Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

While everyone else unanimously agrees that their manager seems to have a thirst for blood, Anthony disagrees ; clearly, the man just needs a friend. And he intends to be that friend for him. 

Progress has been, for the lack of a better term, slow . But he’s learned all kinds of patience. Not to be overly confident, but when Anthony sets his mind to something, he can accomplish it in no time. His mother taught him how to wait his turn and to treat other people with kindness. Johanna taught him about how scared people can be and how he can rub their back or whisper comforting things to them. If he learns something new from his manager, then all the better! Think about how many more people he can help that way. 

No matter how quickly he rearranges set-ups, his manager barely acknowledges it with a grunt. His window displays are done with the utmost precision and his manager shoves a broom at him. Not that it’s a bad thing. Anthony is here to work , after all. Sometimes he demands that he cleans the men’s facilities and he does! Even if it’s not his job. 

The only reason Anthony needs to rearrange the books to Waterstone’s “Bestsellers in front with a few classics splashed in” policy is because he lets Johanna make her out little setups sometimes. She understands it when he has to put them back to as-before. On occasion, she’s helped him with it before sneaking off back to her flat, but it doesn’t make Anthony any less deflated when they have to put them away. Not that he would dare tell his manager, but Johanna treats book arrangement as an art and she creates masterpieces. 

Tonight he’s already cleaned the men’s facilities. The books are in their proper places. His co-workers are grinning at him over the pack of Digestives he brought in. Maybe later, he’ll try asking them again about why their manager is always in such a foul mood when he works at a bookstore . Before working here, Johanna always talked about how lovely employees who work with books are. If he got to the bottom of it, Anthony might even figure out a way to help him love his job. Everyone deserves a job they love. 

When the backdoor’s nob jiggles along with the sound of keys, Anthony preps himself into position: holding a book up to a shelf to place it there. The box at his feet is mostly empty. It’s nearly eight and he won’t say a thing about him not coming in all day when he was supposed to. 

His manager wears a crusty frown as he enters. Anthony pushes the book’s spine into place before picking up another copy. When he senses that his manager is close, he glances over his shoulder. 

“Mr. Tanner! I’m just about done–”

“There’s nobody in here,” Mr. Tanner interrupts. Anthony glances his shoulder. The shop does seem to be empty, but are they certain? He would hate to lock anyone inside– “We’re ten minutes to closing anyway,” Mr. Tanner continues and Anthony decides he must have looked when his back was turned. “ Just close up. I’m done here.”

Well, there’s always next time, Anthony tells himself. His co-workers seem happy at least, as they stuff loose objects into purses or backpacks. He reminds Gina in a whisper to keep her phone out of her back pocket when she’s out in the city. Soon, all of them are out the door, thanking him for locking up–which he hadn’t technically volunteered to do, but he was happy to anyway. Seven minutes to eight, he has the key in his hands.

Six minutes to eight, there’s a man pushing open the door. Anthony beams and gestures for him to pull. 

The man frantically runs into the store. Anthony slides the key into his front jean pocket. Well, they don’t technically close for another five minutes. Who is he to deprive a book lover of the sequel they desperately need? If someone slammed the door closed on Johanna’s face before she could get the book she wanted, she would be devastated . 

Anthony casually makes his way back to the checkout desk, reawakening the computer and stretching out his fingers. The man practically runs to the desk. Anthony smiles again. 

“Where’s your legal section? Or the–family section?” 

“Both will probably be on floor one,” Anthony says, “Behind fiction. You’ll find family first. They’re arranged alphabetically.” 

Even before he applied, he’d memorized the layouts of about every Waterstone’s in the area. Bringing her to any bookstore made Johanna twirl her hair and go off on little rambles as she was unable to contain her excitement. He would cross the ocean just to see her smile. The least he could do was take her to see books. She showed him all of them. Young Adult and children’s in the basement. Bestsellers and hardcover fiction with a few classics sprinkled in when someone first enters the store. Fiction A-Z on the first story and some non-fiction–

The man darts away again without a word. 

Though tempted to get out his phone, Anthony waits for him. Mr. Tanner wouldn’t like it much if he knew his employee was scrolling through missed texts when a customer could witness that. Instead, his gaze wanders out the window, beyond the display centered around Victor Hugo’s daughter, to the streets of London. He’d looked out for Johanna a few hours ago as she headed towards the library. It upsets him more than he’d care to admit when he can’t walk her back home. Even if she requested that he drop her off a few blocks away. He always watched to make sure she got in through the door alright. It’s not like he can call her either. Tomorrow, Anthony will greet her at school at their usual spot and he’ll ask her if she got home alright and how the library was. 

