Read Online Come Back by Claire Fontaine - Free Book Online

and had more children. I had just found out myself and was half hoping the judge wouldn’t, because I knew he’d have Child Protection investigate him again. Then, Nick would blame me and would want revenge.
    Which is exactly what happened. For years, Nick hadn’t paid for any psychological care related to the abuse, as he was court ordered to do, nor his share of doctor bills, but now, to get back at me, he wanted visitation rights.
    My happy life collapsed and I didn’t know how to shore it back up. He had the means to outspend me in court. Going to court in California was risky anyway. Fathers got visitation no matter what they did or what the child wanted. I could just see Mia screaming and trying to crawl under a coffee table in the name of family unity. I’d sooner disappear than leave her alone with him ever again. And I knew how.
    I’d heard of an “Underground” that secreted away women and children when courts wouldn’t protect them. The only other option I saw was doing what Dr. Elizabeth Morgan did in her well-publicized case. She had her parents spirit her child to New Zealand, and she went to jail for it.
    I was prepared to do either if I had to. I felt so emotionally overwhelmed that I called a social service agency for counseling. A therapist named Fran called back and I poured out the whole saga in between sobs. As we were making an appointment, I asked her full name. Fran Blair, she said, then spelled it out for me: B-l-e-y-e-r. That’s an unusual spelling, I said, are you related to a Peter Bleyer, from Philadelphia?
    Why, yes, as a matter of fact, he’s my husband, she said, why do you ask?
    I’d come all the way across the country to escape from Nick and the one psychologist in the entire state of California I happen to call is thewife of a P family friend. Who had been at my wedding. I don’t know who was shocked more, she or I.
    Paul came home to find me staring at the phone, practically catatonic.
     
    If I had any doubt Nick would learn where we lived, I didn’t anymore. It took me exactly one day to find the Underground. I met a well-dressed young woman at a café and explained my situation. She listened quietly, then led me to her car without a word.
    She drove to an apartment in a seedy part of town, locked the door behind us, and then told me this was the first stop in going underground. I looked around and thought, here I am again, at the nexus of Nick, desperation and dirty orange shag carpet. The worn sheets on the bed matched the one strung across the window. We stepped over toys and sat on the sagging plaid Herculon sofa to talk about the mechanics of “disappearing.”
    We could take nothing of our old life, not even a stuffed animal. There’d be new histories, new hair colors, a new profession. Every day would be a lie. Paul would be watched.
    I wish I could tell you that you’ll get used to it, she said, but you won’t. And if you ever do, that’s when you’ll get caught, because you’ll get careless, it’ll be good-bye Mia, hello prison. Once she was eighteen, Mia could resurface, but I never could, I’d face charges. I would go to my grave looking over my shoulder. Underground was an apt name, I was feeling cadaverous already.
    We would wait here until she got everything set up for us. There was a doorless closet against one wall full of Goodwill cast-offs. She pointed to them and said I could pick out new wardrobes for Mia and me once we got settled in.
    I scanned for the least drecky choices. Triple-pleated, puce trousers; a flowered sweatshirt; and a slick, thin blue belt that looked like a Tupperware cake dish handle.
    Or I could hold the pants up with that Navajo beaded belt and use the Tupperware belt to hang myself. God help me, it was vanity that made my decision.
     
    Forget it, I told Paul, Mia will have to lie every day knowing that if she screws up, Mommy goes to jail. And it’ll flat out kill me to become Jane Smith, tight-lipped blond bookkeeper for