“Why?” Clay’s voice was barely audible. “Why would anyone want to hurt you? You were always so sweet, so beautiful. You were only a child, for God’s sake!”
“He hated me….” She struggled to drag the words out of the dark place inside her where the memories remained. “I think it was because he desired me, because he knew it made him the lowest of God’s creatures to crave what he did.” Sweat ran between her br**sts and down her back, but she swallowed hard and forced herself to endure her body’s reaction. For Clay’s sake, she needed to talk about the abuse she’d suffered. “He blamed me for his…perversions.”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” Clay asked. “Mom would’ve helped you. I would’ve helped you.”
This was the question she dreaded most, because there was no easy answer. Clay, Irene and Molly didn’t understand what it was like to feel so powerless, so utterly defeated. “I couldn’t,” she said. “He…he threatened t-to use the knife the way he used so many other objects, to c-carve me up from the inside out.”
“God, Grace.”
A tear slipped down Clay’s cheek. Grace steeled herself against the sight of it. She was feeling far too vulnerable, couldn’t bear any more pain. But the torment in his expression meant she had to keep trying. Clay was big, strong, confident. He could fight almost any kind of foe with little fear of losing. He’d fought for her in the past. His problem was that he couldn’t beat this.
Reaching up, she touched his cheek—and saw his jaw tense and his shoulders shake as he tried to contain his emotion.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “It’s okay.”
He searched her face, and she managed to give him a watery smile. After eighteen years, she wanted to achieve forgiveness for them both. She knew it might take more time to forgive herself, but she could forgive Clay, couldn’t she?
He must’ve recognized the difference in her because his arms went around her, gathering her to him as if she was still a little girl. “I’d give anything to go back,” he said, and she finally felt the barrier she’d built between them crack and begin to give way.
She rested her head on his broad shoulders, soaking in the security he offered. He loved her. He’d tried. “I know.”
When he released her, he scrubbed his jaw, wincing as if the fact that he’d broken down somehow embarrassed him.
“Let’s go pack up that damn office,” he said gruffly.
She stood and stared at him. “But you said…What about Madeline?”
“We’ll make it up to her somehow.” He started for the back door. “What you feel has to take precedence at some point, doesn’t it? And I, for one, think you’ve waited long enough.”
16
The office was stifling, with hot, static air that smelled of mildew. Cobwebs hung from the corners, and a leak in the roof had ruined some of the ceiling tiles as well as part of one wall. The damage reminded Grace of Barker’s evil—slowly advancing from some unseen source, rotting everything in its path.
While Grace stood in the doorway, summoning the nerve to cross the threshold, Clay went over to lift the blind on the room’s only window. Then he used an old rag to wipe the dirty panes.
When he finished, sunlight filtered into the dark place where Lee Barker had written his sermons and tortured his stepdaughter.
“Are you okay?” Clay asked.
She nodded.
He moved closer, obviously concerned. “Are you sure? You’re pale as a ghost.”
“I’m not the ghost,” she said softly.
“Do you think he’s watching now?”
“I hope so.” She wanted Lee Barker to see that she was the one still living and breathing, that she could change her environment. She had the power now.
“I think he’s burning in hell,” Clay said.
Finally entering the room, she went to the file drawer the reverend had kept under lock and key. She had no idea what he’d done with all the Polaroids he’d taken of her, but she knew he’d hidden some of them here. He used to whisper about them at night, when everyone else was sleeping. He’d told her that if she didn’t let him touch her, he’d show them to her mother. The fear of seeing the disappointment in her mother’s eyes—the same disappointment she felt for somehow bringing this on herself—kept her as pliant as modeling clay. She didn’t want to be blamed for breaking up what was supposed to be an ideal match, for taking the food from their table, for causing Madeline to be ripped away from them. By the time the reverend became bold enough to invade her room, in addition to the occasional forced visits to his office, she was so ashamed and mortified by the thought of someone seeing those pictures that he no longer had to threaten her. She would’ve done almost anything to avoid the humiliation. You don’t want your momma to know what we do together, do you? She’d leave us both, leave you to me….
Grace knew that her mother probably wouldn’t leave her. But she didn’t believe anyone could love her after finding out something like that. And her father had left, hadn’t he? He’d said he cared about them, but not enough to stick around. He’d left and never come back, and although Irene had tried to locate him, it was as if he’d just disappeared.
Putting a hand to the wall to steady herself, Grace lowered her head and took several deep breaths so she wouldn’t pass out.
“Why don’t you sit down?” Clay said at her elbow. “You could watch as I pack everything.”
“No, that’s not enough,” she said. Somehow she had to summon the strength to dismantle this place herself. Maybe it was because she thought she should’ve put up more of a fight against the reverend. She’d always wondered…if she’d been less obedient and more assertive, like her sisters, would she have escaped as they did? What was it about her that tempted Barker to do what he did?
There’s my pretty baby. Hold still and it’ll feel good this time, I promise.
“Grace?”
It was as if it had happened yesterday. She could even smell her stepfather’s breath….
Clay repeated her name, finally dispelling the reverend’s soft, grating voice. Wiping her upper lip with her forearm, she turned to her brother. “What?”
“Where do you want to start?”
“Here,” she said but felt as though someone had given her a tranquilizer when she tried to open the filing cabinet. Her arm was heavy, uncooperative.