The Kidnapper's Wife

10. After

I literally hang up on my mother. I feel bad but, I just can't hear all the details of Connor's life right now. It dredges up emotions I'm not ready to deal with.

My mother says I need to go see a therapist, to work through the issues this whole situation has undoubtedly left me with, but I've been dragging my feet about it. To be honest, I just want to live in the safe world I've created for myself. I want to pretend that I'm fine and bury the feelings deep down where I can't see them. It's easier that way.

But my mom read some article that said if you don't let your feelings out they sit inside you and cause cancer, and ever since she's been adamant about the therapist thing. So I keep telling her I'll go and then conveniently forgetting to make the appointment. I know pretty soon she'll just make one for me, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

It's only 10am, but I took the day off for the doctor's appointment and I plan to waste it accordingly. I walk over to my office, aka the kitchen table. Even though I could take over Connor's office now, I haven't set foot in the place since he left. Well, that's a lie. I did set foot there once, right after. I was searching for answers. And I didn't find any. Not there.

I have found answers though. A lot of them. And that's what I plan on doing today, research. Because as much as I pretend that I'm fine and I've moved on to my friends. It's all a lie, I'm completely fixated on how I could possibly have been married to someone who would do something like what Connor has done. How could I not even see a hint of it coming. How could I be so in the dark?

These are the questions that haunt me at night. Could I have stopped it? Should I have seen this coming? Most of the time, I answer those questions in the affirmative. I knew his relationship with Anna was unhealthy. True, I didn't know exactly how unhealthy it was, but I knew something was off. But I still let him talk me into thinking it was all okay. Into thinking it was normal. And I just can't forgive myself for that.

Because regardless of who Anna was, what she did outside of her time with us, or anything else, at the end of the day, a fourteen year old girl doesn't deserve to be taken in by her tutor. That's just not right. And I witnessed it happening and did nothing to help.

So everyday, I feel guilty for what Connor did. Even though I had no idea what was happening, I feel responsible. And so I research, I think I research to help me feel better. I keep thinking that if I just uncover that one final truth about Connor, it will vindicate me from the guilt. It will make me see that I couldn't have stopped it, that it was all going to happen whether or not I was part of the picture.

So far, I've found out a lot. Between what I've learned, and what the police have learned, it turns out that when Connor and I were together, I was only seeing about a tenth of the whole picture. And maybe I should consider myself lucky for that fact, because the whole picture is terrifying. But even after finding out so much more, none of it has helped me feel better.

Connor told me when he met that he was from Connecticut. That's only partially true. Connor actually grew up in a tiny town in Kentucky. He was placed into the foster care system at age ten, after which he bounced from home to home.

After he turned 18, he moved to Nashville, where he sang (something I cannot even begin to imagine him doing) at bars at night and worked as a server during the day. When it became evident that he wasn't country music's next big hit, he began putting himself through college while working as a bartender.

When he graduated, he got a job in Connecticut and lived there for about two years before moving to DC, and then Maryland.

These are facts, informative but not elaborative, mostly things I've dug up from online records. But my research goes deeper than that.

For now though, I respond to some emails and spend some more time digging online, even though I know I've found most of the information that can be gleaned by the internet.

When I finally tire of searching, I move to the couch and switch on the tv. I don't have to worry here, because I've blocked all the news channels. Thank God for parental controls. But still, I have to contend with the likes of Taken, which is streaming on whatever channel I was last watching. I switch it as fast as I can, but not before I see the frightened girl, in a room alone.

I wonder for the millionth time how alone Anna felt during the ordeal. Or if she felt alone at all. After all, the police were clear at press conferences throughout the time Anna was missing that she might be complicit, if not an enthusiastic participant in the crime.

"She may not know she is a victim here, but to be very clear she is a victim. Anna if you are watching this, you are a victim, you are a 14 year old minor and he is a 31 year old tutor." Officer Brown would read out from the podium, memorizing the last part so he could make pleading eye contact with the cameras.

Whenever they said that I wanted to correct them. Thirty two, I always thought. Connor is thirty two. After all, he had just had a birthday.