As I stepped through the threshold of the faded white-wood door, I was flooded with memories: all bitter and painful. Grace sleeping in my arms, I slowly entered my old prison. Grace let out a small cry, hungry, but the sound was drowned out by the echoes of my lingering screams. Only two years have passed, but it seemed like an eternity.

“Need some help with your bags, Miss?” the cab driver offered

“If you wouldn’t mind, that would be great, thanks,” I said absentmindedly.

I mustered up the strength to take the next step through the cemetery of my innocence. The small, circular wooden table, the same pale, white wood as the door, was exactly where it had always been. The meek kitchen, so cramped and plain, was my work station, not my nourishment. No matter where I looked, I only felt resentment. The paint was peeling on the walls, of course. Father had all the money in the world, but was too stingy to spend a dime. Lucky for me now, I guess.

“Here you are, ma’am,” the cabby called. He placed the bags down on the threshold of the door. “Mighty big place for just the two of y’all,” he commented, a bit intrusive but innocently. I just smiled and nodded dismissively. “Well, uh, y’all have a good day now,” he wished as he returned to his cab.

“I need to pay you,” I reminded him, the flustered driver. He blushed and came back to the door. I handed him the bills and a large tip.

“Thank you, kindly,” he tipped his hat and returned to his car in haste, probably embarrassed. Why he would be, I did not really understand.

Alone with Grace now, appeased with her bottle, I hesitantly walked up the steps to my former tower of isolation. I clenched the knob to my cage so tightly that my knuckles were white. Twist. Click. Push. My eyes were closed, unable to face the most painful thing—my window. My previous paradise now haunted me with the sorrow of what could have been. I slowly opened my eyes, and all my fears were realized when, through the window, directly across the yard, the blinds of my former prince were opened wide, the bed unmade from a fresh inhabitant.

Rushing back down the steps, headed out the door, it was too late. I had a visitor.
____
“Eleanor Caraway: a Catholic, a mother, a wife, a friend. This passing has been a tragedy for all who were blessed to know her. Thirty-nine was much too soon. We mourn her death, and pray for her family in these hard times,” the priest said. Six years old, I looked up at my father to hold his hand, but his face was not tear-struck, like mine. His expression was hard and cold, unresponsive to my feeble hand. I ended up just putting it in the pocket of my black dress.
On the drive home, I remained silent. The radio was turned off. The wind was hitting me from daddy’s open window, hurting my skin.
“Daddy, could you close your window please?”
“Shut up, Ivy,” he answered, my breath catching in surprise.
“What did I d-“
“I said shut the hell up,” he yelled back at me. So I did. Why he yelled at me, I had no idea, but I held back the tears and just listened.

When we arrived home, I rushed up to my room to evade him in this tyrannical state. Curled up in a ball, my head in my knees, I cried in the window seat. If it were any other time, my mother would be sitting here beside me, rubbing my back soothingly, but things had changed. My hand instinctively rose to touch her tiny silver cross at my neck. Stricken with a wave of ache for her, I unleashed another round of sobs. Suddenly, I heard someone cough and I peered up, my young face swollen and red. That’s the first time I saw him, or at least I really saw him. He was always the neighbor boy until that moment.
Sniffing, I wiped my shiny blue eyes from the sadness leaking out of me, which was replaced with curiosity.
“Hello,” he said tentatively, projecting his voice the short distance over to my window.
“Hi,” I whimpered.
“I heard about your mommy. I’m really, really sorry.”
“Me too,” I whispered just loudly enough for him to hear.
“JACK,” a voice called from somewhere inside his house. He stared at me for a few more seconds, turned, and left his little room to answer the call.