He hopes the Fogg’s aren’t bad tonight.

He hopes she sleeps. 

Five books slam down in front of him. Jerking his attention away from the window, Anthony begins scanning each title. 

Seven Core Issues in Adoption and Permanency by Allison Maxon. The Primal Wound by Nancy Verrier. Three Little Words by Ashley Rhodes-Courter. Annulment and Adoption by Christine Fry. Understanding the English Courtroom by Rich Richmond. 

Usually, Anthony is stationed in the front or near the fiction sections. His co-workers tell him that he’s the nicest out of all of them. The best for customers to be greeted by. He isn’t sure if he is–all of them are quite lovely people, too. But it isn’t difficult to catch onto the general theme of his selection. 

No wonder this man is so frantic. He’s adopting . 

Smile grows into a grin and Anthony has to stop himself from reaching around the desk and embracing the man. His beard looks like one of a father, yes, and he has grays. Has he and his partner been trying for a baby for so long but it hasn’t worked out so they’ve realized their real mission in life is to adopt? Or maybe, he never got around to settling down, but it doesn’t cease his ache for a child. Either way, it makes a beautiful story. Anthony can easily see this stranger holding an infant or teaching a toddler how to walk. 

Anthony immediately likes him. 

“Congratulations, sir!” he exclaims as he stacks them into a paper bag. He grins even wider as he passes it over to him. “And good luck! I’m sure it’ll go amazingly!” 

The customer takes the bag with a crooked brow. Anthony nods, assuring him of his decision. It’s the right one to make, that he’s sure of. 

As the man leaves and Anthony can finally lock up, he hopes that he’ll come back. He can lay out a few books on parenting for him and maybe if they become close enough, he’ll tell him about the kid he adopted. 

Anthony stuffs his hands in his pockets and begins home, content with how giving and beautiful humanity is. 

White-knuckle grip on the bag, he moves throughout the city like a thief. Nothing belongs to you , chants in his head over and over again when he’s on the tube. Not the clothes on his back. Not his bed. Not even a bar of soap.

As his station is announced, he feels stares on his back as he exits the train. He doesn’t check to see if they actually are looking. London is a dangerous city. Another, bigger prison. This city isn’t somewhere he and a group of men can ban together and riot until so-called superiors realize their mistakes. There are no bars to rattle. No fellow jumpsuits to nod at. No one on the outside is looking in as they tell their own stories. 

His Majesty’s Prison Service was hell. London isn’t much better. 

It isn’t until he’s inside his flat that he feels safe enough to look at the books. Benjamin made his choices quickly and without a second glance, as if afraid someone might rip them out of his hands. There weren’t many titles about annulling an adoption. Which, he realizes now, shouldn’t have been terribly surprising. 

He opens the first book. With half a thought that Lucy would have been disappointed in him for cracking the spine, he begins reading. 

(Lucy would’ve spoken to the lawyer for him. Lucy came once. Lucy tried to reach for his hand. They yelled. Lucy promised to fix this. Lucy was going to kiss him as soon as she could.)

His lips are dry. 

He flips to the chapter on legalities. Surely, annulling an adoption is just like adopting his child back. 

Benjamin scowls at the thought. It’s been haunting him ever since he learned what happened to Johanna. Adopting her back. His daughter is exactly that: his daughter . 

That ugly festering couldn’t stay locked up in his chest for long. There’s a bitter taste in his mouth from the judicial system, but he could sacrifice having a few conversations if it means getting his daughter back. 

Mostly, Benjamin sat upright in his chair, as if he was being served dinner in the cafeteria and the other prisoners were sneaking glances at him and his plate. Slightly bent, ready to fight. 

He wondered why the pictures his lawyer has on his desk are turned towards him. 

They were facing the lawyer the first time he was there. Today, he could see the smiling faces of kids and a dog. 

“Well,” Brian Hammond said. His chair squeaked as he turned to face Benjamin. “We’ve gotten you this far. These kinds of cases don’t pop up all that often, but we might as well try, agreed?” 

Benjamin’s teeth gritted together, like a bear preparing to lunge at a deer. “I’m getting her back.” 

