C19 Simple Yet Difficult

“He is a seasonal worker at Onslow’s cherry farm. He would come and go from time to time. This was to be his last work in Stoneraine. He found a better job up north.”

“Where up north?”

Anabelle had not cared enough to ask when Jose was bragging about how he was going to be making much more than old Onslow was paying in his cherry orchard. Now, she wished more than anything that she had paid enough attention to ask.

“You don’t know, do you?” he asked in that damn tone that gave nothing away.

He sat on one of the couches in the seating area while she stood in front of him like a naughty student answering the principal.

“No, I don’t,” she answered immediately.

“How did you meet?”

“I work part-time at a supermarket close to my house. He used to bring in the cherries from the orchard.”

“Cherries. Great,” he scoffed. “He must have had second helpings too,” he said as he gave her that intruding gaze again.

“Huh?” she asked in confusion.

He ignored her question and said, “What else do you know about him? Who else could he have gone with? Any other place could he have gone?”

“I don’t know. I knew he went with a friend, but I don’t know who exactly. Mr Onslow would know,” she said as the thought came to her.

“The cherry orchard owner.”

Anabelle nodded even though he was not asking a question.

“We will get it out of him,” he said almost to himself, and Annabelle almost panicked at the thought of how they were going to get it out of him.

She could almost imagine the grumpy Mr Onslow being dragged about the way the man earlier had been.

She opened her mouth to tell him the man had nothing to do with anything, but he beat her to it as he asked, “So, let me get this straight. You sent your boyfriend to where your mom went to visit. He was to pick up your sister and send her to his sister while you stayed behind to kill your stepfather?”

The methodical way he talked about it like he was talking about the weather made chills race down Annabelle’s spine. For the first time, she thought of the grievousness of her action. She could go to jail. She had committed both kidnapping and attempted murder!

In a near panic, she said defensively, “Jose is not my boyfriend and I did not kill Tad. I only wanted to hurt him enough to escape.”

“Tell him that. As far as your stepfather is concerned, you wanted to kill him so you could steal from him. He fought back, and you ran away in a panic. After you manage to steal a child from her mother, of course.”

Unexpected anger made Annabelle’s hands curl into a fist as she said, “Steal from him?! That bastard has nothing for me to steal. He takes money from my mother and me. He wouldn’t even let me keep my own money, and he wouldn’t let me work full-time like everyone else. I was supposed to save for college, but he stopped that. He convinced Mom that I did not need any fancy education. He convinced her I was better off staying home to care for the family, so I could learn how to take care of my own family one day. She accepted! Mom accepted without asking how I felt about it! Your father knows best! She said. You called him my father too! Well, he is not! He is not Cathy’s father either. A father will never treat us the way he has done!”

Her chest was heaving with all her pent-up emotions when she finally got ahold of herself. She closed her eyes and shook her head once. When she opened her eyes back, the torment in her eyes had cleared.

She cleared her throat and said, “I am sorry. I didn’t mean to go off on you like that. I…just… I will explain things later, okay? I will apologise…to Mom. I will do anything. Just help me find my sister first. I promise to…”

“Don’t promise what you can’t give,” he said with a hard look in his eyes as he got up from the couch. She stepped out of the way as he came towards her.

He barely reacted to that as he continued walking towards the door. “I will do my best to get your sister back. Then you will tell me what exactly that bastard did to you.”

Annabelle watched the door close behind him as she thought, “That is all he wanted? In payment for his help, he wanted to know what Tad did to me?”

It seemed such a simple request that she almost didn’t believe him.

So simple, yet so difficult.

It would be the most difficult thing in her life.

She had never opened up to anyone about it before.

Her mother would not believe her, so she kept quiet and did as she was told.

She had not made any real friends in Stoneraine she could talk to.

She was afraid of what Tad might do to them, so she turned away every girl who wanted to get close to her.

She was not sure anyone would believe her if she told their neighbours what the man was doing under her mother's nose anyway.

Everyone believed Tad to be a good man.

And now he wanted to know?

She was not sure she could do it.

She would have to beg him to ask for something else once her sister was saved. Or she could lie to him.

What if he discovered she was lying and punished her for it?

She had never been a good liar anyway. What would her punishment be?

“I am one breath away from fucking you senseless” his words from earlier chose that moment to pop into her mind.

She shuddered as she wondered what she would do if that was what he asked for.

As panic tugged at her mind, she did what she had done when Jose was huffing above her.

She brought Cathy’s image into her mind and firmly focused on that.

The idea of the better life Cathy would live had made her numb while Jose was doing what he wanted to her.

Now, it didn’t provide the same succour.

The thought of her sister brought a greater fear.

“What if this man couldn’t bring her back? What if…?”

In a moment of desperation, she did what he had not done in a long while.

She knelt. And prayed.