Chapter 7
Three days later, Maya went into surgery.
I sat in the waiting room for four hours, staring at the clock, counting seconds, replaying every moment that led us here. If I had pushed harder. If I had insisted sooner. If I had never let Mark inside our house. If Robert had listened.
If. If. If.
Dr. Lawson came out at 1:42 p.m. He looked tired, but he smiled.
“She is through the worst of it,” he said. “The surgery went well. We removed the fetus completely. No major damage to her organs. She will recover. It will take time. But she will recover.”
I sank into the nearest chair and cried.
Not from sadness. From relief. She was alive. She was going to be okay.
When I was allowed back, Maya was awake, groggy, hooked up to monitors, but her eyes were open.
“Hey,” she whispered.
“Hey yourself,” I said, sitting close.
“Did you get it all out?”
“Yes,” I said. “All of it. It’s gone.”
She breathed out, long and shaky.
“Good,” she said. “I feel lighter already.”
The next week passed in slow, quiet rhythms. Nurses came and went. Tests. Medication. Rest. The police guard stayed outside. Officer Torres visited every day with updates.
The updates were always the same.
No sign of them.
They had crossed the border into Canada. Vanished. No credit card use. No phone calls. No withdrawals. They had planned this well. Robert, with his careful mind for details, had helped Mark disappear completely.
It made me sick.
“He is smart,” Officer Torres admitted. “Too smart. But they will make a mistake. People always do. And when they do... we will be there.”
Maya asked about them once. Only once.
“Do you think they got away?”
I looked at her. At the scar healing on her stomach. At the way she still flinched when men walked past her door.
“Maybe for now,” I said. “But not forever. Running is hard. Hiding is harder. And one day... they will slip up. And when they do... we will still be here. Waiting.”
She nodded. She seemed to accept it.
But I saw something change in her those days. The fear didn’t go away—not entirely—but beneath it, something hard and strong began to grow. She spoke less. She watched more. She didn’t cry when the pain came. She just breathed through it, jaw set, eyes steady.
She was becoming someone who survived.
When Maya was discharged, we didn’t go home.
I couldn’t. Not that house. Not the walls where Mark had sat and eaten and laughed. Not the bedroom where Maya had suffered in silence while Robert watched TV downstairs.
I rented a small apartment across town. Different neighborhood. Different school district. No forwarding address. I left the house—our house—empty. I left Robert’s things exactly where they were. I didn’t pack them. I didn’t touch them. He had chosen to leave. He could stay gone.
We started over.
New furniture. New routines. New doctors. I changed my phone number. I got a PO box. I told Maya: we leave the past behind. We lock the door. We move forward.
But the past doesn’t always stay locked.
Six weeks after the surgery, late on a Tuesday night, my phone rang.
It was a number I didn’t recognize. Area code from nowhere I knew.
I answered on a hunch.
“Hello?”
Silence. Then breathing. Then—
“Sarah.”
Robert’s voice. Thin. Cracked. Distant.
My blood turned to ice.
“How did you get this number?” I whispered, stepping out of the living room so Maya wouldn’t hear.
“I found it,” he said. “It took time. But I found you.”
“Robert,” I said. “Do not call here. Do not come here. If you care anything for Maya—”
“I need to see her,” he said. “I need to explain. I need to tell you—”
“Explain what?” I cut him off. “That you helped a rapist escape? That you chose your brother over your daughter? What exactly is left to explain?”
He was quiet for a long time.
“I didn’t know,” he said finally. “Not at first. Mark told me lies. He said she made it up. He said you were trying to tear us apart. And then... by the time I realized... it was too late. I had already helped him. And I was afraid. Afraid of what would happen. Afraid I would lose everything.”
“You lost everything the second you chose him,” I said. “You lost your wife. You lost your daughter. You lost your home. All to protect a monster. How does it feel, Robert? How does it feel to have nothing left?”
He didn’t answer.
“Where are you?” I asked. “Is he still with you?”
Silence again.
“Robert,” I said. “Tell me the truth. Is Mark there?”
“He’s gone,” Robert said. His voice sounded broken. “We split up. I couldn’t... I couldn’t stay with him. Not after I knew. Not after I realized what he really is. I left him. I’ve been alone ever since.”
I didn’t believe him. Not entirely. But some small part of me—the part that once loved him—heard the despair in his voice.
“Come home, Robert,” I said. “Turn yourselves in. Cooperate. Tell the police everything you know. Help them find Mark. It is the only thing left you can do for Maya. The only way to make even a tiny bit of this right.”
“I can’t,” he said. “If I go back... if I testify... Mark will go to prison for life. And he will tell them things. He will ruin me. He will—”
“Ruin you?” I said, stunned. “You are already ruined, Robert. You ruined yourself. Now stop running from the mess you made and help us put the man who hurt your daughter behind bars.”
“I can’t,” he whispered. “I’m sorry, Sarah. Tell Maya... tell her I’m sorry.”
And then he hung up.
I stood there in the dark hallway, phone still in my hand, heart pounding.
He was out there. Somewhere. Broken. Running. And Mark—was he alone? Or was he still out there too, waiting, watching, planning?
I walked back to the living room. Maya was reading on the couch. She looked up when I came in.
“Who was that?” she asked.
I hesitated.
“Your father,” I said.
She went very still.
“Did he say where he is?”
“No,” I said. “He didn’t. And he won’t tell us. He is still running.”
Maya closed her book. She set it down gently.
“Okay,” she said. “Let him run. But Mom... if he calls again... tell him I never want to see him again. Tell him... tell him he lost the best thing he ever had. And I hope he remembers that every single day for the rest of his life.”
I nodded. “I will tell him.”
She stood up and walked to her room. Before she closed the door, she looked back at me.
“Are we safe?” she asked.
I looked at the locked front door. At the windows. At the darkness outside.
“For now,” I said. “We are safe for now.”
May you like
But as I locked every door and checked every window that night, I knew.
As long as they were free—as long as Mark was out there somewhere—we would never truly be safe.
