Finding Eden (6 page)

I thought about what I'd learned from the news reports on the Acadia council—things I hadn't understood when I'd lived there. Hector had gone around the country gathering together a group of men who had been disgraced in one way or another and were desperately looking for a place to find respect again, to reclaim some small measure of the power they'd once had. And of course, there was the financial gain. Hector was paying them a yearly salary—far more than any of them had been making in their previous jobs. The police had looked for the money trail, but apparently Hector had known how to hide it. The property had been paid for in cash and put in his false name as well. They'd never found a thing that would clue them in to Hector's true identity.

And of course, the council had been chosen to benefit Hector in a myriad of ways as well
. . . a judge
. . .
a police officer
. . . I moved that aside.

Sadness welled inside me as she discussed Acadia, even the idea of it. It had been my home. It had been where I fell deeply in love. And somewhere inside me, just speaking of it, sparked a longing so intense, it shocked me, because it had also been the place where life ended. Of course, it wasn't the place I longed for, but a person. And for me, that's where he'd always be. I swallowed heavily.

"What happened to make my father see Hector for who he really was?"

"You," my mother said quietly. She looked off behind me as if she was recalling something specific. "He had met you, but one day you ran in while your father, Hector and I were talking, and you had a sundress on. Hector saw the birth mark on your shoulder and he got this look." She shivered. "The look in his eyes
. . . it was
. . .
hungry
." She paused for a minute. "Things changed after that day. Your father saw the way Hector looked at you, the way Hector became obsessed with you. He was obsessed with this idea that
you
were the key to this journey to the afterlife the gods had planned for the people that would live in this perfect utopian society of his." She shook her head. "After that, your father started distancing himself from Hector
. . . made excuses when Hector asked to come to our home. I had hoped your father was on his way back to being the man he had been. But then one day, we came home from a hearing about your father's old company, and
. . . you were gone. The nanny we'd left you with thought you were playing in your room." Tears welled up in her eyes again. "Just like that, you were gone. And then," she sucked in a breath, "your father was, too."

I scooted my chair out, stood up, and leaned over to hug my mother as she cried in my arms. I wiped the tears from her cheeks and then hugged her again. After a minute, I returned to my own chair. "I'm so sorry," I whispered. "Everything you've been through
. . . I'm so sorry." I knew, that when it came to unthinkable grief, the best someone could do for you was recognize and acknowledge your pain.

My mom sniffled and nodded. "Your father, Eden. He wasn't a perfect man. He had made a terrible mistake. But he loved you more than anything in this world. It broke him to lose you. And he simply couldn't put the pieces back together."

I nodded, picturing the man in the photo Felix had given me, the man whom I recalled so very little of. We both sat quietly, my mom and Molly sipping their wine, me thinking about everything I'd been told in the last hour. It would take me a long time to organize all the pieces. After a minute I asked, "So Hector told you his name was Damon?"

"Yes. Damon Abas. Another false name."

I nodded. I wondered if the police would
ever
determine Hector's true identity. Now that I knew more about him, it was almost as if he had simply materialized at my parents’ house that day so long ago.

"Did the police look for a place like Damon Abas had described once I was taken?"

"Oh yes. Damon
. . .
Hector
had indicated Acadia was here in the Midwest, somewhere close by." She shook her head. "He never disclosed the location and we had no reason to press the issue at the time. We figured we'd learn more when we began planning our relocation. The police scoured every community that was anywhere
near
the description Hector had given us. They came up empty. I never realized how many alternative societies are out there, most of them completely under the radar. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack." She looked off behind me for a minute. "I see it so clearly now that I know about Acadia, and I imagine the police do, too. As for the whys and the hows, there are so many things to understand. Half of me wants to, and the other half wants to brush my hands of it and thank God you're back where you belong."

I nodded and offered a small smile, feeling joy in the word, 'belong'.
Finally
—the thing I'd been searching for my entire life.

We talked for hours. My mom had many more questions about how I'd been treated in Acadia. I told her of my loneliness and confusion. I spoke of Mother Hailey and felt a pressing on my chest. I didn't speak specifically of Calder or Xander. I couldn't—not yet. But I did tell her there'd been happiness for me there, too, and that I'd had friends. And I filled her in haltingly on more of the horror I'd experienced at the end, most of it, at least. My mom cried some more and so did Molly.

We filled each other in on what our lives were like now, about what it'd been like for me to re-enter a new and different society, about Felix, and the things my mom had done to keep my memory alive all the years I'd been gone.

Finally, as the night grew darker, I covered my mouth to stifle a yawn. I was emotionally exhausted. "I'm sorry," I said, shaking my head. "It's been a long day. I should get going. Do you think you could give me a ride?"

"You'll do no such thing," my mom said, setting her wine glass on the table. "Please, Eden, I meant what I said. Please stay here. Please."

"Seriously, Eden, she has rooms to spare upstairs. And you said you were looking for a place
. . ."

"All right. That would be wonderful, actually. Let me just call Marissa and tell her. She's going to be thrilled. Really, I can't wait for you to meet her."

"Meet her? I'm going to squeeze her so hard. She's been taking care of my baby!"

I breathed out. "Thank you, Mom." I looked over at Molly. "Thank you, Molly. You made today so much better than I ever could have dreamed."

We all stood up and hugged, my mom shedding a few more tears, and then Molly showed me to my new room, in my new home, and brought me a few of her things to borrow until I could retrieve my own the next day.

