In the Shadow of His Wings (10 page)

For a moment he even thought of another woman at church and wondered why she wasn’t abducted instead of Laura and then he caught himself.
Oh God, I’m so sorry! I
would never want to wish this on anyone else! Please forgive me for thinking of such a
thing for even a second. Please help us do the right thing to find Laura and keep her safe
Lord, just keep her safe.

For a moment Jim’s thoughts went to the stranger he strongly suspected of taking his wife and the things that man might be doing to her. He felt his blood pressure start to rise and his stomach start to churn. He wished he could take a giant eraser and clear the images from his mind but they kept surfacing over and over again. The thought of his hands on Laura, of him touching her, thoughts of her fighting him off…..No! He mustn’t think this way! Jim had to force himself to suppress those thoughts. It was important that he didn’t let ideas like that swallow him up. He knew if he let himself get lost with that kind of thinking and feelings, he would be useless to Lacey and Josh, especially to Laura.

Laura’s parents would be arriving sometime this afternoon. They would be flying into the Toronto airport and normally Jim or Josh would go pick them up but thankfully Lee had offered to do that for them. There was no way Jim wanted to take the time to drive the hour and a half to Toronto. It was too much time that could be spent doing other things. It was also too much time alone with his thoughts. That would be the worst, then it would also mean an hour and a half with Bill and Sylvia on the way back to Niagara Falls, listening to their questions, worries and tears. Jim knew he couldn’t deal with that today. He loved his in-laws and they got along great, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to calm their fears when he had so many of his own. He also knew that Bill and Sylvia would struggle with the exact same problem in reverse.

Jim’s own mother had passed away as the result of a car accident when he was in his teens. His father, Carl had raised him and his two brothers, on his own. Carl still lived in Niagara Falls but the man was in his eighties now and sadly, suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and resided at a local nursing home. Jim hadn’t been to see his father since Laura’s disappearance but he had called the home to check on him. The nurse reported that his father was blissfully unaware of the news. These days Jim’s father didn’t even know who Laura was half the time so even if he saw her face on TV it probably wouldn’t sink in but the nurse was making an effort to keep Carl occupied.

Jim forced his mind back to the present situation.

“Josh you’re going to have to clean your stuff out of the guest room and change the sheets, Grandma and Grandpa Anderson are arriving some time this afternoon. I’m going to have a quick shower and get going to the police station.” Lacey started to clear the table and load the dishwasher.

“I’ll clean the bathroom up when you’re done dad and give the living room and quick clean up too, since Grandma and Grandpa are coming.”

“Oh honey, please don’t bother. I really would rather you and Josh get busy with the posters. Besides, you know your Grandmother, she’ll want something to do herself, and if she can clean the house for us then she’ll feel useful, so just let her do that.”

“Good idea.” Lacey gave a small, but weak smile as she put down the dishes and went to put on her shoes.

Chapter 10

Laura started reading Christine’s journal and was surprised at the amount of anger that came through the pages.

Mom insisted on taking me out of school and homeschooling me! I HATE this. I
think she’s crazy! I won’t get to see my friends and Phil and I were just starting to get to
know each other. Well, that’s over now! Mom doesn’t really want to home school me
,
she just wants to control me! She wants me to be her puppet! Sending us to our rooms
for “independent study time”. What a joke that is! Mom never even looks at our work.

She suggested I take up journaling and bought me a few notebooks, I know she’ll never
read them. She can’t be bothered and it might take time away from her ‘TV shows’. I
hate her, I hate her, I hate her!!! Mom won’t let me leave the house at all. I can’t even
go sit outside in the backyard, for crying out loud! I am a total and complete prisoner
here. This is insane! Gerhard gets to go out a little bit, he doesn’t even seem to mind
being home schooled. He’s such a wimp and never stands up to mom. Hopefully I can
convince him to help me get out of here at some point. I need money though. Can’t get by
without any cash. Mom is real tight with her money but I know where she keeps it, so
maybe I’ll just sneak a little now and then. Not so much that she will notice, but for me to
have enough to escape. I will leave this place, this PRISON as soon as I can!

Laura had some friends who home schooled their children, and although she had never done it herself she had a lot of respect for those who did. She saw her friends who raised their children with strong Christian values and morals. They would network together with other families that home schooled and have field trips together. The children had plenty of opportunities for socializing, even getting together for sports. For these families home schooling was an act of love and a desire of the parents to see their children develop in the best possible way.

The motives for Hilda however, were obviously quite different. There were no efforts to mix with other home schooled children, quite the opposite was true. According to Christine’s journal, Hilda seemed determined to isolate Christine and keep her away from all others. The girl WAS basically a prisoner; the only thing they didn’t do was chain her in the basement.
If they had, I wonder if she would still be here, the poor girl.

Christine was allowed to watch TV and had her own set in her room. This was her only form of escape. She would spend hours watching movies.

Laura continued to read Christine’s journal:

I love the movies. I want to be an actress one day. WHEN I get out of here that is.

I’ll go all the way to Hollywood and I’m sure some smart talent scout will see my
potential and I’ll be a star before you know it. I’ll change my name though, Christine
Bloone doesn’t sound like a star’s name. I’ll have to come up with something catchier, a
name that people won’t forget. My life will be so glamorous. Mom will be jealous of me
and try to visit but there is no way she is getting into my house! Once I leave this place, I
will have nothing to do with her. I will tell the public my parents both died when I was
young. Gerhard will probably be so caught up in the hotel business he won’t have time to
come visit or even want to. I’ll probably even get my own star on the Hollywood walk of
Fame! Yes, then I will truly be happy. I’ll wear fancy clothes, eat at fancy restaurants
and best of all, I will be away from my mother! My friends from school will remember
me and be jealous. I might let some of them visit, we’ll see. I’ll have new friends by then.