Mr. Hammond’s eyes peered at the corner of his computer screen. “Like I said, we’ll try.” He went on to type something. Look at something. Benjamin hoped it was relevant to the case and he wasn’t looking at something that would destroy his family and marriage. Those pictures weren’t facing him anymore . “You seem to be the perfect contender for this sort of case. There was a serious error of law with her adoption, the adoption procedures weren’t followed correctly, birth parent’s consent–” 

Benjamin stood. Even sitting, he was taller than Mr. Hammond, but standing turns him more into the predator: I’m in control . He was not the prey. None of his fellow inmates sat during the riot. Despite the pact that none of them got hurt, they never forget who they were surrounded by. They never forget all the mocking from the guards. They had the upper-hand. They weren’t afraid to sneer and show it.  

“ Contender? My daughter was taken away from me fifteen years ago and you’re just calling me a contender? This isn’t one of your lawsuits, Hammond, this is my daughter and–” 

“--Birth parents consent not given, illegal-slash-unlawful adoption, adoptive parent failed a welfare need, the list goes on.” Mr. Hammond looked up, as if just then realizing his client’s new position. “I’m telling you that you’ve got a good case on your hands. You're welcome.” 

“Then why didn’t you tell me that? ” Benjamin snapped, “Instead you called me a contender and went through–” 

“Look, my youngest is around the same age. I would feel the same way if I was in the same boat. Sit down, Mr. Barker. Let’s behave like gentlemen.”

He didn’t sit. He could see a crumpled art project in Hammond’s bin. There was the figure of what he assumed to be Hammond and another of a girl next to him. She could be his daughter’s age. 

When Hammond looked back from his screen, he glanced Benjamin over twice and shrugged. “We’ll need to proceed with the social worker assigned to your case. Obviously. You’ve met Mrs. Wilson?” 

“We made an appointment for me to see my daughter.” 

“Over the phone?”

“Yes.” 

Mr. Hammond tapped at his down key several times. Benjamin made a fist to stop himself from ripping that monitor away from him. “I’ll give her a call, too, to get this thing all sorted. Do you know where your daughter is now?”

Innocent or not, a convict still wore orange for the majority of fifteen years. He still threw a few punches. He still spat blood into a small sink. His survival depended on it. Innocent or not, no one tells him anything. 

“I’m seeing her on the thirteenth.”

Mr. Hammond narrowed his eyes. “Mrs. Wilson?”

“My daughter.” 

“I see.” Hammond sat back and clasped his hands over his round belly. “Is that all you know? You don’t know where they’re keeping her?”

“No one’s told me anything.”

“Hmm.” 

They sat in silence. 

“Hmm,” the lawyer mumbled again, breaking the silence, “She was removed from Phillip Turpin’s care and placed under the custody of a group home. Her foster parents are… Jonas and Ann Fogg.” 

Jonas and Ann Fogg.

Benjamin hated them.

Why shouldn’t he? He got out of prison. The judge was arrested. His daughter should be his instead. Not staying with complete strangers. There shouldn’t be this entire process. She should have been waiting for him when he was released. He should have gotten to greet her with an embrace and close his eyes, knowing that he had his girl in his arms again. The way it always should have been. 

“Where do they live?” 

Mr. Hammond looked at him from over his glasses. The same way the judge looked at him before locking him away for a decade and a half on a false charge. (Is he about to do it again? Sentence him to life without his daughter?) “I’m not authorized to give you that information.” 

Why did Benjamin have the feeling that he made that up?

Was he jealous of the efforts he was going through to get his own daughter back? While Hammond threw his daughter’s art work away and dedicated himself to–what? porn? online gambling? Is he envious of his devotion as a father? 

Benjamin finally sat back down. Fine. The first and last names of these so-called parents could be enough to get by anyway. 

“In the meantime, we are done here.” Hammond glanced at his screen once more before turning it off. “Good day, Mr. Barker.” 

“We’re done here? We haven’t even gotten started!”

“Lunch break.” Hammond grabbed his jacket from its place draped over the seat. “This was just a consultation meeting, so I could figure out if I should waste my time or not. You can schedule our next appointment with my secretary.” 

The lawyer wasn’t any help. And now, the books in front of him aren’t proving to be any either. He’s tempted to throw the one in his hands. Why is there a whole chapter about consoling the “birth parent” when there isn’t one about the so-called “birth parent” ( real parent, he tells himself) getting their kid back? 

An image of the judge reading one of these as his daughter wobbled on unsteady knees in the other room pops into his mind. 

He settles for slamming the book on his kitchen table, making the legs of it wobble. 

