“We’ve debated back and forth about it, but we have both come to the conclusion that Jessie will come here to live on a temporary basis until we can make more permanent arrangements.” I realized I had been holding my breath-for way too long and I gasped as my dad continued, “We can better control the privacy between you by having him here, but there will be conditions, as you would guess. Under no circumstance will there be any hanky panky in this house. This is about helping Jessie be safe, not about moving him in here so you play footsie under the table or even much more than that. If we find out there has been any inappropriate contact between you, he will have to leave immediately.”
I got up and ran to my dad first. I threw my arms around him and said, “I understand.” I looked at my mom and knew what a huge deal this was for her to let go of everything she knew about Jessie. “Thank you, Mom. I will never forget this as long as I live.”
I turned back to my dad and said, “I want to go get him now.”
My dad smiled because he was humored by my urgency, but he didn’t understand the dire straits of Jessie’s situation. “Claire, it’s almost nine o’clock and we need to talk to him about this first. We can’t just show up on his doorstep and tell an eighteen year-old boy to pack his stuff because we’re there to rescue him.”
“Yes, we can. I promise you he will leave tonight because he wants out of there so badly.” I started to cry because I felt the urgent need for Jessie to be out of that dangerous place. “Please, Dad. What if something happened to him tonight? You didn’t see how bad he was beaten last night. It took more than fifty stitches to put his head back together. You know more than all of us how bad it had to be for that many stitches.”
When he looked like he was thinking it over, I struck again with, “Please, Dad. I won’t sleep tonight anyway knowing he’s still in that place.”
My mom nodded, giving her approval and my dad gave in. “Okay, but you’re not going out there by yourself. I’m going with you.”
I was flooded with relief. “Thank you. Thank you so much.” I went to grab my phone as Dad got his keys.
I tried to call Jessie several times as we drove to his house, but couldn’t get him. “I’m not getting an answer. I hope that isn’t a bad sign.”
My dad didn’t say anything and I nervously began to pick at my freshly manicured nails. My dad reached over and grabbed my hand to stop my nervous fidgeting. “It’s going to okay.”
I wouldn’t relax until I saw Jessie safely out of that drug house.
We pulled up and Jessie’s truck was in the yard, so I relaxed a little because I knew I had at least found him. I looked at my Dad before we got out and I couldn’t begin to tell him how grateful I was and what it meant to me for him and Mom to help Jessie like this. It was more than I could ever hope for.
“Thank you, again.”
He squeezed my hand and said, “Come on, let’s go save this boy you love.”
We got out of the car and walked up the steps to the trailer’s front door where I knocked loudly. As we stood there waiting, I begin to feel something wasn’t right. I knocked again and said, “Jessie, it’s Claire.”
When he didn’t come to the door, I had an impending feeling of doom. Something was definitely off about this. “Something’s not right, Dad. He didn’t answer his phone and not he’s not coming to the door.”
I walked over to the window and tried to look in, but I was too short to see over the piece of furniture pushed up against the window. “I can’t see anything.” I reached for the doorknob, but my dad stopped me.
“You can’t just go up in there. There could be a reason he isn’t coming to the door,” he suggested, but I knew Jessie wasn’t in there with another girl if that was his drift.
He leaned around me and peered in the window and I saw his eyes grow large. He ran for the front door and tried to turn the doorknob, but it was locked. “What is it, Dad? What do you see?”
“Stand back, Claire,” he said, as he gently pushed me away from the door and kicked it several times.
“What are doing, Dad?”
The last kick sent the door crashing in and my dad ran inside. I followed behind him uncertain of what it was I’d find. Jessie was pale and laying on the floor in a pool of blood. We were too late. He was already dead. My mind immediately began to deny it. He wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be because everything was about to work out for us.
My dad leaned over him listening for his breath and feeling for a pulse. “Call 911. Now.”
I reached for my phone and dialed the number with shaky fingers as I watched my father perform CPR on the boy I loved. Nothing was happening. He wasn’t waking up. He wasn’t moving at all. Virtually, he was dead.
It seemed like an eternity before the ambulance arrived and my dad moved out of their way as they moved in with a monitor. They applied the pads to his body and watched for any cardiac activity. When they announced he had none, I lost my breath.
The harder I tried to breathe, the less air I seemed to catch. I could hear my dad telling me to slow my breaths down, but I couldn’t and my body only tolerated it for a minute before it gave way and I collapsed to the floor, everything going black because the boy I loved was dead.
Epilogue
Three Years Later
Claire
As usual, I was running late. I looked at my watch and saw I was supposed to be at my parents house in thirty minutes for the birthday party while I stood in the sporting goods store without a clue what I was going to take as a gift.
I pulled out my phone and chose the contact at the top of my favorites list. When I heard the voice on the other end, I said, “Hey, I’m running late as usual and I need help picking out gifts. Any suggestions?”
After hearing several suggestions, I limited my choices down and finally made my decision. I quickly checked out, then drove to the party, arriving only ten minutes late.
I walked through the door with gifts in hand and my Dad rushed forward to help me. “Claire, you really shouldn’t be carrying all of that at the same time. You know that your balance is already off center. You could fall.”
“Sorry, Dad. I’ll try to remember that,” I promised.
He took the gifts from me and carried them to the bar where the others were and two little angels without wings ran toward me, both throwing their arms around my expanding abdomen.