Chương 4
After a moment, she said, “You used to hate mud.”
“I still do.”
Anna looked at her.
Margaret added, “I hate Victor more.”
Daniel, standing nearby, gave a startled cough that might have been a laugh.
Anna’s mouth twitched.
The second tiny laugh came easier.
By dark, Harris had enough to detain Victor while investigators sought a warrant for the farmhouse.
He did not promise charges.
He did not promise prison.
Margaret wanted promises.
She wanted certainty, punishment, language large enough to fill twenty-three empty years.
Instead, Harris gave her procedure.
He needed statements.
Records.
Medical examination, if Anna consented.
Confirmation of identity.
An investigation into how Anna had arrived at the farm and what had happened before that.
“Before?” Margaret asked.
Harris glanced toward Anna.
“There are twenty-three years we don’t know about.”
Margaret hated him for saying it.
Then she hated herself for hating him.
Because it was true.
Finding Anna did not fill the missing years.
It revealed their size.
Anna finally agreed to go to the hospital after Daniel made one mistake.
He said, “You’re safe now.”
Anna stood so quickly she nearly fell.
“No.”
Daniel froze.
“What?”
“You don’t know that.”
“You’re right.”
Margaret looked at him.
Daniel nodded.
“You’re right. I don’t know that.”
Anna stared at him.
He continued.
“I should’ve said we’re trying to make you safer.”
Something in her shoulders loosened.
A few minutes later she agreed to leave.
She would ride in Margaret’s rented SUV, not the ambulance.
A paramedic objected.
Anna refused.
The deputy suggested compromise: the ambulance could follow them.
Anna agreed only after she saw Victor placed in a sheriff’s vehicle heading the opposite direction.
Margaret drove.
Daniel sat in front.
Anna sat in the back with the grocery bag and Margaret’s blazer over her legs.
For the first twenty minutes, nobody spoke.
The road was narrow and rough.
Dust climbed behind them.
At one point Margaret looked in the mirror and found Anna watching the farmhouse disappear.
“What are you thinking?” Margaret asked.
Anna’s eyes remained on the rear window.
“That I forgot my cup.”
Margaret had no idea what that meant.
She did not ask.
At the hospital, everything became harder.
Lights were too bright.
Questions came too quickly.
A registration clerk asked Anna for her date of birth, and Anna gave the correct month and day but the wrong year.
A nurse asked whether Victor was her husband.
Anna threw the blood pressure cuff across the room.
After that, she refused examination for nearly an hour.
Margaret sat in a plastic chair and watched her daughter pace barefoot beside the hospital bed.
Daniel went downstairs and bought socks, sweatpants, a loose sweatshirt, a toothbrush, three kinds of crackers, bottled water, and a hairbrush.
He came back with two different sizes of everything because he did not know what would fit.
Anna stared at the bags.
“You bought this?”
“Yeah.”
“For me?”
“Unless Mom wants the sweatpants.”
Margaret was still wearing beige trousers streaked with coop dirt.
“I’m considering them.”
Anna looked at her mother.
A faint smile appeared.
Then vanished.
The exam eventually documented dehydration, malnutrition, untreated injuries, two healing rib fractures, older fractures in one wrist, multiple scars, and an infection in Anna’s left foot.
The doctor did not say torture.
The deputy did not say abuse.
Nobody needed to.
When the doctor asked how Anna had broken her ribs, Anna said she fell.
When he asked where, she said stairs.
When he asked which stairs, she became silent.
Margaret sat beside the bed.
“Anna.”
Anna looked at her.
“You don’t have to protect him.”
Anna’s expression changed.
“I’m not.”
Margaret immediately regretted the assumption.
“Okay.”
“He didn’t break those.”
Margaret went still.
Daniel looked up from the window.
“Who did?”
Anna rubbed the locket between thumb and finger.
“I don’t know his real name.”
The room became quiet.
The doctor asked if she wanted to continue.
Anna shook her head.
That was all they learned that night.
DNA confirmation took two days.
Margaret did not need it.
The state did.
The news did.
Eventually, the courts would.
During those two days, Anna was admitted to a secure medical floor under a privacy restriction requested by law enforcement.
Margaret slept in a chair.
Daniel rented two rooms at a nearby hotel but used his only twice.
Anna slept badly.
She woke whenever carts rattled in the corridor.
She hid food in her pillowcase.
The first time Margaret found a dinner roll there, she pretended not to see it.
The second time, Anna noticed.
“You can ask.”
Margaret sat on the edge of the visitor chair.
“Why do you keep food?”
Anna stared at the television.
The sound was off.
“So I have it.”
Margaret waited.
“That’s all?”
“What else would it be?”
“I don’t know.”
Anna looked irritated.
“Then why ask?”
Margaret almost defended herself.
She stopped.
“Fair.”
Anna returned her attention to the silent television.
Five minutes later she held out half a granola bar.
Margaret took it.
It was the first thing Anna gave her.
The DNA result came at 8:14 on Monday morning.
Daniel read the email first.
He sat down hard on the radiator beneath the window.
Margaret was standing at the sink washing a plastic spoon.
“What?”
Daniel looked at her.
She knew.
Her hand slipped against the running water.
“Say it.”
He did.
“It’s her.”
Margaret turned off the faucet.
Anna was sleeping.
For several seconds, mother and son stood motionless on opposite sides of the hospital room.
There had been a time when they would have screamed.
There had been a time when Margaret imagined champagne, reporters, the whole country finally admitting that she had been right not to give up.
Instead, Daniel wiped his face with both hands.
Margaret dried the spoon.
Anna woke ten minutes later.
She looked from one of them to the other.
“What happened?”
Margaret sat beside her.
“The test came back.”
Anna’s fingers tightened on the blanket.
May you like
“And?”
“You’re my daughter.”
