Chapter 37 - The End
Erin's mother sits with her for several hours a day, looking at her sleeping daughter, contemplating. Why did that man attack her, and then kill her husband? Why did John move away suddenly with no warning? She had heard the other policemen talking, when she went to identify her husband... Ed Donners had been named as a member of a child sex ring. She wouldn't allow herself to believe that John or her daughter had been involved with any of that. That would make her a terrible mother.
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It's a bright, sunny afternoon and Laura's father picked her up from high school as usual, and they were walking through the park, hand in hand. They got the
occasional sidelong glance from older people feeding the squirrels, but they didn't care. They had all their stories straight if anyone really questioned them. They discussed the future, and what each of them wanted from each other, and Laura was blissfully happy that her father wanted to be with her, too. They daydream ways they could maybe someday
marry, maybe have children. Laura's father said he knew about a guy who ran a pawn shop who was supposedly good with making fake identities, and if no one knew Laura was his daughter...
they could move anywhere and he could still be a doctor there. Laura smiles a lot these days.
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Nora is at track practice running hurdles, and she's good. No other girl on her team can even get close to her in the
300. She is a straight-A student, except for English Lit, she got a C this quarter... she hates that class, but her new caregivers praise her grades, anyway. Her uncle Serenity was her father's brother, and they're both in jail now, but she was taken in by her cousin's family on her mother's side, who can't believe what she had been through, and are in awe of her ability to persevere. Nora can always hear them cheering from the stands for her at track meets. She smiles as she clears another hurdle.
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Mary is sitting at a small stone table, outside an expensive children's hospital, reading a book. She is there at the grace of Crazy Ed Donner's estate, which was liquidated by court order and given to Mary in a trust for her care. She is no longer pale, and the dark circles around her eyes are gone. She is sleeping through the night now, and is almost always still in her own bed when she wakes up. She still can't allow any man to touch her, she will
flinch and try to get away, and if she can't get away, will scream, but there is one nice nurse who she lets brush her hair, at night. The nurse has really pretty blonde hair. Mary feels a cool breeze off the water, and she raises her head into it, closes her eyes, and smiles.
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Lucy was in her mother's room at the clinic where she'd been for the last four months since she and Lucy were found after her grandfather killed himself. Lucy still woke up every day and had to remember he was gone, and every day since had been the best day of her life.
Lucy had been there today for two hours, she spent every afternoon after school... real school! visiting with her mother, and every day her mother was a little better, recovering from her long addition to morphine. This clinic was expensive, but selling off the estate of the disgraced chief of police had yielded them plenty of money on which to live.
Linda Logan had put on weight, her skin had its color back, the sores on her arms were now healed scars, and she no longer hated herself when she saw her daughter as a constant reminder of how her father had stolen her life and everything in it. Every day she hugged her daughter and apologized, every day Lucy told her she had nothing to be sorry about, and every day they cried together, healing the wounds in each other that he had caused. "Have you had any luck, yet?" she asked her daughter.
And as every other day, "No, not yet," and they hugged each other tighter.
And as every other day, "Don't give up, you'll find her."
Lucy broke their hug and kissed her mother's cheek. "Bye Mom, I have a report due tomorrow and I still have to finish it up... I'll be
back tomorrow after school."
"Ok, I'll see you tomorrow, sweetie," her mother said to her.
Lucy smiled sadly at that word, that's what she had always called her.
Lucy grabbed her book bag and left to catch a taxi back to her new apartment. Technically it was her mother's apartment, but her mother had never stepped foot in it. One of the policemen who'd found them in the house helped her set up the lease, all the police seemed to want to help her, now that they knew what her grandfather had been, and they were all looking the other way and covering for her when anyone would wonder why a 12 year old girl seemed to live alone. They were always available if she called, keeping an eye on her, sometimes even just to open a jar of spaghetti sauce for her. One of them, an older man, had once sat her down and apologized to her, and said they hadn't known what kind of man her grandfather was. He said the entire department was going to make up for that failure to her, and she was going to be their first priority if she ever needed anything. So for now Lucy lived in that apartment by herself until her Mom checked out of the clinic, which is how she wanted it. She didn't want to go with strangers until her Mom was better, and the police weren't going to make her.
When I get home I'll make something to eat and do this report, and before I go to bed I'll do more googling for
her, she thought to herself. She always turned on Skype at 9pm, just in case, but is was always just Nora and Laura waiting.
She's got to be out there somewhere...
While lost in her thoughts she took a wrong turn at a hallway intersection, and by the time she realized her mistake she was already closer to a
different exit, somewhere in the long-term wing, so she just decided to keep going and come back around to the main entrance from the outside.
It's not raining, it will be nice to walk outside anyway, she thought.
Walking down the unfamiliar hallway, where people who'd been unconscious for more than 30 days were kept in more comfort than they'd get in a hospital, her eyes were drawn to the late afternoon sunlight streaming in through the windows of each room as she passed by.
She was walking down the quiet hallway looking in every room, not snooping, just watching the beams of sunlight hitting the different rooms in different ways, depending on how each room was arranged, not even really seeing the patients inside each one.
In one of the rooms she noticed the sunlight was shining on a patient's face making it glow so bright she couldn't distinguish facial features in the contrast of the otherwise shadowy, unlighted room, but the light made the patient's blonde hair glow like a halo. She passed by the room thinking,
that was pretty.
She walked down another two rooms, and stopped. She looked up. Her eyes were wide. She turned and ran back to the room, in the doorway...
can it... can it be... she stepped in.... "Erin?"
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An hour later Lucy was sitting by her bed, holding the hand of the unconscious girl who'd saved her life, and didn't even know it. Her mother was standing in the corner in her bathrobe, holding a tissue to her face in both hands, crying silent tears. Erin's mother sat in a different corner, staring at Lucy, listening, her face unreadable, but now and then wiping a tear from her eye. And Lucy was talking. Talking to her best friend, the girl who had saved them all. Lucy was crying and holding her hand and talking nonstop, telling her how
because of her the girls found the strength to move forward, how lost they'd been before Erin found them, how they'd all been set free, how her grandfather had killed himself instead of letting himself get caught. She told Erin about her new life, and how her mother was getting so much better, and her new school, and how she had hope for the future for the first time in her life. And just saying thank you,
thank you, over and over, thank you. Some of the time her words were lost in her tears, and sometimes she would bring Erin's hand to her forehead, as if she were praying over her.
And the little girl that had been screaming inside Erin's head since that day fell silent.
Erin Jennifer Banks opened her eyes.
This is the end of Book 1. I will begin Book 2 when I feel ready.