The Wastelands

Chapter 3

Chilly night air sent shivers up and down Ted's spine. Hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and he folded his arms over his chest for warmth. Winter loomed right around the corner and his fields would soon be covered in a layer of snow. Life would get harder and food would get scarcer. He dreaded the season to come.

He stood on the front porch and stared in the direction his daughter went. It was a path he could not follow nor did he want to. He wished she wouldn't have come by the house at all. That she had left them alone. They didn't need the trouble caught in her disastrous life which she chose to lead and he refused to say a word to stop her. She vanished passed the point of no return. Watching her leave the second time was nothing compared to the loss he felt when she went missing three years prior.

He spent weeks searching their farmland and the nearby woods for any sign of her—alive or dead. No one in the city or on the police force offered to help. The friends they thought they had were too busy to lend a hand. They refused to give up their valuable time to look for a lost cause. Bribing the police was costly and they laughed at his attempt to do so with a minuscule amount of money. Most people living in the city looked down on those less fortunate and viewed them as scum of the earth.

Ted Griffith felt like the filth they saw him as.

He was on his own and scoured the land for days trying to find her. When he gave up searching, his family resorted to prayer and religion. Lyndi refused to believe their middle child had perished and prayed two to three times a day for her recovery. They went to church numerous times hoping God would give them an answer they desired. Charlotte got down on her knees to join them as soon as she was strong enough after the treatments and prayed for the sister she barely knew. Their son tagged along when he had a free moment between work and classes, but he deemed it pointless. The boy grew to despise the sister that abandoned her family.

At the end of ten months, Ted assumed she ran away on her own accord. He stopped searching and chose to move on with his life. It was a difficult decision to box up her few belongings and stow them in the attic. It broke his heart with every crate he lifted, but the family needed to move forward. Seeing her standing in the kitchen in the middle of a Wednesday night after three years was unexpected.

Ted hardly recognized her with those blue eyes and her dark clothing. Her long hair had grown wild and carefree. She appeared stronger, yet lacked the control she needed to use that strength. Sacrificing her livelihood for her sister put herself and the family in a very dangerous position. Ted wanted that reunion to be special and heartwarming, but wound up just as hurt as when she first left. It was one thing to think she had simply gone missing, but it shattered his world to learn that she ran off on her own free will.

He gawked at the empty field, angry and upset. The door creaked behind him and he glanced over his shoulder. Lyndi stepped onto the porch, covering herself with a wool cardigan. Her eyes were bloodshot from crying and her cheeks were still flushed with a saddening anger.

"Is she gone?" Lyndi asked.

He nodded, "Yeah."

Lyndi sniffled back tears and shivered, "Where does she plan on going?"

"I saw her running toward the wall. If Whiley has men looking for her, they won't go to the Wastelands just to get her." Ted replied.

She rubbed her arms and said, "I hope you're right. I can't imagine what they'd do to her after what she did to them."

"This was her choice, hon," Ted argued. She crossed this bridge on her own and now she has to deal with the consequences."

"She's still our daughter." Lyndi whispered.

He scoffed, "Our daughter...right. I think she stopped being our daughter before she even left. She made us worry about her and we believed she was dead for three years." He turned to her and stared in her teary eyes, "You saw what she did to herself. She's not the same girl we remember. She doesn't even want to go by her own name anymore. What kind of daughter does that?"

"She said she did it for Charlotte. That means something." Lyndi argued.

"It means she lost faith in our ability to provide the proper care for our child. We could have found a different to get the treatments, but instead Addie destroyed her own life and now she's put us all at risk. If the President sends his men here looking for her, there's no saying what they'll do if they don't believe us. She never should have come back."

Lyndi wiped her eyes and sniffled. The man was right. Even though she didn't want to see it, deep in her heart she knew he was right about everything.

"I know." She said, quietly. "I just...I don't want to believe that we'll never see her again. It hurts worse this time."

Ted stood still for a long moment. The pain in her voice only heightened the anger toward his daughter. He blew out a deep breath and put his arm around his wife's shoulder. He planted a soft kiss on her forehead and held her close.

"It'll be okay." He said.

"This is almost worse than believing she had died." Lyndi admitted.

He sighed and cleared his throat, "We have to keep this a secret. No one can know she was ever here."

"Why? Marcus will want to know and he has every right to."

"We can't let anyone know she came back. For our own safety, we can never tell a soul. Let Marcus keep believing she ran off and let him hate her. I pray no one shows up looking for her, but if they do we can't tell them anything about this night. We'll tell them that we haven't seen her in over three years. It's not a total lie." Ted instructed, then took a breath. "It's better this way."

"What about Charlotte?"

"She's a smart girl and for some reason she loves Addie more than anything. She'll understand why we have to hide this."

Lyndi sniffled and said, "This doesn't feel right. I don't like the idea of lying to our son—especially about Addie. I understand why we need to, but I don't like it. One day he'll have to know the truth."

"I know and we'll figure it out when the time gets here. For now, we go on as if this night never happened. We just pretend Addie never came back."

She forced a nod and tried to keep her thoughts uplifting, "At least we know she's alive. Maybe I can find peace in that."

Ted nodded and said, "I hope one day you can. I don't think I'll ever find peace after seeing what she did to herself. She'll never be the girl we raised."

The woman swallowed her pain and nuzzled her head against his shoulder. She felt his soft lips against her forehead once more and she closed her eyes. He gently pushed her back inside the house, keeping their footsteps quiet on the old porch. Once over the threshold, Ted closed and locked the heavy door, dreading the conversation they needed to have with Charlotte. The young girl was too stubborn to realize the danger her older sister could have brought them.

The dangers she still could bring.

***Thanks for keeping up with the Wastelands. Hope you're still enjoying it.