what happened at Acadia, but of course, your body wasn't found there
. . . I knew though, I
knew
that Hector Bias was the man who had taken you, even though they could never identify him to show his face on the news. I thought my deepest fears had come true—that he had killed you at some point." Her eyes squeezed shut for a few beats before she opened them again. "Everything about Acadia just sounded so familiar. Hell, truly hell." Her eyes filled with tears for the hundredth time since I'd begun my story.

I lowered my eyes. "Not all of it was hell," I said. "Sometimes I was scared, and I was very lonely
. . . for a time. But," I raised my eyes to look at her, "some of it I wouldn't give up for anything in the world."

Carolyn's faces crumbled and she shook her head vigorously. "No, none of it should have happened. None. It was all my fault that Hector took you. All of it
.
"

"Carolyn," Molly said, "we've all told you that's not true."

She continued to shake her head. "No, it is true. It is."

"Carolyn—" I said.

"Mom," she interrupted, "please call me mom. You always called me mom."

I felt the words flow through my insides, a cool summer breeze calming me, setting me at ease. "Okay, Mom." Emotion swept over me as the word fell from my lips.
I was still loved. I belonged to someone again. Perhaps I wasn't going to be alone after all.
I breathed out and smiled, trying to keep a hold of my emotions. "Mom, will you tell me what happened?" I asked. "How Hector—"

"Yes. I'll tell you all of it. But Molly, will you get a bottle of white from the wine fridge? I think this requires it. Eden, would you like something to drink? Water? Pop? Apple juice! You always liked apple juice." There was almost a pleading in her expression.

I nodded my head, keeping the confusion I felt inside off my face. Did grown-ups drink apple juice? "Uh, sure. That sounds
. . . good."

"Oh, and how rude of me. I didn't even offer you dinner—"

"No," I said, "just the juice, please. I ate before I came here." Molly stood up and walked toward the French doors off the patio.

"Okay," Carolyn said. "Well, if you change your mind, of course, this is your house, too." She reached out and took my hand. "You'll move in tonight, of course."

"Oh
. . . I, well. We'll talk about that—"

She shook her head vehemently. "No, Eden, please. I can't bear it. I won't be able to sleep another night if you're not under the same roof." She started to cry quietly again. "Now that I have you back, I'll die if you don't stay."

"Carolyn
. . . Mom," I said, "I'm not going anywhere." I smiled at her. "I'm back, and I'll never go away again."

"Promise me," she said, her voice cracking.

"I promise." I smiled up at Molly as she handed me a glass of apple juice and set a glass of wine in front of Carolyn.

Carolyn took a big sip of her wine and leaned back. She looked away from me, out over the pool. "Your father helped build an investment firm from the ground up. It was very successful. We suddenly lived a lifestyle we had never dreamed of
. . . cars, houses, vacations
. . ." She waved her hand in the air. "We learned that all the material things meant nothing in the end. But of course, at the time, it seemed like everything we'd ever dreamed of." She was quiet for a minute, looking lost in thought. "Anyway," she looked back at me, "one of your father's co-workers was caught stealing money he was supposed to be investing. There have been higher profile cases like it on the news in recent years, and everyone has heard of those, but back then, I barely understood it."

"So my father wasn't the one stealing?" I asked.

She shook her head. "No, but he had looked the other way. He knew what was going on and his failure to act allowed it to continue. His failure to report what he knew resulted in hundreds of people losing their life savings. In the end, the whole company, they were all disgraced." She waved her hand through the air again. "The details don't matter so much, Eden, trust me, I knew them all and they still didn't help me make sense of it, other than to say that it came down to greed—levels of it, yes, but all greed in the end." A brief look of pain skittered across her features as if she was living back there for just a moment.

I looked down.

"Your father took it hard. Not just the loss of his job, all the
stuff,
but the disgrace. The shame ate at him like a cancer. And that's when Hector came along."

My eyes flew to hers.

"He first came to us as a man who had lost everything and understood where we were. At first we were skeptical, naturally, but
. . . the more he talked
. . . told Ben, your father, that it wasn't his fault, that the greed of society had seeped into his soul
. . . well, it sounds ridiculous now. But at the time, and with how far we'd fallen, I guess we were searching for something,
anything
—"

"I understand, Mom. I do."

She looked back at me sadly. "Of course you do. I'm sorry for that."

I shook my head. "Please go on," I said.

She sighed. "Well, your father, he became almost obsessed with Hector, although, at the time,
we
knew him as Damon Abas. Your father was intrigued with this society that Damon
. . .
Hector
had started, this place where there was supposedly no greed or sin, no pain or competition. This community had started several years earlier, but Hector had spent that time constructing the buildings and finding the first people who would live and work there. Hector and your father talked non-stop about how it would all operate
. . . the things people would need down the line, what was working, what wasn't." She shook her head again. "Even with the talk of gods and visions and other things that were difficult to believe in
. . . it healed something in your father for a time, gave him something to cling to, a purpose, an escape, and so for that I was so very grateful. I ignored my suspicions about Hector
. . . I did just what your father had done. I looked the other way because I was benefitting from it." Tears welled in her eyes again. "I guess if you choose to trust a snake, you deserve his venom."

"Carolyn
. . ." Molly said, but Carolyn shook her head and wiped at her eyes.

"Anyway, Hector came to your father specifically because Hector had this idea about a council. I know now from the news reports on Acadia what came to be as far as that went, but when he first spoke of it, he spoke of a group of men who understood what it was to fall in the "big society" as he called it—a group of men who had personal knowledge about the evils of our culture—men who could guide and mold this 'land of plenty.'"