My whole life will be different. I just have to save up some money and figure a way to
escape. I WILL make this happen. I will be famous, glamorous, and beautiful! I just
know it!!

Laura felt sad for the younger Christine. She just wanted to get away from her mother and make something of her life. Her head was in the clouds.
I wonder what
really happened to her.

She wrote how Gerhard and her would occasionally sit and play board games or cards together in the evenings. There was a snapshot of Christine and Gerhard pasted in the journal. It was a picture of the two of them sitting on the floor playing cards. Laura studied the picture, looking for some sort of clue as to who this girl really was.

Her basic build, her hair and eye color were the same as Laura’s. There was a resemblance, but there was something in the girl’s eyes that was different from Laura’s.

Christine had a lost and lonely look to her. In the picture she was smiling but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. There was such a sad look to her that it melted Laura’s heart, it made her wish she could reach right into the photograph, pull the girl out into the room and hug her.
Did your father ever hug you, Christine? Did Hilda ever hug you? Did
they ever tell you they loved you?
DID they love you?

Gerhard looked very much like he did today, just slightly slimmer without the protruding stomach and just as Laura suspected, a face full of freckles. He looked a little happier than Christine. Laura suspected he found more happiness outside the house where he wasn’t under Hilda’s thumb the way Christine was.

Christine wrote about her friends. It didn’t sound like she had a lot of friends, only a couple of girl friends that she never brought home. She wrote how she was embarrassed of her overweight and overbearing mother and didn’t want them to meet her.

Christine would much rather hang out at the mall with her friends where she learned the skill of shop lifting. Even though there was enough money in the family for anything she wanted, Christine felt a rush of adrenaline every time she stole something. She also rationalized it by thinking her mother wouldn’t buy it for her anyway.

The next few pages were more complaints about her mother and again stressing how much she hated her. Laura skimmed through until she found another section that tugged at her heart.

Mom just isn’t happy with anything I do. Gerhard seems able to make her happy,
at least some of the time. Maybe she will loosen up a bit on me if I do something that
makes her happy. Hmmmm, what can I do? I know the perfect thing! Mom is so fussy
on how she wants the house clean. She’s doing it less often now than she used to. Because
of her ‘shows’ I’m sure. Well what if I just clean the house for her. Go through each
room, polish every mirror, shine every window, vacuum and dust everywhere. I’ll scrub
out the bathrooms and make sure the kitchen is polished and neat. Yes, that’s a good
idea. Mom will be so pleased that I did all that work without asking that surely she will
be pleased with me. Who knows, she might even let me go outside a bit.

The next section of the journal was written after Christine had cleaned the house.

She wrote about how hard she worked in each room. How with each room her expectations of her mother’s response would build. However, she clearly did not get the response she was expecting.

I told mom I cleaned the house today. She was so busy watching TV she didn’t
even notice. But I told her how I cleaned and scrubbed and worked to make the whole
house clean for her. Did she thank me? Did she smile and say what a good daughter I
was? NO, of course not. She took me through every room and instead of praising me for
the work I DID, all she did was show me what I missed. She complained the entire time!

Not once did she thank me for doing such a huge job on my own without being told. Not
once did she smile at me and act proud of her daughter. She was horrible! I will NEVER

do anything for her again unless she makes me. I won’t volunteer to do anything. There’s
no point, she won’t appreciate it anyway.

Overall the journals were a collection of a girl’s complaints about her mother.

From what Laura could understand many of those complaints were justified. She couldn’t imagine treating Lacey that way. Children needed discipline, most definitely, but they also needed respect, and most importantly, love. To raise a child without love and affection is the cruelest thing of all. It made Laura wonder how Hilda herself had been raised. How much love and affection was she shown?

Christine did write about her escape attempt. She wrote how she snuck into her mother and brother’s room as often as she could and looked for money. Anything she could find that might not be missed. Whether it was spare change laying on the dresser, or a five dollar bill from a wallet or purse. She would also regularly check the sofa cushions for change that would fall out of Gerhard’s pockets. Stuff was always falling out of his pockets when he sat on the couch. She would add the coins to her savings. She knew it might take awhile but she also knew that she shouldn’t rush it. Christine understood that it would be better to wait until she had enough money to buy a bus ticket that would take her far away from here. So the girl saved and planned her escape. She kept a running total of her savings. It looked like she had about five hundred dollars saved up at the time she stopped writing in her journals. Thirty years ago, to a fifteen year old girl, that was an awful lot of money. She must have felt like she had the world at her feet. How her heart must have pounded as she hid in the back of Gerhard’s car and waited for him to drive to work the next morning. Laura wondered what happened to Christine and where she was now.

Laura’s stomach growled and she was reminded that Hilda had threatened her, there was to be no supper for her tonight, as punishment for her escape attempt. Laura wondered if she dared go to the mini fridge in the living room to get herself a drink. She opened her door a crack and peeked out to see if Hilda was still watching TV. Laura could see the back of Hilda’s head as she sat in the reclining chair watching one of her favorite game shows. Her head was tilted to one side and it sounded like she was snoring.

Laura opened the door a little wider and listened cautiously. The woman was definitely snoring; the chair was practically vibrating with the noise the woman was making. Laura tip toed into the room, being careful that her chain didn’t bump into anything, and went over to the fridge. She gently eased the door open and was pleased to see an assortment of soft drinks, juices and bottled water. She helped herself to a bottle of orange juice, apple juice and tomato juice. If she wasn’t allowed to eat, at least this would take the edge off her hunger.