Young

18 - Fake Smiles

Blake's parents gave us a loan so that we could afford the down payment on a home in Arden Hills, a quaint suburb of Minneapolis. It was a beautiful ranch style home with a spacious backyard in a young neighborhood. Most residents had children or were just starting out like us.

I got to know many of the neighbors and during working hours the wives would come to my place, or I to theirs, and we'd chat about many things, but mostly about our husbands.

The conversations seemed to eventually steer towards questions about my future family. How many children and did we have names picked out? I gave a congenial smile and said we hadn't really decided but hopefully it would be soon. At no point did I share my dark past. How could I tell these women that I didn't feel ready to weather the challenges of motherhood at this stage in my life after experiencing sinister things they could never fathom?

The fact is, I was screaming inside to share those experiences with someone who could share my emotional burden, aside from Blake.

Yes, I had gone to psychologists and therapists. Yes, I would periodically get calls from the FBI to see if my story checked out regarding a Soviet connection.

But that was different. I wanted to share my experience with friends...female friends. But I wasn't ready for that yet. Part of me wanted to go to the hilltops and yell for all I was worth that there was a psychotic madman out there who destroyed my life. Would these women believe me, and if they did, would they care?

When I came back from shopping on a Saturday afternoon my jaw dropped when I found myself staring at a polished black baby grand piano in the living room. Blake gently rested his hand on my shoulder and grinned.

"Do you like it?" he asked.

"Blake, it's beautiful!"

"Someone with your talent deserves something like this."

"I don't know what to say. An upright would have been fine and it looks so expensive!"

"Nothing's too good for our resident master pianist," Blake said, beaming.

I gazed up at him with an excited twinkling in my eye.

"Go ahead and try it," he said.

I sat down on the bench and arched my fingers over the keys. I went over the notes in my mind but they were distant and faded, like a fog was masking them. My fingers trembled...sweat dripping from my forehead.

"Veronica? Honey?"

"I-I can't play. I can't play anything. What's wrong with me?!!" I screamed in frustration and banged my fists on the keyboard, the dissonance echoing throughout the house.

Blake wrapped his arms around me as I buried my face in his chest and hugged him tightly.

"I called the Sheriff in Beatty yesterday and they still haven't found a trace of that terrible place where they held me. How can they get away with murdering so many people?" I exclaimed.

Blake had a thoughtful expression and looked out the window. He offered an explanation but I couldn't tell if he was serious or just humoring me.

"You know how I told you we found blood soaked blouses next to a dead coyote? Well, maybe that's what they've been doing with all their victims to throw law enforcement off their trail. They abduct them and put scraps of clothing next to an animal they kill themselves to make it look like the victims were taken down by the wild. After all, that's what we thought happened to you."

To know that Randolph may still be out there, somewhere, was enough to drive me crazy. I'd wake up from nightmares in a cold sweat and Blake would have to calm me down. The feeling that maybe he didn't believe everything I was telling him about my horrific experiences kept nagging at me.

"Blake, do you think I imagined everything and that I escaped from coyotes, mountain lions or whatever else is out there and that Randolph was just a hallucination?"

He'd think for a moment and choose his words carefully.

"Well, if you're wandering around the desert in that kind of heat, and under that kind of pressure, I wouldn't be surprised if your mind twists things around. I'm not saying that's what happened to you but...it's possible."

"Just say you believe me...please!"

He gave me a gentle kiss and said, "Of course I believe you, sweetheart."

I needed to hear that, even if he didn't mean it.

As time went on I started to convince myself that maybe I had imagined Randolph, Dr. Borden and that sinister shack in the desert.

Could it be that I really had escaped from wild animals and Annette wasn't so lucky?

Could it be that after my escape I wandered the desert for a week, disoriented and hallucinating, until Steve found me?

I shook my head. I didn't have the survival skills to beat it, especially in my mental state. And the track marks on my arm?

I desperately wanted to know the truth.