Benjamin grabs another from the pile. It’s getting late, but instead of taking it to bed, he wanders. 

The flat isn’t much, but slowly, it’s become home. Nowhere will ever be their flat on Fleet Street. He can’t go back if he’s not greeted by Lucy’s laughter, like he was when he got home from class. A mindless, yet alright-enough salary job as a carpenter has gotten him this far. There’s a sofa that’s been broken-in a few meters away. A coffee table that he plans on keeping fresh flowers on once he finds out what his daughter’s favorite is. A practical kitchen. The two bedrooms: one with nothing but a bed and dresser for him and then, there’s her room. 

His daughter will be able to change anything she wants, of course. This is just a starting point. A pink bedspread that reminds him of her Easter outfit that Lucy made for her. A small bookshelf with room for her to stack her favorites onto. Baby pictures with delicate frames on the walls. And his favorite item from the second-hand store: a graceful white vanity against the window. A little old-fashioned, perhaps compared to the other ones he saw, but Benjamin fell in love at first glance. His daughter would sit there, brushing her hair and talking on the cell with a friend. Just like he remembers Lucy doing at her vanity. 

He has his eyes on rosebud wallpaper for when they get a landlord that will allow them to put it up. The white walls remind him of a cell. There aren’t bars and a key for his daughter; just the first taste of freedom. 

For both of them. 

Benjamin finds himself settling down on the bed with another one of the books in his hands. If he squints, he can pretend that life is going the way it was supposed to go and he’s reading a bedtime story to her. 

London isn’t known for tropical, bright days. Early Januarys cause one to feel brisk just by looking out a window at the city. Her now hour-long commute between the house and school don’t help her feel any more comfortable.  

However, the end truly is the worst part of the journey. Johanna holds her breath as she passes the sofa with the sprawled-out body of Mrs. Fogg on it. If she wakes the women, she’ll be in as much trouble as most parents punish their children for failing a class. 

She won’t have to step lightly up the stairs in a little while. Johanna places her backpack next to her bed. 

In a few days, she’ll be meeting her father. 

Father. 

The word rings in her ears as she creeps towards the facilities. That’s what her guardian told her to call him once. Father . While she never did or ever even consider him to be anything more informal than “sir” or “guardian,” she imagines him when she hears that word. 

Not whatever stranger is waiting for her. 

She bends to become level with the bath’s faucet (which isn’t terribly difficult for a girl her height), but before she can turn it, she hears,

“Another? You’ll use up all the hot water.” 

Heart stops in her chest. It’s not Mrs. Fogg. Just one of the other foster girls. 

“It’s cold.” Johanna turns her head. “My fingers are half-frozen.” 

Naomi doesn’t seem to believe her fibs anyway. Too much time in the system, she had told her once. It was late at night. Johanna doesn’t think Naomi remembers admitting to that. It’s a quiet shame. She was too afraid to ask further questions. 

Johanna used to be a good liar. The housekeeper was convinced that she spent every afternoon after school at the library–which wasn’t a complete lie–but she met Anthony there. Whether they stayed or not, Mrs. Eastman didn’t have a clue of the places she actually went. Her guardian was completely none the wiser. He still doesn’t know about Anthony. 

Either she is still a good liar and Naomi could be a detective or she’s crumbled in her skill. 

Naomi looks her over with a look that screams “it’s your funeral.” She leaves with a mumble about not waking “Ms. Nurse.” Perhaps, the nickname will make her chuckle one day. For now, it makes her flinch. 

Things hadn’t been as bad until Mrs. Fogg got fired. With no one to blame it on, she selected her target: the foster children. Of course, she was slacking in her job! She has so many children that she’d taken in from the grace of her own heart. Before, Johanna was just trying to avoid her husband when he got home from his practice. Now, it’s a competition between the two of them: who can leave more bruises on their foster children’s skin? 

Johanna doesn’t know any of them very well. It was the day after Christmas when her guardian (not her guardian anymore) was arrested. Her suitcase was already packed. The welfare worker introduced the Fogg’s to her and they showed her their empty room. Johanna always imagined unpacking that bag in Paris with Anthony going over their itinerary on the bed. Instead of checking into a hotel, each of the foster children snuck a glance into the room. Not to get a good look at her; they were looking at the suitcase. Later Johanna realized most of them only had a black trash bag. 

Naomi’s trash bag is already packed, prepared for when she turns eighteen in three weeks. The sky and her bare wallet are her limits. Instead of football or chess club, her extracurricular was looking for roommates and checking newspapers for available flats.

