The Kidnapper's Wife

6. After

I haven't watched the news at all. Not since he was found. I haven't read a single article, even though the headlines call to me from every social media site I go on. I just stopped going on social media. Stopped reading the messages, a whole new wave asking "Are you okay, Jade, now that...you know..." in many more words than that.

If anything, there are actually more messages now than when the news initially broke about Connor. I suspect it's because now people know what to say. Now they can ask if I'm okay because it's over. It's all cleaned up now, all solved. Case closed, guilty, put him away. And for them, maybe it is. But for me, it's still very much going on.

I don't know why I've been avoiding the headlines. I think maybe it's because I don't want to hear someone else's version of events. I don't want the reporters succinct and sensational story, concocted from the half picture the police have actually told the public. I want the truth. And I want it from the source. I want it from the man who I thought I knew. I want it from Connor.

But at the same time, I have no desire to see him ever again. I can't imagine walking up the steps to the prison where he's being held (I know which prison he's being held at thanks to my mother's never ending stream of information, I can only tune out so much), and sitting on the other side of a pane of glass from him, talking through phones.

It's a weird sort of conflict I have with myself. The wanting to know, but not wanting to go through the process of finding out. I know eventually I'll have to face him. Eventually, I'll have to go talk to him. Because I have to tell him that I want a divorce.

My mother says I don't have to tell him, I can just send the papers, have someone else do it. She is strongly situated in the camp of people who say I should never see him again, never waste one more second of my life on someone so vile. But I know I'm not in that camp. I have to see him again. Not now. Not even soon. But someday. I have to know. I have to look him in the eye and hear it from him.

I wonder if he'll tell me. If he'll talk to me at all. Will he admit what he's done? I wonder if he's confessed to the police or if he's denying it all. If he hasn't confessed, I guess he won't tell me anything, because that would be incriminating. But he'd be stupid not to confess at this point. They know. They know everything. They have him pinned to the wall like a donkey with 7 tails at a birthday party. I wonder if he knows that.

All this wondering has me exhausted. Well that and the shot probably, I used to cry before getting shots, they would upset me so much, but now they just tire me out apparently. I guess I have less tears to spare on relatively trivial things like shots these days.

Pulling into my driveway, I press the garage door opener and immediately hear Ruby start barking through my open car window. I smile in spite of myself. That girl is so spunky. But if there's one thing I'm grateful for, it's that we decided to get Ruby before everything happened. It always makes me feel good to know she's waiting for me with endless love at home. All it takes is a Ruby hug to make me feel just a fraction better. And lately, even a fraction has a lot of worth.

I laugh as she jumps all over me in the mud room, not having the heart to tell her not to jump. She succeeds in "tackling" me to the ground and I rub her belly, smiling. She grabs her favorite toy, a little blue octopus that Connor and I picked out for her the first time we left her to go on vacation, and runs back over to me. I take it from her and throw it into the living room for her to retrieve.

The phone rings and, reluctantly, I pick myself off at the ground to go grab it.

It is, predictably, my mother.

"How did it go?" her voice is anxious.

"Mom, it went fine. I've gotten blood taken before, it's not a big deal."

"Well yes of course, but this is different! You haven't had blood taken for an investigation before. For the police." Her voice is fast, and bubbling with excitement.

"Well Mom, I hate to break it to you but it's the same procedure: needle, prick, blood, band-aid."

My mom is offended at my tone, "Well I'm sorry that I care enough to check in Jade, you don't have to act like I'm such a burden on you."

I sigh, "I'm sorry Mom, you're not. I'm just tired."

"Well of course you are, after that ordeal."

I want to say that getting blood taken is hardly an ordeal, but manage to hold my tongue.

"Anyway," my mom prattles on, "I was also calling to see if you had seen the latest press relief by Officer Brown."

"No Mom, I told you, I don't watch the news and I would really rather not-"

"Well let me fill you in then! It's great news honey: he's confessed!"

Well that answers that question.