When I'd slipped into bed, my mom came in and sat beside me on the mattress, gazing down at me in wonder and running her hand over my hair. "My little girl," she said softly. She hummed to me for a few minutes, a look of awe-filled joy in her expression.

"My beautiful Eden," she whispered, "I never thought I'd see you again."

"I love you, Mom," I said, blinking at her, trying not to tear up. "I never forgot you."

She caressed my cheek, a tear escaping her eye. It rolled slowly down her cheek as she said, "Oh, my sweetheart, I love you, too. I never thought I'd get the chance to tell you that again in this life. We have so much lost time to make up for." She wiped the tear away and hummed again for a few minutes.

I lay there after she'd closed the door, looking around in the dim light of the moon outside, reeling at how life could change in an instant.

All my life I'd dreamed of my mother, held on to the belief that I'd been loved before. And now I had her back. I said a silent thank you to the God of Mercy, hoping against hope that being back in my mother's arms would help heal another piece of my broken heart.

Eden

The day I stumbled away from Acadia, the day I lost the love of my life, I thought I'd never feel happiness again. I didn't think I'd ever care about anything. Nothing mattered and all I could do was hurt. Just breathing felt like enough.

I'd heard it said that the only way through grief is to grieve. Sometimes I felt like I'd done a decent job of that, and other times, I saw something, or remembered something, or
smelled
something, and the pain would hit me so hard, I almost felt like doubling over with the blow.

I'd been living at my mom's house for a month and like I'd hoped, the stability and love I had found there was a balm to my heart. Not that I hadn't found some measure of peace with Felix, but it wasn't quite the same. I didn't
belong
to him. For the first year I'd been there, the only thing I'd been able to do was grieve. For the two years my mind could focus on anything
other
than my grief, I had focused on earning and saving money, attempting to build something of my own that would allow me to feel safe. I didn't imagine I'd ever have more than a few fleeting moments of happiness, but I craved safety, security, and so that's what I worked toward. I had known Felix was ill the day I arrived at his house, and losing him had been a constant worry for me, for more reasons than just the fact that I grew to love him.

Every morning during those first weeks at my mom's house, I woke up in my pink, frilly twin bed—the comforter still preserved from my childhood room. It felt like again, I had woken up to a whole new story and I was a different main character, stumbling through, trying to understand my new role. 

I had expected that not having to concern myself constantly with how I would take care of myself and how I would survive on my own if it came to that would help me heal even more. But in fact, not having that anxiety allowed my mind to spend time probing areas I'd somewhat successfully neglected up until then, like skirting around the edges of a fading bruise only to find the pain remained.
I hurt.
It felt like I ached all the time that first month at my mom's house. I
still
hadn't yet told my mom or Molly about Calder because I simply didn't know if I was strong enough to talk about him to anyone. It was another step I'd have to feel ready to take—I guessed I'd know when that time came. But my mom didn't seem to want to discuss Acadia very much anyway. We'd talked about it that first day, but anytime I made any reference to it now, she changed the subject. I wasn't sure if she was trying to protect me from the sadness she thought it brought me to discuss it, or if she herself preferred not to think about it. I suspected the latter.

My mom had a piano in her living room and so I started back up with a couple lessons. And if I didn't have a lesson, I played anyway. Some days it helped more than others.

When I wasn't playing the piano, I filled my time by walking through my mom's neighborhood admiring the old homes, browsing through shops with no intention of buying anything—acquainting myself with the outside world in portions I controlled. I visited Marissa, finally telling her where I'd come from, and I looked things up online I still didn't understand. In a nutshell,
I existed.
Was this the life I was meant to be living?
Was this my destiny
. . . to walk through all my days feeling a constant void deep inside, a constant wanting? If I was moving when the question arose in my mind, I would stop and pause, the very small whisper of a feeling telling me it wasn't.
What then?

Although my mom didn't seem to want to discuss grown-up topics with me, it seemed she was constantly where I was, constantly reaching out to touch me, looking at me with almost fearful eyes, as if I could evaporate into thin air at any second. I understood it, and part of me appreciated her continual mothering. After all, I'd lived without any for so long. I had yearned for a mother's love for what seemed like forever. But another part of me finally had some freedom and I wanted to try to figure out who I could be on my own. I wanted to be treated like the twenty-one-year-old woman I was, not the child she often seemed to still want me to be. We were both struggling with the dynamic between us. I guessed that would just take time.

In many ways I felt like I'd always be a captive, even if in very different forms: first with Hector, then by the fear Clive Richter created, then of my own doing, and now by my mother. It felt as though I'd never be free to be myself. I'd only ever experienced that with Calder, and I only ever would. With the thought, despair gripped me.

One beautiful early fall morning, I woke up just after dawn and took my coffee out on the patio. The air was cool so I grabbed a throw sitting on the edge of the couch and took that with me. I wrapped it around my shoulders and sipped the strong, hot liquid as I admired the chrysanthemum and ivy-filled planters. I could tell the garden was my mother's therapy. I could tell she nourished it as if it was her own heart - a tangible thing to keep loved and well cared for, beautiful. I supposed we all needed something like that. For me, it was my music. It was where I went to fill up and feel alive.

When I had finished half my cup of coffee, Molly came stumbling outside in a pair of yoga pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt.

"Hey," Molly mumbled.

"Good morning. You're up early."

"So are you. I thought I might go to the Zumba class at the gym. It starts at seven. You in?"