The other two girls are younger than them. Sheree, whose face is covered in acne scars and hair worn in long braids and Mary Jane, who is in her same year at school, but Johanna suspects they rarely talk outside of sharing a room. 

Toby is the only boy. She gets the impression neither of the Foggs are very happy with this arrangement. At fourteen-years-old, he holds an internship and a job. Johanna isn’t sure if either of them are legal. When she tried to point that out to him, he began fidgeting and dismissed it. The next second, he was busily chatting as he adjusted his sock from slipping. 

If she was curious about it, Johanna could ask her biological father if they were planning on having any more children. (And… part of her is . But it isn’t a very polite question, is it? Is it? ) Between the questions she asks about the pie stand Toby works at and conversations about whatever Wikipedia article he read at school, she thinks she’s gotten a taste of being an older sister. She’s glad she’s an only child. That there wasn’t a mysterious brother or sister too. If they weren’t a mystery, she doesn’t know if she could have protected them from her guardian. She couldn’t even protect herself, how could she live unable to protect them? 

She shuts off the faucet. The bath isn’t more than five centimeters filled, but she could hear a door closing with the gentleness one would use when feeding a bird. It’s more than one pair of feet. Sheree and Mary Jane. Still holding her breath, she turns the faucet back. There’s other facilities for them to use if need be or they can wait. No one else hardly uses this one anymore. 

Johanna dreamed again last night. Dream is too pretty a word. She imagines those are the types of fantasies people as good as Anthony see when they rest their heads.

Sometimes Johanna sees memories. The same feeling of a fist squeezing her heart and the same nausea grip at her. Sometimes, the nightmares bring visions of things she’s ever experienced, but claw at her lungs nonetheless.  

There are tear stains on the pillowcase. She never wakes up screaming like she’s heard Mary Jane do. Just a red face when she dares to glance in the mirror and lines under her eyes after not going back to sleep. 

And the feeling of hands. The feeling of dirt. 

Last night, she was fourteen years old again and wearing a nightgown. She saw the blood. The way her hands quivered. She blames it on having seen Anthony so little yesterday. Between him having to make up a test during lunch and work, there were only a few minutes for them in between. Anthony is her constant. Always there to steady her, especially now. Without him, she was falling. 

At 3:46 AM, she started a shower. Six minutes later, she heard Mr. Fogg getting up. Through blind panic, she switched it off and sat completely naked on a towel until she heard footsteps in the master bedroom. There wasn’t time to comb out her hair, yet a few curls escaped her. The drain isn’t too clogged though, she’s sure.

Right?

Hand pauses over the knob lock. 

All she can hear is her guardian’s key slipping into it and closing the door on her. 

Not today. She can try the lock again tomorrow. No one is going to walk in on someone when they’re clearly in the bath .

Her guardian did.

Sometimes Mr. Fogg does, too.

He isn’t home now, Johanna , she tells herself as she slips off her jumper and folds it on the floor. No one is coming-

The door opens. 

She turns the faucet off. 

How didn’t she hear the footsteps?

Mrs. Fogg sighs. Johanna grabs her sweater. 

“Do you think we have a million pounds laying around for our water bill?” Another sigh. Mrs. Fogg comes up behind her, grabbing her by the hair. Johanna doesn’t dare to turn around, but keeps her jumper in the corner of her sight. “Drain it. Jonas said you already showered today. You’re clean enough.” 

She isn’t. Can’t Mrs. Fogg see the dirt in the cracks of her skin?

An airiness fills her head as Johanna reaches into the water and tugs at the drain. The water begins to disappear, but slower than normal. 

It had been too dark earlier to tell if she’d gotten all the hair out. She thought she had, she thought –

Hopefully Mrs. Fogg won’t notice?

Without letting go of her hair, she dives a hand in the water before shrieking and pulling it out. She curses. “That’s hot! Was the plan to burn your skin off?” 

Johanna hadn’t noticed it was that hot. It felt fine to her. 

Mrs. Fogg found her bravery soon enough again and went back in. When her hand comes back, her fingers clutch onto several strands of hair, the same shade as the curls in her other grip. Johanna’s heart sinks to her stomach. She thought –

She’d thought wrong. 

“Was this your plan, too? Were you going to clog it up and waste all of our money on a plummer and–”

The side of the tub nears and before she can cry out, her forehead hits it. 

Her head is dragged on the edge of the tub.

“--Little rich girl–”

And her head is below water. 

