Page 103 of The Voice We Find

“Maybe it’s time I change that.” It’s a declaration, one I’ve been battling since August challenged me to face my own fears before asking him to face his. I set the box at my feet, take hold of my sister-in-law’s shoulders, and speak with unrivaled fervor. “Natalie, listen to me, if you’re in trouble I will help you—”

“It’s not what you think,” she whispers. “I promise, Sophie. I can handle myself.” She throws a glance up the stairs. “Don’t worry about the linens. I’ll run a load of laundry after he falls asleep. It shouldn’t be too much longer now. He never went to bed last night.”

And then she twists out of my hold and scurries from the staff kitchen without a backward glance.

With Natalie upstairs with my brother, I take my time drying and boxing the last of the stemware alone. I listen carefully for any out-of-place creak or sharply spoken word. But there is nothing. After a while, my mind begins to play a riveting game of anxiety hopscotch, jumping over some squares while landing in the center of others. Each one marked with the name of someone I love.

Natalie.

Gabby.

August.

My prayers for each are simple, my words often fumbled and unsure, and yet I have faith enough to know they’re heard.

By the time I load the second round of laundry into the washer and have the first folded and put away, I’ve convinced myself that my brother is too smart to do anything untoward to Natalie while I’m present on the property. At least, that’s what I tell myself before I collect the storage boxes to carry across the path to the tasting room after dark.

When I enter the main dining area, I set the boxes on a table near the door and close myself in. It’s far from the first time I’ve been alone in the tasting room since the attack, but somehow my body knows this time is different. There’s a sticky anticipation building in my core, a tensing in my muscles, as if they’ve already begun to brace for an assault they’ve been overcompensating for since I was sixteen. I scan the familiar setting, not as it is now, but as it was back then, remembering the cloud of cheap cologne that hung in the air and the sound of clomping boots on the cellar stairs. And then the hushed duet of male voices—one more distinct than the other, hurling curses and insults at my unwelcome arrival.

I stop the memory there and grip the boxes like a shield at my chest. And then I cross to the far side of the room and stare down at the narrow staircase, proving to myself that there is no angry man about to assault me and no shards of glass beyond the door that once held me prisoner.

“I will not be afraid,” I speak aloud, taking each step at my own pace and in my own time. When flashes of old memory threaten to steal my progress, I replace them with the here and now. My hip against the safety railing. The steps under my feet. The song I hum for comfort, the same one my grandmother sang with me as a child long before I had any real understanding of its meaning.

It takes me a full minute to build up the courage to pass the threshold into the cellar, and when I do, my lips begin to quiver. “I will not be afraid.”

I think of Gabby’s testimony, of the many times we’ve rehearsed her dramatic narrative in these last few weeks, and how the more I speak out this truth, the stronger my faith becomes.

On shaky legs, I move into the closet and set the boxes on the floor. I breathe through an overwhelming urge to bolt back up the steps and declare this a victory. But before I can, my mind turns to August once again, to whatever fear still holds him captive. To a prison so much worse than these four walls.

My pulse drums against my ribs as I take in my surroundings anew. Gone are the ominous shadows that scratched at the edges of my consciousness, replaced by the brightly lit display cases holding expensive wines framed by an art collection my brother has been curating since his promotion.

I will not be afraid.

Before I allow another negative memory to capture my thoughts, I part my lips and begin to sing. At first the verse is little more than a shaky rasp, but soon it becomes a prayer—my prayer.

“Why should I feel discouraged,

Why should the shadows come?

Why should my heart be lonely,

And long for heav’n and home?

When Jesus is my portion,

My constant Friend is he;

His eye is on the sparrow,

And I know he watches me;

His eye is on the sparrow,

And I know he watches me.”

As my fear slowly ebbs, my voice builds and swells in full resonance. Not like an actress projecting a character on a stage, but like a woman who knows exactly who she is and why she sings. I also know I’m not alone. Not only in this moment, but on that dark night, too, and every night that came before and will come after.

“I sing because I’m happy,

---