There was something healing and soothing about the atmosphere of Chris and Jaylene's place. It was like the air was sweeter even though it was only on the other side of the mountain from my parent's place. I could feel myself healing when I was there. I hadn't told them much about how badly things had ended with Daniel. I kept that as brief as I could. They knew things weren't ideal with my parents, but they didn't say much about that either. I thought for a moment of mentioning what Dad did to me at night...but family loyalty had been pounded into me so thoroughly that I let the thought slip right back into the morass of my thoughts again. Besides, how many times had he told me? If I told anyone, he'd tell them I was crazy. Retarded. Crazy. I might end up in a funny farm. I knew that I was different from other people. Maybe I was crazy...but I knew that I hadn't imagined what he did to me almost every night now. So I didn't voice that thought, talked instead about happier things as we passed the gate to their farm and approached their house.

Jaylene had bought an eggplant while she was in town, and she was making eggplant parmesan, one of my favorite meals. I held their small, scruffy cat in my arms while I watched her cut the eggplant up and bread and fry the slices. Chris came inside and I asked them what we would do if my parents tracked me down here. They discussed a little cabin where they could hide me away. That sounded good to me. Then they said that if they found me there, we would just deal with it. Eliyah couldn't come into the house, and Chris and Jaylene were armed to the teeth in the event of a violent confrontation. Dad usually had the .45 pistol with him, but Chris and Jaylene each had a prominent hand gun holstered to their bodies at all times. After all, just a few months ago, when the goats were kidding, a cougar had snuck into the goat barn as Nutmeg, their most productive doe, was birthing and grabbed the kid and took off with it...even though there were people in the barn. Jaylene had been thrown from her mare when they were confronted on a road by a black bear. Having a gun on hand seemed like an intelligent precaution given how far out they lived in the woods.

So we weren't entirely surprised when Eliyah drove up in the blue Chevy Blazer. What did surprise us was that he didn't come to the door and try to pound it down. He just stood next to the blazer and looked at us. Chris went outside; Dad called out that he just wanted to talk to me. They told me I didn't have to talk to him. But talking to him didn't seem so bad, so I went outside with Chris and stood a ways away. Dad said that my Mom wanted to talk to me. I replied that this was fine. I would be happy to talk to her. She was welcome to come here and talk to me. I turned to walk back into the house. But then he said that she was really upset; there was something she wanted to tell me. If I would just come talk to her..... I told him he would have to bring me back before supper, because I really wanted to be back in time for the eggplant parmesan. He promised that he would have me back for supper. Chris turned and walked back to the house and I got into the blazer. I didn't have much to say to Eliyah.

When I got back to Mom's house, I went in to talk to her. She wanted to know why I went to Chris and Jaylene's. They were afraid that Chris had designs on seducing me. Now that was a rich joke! I told them that Chris and Jaylene had offered me a job, I was 18, and I intended to take the job and live and work there. I was fine, and no, Chris hadn't tried to seduce me (of all the ridiculous things)! Didn't they get that my heart was for Daniel and now that he was out of the question, no one else was going to substitute for him?? The conversation over, I stood and declared that I was ready to go back now; I didn't want to miss supper. And that's when Eliyah said I wasn't going anywhere.