Free Taken by Dee Henderson

looking back at the article, “her brother is running for governor. He’s spoken often about his missing sister.”
    “That’s the family. She’ll have some unique challenges simply returning home.”
    Charlotte reread the article before folding it carefully and offering it back. Ann looked at her friend, and took a big risk. “Would you be willing to meet with her?” she asked carefully.
    Bryce shifted, leaned forward, clearly not liking the question. Ann kept her focus on Charlotte.
    Her friend took a long breath, gave an obviously forced shrug. “I’m not a counselor, Ann. There must be others—”
    “I think it might help her to know you’ve now got a worthwhile profession you love, that you’re married to a good man, that you have friends around you who you can trust. She needs to see hope —to see what her future can be once the pieces get fit back together. It’s going to be a rough couple of months coming up for her. I think it might help her to meet you, to speak with you.”
    “Ann—” Bryce tried to intervene.
    She shook her head, not disagreeing with his concern but wanting to make her case as best she could. She kept her focuson Charlotte. “I’m not asking you to tell Shannon details of what you went through, but of your life now, and how it’s going with you and Bryce. You love him. He loves you. That’s what you can show her. She needs a friend, someone who can understand her and what she’s been through. That’s all.”
    “Your all is a pretty big word in this context,” Bryce put in.
    “Ann . . .” Charlotte struggled to find words.
    “I will understand if you want to say no, Charlotte. This is going to be raw pain for her for quite some time, and it likely would push memories of your own back to the surface.”
    “It’s not that.” Charlotte slid her fingers through her hair. “She’s going to need . . . a lot of time. A good doctor. A best friend.”
    “Matthew will find the right doctor to help her. I don’t know if there’s a best friend in the picture or if she will have to identify a new one. Eleven years is a long span to bridge.”
    Charlotte bit her lip and turned toward her husband. “Tell me what you’re thinking, Bryce.”
    “I agree she’s going to need a lot of help. I think you and I are both more than ready to help her get that help, be it financially or through influence with medical doctors and psychologists we know. But I’m not sure if you’re the right person to be involved in personally providing that help.”
    Charlotte looked curious. “Because?”
    “You’re at present in a fight with your own memories. I can see the progress you’re making, but we both know every step since our wedding day has been a hard-won fight. You’d be adding her memories on to your own, even if it’s simply listening sympathetically to a few comments she might let slip in an otherwise light conversation. They would reverberate through you in a way they would not with Ann or me. They would feelalive and real and devastating to you because they would echo your own memories. I don’t think you’re ready for something that could possibly be very intense.”
    Charlotte considered him and his words for a long moment. “Maybe it would help me to put my own memories in perspective. You know, try to help someone going through the early stages . . . a way to see for myself how far I have come in this journey,” she said thoughtfully. “I feel the stress of wondering if I’ll ever get better because progress is so slow, maybe all I see is how much there is still yet to recover, and I miss seeing how far I have come. It might be good to have that perspective.”
    “I’m not opposed to you helping, Charlotte,” Bryce responded, laying his hand on hers. “The opposite. I think you’ve got something to offer Shannon that no one else could bring to the table. But when and how that happens—there’s virtue in moving slowly. Six months from now, a year from