Page 6 of Free to Live
In my officelater that same day after much celebrating and swearing to Ali we won’t tell Keene, I lean back in my chair. Just like at my home, the walls are covered in black-and-white photos of my family. Where on earth am I going to find room for pictures of a new baby? There’s no question about finding a place in my heart; I already have a new space reserved exclusively for Ali and Keene’s little one, a niece or nephew not of my blood but absolutely of my heart and soul.
It’s hard to imagine I’ve been with my siblings longer now than I’ve been without them. My life after my mother was killed by my father was a blur. When I was young, I hid in my room even when it wasn’t time for me to be locked in for the night. I never knew life was any different for any of the other students until one day, Masie—a girl in my class whose name I’ll never forget—came to school showing pictures from her family’s campout. It wasn’t anything extravagant, just a bunch of ratty tents in her backyard. But her family was smiling. Laughing.
And I knew what I had at home was just wrong.
I didn’t know until then.
That was when the dreams of leaving began. And that’s when my punishments started. After I was old enough to begin dreaming about running away—I think I was nine—I became obsessed with the idea. I tried to squirrel away some of the money I made on the paper route my father forced me to take. Rubbing my hand along my jaw, I remember when he found the small stack of ones—maybe amounting to twenty dollars—and backhanded me across the room.
It was then I realized I could dream of escape through pictures.
The library at school was free, and I checked out every book I could, even ones I wasn’t interested in reading. I wanted to live through the images I saw on the pages—just like I did through Masie’s pictures. In the hours when I could hear the screaming and the moaning, I’d shove tissues in my ears to focus on the images of the whales beneath the water or the lighthouses on the islands. I’d dream about being able to visit the mountains or swim in a lake, not just smell the wretched swamp behind our trailer. If I could only escape.
I was twelve the next time I tried to leave. I shudder remembering the feel of both Maria and my father’s feet kicking me. Screaming, I finally told them where the hundred dollars I’d managed to save from my now two paper routes was hidden. My father spit on my face as he stalked away.
Maria leaned close to my ear and whispered, “This pain is nothing in comparison to what you’ll have to endure soon ’nough. Get used to it,” before standing.
I crawled into my room and cried silent tears. That night, I knew even the pictures would be unable to save me. Not then at least.
It wouldn’t be until years later after Ali, Corinna, and I were rescued that I managed to get my first digital camera. Phil noticed the amount of books I was checking out of the library and returning just as fast. “Jesus, do I have two geniuses on my hands?” he griped.
“No,” I said with as much dignity as I could. Ali was an actual genius, a college graduate even though she was barely sixteen years old. “I study the pictures. I’m…” I don’t know how to say it. “Absorbed by them? I feel like I find a part of myself in them. Gah! That makes no sense.” I was so frustrated I couldn’t express myself.
“You need a digital camera.”
“We need food and money for the electric bill, Phil,” I retorted. “I can’t afford the kind of cameras that are mentioned in these magazines.”
He made a noncommittal sound. It was less than a week later when a small, dated point-and-click camera with nominal settings ended up on my pillow with a note. “My boss said it works. I’ll work some overtime to pay for it. He was going to put it in his yard sale. Now, go take some pictures.”
My legs collapsed beneath me as I began to sob. I couldn’t even go find Phil to thank him because he was working for free to pay for my gift.
I began to purge out the feelings I had boiling inside of me through a shutter and a viewfinder. I’d wander down the waterfront in Charleston for hours. To me, my pictures were immature and plain. I’d frown in disgust at what I’d see every night on the little back square, but what I didn’t realize was I was unearthing my soul one frame at a time.
When Ali wasn’t catching me and Corinna up on school lessons so we could be re-enrolled in public school when we moved to Connecticut, I’d be wandering or at the library looking up photography. I absorbed the knowledge like a sponge. I learned about aperture, burst mode, and exposure. I began to offer to mow lawns for our neighbors so I could save money for a used computer to convert my files into JPGs and maybe learn how to edit them. And then one day I finally put together why all my pictures looked so light—my camera was exposing too much light. I began to play with the ISO function and a whole new world opened up to me.
My siblings gave me a family, but Phil opened up the world.
Tipping back in my chair, memories of my first real camera come to mind. I saved up enough to buy a beautiful Nikon by the time I enrolled at UConn. I turn my head to the side and smile. It sits on a shelf near my desk. It still works beautifully. Its gleaming black case is still dusted carefully every week with a special cloth. I only take it with me for special occasions.
But right next to it is the point-and-click that Phil bought for me.
They say that pictures are a window to your soul. For me, they’re what saved mine. The path I traveled, the images burned in my brain from the life I left before, are there for eternity.
It’s been seventeen years since I pulled that trigger. It’s been a little less time than that since Ali, Corinna, and I were recovered from one of the most extensive human trafficking operations across the United States. Just shy of sixteen and a half years since I was formally absolved of killing Maria by the benevolence of the South Carolina District Attorney and many others. Shortly after that, as we were being sheltered for protection in a battered women and children’s shelter, we met Phil, Cassidy, and Em, all of whom had been through their own traumas yet had formed their own little family to survive. Sixteen years ago—the very minute I could do it legally as an employed emancipated minor—I left South Carolina and my life as Noelle Greene behind and became Holly Freeman, a quiet young woman who had an interest in photography and business.
I studied hard in the first few years we were in Connecticut to have a strong GPA so I could go to UConn with my sisters; Ali vying to go to its law school while Corinna and I were trying to enter as undergrads. The days we received our acceptance letters were some of the best of our lives, bar none.
Due to what we had endured, Phil petitioned UConn to let us all live together off campus. When they first protested because Corinna and I were freshmen, he drove up to the school with his then boyfriend—now husband—Dr. Jason Ross. Hours later, they came back pleased to announce we would all be living in a tiny off-campus apartment they secured the lease on. Nothing was ever mentioned about what they did, but I strongly suspect my now brother-in-law had a few words to say to the housing authority about our recent trauma.
When Ali demanded to know what happened, Jason skewered her with a look. Phil murmured, “Nothing. Just let it drop.” So we did. And for the next three years, Ali, Corinna, and I lived in relative harmony. It was a little lonely for me and Corinna after Ali moved back to Collyer, but we only had a year to go until our own graduation day.
Then the real work began.
When we came home on breaks, I began to notice a considerable change in the office. It wasn’t just Cassidy who had plans; all of the older siblings had them. Amaryllis Events was busier than ever. There was hardly a down weekend. And things got even hairier when Ali noticed the photographer they were contracting work to was overcharging clients and pocketing the money. She found the disparity because one of the clients scanned a copy of her photography contract over to Ali because she was missing the rights and clearances paperwork and was hoping Ali had a copy of it. The numbers that the client signed off on were 25 percent higher than the contract we had in our files.
We were at war with Ali leading the charge. Not only did we have to prove the photographer was stealing from our clients, but there was no way we were ever going to use him ever again. I clearly remember Cassidy looking at me and saying, “Hols, it’s time for you to step up.”
And like the others, I did.
