Page 52 of The Castle (Endgame 3)
The ones with my blood on them.
“Yes, well.” She busies herself straightening a corner on the white sheet. “You know. I have some experience with that, myself. With being used. Being sold.”
My heart wrenches, a faint beat of pain beneath the cloud of disassociation. I’m starting to think every woman has been used that way, every woman has been sold. Which ones of us have escaped that fate? Was my dream of a gentle husband just a shared fever dream? Is a white picket fence just another form of turrets on smaller castles?
“It’s not an interesting story,” Mrs. B says. “I wasn’t pretty enough to earn money for Gabriel’s father. He would give me to the roughest customers, the ones who couldn’t be choosy. Or the ones who wanted to mess me up.”
I’m sorry. The words echo around inside me, in the silence of the room.
“It was Gabriel who convinced his father to let me clean the house, to work in the kitchen. I only found out later that he had done it, after one night when he’d had to pick me up from the floor.”
How many girls does Gabriel need to save until he’s whole again?
“When he killed his father—”
The jolt that runs through me is completely involuntary. He killed his father. I knew that he despised his father, with his whorehouse and his brutality. And I knew that he failed to save the little girl who had grown up.
Mrs. B looks stricken, having seen my surprise. “He didn’t tell you?”
Even if I could speak now, I wouldn’t. I’m too busy working through what it means that Gabriel killed someone—killed anyone. And to kill your father.
A sigh. “Gabriel isn’t a perfect man. He isn’t a kind man. Some of the things he’s done, they might shock you. They might shock me. He’s always been private.”
No, he didn’t answer to anyone.
“I can’t say I was comfortable hearing he had purchased you, with being a part of that. And it made me uncomfortable to be near you, and Penny, knowing what had happened to you. Seeing the looks on your faces, as if I were back in that place, surrounded by trapped women.”
A pause.
“I’m not proud of this, but most days I pretend I grew up with two loving parents.” A small laugh. “I even invented a husband. He was strong enough to protect me, but always gentle.”
I put my hand on hers and squeeze.
Her small eyes meet mine, wide open, shimmering with tears. “And then I met Richard, the security guard you heard me talking to, when he came for the first installation here. It was shocking enough to me that he wanted me—me.”
She looks down at her body, with her generous curves and thick arms. Her cheeks turn pink. “Especially with how he looks.”
The man with the silver hair. They’re together.
“That’s what we were talking about. It was one thing to steal an hour away with him. Another to leave the safety of Gabriel’s home and marry Richard. I was worried that Gabriel would see it as a betrayal. Didn’t he deserve my loyalty?”
That’s what they were whispering about. A thread of gladness winds through me, that she found someone to appreciate her. That she found someone to appreciate in turn.
“But Gabriel wouldn’t have been angry with me,” she says softly. “I think that was an excuse, because I was afraid. Afraid that I wouldn’t survive outside these walls. Afraid that Richard would hate me once he knew the truth.”
As quickly the feeling is doused by that persistent blackness, because there’s no way to be happy without acknowledging the sadness. Better to float here in this place, where nothing hurts me. Nothing horrifies me.
“Of course I kept my past a secret, but they’re very thorough with the background checks. Turns out Richard knew all along. He finally told me. Told me it didn’t matter, either.”
She looks away, at the bowl of soup that no longer steams. “I don’t know everything that happened to you. But I know that Gabriel won’t hold it against you. He has his own past. And like Richard says to me, the things that happened to us, they only make us stronger.”
With her flyaway graying hair and twinkling eyes, Mrs. B may come across as soft. Maybe even weak, if you don’t know about the inner strength in a woman with her history. She lived through hell and came out the other side as a woman who can laugh and love.
And I have faith in Penny’s ability to do the same.
I’m not made of marble or anything hardy like that. I’m built from crystal flutes and rare silk. From the brushstrokes of my mother’s portrait. I’m a shadow of a human being, only a cautionary tale whispered from mother to daughter. A collection of dangerous words. I’m a myth. And as long as I don’t speak, I can bury myself.
