Page 12 of The Kidnapped

“He tried to make it fun for you,” Molly spoke.

“I guess. But he failed. Wherever we went, I couldn’t do anything there. I’d end up at the library alone because I couldn’t play sports or join clubs. He didn’t want me having sleepovers or going to friends’ houses. It’s stuff you don’t think about when you’re little. It’s just your dad telling you what you can and can’t do. But now that I’m here, I know he just didn’t want me to get close enough to anyone because he didn’t want them to figure it out. By the time I was a teenager, I’d all but stopped trying to make friends. I had a few in high school just because I happened to sit at the right lunch table one day, but then we moved again, and I lost them. I stopped trying altogether after that.”

“That’s a pretty natural defense mechanism, I’d imagine,” John noted.

“Yeah, I guess,” Hollis said. “I was so happy when I went to university because I thought now I was finally on my own. My dad didn’t want me to go to school; he wanted me to get a job somewhere near him. But I just needed to be out in the world for once without him telling me what to do or not to do, so I went to school and had a roommate. I thought we’d become friends, or she’d help me make friends.” Hollis shook her head. “She was hardly ever there. She had a boyfriend and spent most of her time with him, so I went to the library and studied. I never really left. I live alone, I have microwave dinners for one, and I have no real friends outside of the people from work who get together for a drink sometimes because I don’t know how to make friends anymore. I don’t know how to be around people and get to know them like that. He made me this way.” Tears welled up in Hollis’s eyes. “And he took me away from my mom, who bought me toys and told me I had friends in the neighborhood around my age whom I used to play with before he took me. I was in kindergarten and happy. I had playdates with kids from school and always had so much to tell her when I got home from school. He took me away from all of that.” Hollis wiped a tear rolling down her cheek. “But I still love him.”

“That’s okay,” Molly told her. “You’re allowed to love your father. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“How do you deal with having two opposing feelings at the same time?”

“Cognitive dissonance,” Raleigh said softly.

“Pardon?” Hollis asked.

“Oh, sorry. I just meant that it’s called cognitive dissonance when two beliefs kind of clash like that,” Raleigh said.

“Right,” Hollis replied with a shaky nod.

Hollis continued for a few more minutes before Molly suggested they take a break. Prior to that, John had started the meeting off by talking about how his son would be graduating high school this year and how he’d been so good at basketball that John wondered if he would’ve gotten a scholarship to college. Samantha talked about her mother, who went missing shortly after her thirteenth birthday. She was now twenty-five and about to get married. It nearly broke Raleigh whenever the woman talked about her mom missing out on the important moments of her life because Raleigh was missing out on the important moments Eden would have. Every day Eden was gone, there was another milestone she wouldn’t get to see the first time it happened, and that made Raleigh so angry, she wanted to kick the chair again.

“Hi,” she said, walking up to Hollis, who was pouring herself a cup of coffee.

“Oh. Am I in your way?” she asked.

Raleigh smiled and said, “No, I just wanted to say hi. I came in right when the meeting started, so I didn’t get a chance to say hi to everyone.”

“Do you usually do that? Say hi to everyone?” Hollis added the powdered creamer to her coffee.

“I try to, yeah.” Raleigh nodded.

“Should I be doing that? I got here a few minutes early, but I waited outside.”

Raleigh poured herself some coffee and said, “There are no rules, Hollis. We come here to share, to listen, and to support one another. You can say hi, if you want, or just sit down.”

“How long have you been coming here?”

“A few months,” Raleigh replied.

“Does it help?”

“Sometimes,” she said honestly. “And, sometimes, it hurts to listen to their stories because it makes me think of my own. Selfish, I know, but it’s unavoidable.”

“Your little girl, right?”

“Yeah,” she said and looked down at the sugar.

“What’s her name?”

“Eden Marie,” she replied with a wide smile.

“That’s beautiful,” Hollis said, smiling back at her.

“Thank you,” Raleigh replied. “She’s beautiful. It’s been three hundred and seventy-two days since I’ve seen her smile.”

“I’m sorry,” Hollis said, stirring her coffee.

“So am I,” she replied, sighing. “Listen, I don’t know if you have any plans after this, but if you want, we could grab a cup of coffee down the street. It’s not much better than this, but they at least have pie.”

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