Taken Bride by Alta Hensley

2

Christopher

“What do you mean she’s gone? Where did she go?” I ask, looking at my mother and then at Ms. Evans, who diverts her eyes from my glare. “To the park again?”

I don’t like the idea of her being alone, but I also understand I can’t be with her at all times either. I can’t expect her to stay locked away in her room all day.

“No, son. She left for good. She packed her bags and left.”

My mother’s words don’t make any sense. “What are you talking about? Where would she go? With what means? To whom? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Go see for yourself,” my mother says as I’m already halfway up the stairs, heading to our room.

It feels as if someone is gripping my heart and squeezing tight as I storm into the room and see a letter resting on the foot of the bed. I don’t need to check the closet to know Ember’s gone. I can already feel she’s not here.

Picking it up with shaky hands, I read the Dear John letter from hell. The words swim on the paper, and no matter how hard I struggle to focus on Ember’s delicate penmanship, I’m unable to let the words sink in. What is she saying? How can this be true?

She left.

She left with Richard!

She willingly left with a madman.

I sit on the bed, because I have to or fall to the ground instead. I keep rereading the words over and over in hopes that they will make sense to me. In hopes that there is some explanation or cure for the shattered heart that’s somehow beating a mile a minute in my chest.

A demented love story.

I’m removing the chain.

You’re free.

It’s how our demented love story ends.

“It’s for the best,” I hear from the doorway of the room.

“What the hell happened?” I ask, looking down at the letter. How could Ember write these words to me? I then shoot my eyes at my mother, feeling rage replace the sinking hole of despair in my heart. “You let those crazy men take her? Did they threaten you? Please tell me they held you at gunpoint, because that is the only defense for allowing Ember to leave with them.” I drop the letter as if it’s burning my fingertips and run my hands through my hair. “Jesus Christ. We need to call the police.”

“She chose this,” my mother says as she enters the room. “I wasn’t going to stand in her way. I’m not going to hold her captive like they did to you. Hate me for it, son, but I believe she made the right choice.”

“The right choice! Are you fucking kidding me?”

My mother nods, unfazed by my shouting. “She didn’t want to be here. You may not have seen it, because you’re in denial, but she didn’t want this life. It’s your life, Christopher. Not hers.”

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Richard is a killer. You allowed a serial killer to enter our house and take Ember, all because she was struggling with getting acclimated to modern society? Not to mention this is the man who kidnapped your son! He chained me up in a cellar! You let my kidnapper into this house! Is that what you’re telling me? Please tell me that I have this all wrong, and this is a huge mistake. Because a mistake is the only way I’m going to forgive this. Tell me this was an awful fuck-up, and you want to beg for my forgiveness. Tell me!”

“I’m telling you that I wasn’t going to stand in her way of what she wanted to do.”

I reach for my phone to call the police.

“Calling the police isn’t going to help. She’s gone. She’s been gone for a while. She didn’t put up a fight. She walked out the door with bags in hand and left of her own free will.”

“Fuck!” I scream as I throw the phone across the room. “Fuck!”

Anger? Intense sadness? A suffocating fury? Devastation? Relief?

No, not relief. Ember should be here. She should fucking be here!

“Fuck!”

I have no idea what I’m feeling. A mixture of grief and rage is a potent combination, and it makes me feel as if I’m losing complete control of everything.

Why the fuck would she leave with them?

“She’s on the run with them now,” Mother adds. “Which tells me that she was part of their sick acts all along. You know the police will see it that way. She’s a criminal on the run.”

“That man has brainwashed her. Nothing more,” I defend. “You have no idea just how sick in the fucking head he is.”

I can’t allow myself to believe that Ember would ever condone or be a part of killing. She’s merely a puppet and he the master.

I glance back at the letter.

“She knew deep down that they’d find her. How they did, I don’t know. But I bet she was scared for me. For us. I bet she left as a way to sacrifice herself. That’s the only explanation,” I say, my voice coming out gruff and muffled.

My mother simply shakes her head.

I point at her. “You never liked her. You never made her feel welcomed. She sensed that. She knew!”

“You can blame me if that makes you feel better,” she says calmly, which only infuriates me more. “But the person to blame is you. You should never have brought her home. And you should never have left her to figure things out on her own. That poor girl was thrown to the wolves by you.”

“Yes!” I shout. “And you were the leader of the pack. Why couldn’t you have been nice to her? Why couldn’t you have acted like a mother figure she so desperately needed?”

“It wasn’t my job to love her. It was yours.”

Her words were like a punch to the gut. It was my job to love her, and clearly I didn’t make her feel loved enough, or she would have never left me. If she truly knew how deeply I did….

“You truly are a despicable woman,” I snap. “I’ve lived my whole life trying to be better than you. Trying not to let money change me like it clearly changed you. You have been the perfect example to me as to what not to be.”

“I know you’re angry and acting out,” she says, proceeding as if she doesn’t hear a word I say.

“No,” I reply, shaking my head in disbelief that this woman is actually my flesh and blood. “This is no act. I’ve reached my max, Mother. I can’t ignore who you are or the things you do any longer. I’ve spent my whole life making excuses for your behavior. I used to write it off as it just being part of you being a rich socialite. But I was just putting my head in the sand. You simply are a bad person. Period.”

“Listen to me,” she says, walking over and placing her freshly manicured hand on my shoulder. “You refused to see just how unhappy Amber was here. You also didn’t want to face how broken she was. She needed help, and you were too busy with your job and trying to get your life back on track to see it. But at the same time, you can’t fix her. She’s lived that life for far too many years to just step into our world and survive. I knew this the minute you brought her home. You can’t tame a feral, son. It’s against nature.”

I snapped my shoulder away from her touch, stormed over to my phone, and picked it up off the ground. “She’s not a fucking stray! She’s my goddamn wife, and you allowed her to leave with monsters!” I pointed to my door and then dialed the detective in charge of the case. “Get out while I deal with this. Get out before I say something I’ll regret.”

“Christopher—”

“Get out!” I shout. “Now.”

“You’ll see soon enough why I made the decision I did. Someday, you’ll understand.”

“Get. The. Fuck. Out.”