Charlene explains how her mom got pregnant before she graduated from high school. The guy was a year older, and they ran off together. She always wanted to travel, and he was a trucker. Turns out babies cramp the trucking lifestyle. So one day he dropped her off at a place called The Harvest Co-op, or what Charlene has always referred to as “The Ranch,” located in the middle of Utah, and left her there with her infant baby. Penniless. With no identification.

And Frank took them in with open arms. He welcomed her into “the fold.” It was fantastic. They were a self-contained unit. They earned their own way and functioned like a family, and for a woman who came from a small, isolated town where her parents threatened to help her get rid of the baby without seeing a doctor, it’s not hard to understand why she ran, and why she stayed where she was for as long as she did.

While her mother might’ve known her situation wasn’t normal or conventional, it was certainly preferable. Until apparently it wasn’t anymore.

“So how did you get out, and what prompted leaving?” I ask, still trying to figure that part out.

“I started my period,” Charlene mumbles, and her cheeks flush.

“I don’t think I understand.”

“My mom worried it wasn’t going to be safe for me anymore. We were in extreme isolation, and there were a lot of restrictions. I never left the compound. I’d been told it was dangerous and forbidden. We didn’t have identification. We were dependent on Frank for everything, and I was getting older.”

It finally clicks as to what she means. “I should’ve killed that fucker when I had the chance.”

Charlene ducks her head. “Don’t say that.”

“Charlene, that shit is fucked up. Far worse than anything I went through as a kid. That guy needs to be put behind bars or six feet under.”

She rolls whatever she had between her fingers faster and faster until it pings on the table. She scrambles to grab it, but I catch it mid-bounce. It’s a pearl. I glance up to where her fingers dance nervously around her throat.

“It broke when Da—Frank tried to grab me.” She presses the heels of her hands against her eyes, and her shoulders curl forward.

I run a gentle palm over the back of her head. “It’s okay. We’ll get it restrung again.”

“I think I lost half the pearls in the garden this time, or between the stones. We’ll never find them all.”

“So I’ll add new ones until it fits.” I never told her that the first time I had the ancient, broken necklace restrung for her, I replaced all but a few of the original pearls since none of them were real. These were. And I definitely won’t be sharing that with her, either.

“You’ve already done that once. You shouldn’t have to do it again.”

“It’s not about having to do anything, Charlene. It’s about wanting to. Whatever you need, whatever you want, I’ll do it for you. Don’t you get it? I l—”

“Don’t!” She scrambles away from me.

Her terror over the RV has nothing on her panic now. She shakes her head, as if she’s erasing thoughts, words, and memories. “Please, Darren. Whatever you think you should say right now, please don’t. I can’t. I can’t do this. There’s too much. I don’t even know.” She stands up, smoothing her hands down her thighs. “I need to go home. I have to go home.”

I stand too, wanting to reach out and hold on, to keep her where she’s supposed to be, which is with me. “I can take you home. Why don’t you stay with me? It’s safe, and I’ll take care of you.”

“My mom is here,” she says quietly.

“She can stay with us. I have spare bedrooms. If you need your space, you can stay in one of the other rooms, too.” I sound desperate. Maybe because I am. I have no idea how to manage this situation, but I feel like I’m losing her, as if I’ve opened the glass jar and this time when she goes free, she won’t come back.

That’s not acceptable.

But I can’t lock her away or I’m just as bad as the man she ran from.

Everything suddenly fits—the puzzle orders into a picture I couldn’t ever piece together properly.

I finally understand how much she hates being tied down to anything, literally and figuratively, apart from her job. She seeks stability in things, not people.

Except for Violet. She’s the only constant person I can see. Not even her mother holds that kind of sway with her. I want to know how to be that. I want to know what I need to do in order to be that for her. Because as she shuts down on me and pulls into herself, and the fire I love so much flickers and dies, I’m certain of one thing: if I’m traded, there’s a good chance I’ll lose her forever. Violet will be the anchor that keeps her from coming with me.

And after everything I’ve learned tonight, I’m not sure I can blame her for wanting to stay, even if it means I have to leave half my soul in Chicago with her.

CHARLENE

The night I came home from the party, there was a box on the front stoop. I assumed it was from Darren, so I didn’t open it right away. But the next morning a pamphlet from The Ranch had been shoved through the mail slot, possibly as some kind of messed-up, highly ineffective enticement. All it did was make me never want to leave my house again.

I learned a very important lesson on my twenty-sixth birthday. Burying the past and pretending none of it happened in no way erases it. In the wake of Frank’s reappearance, the carefully crafted fa?ade and the world I’d built for myself crumbled. In its place, I’m left with a past I can’t escape, even though I ran from it, a present that terrifies me, and a future that’s disturbingly unstable.

The number of memories I’d blocked out, or maybe hadn’t been able to process with any kind of reasonable perspective as a fourteen year old, are now alarmingly clear. I see myself through a new lens, without the rose-colored glasses of youth to soften and smooth it all out.

I’m angry at my mother, my father—the real one, and Frank, who preyed on the weak and disadvantaged. They’re the people who made The Ranch seem like the better option. In the wake of Frank’s reappearance, I feel more alone than ever, even though I have perpetual calls and messages from my friends.

I feel extremely other, alien, like I no longer fit where I used to, and I’m embarrassed and humiliated by a past I had no control over. I don’t know how to blend in anymore, or even just exist.

On Monday I stand at the front door, dressed for work even though my head is in a fog. I want to ground myself in this slice of normalcy. My hand is on the doorknob, but I can’t seem to turn it. I sift through all the memories of The Ranch and fixate on the fence that surrounded the compound, meant to keep us all safe, but all it did was trap us in a life so narrow it was like living in a pinhole.

My head aches as things start to make sense in a way they haven’t before. My fear of being trapped, of needing stability, the importance I place on my friendship with Violet, not wanting to leave Chicago and my built-in family, my inability to let Darren get too close. My head is a mess of memories, and my heart is bleeding with emotions I can’t filter.

“Sweetheart?” My mom puts her hand on my shoulder.

“I’m afraid to leave. I’m afraid Frank is going to be out there, and he’ll take me back to The Ranch, and I’ll never get out again.”

“That’s not going to happen, honey. I won’t let that happen, and neither will any of the people who love you.” She leads me away from the door and takes me to the kitchen, where she pours hot water over one of her homemade candies.

I stir the water, watching the candy dissolve at the bottom of the mug. “I want to be normal. I want everything to go back to the way it was before all the memories came back.”

“I’m so sorry, Char-char. If I could do it all over again I would make different choices. I would find a different way.”

“I know.”

I understand, sort of, why she chose the path she did. She put herself in control of her own life, she took the reins so no one else could, and she never stayed in one place so Frank couldn’t catch up with her.

I call Mr. Stroker and request to work from home this week. I only have a few client meetings, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to reschedule them. I also never ask to work from home, so he is more than accommodating—and concerned, of course.

I flounder for an excuse. Telling him I’ve suddenly developed acute agoraphobia as a result of being stalked by my not-real cult leader father sounds farfetched and could lead to more questions. So I tell him I had an allergic reaction to a new lotion, and it caused a full-body rash.

In the wake of the Daddy Frank episode, Darren has upped my security from the alarm system to a live bodyguard. So far he remains parked outside at night, and during the day he sits on my front step and makes sure the only people who come to my door are ones I want to see.