Chapter 8: The Red Barn
Solis came back into the room fourteen minutes later.
She didn't make me wait.
"They have her."
I pressed my hand over my mouth.
"June is safe.
She's being examined by a paramedic on scene.
She's alert, she's breathing normally, she has not been harmed."
I couldn't speak.
Eli, who had been sitting in the corner pretending to look at a magazine, stood up.
"Is she okay?"
"She's okay," I managed.
He sat back down and put the magazine over his face.
His shoulders shook once.
Then he put the magazine down and stared at the ceiling and blinked very fast.
Renata had not run.
When the officers arrived at the barn, she was sitting in a wooden chair just inside the door with June in her arms.
She had not tried to leave.
She had not locked the door.
She handed June to the first officer who came through and said: "Be careful with her head."
They brought June back to the hospital by ambulance.
She arrived forty minutes after Solis told me they had found her.
When the nurse placed her in my arms, I didn't say anything.
There was nothing to say.
I just held her and she made that small searching sound again and I gave her what she needed and she went quiet.
Eli sat beside me on the bed.
He didn't speak either.
After a while he said: "She looks like you."
"You think so?"
"Around the eyes." He considered her seriously.
"She's going to be loud."
"Probably."
"That's okay," he said.
May you like
"I don't mind loud."
I put my arm around him and he leaned into my side carefully, mindful of the incision, because he was always careful with people he loved.