For a while, I didn’t see this mystery boy because daddy made me close my window and the opaque gray shades, constantly filling my once beautiful room with misery and oppression. He said this was because it was getting cold outside, but I didn’t understand why that would help. As for the rest of the house, without mommy, it was in shambles. Dishes were piled high in the sink. Pizza boxes and take-out containers lined the counters. Our once grand home lacked the refinement it once had. Dad, all the while, constantly sat at our small wooden table with the newspaper and a beer in hand.
One night, about six months after mom’s death, I heard daddy on the phone, laughing. This was the first time I heard him laugh in so long, so I poked my head into the kitchen to share the moment with him.
“What’s so funny?” I asked, excited.
He whipped his head around in an instant, glaring at me with vehemence that burned a hole through my soul. Putting the phone against his leg, he viciously whispered, “Get the hell out.”
By this time, it was not out of the ordinary for him to curse at me, but it still stung every time.
In five minutes, he marched up the steps to my room.
“Ivy, clean the kitchen,” he commanded.
“I didn’t even eat in there today,” I protested.
“I don’t care what the hell you did. Clean it up, now.”
“But dad, I-“ his slap interrupted me.
“When I tell you to do something, you do it.”
I nodded. My stunned, hurt face was turning red where his hand betrayed my cheek. I turned and started scrubbing away at the dishes, and while they became fresh and new again, I was slowly wearing down.
That night was the first welcome of the warmth of April. After an hour of restlessly turning under my covers, I put up the shades and opened my window, sitting on the window seat, looking up at the moon. I turned my head when I heard the same cough I heard months ago. Sure enough, the boy, Jack, I remembered, was in his room, looking over at me. The lights of a TV were casted on his pale face, but there was no sound to break the calm. Timidly, he waved to me. I waved back, and he smiled.
“Hi,” he said, moving closer to his window until he was leaning on sill.
“Hi.”
“What happened to your face?” he blurted out, referring to the black and blue mark on my cheek, reminding me of the tenderness of my bruise.
“What are you watching,” I asked evasively.
“Batman. Have ya seen it?”
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“You’ve never even heard of it? Not even at school?” he inquired, surprised.
I shook my head again. “Nope, I’m homeschooled.”
“Do you like that?”
“Nope,” I responded. He giggled from my repetition, and I stole a smile.
For the next hour, we talked about his favorite movies, none of which I had seen, and I told him about the books I liked to read, none of which he had read. There was a relief in talking to him, though. Since mommy died, he was the only person I had a pleasant conversation with. We talked about nothing, but it was everything. For the rest of spring, and into the summer, I would pull up my shade and wait for him to come upstairs, and we would resume in our endless chatter. Then, when we were too tired to keep our eyes open, I would shut my window, close my shades, and fall asleep with a smile on my face. Throughout the day, when I was cleaning or even when daddy hit me, which he started to do more and more, I would think about my secret boy and I’d be okay.
And it went on. We did this night after night, until he was big enough to reach the tree between our houses and could sit on the sturdy branch right outside my window and, thankfully, not in view of my father’s window. Then I got bigger, too, and I could climb out and sit up there with him. He never came into my room, though, in fear that daddy would catch us.
“Ivy,” he whispered, “what’s going on with your dad? What’s been going on?” He asked me this all the time, but I always found a way to avoid the subject, and he’d get distracted for the night, until I came out with a bruise or a cut, and he’d hold me and beg for me to tell him. The furthest I’ve ever gone into the subject was asking him not to mention it.
Years later, on my eighteenth birthday, Jack climbed up our tree and sat on the sill of my window.
“Ivy,” he sighed, “when I’m older with severe back problems, I’ll blame you.”
I laughed, noting his hunched posture. He was six feet of discomfort in my small little nook.
“Can I please come in?” he pleaded.
“You know I can’t l-“
“But it’s your birthday. He has never caught us talking before. What’s one night?” This was true. Father usually falls asleep by nine. “I just want to sit down.”
“Fine, but be quiet,” I said, giving in. I don’t think he really knew how much of a risk I was taking by letting him in. If caught, father would kill me. Not literally, but he’d make me wish I were dead.
Jack climbed in, stretching his long arms up until his hands touched my ceiling and his stomach was exposed under his shirt. Then, just as suddenly, he crouched down and sat next to me on my tiny window seat. His blue eyes were smiling at me with the thrill of finally entering my little isolated prison, his brown curls falling into them.
“This isn’t much better,” he laughed silently, getting up to sit on my bed. He lightly patted the seat next to him, each motion exaggerated with caution.
“You’re ridiculous. Are you trying to drive me insane?”
“Is it working?” he said with a smirk. I don’t remember when the smirk made its first appearance, but it’s been his signature these days, and my weakness.
I sat next to him apprehensively, as he sprawled out on my bed.
“I must really be seducing you,” he joked, making one of his silliest faces, which I had grown to know and love.
“You wish,” I breathed, staring at my door, deciding whether or not to lock it.
“I do,” he continued.
“Sure,” I said absentmindedly.
“Ivy, you’re okay. You’re dad’s not going to come in. Everything is fine. As long as I’m with you, nothing bad will hurt you ” he said, sitting up and placing his hand on my knee in an act of comfort. His skin touching my skin, I was momentarily distracted from my worrying.
“And, of course, I got you a little something,” he said, reaching inside his unzipped jacket, pulling out a tiny red book. “It’s a diary. I know there are a lot of things you don’t want to tell me, so I figured you should have someone to complain to.”
My eyes felt the familiar threat of tears, so I looked right toward the beautiful little journal. Velvet and soft with intricate golden designs, it was perfect.
“Thank you,” I whispered, unsure of what else to say.
He smiled, and we fell back into silent whispers.
After this, he was a regular in my humble tower. Coming at sundown and leaving before sunrise, we devised a safe routine. The only one I shared this secret with was my diary. I began to write everything in there, whether it be about my little adventures with Jack or my daily horrors, which I hid from him when I could.
Everything was going so well for me. Father hadn’t hit me in weeks, I finished all of my housework, and Jack came religiously to my window each night. But then it wasn’t.
“Dad, did you do something with the laundry detergent?” I called from downstairs. He didn’t respond.
I walked upstairs, clothes still in hand, ready to ask him again. “Dad?” I called again. Not in his room, not downstairs, not in the bathroom. My heart began to race. I slowly walked to my room, and all my fears were realized when I came in to him staring straight at me, my diary in hand. Immediately, the clothes fell to the floor. My little blue room never looked so menacing.
“What the hell is this supposed to be? You writing a story or something, because I know that you would never disobey me like this,” he seethed.
“Dad, I-“
“You little slut. How DARE you!” he gaped at me in disbelief. “If you think you’ll ever see this boy again, you’re funny. And if you think you’re stayin in this house, you’re just plain dumb. You’re out, Ivy. You’re a sin; you’re a disgrace to me, yourself, and your mother! You think she would still love you if she knew what her daughter was doing? Sneaking behind her back and sleeping with the boy next door? You’re a goddamn burden. You always have been, and you always will be.”
Unable to form words, I just gaped back at his exasperated expression.
He slowly approached me until he was inches from my face, so I could see every bead of sweat on his red face, every gray hair on his balding head, and every emotion flash through his gray eyes. Then, with all of his might, he struck me with my own diary, sending me flying towards the ground, and stormed out.
He kept his word on his threats. As soon as the next day, he had me packing my bags for his cousin’s house in Wyoming. Supposedly he was a religious radical and would “straighten out this godforsaken, tainted disgrace of a daughter”.
All I could think about was that I didn’t get to say goodbye to Jack, or even to explain it to him. The truth is, I loved him. I loved since I was that little six-year old girl crying in the window.
This new home made my old one seem like paradise. I was monitored all hours of the day, and although I did get to go out, it was only down to the church, where George, the cousin, would gossip with the other members of how I’m a devil-worshipper and was surely going to hell, bringing everyone I could down with me. I was fed twice a day, and I was expected to work on his farm at all hours. A month in, I grew so weary all of the time, until that weariness turned to me vomiting in the mornings and feeling nauseous all the time. Then it occurred to me. Oh God, why it had to happen to me, I don’t know. But a year later, I would realize that the pregnancy was my saving grace.
_____
This familiar face mirrored my shocked expression. Where I probably looked almost exactly the same, he had matured years. Towering over me, I stared into the eyes that matched Grace’s blue. I watched them travel from me to Grace and change to a different kind of surprise.
“Ivy,” Jack marveled. “Who…” his eyes going back her.
“This is Grace. She’s almost twelve months, now.” I saw him doing the mental calculations and his fears were realized. “I know, Jack. I’m sorry. If I could have contacted you, I would have. You don’t have to-”
“Grace… She’s amazing.”
Now I was confused. He thought she was amazing? My heart started racing. “She’s…she’s ours.”
With that, his eyes welled up and he unleashed the smile I’d dreamt about for the last twenty-one months. Then Grace let out her tiny yelp.
“Can I…?” he asked eagerly.
“Of course,” I smiled, handing her off to her father. Jack looked at her tenderly, his arms cradling her as if she were made of glass. Her eyes blinked open and focused on him, causing him to gasp faintly. His head whipped around to look at me, dumbfounded. I nodded encouragingly.

