Page 58 of Phoenix

“I’m just scared that now I’ve found my family, it’s all going to be ripped away again,” I admit. “I can’t lose another family; I can’t lose myself again!”

“You won’t; we won’t let you,” he says as he rubs away my tears with his thumb pads.

“Hey,” Warren says from behind me, addressing his brother for the first time since he walked through the door. He sounds solemn, which unnerves me. “Find anything out?”

“Nada,” Jake replies sadly, “no one has heard from him since before he left with me all those years ago. They thought he was dead and gone, like us.”

“How’s his sister?”

“Cagey. She won’t acknowledge his existence,” Jake replies, “as far as she’s concerned, she never had a brother. Which I guess I can understand.”

The room turns silent, with none of us knowing what to say next. My anxiety steps up; Warren has always been so confident with knowing what to do, having a plan, and reassuring me. He must pick up on my sudden distress for he soon walks over and takes me in his arms to give a soothing embrace.

“Don’t worry, Niamh, we’ve just got to be patient,” he says softly, “there will be a trail somewhere, I promise you, there always is.”

“And until then?” I ask, desperate to know the answer to that question.

“We carry on with living,” Jake says determinedly, “he already took away years of our lives. We’re not going to let him take any more.”

“Jake’s right,” Warren says with a breathtaking smile on his face, all the while stroking back strands of hair away from my cheeks. “Javier, my uncle, all of us are on it. If you see anything again, you tell us straight away, but otherwise, we enjoy what we have here.”

“Easier said than done,” I mutter unhelpfully, “but, for both of you, I shall try.”

“Good girl,” Warren says with pride in his voice. “And you’re going to have to warn your parents, Niamh.”

I step away from him, finding the idea of facing them terrifying. I no longer know how to talk to them without breaking out into a rage. I just can’t let go of how I feel, how disappointed I am that they weren’t there for me when he took me, how my childhood came to an abrupt end because they left me to walk up that hill in the rain. It might not be fair or rational to blame them, but I do.

“Will you do it with me?” I ask Warren.

“Of course,” he says with a concern etched on his face, “let’s do it in person. We could go back to your home…” He trails off when he sees me shaking my head at a rapid pace. “Ok, ok, how about somewhere neutral, somewhere halfway?”

“With lots of people?” I add and he nods with a small smile. “Then, ok.”

“I’ll arrange it; leave it all to me. In the meantime, I’ll leave you to catch up with our brother,” he says, glancing back at a stunned-looking Jake. I can’t help but smile over his acknowledgement; it might not sound right given we are together, but essentially that’s who Jake is, our brother.

_____

Niamh

The thought of seeing my parents again has me sinking into a pit of depression, even more so than the thought of Robert coming after me. No more shadowy figures appear before me, but this only has me believing that he somehow knows we are on to him so he is trying to lead us into thinking he’s gone. I have to wonder if he’s always been there, following me around, being the shadow that I always believed was a figment of my imagination through trauma. But at the moment, Robert materializing is only a possibility, whereas seeing my parents is a certainty.

Though it might not seem fair to an outsider, I see them as part of the reason for what happened to me. Perhaps it was the pain of waiting for them to come and save me, but just like on that rainy day on the way home from school, they never did. They abandoned me when I needed them most. Did they forget about me over the years? Did they badger the police to keep looking for me? Did they learn to smile and laugh again? I was trapped inside that car while my mother laughed and gossiped over the phone, content to be in the warmth and safety of what was once my home. It stands to reason that they would have quickly forgotten about me. I never forgot them, and I don’t remember ever smiling.

Ever since Warren informed me of what he found in that house, or rather, what he didn’t find, I’ve been dreaming more and more of Stanley. On the first night of them, he was a happy-go-lucky dragon who held my hand on the way home from school, lifting his wing to shield me from the rain. The following night, he was sad; so sad I wrapped my arms around his neck while he cried on my shoulder. The next night, he looked so scared that he flew away when I stepped too close. But tonight is different, a unique dream I have never dreamed of before. In this dream, he is angry and looks more like the villainous dragons you might see in films with knights in armor who are trying to save their damsel in distress. In fact, for the first time ever, I see him blow a huge ball of fire that sweeps over my parents’ house, taking them with it.

I wake with a start, panting hard and fast, and trembling against the comforter. I push back my hair from my face, just as Warren sits up and wraps his arms around me.

“Hey, baby, another bad dream?” he whispers before laying a kiss on top of my shoulder. “Stanley?”

“How’d you know?” I gasp while trying to bring my breathing back to normal.

“You’ve been calling out his name every night, Niamh,” he says sadly.

“I always thought he represented my parents, or perhaps my childhood, but now I think I’m so messed up, I don’t know who he is,” I admit.

“Perhaps he’s just your fear?”

“Maybe,” I sigh before lying back against his chest and shutting my eyes to it all. “Maybe the thought of seeing my mom and dad is just bringing every single little thing to the surface; the good and the bad.”

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