Chevy Stevens - Still Missing

“She couldn’t have any more children, and she said she’d waited a long time to find a boy like me. She cried that first night…. I promised I’d be a good boy.” He grew quiet again.

“You mentioned playing dress-up together…. You mean like cowboys and Indians?” It took him a long time to answer. When he did, I wished he hadn’t.

“After our bath every night….” Oh, shit. “I slept in her bed, it made her feel safer, but on the nights when he was coming back from a trip, we’d have our bath earlier and then I’d help her get dressed.” His voice flattened. “For him.”

“That must have made you feel kind of abandoned. You get to have her all to yourself, then as soon as he’s home you’re shoved to the side.”

“She had to do that, he was her husband.” He turned his face back to me and in a firm voice said, “But I was special to her. She said I was her little man.”

Got it.

“ Of course she thought you were special—she picked you, right?”

He smiled. “Just like I picked you.”

Later, when he climbed into bed beside me and laid his head on my chest, I realized I felt bad for him. I did. It was the first time I’d felt something other than disgust, fear, or hatred for him, and it scared me more than anything.

The guy abducted me, Doc, raped me, hit me, I shouldn’t have given a shit about his pain, but when he told me that stuff about his mother—and I knew there had to be even more—I felt bad he had a fucked-up mom who fucked him up. I felt bad he’d been in an abusive foster home, bad that his new dad didn’t seem to give a shit about him. Was it because my family’s warped? Is that why I felt his pain, because I have it too? All I know is I hate it, Doc, I hate that I felt one ounce of compassion for that freak. I hate that I’m even telling you this shit.

Most people assume the guy had me at gunpoint the whole time, and I don’t tell them any different. How could I ever explain? How can I tell them that when he told me about places in the world like the Rock of Gibraltar, where all those monkeys are, I found him interesting and articulate? And that sometimes when he rubbed my feet, they were so damn swollen, I liked it. Or that he could be so enthusiastic and funny during book-reading time, or when he was cooking—he had this one stupid dance he did every time he flipped an egg and he’d talk in different accents—I’d see the guy who first stopped at the open house. How could I ever tell anyone he made me laugh ?

I was always so proud, proud of my strength. I’ve always been a no-man-is-ever-going-to-change-me girl, but he did. He did change me. I felt like I still had a little flame inside that was me. Like the pilot light on a gas fireplace, flickering in the background, but I worried that it would blow out one day. I still worry it’s going to blow out one day.

There are all these books that say we create our own destiny and what we believe is what we manifest. You’re supposed to walk around with this perpetual bubble over your head thinking happy thoughts and then everything is going to be sunshine and roses. Nope, sorry, don’t think so. You can be as happy as you’ve ever been in your life, and shit is still going to happen.

But it doesn’t just happen. It knocks you sideways and crushes you into the ground, because you were stupid enough to believe in sunshine and roses.

Man, did I ever have a big moment last night, Doc. I was asleep—in my bed, which should make you happy—but then I needed to pee, so I stumbled to the bathroom. On my way back I realized what I’d done, and damn if that didn’t wake me right up—of course I got so excited, I couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night.

It was just an old habit, going in the middle of the night, but that’s good because it means my old routines are coming back, right? And maybe it means I’m coming back. Don’t worry, I remember what you said about learning to accept that I’ll never be the exact same person I was before the abduction. But still, it’s something.

Maybe it worked because I’d been asleep and didn’t have a chance to think about it first. I’ve always liked that expression, “Dance like no one’s watching.” Say you’re at home alone and a funky song comes on the radio, you might start grooving to it a little, feeling good, finding the beat, really getting into it. Your legs are going every which way, your hands are in the air, and you’re shaking some serious ass. But as soon as you’re out in public somewhere you start thinking everyone is watching you, judging you. You go, Is my ass jiggling too much? Am I in rhythm? Are they laughing at me? Then you stop dancing.

Every single day up on the mountain, I was being tested. If he was happy, I got extra privileges. If I didn’t do something fast enough or perfect enough, which wasn’t often because I was damn careful, I got slapped or privileges were taken away.

While The Freak was busy evaluating my behavior, I was analyzing his. Even after our talk about his mother I couldn’t get a handle on what might set him off, and each situation was a clue to be collected and filed in my memory. Interpreting his needs and wants became my full-time job, so I studied every nuance of his expression, every inflection in his speech.

Years of living with a mother whose sobriety I’d learned to judge by the exact droop of her eyelids had honed my skills, but I’d also learned in mom-school that it’s like trying to predict the actions of a tiger—you never know whether you’re about to be a playmate or a meal. Everything depended on his mood. Sometimes I could make a mistake and he barely reacted, then I’d commit a lesser offense and he’d totally lose it.

Around March, when I was about six months pregnant, he walked in after one of his hunting trips and said, “I need your help outside.”

Outside? As in outdoors ? I stared at him, looking for any sign that he was joking or planned on killing me out there, but his face showed no emotion.

He threw one of his coats and a pair of rubber boots at me.

“Put these on.”

Before I even had the zipper done up on the coat, he grabbed my arm and pulled me out the door.

The smell of fresh air hit me in the face like I’d walked into a wall, and my chest tightened up with the surprise of it. I tried to check out my surroundings as he led me over to a deer carcass about twenty feet from the cabin, but it was a sunny day and the brightness of the snow made my eyes water. All I could tell was that we were in a clearing.

My whole body stung from the cold. The snow only covered the foot part of my boots, but I wasn’t used to being outside and my legs were bare. My eyes started to adjust to the light, but before I could register much of anything, he pushed me to my knees beside the deer’s head. Blood still oozed from a hole behind its ear and a slit across its throat that had turned the snow around it pink. I tried to look away, but The Freak turned my face toward the carcass.

“Pay attention. I want you to kneel at the rear of the deer, and after we roll him onto his back, you’ll hold his back legs apart while I gut him. Understand?”

I understood what he wanted me to do, I just didn’t understand why he was asking—he never had before. Maybe he just wanted me to see what he could do, or more precisely, what he could do to me.

But I nodded and, avoiding the deer’s glazed eyes, I moved to crouch in the snow at its hind end and grabbed its stiff back legs. The Freak, smiling and humming, knelt at its head, and we rolled it onto its back.

Even though I knew it was already dead, it bothered me to see the deer look so helpless and undignified on its back with its legs held spread-eagle. I’d never seen a dead animal up close before. Perhaps sensing my distress, the baby moved restlessly.