Jack waved his hand and she copied the motion. They played like this all afternoon, Jack never growing bored of her. Eventually her yawn turned into a soft snore, and he tucked her into her crib.

“I have something for you,” he whispered, reaching his hand into his hand into his jacket the same way he did so long ago, and pulled out the same red book, only this time it was faded with age.

“You didn’t read it, did you?”

“Ivy, why did you ever stay in this house? Why did you cover it up? I should have known. It was staring me in the face all that time!”

“Jack, it wasn’t your fault.”

“I could have helped you, Ivy. I could have saved you from all of those horrible things he did to you. You could have had the life you deserved.”

Jack discovering my secret shouldn’t have felt like this. When a weight is lifted from your shoulders, you’re supposed to feel free, but my whole body was an anchor, dragging me down. My eyes burned and my lip shook, causing him to wrap his arms around me like he used to. Here in his arms, I could pretend that none of this had ever happened. Suddenly, he felt his broad frame shaking and his warm breath at my neck. “I’m so sorry.” For the first time since the news of my father’s death, I let out all of the pain trapped inside of me. We held each other in my room until the windows were completely black with the night sky.

“I won’t let anything like that happen to you again, Ivy. I mean it. And it will never happen to Grace, either. You’re going to have a wonderful life, and I can make sure of it if you’ll let me.”

Of course, I let him. For the first time since I’d known Jack, I finally let him. And he has kept his word to this day.