Public Secrets Part 264

forgetting not to look at the faces, not to see them. It seemed vital

that she answer the question. "I don't know," she said again. "If, two

years ago, anyone had told me that I would allow myself to be

brutalized, I would have been furious. I don't want to believe that I

chose to be a victim." She sent Michael a quick, desperate look. "And

yet I stayed. He beat me and humiliated me, but I didn't leave. There

were times when I could see myself walking away. Getting in the

elevator, going out to the street and walking away. But I didn't. I

stayed because I was afraid, and I left for the same reason. So it

makes no sense. It makes no sense," she repeated, and turned away. This

time she ignored the questions.

"You did fine," Michael told her. "We're going to get you out the side

here. McCarthy's got the car waiting."

They drove to Malibu, to the house on the beach that her father had

rented. Emma rode in silence, with that one question echoing over and

over in her head.

Why did you stay?

SHE LIKED TO Srr on the redwood terrace in the morning, watching the

water and listening to the gulls. If she tired of sitting, she could

take long walks along the sh.o.r.e. The outward side of abuse had healed.

Her ribs still troubled her occasionally and there was a thin scar just

under her jawline. It could have been repaired easily enough. But she

discarded the idea of a plastic surgeon. It was barely noticeable. And

it reminded her.

The nightmares were another legacy. They came with daunting regularity

and were a montage of old and new. Sometimes she walked the darkened

hallway as a child. Others as an adult. The music always came, but it

was cloudy, as if it played underwater. At times she heard Darren's

voice clear as a bell, but then Drew's would layer over it. She would

freeze, child or woman, in front of the door. Terrified to open it.

Then as her hand closed over the k.n.o.b, turned it, pushed, she would

wake, sweating.

But the days were calm. There was a breeze off the water, the scent of

flowers Bev had planted in tubs and window boxes. And always music.

She'd been given the chance to see her father and Bev start again. That

soothed the most raw of her wounds. There was laughter. Bev

experimenting in the kitchen, Brian in the shade playing guitar. At

night she often lay in bed, thinking of them together. It was as if

they had never been apart. How easy it had been once the step had been

taken, for them to bridge the gap of twenty years.

And she wanted to weep, for she could never be a child again and fix the

mistakes that had been made.

They waited six months, though Emma knew they were both anxious to get

back to, London. That was their home. She had yet to find hers.

She didn't miss New York, though she did miss Marianne. The months she

had lived there with Drew had spoiled the city for her. She would go

back, that she promised herself. But she would never live there again.

She preferred to watch the water, to feel the sun on her face. She'd

been alone in New York. She was rarely alone here.

Johnno had visited twice, staying two weeks each time. For her birthday