“How long?”
“Almost four years.”
Four years.
My sixteen-year-old daughter had made one reckless choice.
Then she spent years believing she could never undo it.
“How did she finally get away?”
Elaine explained that Caleb was arrested after an unrelated incident.
It had nothing to do with Nora.
But while he was gone, she realized it might be her only chance.
She took some hidden cash.
Left the apartment.
Got on a bus.
At the bus station, another woman told her about the shelter.
That was how Nora eventually found Elaine.
“She was terrified Caleb might come looking for her,” Elaine said.
“Did he?”
“Not that we know of.”
“Where is he now?”
“I don’t know. Nora hasn’t seen him in years, and she doesn’t want to know.”
Michael stared at the table.
Then he asked the question I had been afraid to hear.
“Why didn’t she call us once she was safe?”
Elaine looked at me.
I already knew the answer would hurt.
“She was ashamed.”
I started crying before she finished.
Nora believed we would blame her because she had left willingly.
She thought we would ask why she hadn’t escaped earlier.
Why she had trusted Caleb.
Why she had stayed.
Why she hadn’t called.
Then too much time passed.
A year.
Then another.
Elaine helped her replace her identification.
Find counseling.
Get a job.
Eventually, Elaine left the shelter and opened the café.
She offered Nora work.
