Free The Edge of Normal by Carla Norton Page B

grip. What’s the worst that can happen? The kid won’t like you? You’ll make her cry?
    As the highway dips and turns west, they cross a long bridge. She stares out at the unfamiliar territory, the wide river that runs through town like a blue vein. What the hell was she thinking? It’s not like she has an obligation to be here. It’s not like she’s a card-carrying member of the Pay-It-Forward Society of Kidnapping Survivors.
    Nick Hudson tries to engage her in conversation, but she feigns trouble hearing, then pretends to like a country song on the radio, asking him to turn it up. She searches the mournful lyrics for meaning while they wheel through a residential neighborhood, where trees shed crimson leaves and early Christmas decorations line rooftops, sprawl across lawns, and crowd porches.
    The moment they turn onto the Cavanaughs’ street, she spots the TV vans. “Oh, crap!”
    “Sorry about the welcoming committee. You might want to scrunch down,” Hudson suggests, but she is already slipping out of her shoulder harness and gluing herself to the seat.
    The vehicle slows as they approach a gate. She hears car doors slamming around them and voices calling out Dr. Lerner’s name, begging for comments. Hudson keeps the tinted windows rolled up tight while Dr. Lerner calls the Cavanaughs on his cell phone, announcing their arrival.
    She shuts her eyes. As the vehicle eases forward, past the clot of reporters and through the iron gates, she clamps down on the swelling apprehension that coming here was a mistake.
    *   *   *
    Tilly’s eyes fix on Reeve from the moment they’re introduced. She’s a wisp of a girl with long wheat-colored hair and a pixie face. She wears a serious, unflinching expression, but looks younger than thirteen in her pink flannel pajamas and fuzzy blue socks.
    Mrs. Cavanaugh offers coffee, but Deputy Hudson is the only one who accepts, politely adding that he’ll take it in the kitchen, “so the rest of you can talk.”
    They sit in a pleasant room with high ceilings and logs flickering in the fireplace. The air is fragrant with the fresh, piney aroma of a tall Christmas tree, which stands unadorned in one corner of the room. Except for several unopened boxes of lights and ornaments, the décor is unseasonal and nearly bland, apart from several colorful oil paintings that appear to be the work of the same artist.
    Tilly perches on the sofa with her parents, looking very small between Gordon and Shirley Cavanaugh, who are both tall and big-boned. An assortment of sweets sits untouched on the coffee table that stands between the sofa and the overstuffed chairs occupied by Dr. Lerner and Reeve.
    “We’re so grateful you decided to come,” Mrs. Cavanaugh says. Her face looks damp, but her expression seems warm and open. She keeps one hand on Tilly’s knee, as if reassuring herself that her daughter is really home, and this small shared intimacy brings Reeve a stab of longing. She recalls being in exactly that spot. The memory swims behind her eyes.
    Mr. Cavanaugh apologizes that their son can’t meet them because he’s out with friends. After a few more polite comments, Reeve realizes that everyone is waiting for her to speak. The room suddenly seems overheated. Pinching the numb patch on her left hand, she licks her lips and begins, “I’m not sure how much help I can be, really, but I know a lot about what you’re going through.”
    She meets the eyes of the family assembled around her and describes what comes to mind: the comfort and strangeness of being home again with her parents. The shock of seeing her older sister as an adult. The hollow realization of how much she had missed.
    At first, she says, she wrestled with an absurd concern for her captor’s welfare and worried that she would be punished, or that she would be blamed.
    Tilly holds her with a steady gaze, and Reeve recognizes herself in those eyes.
    Her story pours out. She describes the unreal quality of the