Mouth opens as if to scream, but bitter soap-suds and water fills her throat. 

Mrs. Fogg is just upset, she doesn’t know–

She’ll pull her up–

There’s still no air. 

Hands protest against the porcelain, but her fingers are as heavy as a golden cage. Mrs. Fogg shoves her shoulders in after her. 

Arms flail against the porcelain. Help! Help! Help! 

Finally, cold air bites at her cheeks. Eyes stinging, chest burning, she attempts to breathe it in. 

But Mrs. Fogg doesn’t look any happier. 

“You know what?” Her voice rises to a shrill. Despite the water trapped in her ear, it makes her grimace. “Just take the stupid bath. You win .” 

Her guardian did the same thing. Be lazy and read the book instead. Hurt his feelings and stay home from the party. Fine, don’t meet him at the courthouse . 

( Trap! Trap! Trap!)

Mrs. Fogg reaches around her, unclasping her bra. Johanna wraps her arms around her body, trying to keep it in place. 

Mrs. Fogg scowls, moving closer to her ear. “Jonas will like that. He tells me your breasts are better than mine. Let’s see if that’s–”

As she is thrust back into the tub, she is weaponless. Arms preoccupied with keeping her one layer of dignity. Hair tumbling around her. Instead of feeling like her little sense of freedom, her curls become prison bars around her. 

Vision dims. Isn’t there supposed to be a light before someone dies?

Or is that only for those going to Heaven?

Her chin hits the side of the tub. She can feel air. As much as she wants to draw in a deep breath, her mouth feels as if she swallowed a bird and they clawed at her throat to try to escape and her mouth is still drowning. 

Hands are limp before she remembers how scantily clothed she is. It doesn’t take much to encourage Mr. Fogg. Weakly, she spreads her fingers over her chest. 

She cannot see Mrs. Fogg, but feels her push her body onto the ground and knows its her shoe rolling her onto her stomach. She attempts to open her eyes, body strained by two tasks that she can usually do naturally. She coughs. Eyelids flutter. Finally, they open. 

It is Mrs. Fogg’s heel that slams into her back. 

It is her spine filling her body with a sharp pain. 

She feels the heel again. 

Then nothing. 

“ What? ”

It is the roar of a lion. He is more animal than man now, dedicated to protecting his family to clawing a predator’s throat out. At the moment, the welfare worker feels like a predator.  

A prolonged sigh. “ Mis-ter Bar-ker ,” she draws out and he knows that she’s pinching her nose like his mother used to do when he came home past curfew, “I don’t know what to tell you. That’s what her foster mother told me. Your daughter is sick. She’ll miss the appointment. What else do you want?”

“Why can’t we just–?”

“Why can’t we just what ? What could you possibly have in mind? She’s sick. You want to make her worse by dragging her out in the middle of winter and force her to hang out with you? Sounds like the last thing a teenage girl would want. Sick, cold and spending quality time with her father.”

Benjamin’s teeth grit. They won’t be like that. They’ll be just as close as they once were.

He doesn’t think about the fact that the last time he saw her, his daughter was only an infant. 

“When–” Benjamin takes a sharp breath “-when does she want to reschedule for?”

“I don’t know yet. I don’t know about you, but I rather we wait until she isn’t contagious anymore.”

Benjamin would risk any illness if it means spending a second with her. 

“How serious is it? I could go to the Fogg’s instead and–”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Mr. Barker.” Mrs. Wilson snaps her gum. “In this case, it’ll be better for all of us if we’re in a more public setting. Just in case…well…” 

“Just in case what? ” 

Mrs. Wilson sighs as if her accusations were anything but vague. “In case you try to steal her or something. Who knows what you might’ve picked up on when you were in prison. You could’ve been cellmates with a child kidnapper.” 

And he has to force himself not to throw the phone. 

(Deep breaths, deep breaths. Just imagine Lucy is helping him through it. Just imagine he’s talking to his counselor about changing a class instead of talking to a social worker to get his daughter back. That scenario doesn’t exactly help. One is too high-stakes. Just imagine Lucy .) 

“Can I call her?” His voice is no longer one of a predator. It is weak . “Or have you call her? So I can talk to her?”

“She sounded bad, Mr. Barker. I don’t know if she’ll even want to talk.” 

He’s not sure if Mrs. Wilson even spoke to her. And if she had… why didn’t he get to speak to his own daughter? Even for a single word, he would drop everything for her. 

“Tell me the moment they decide to let me see her. The moment . I don’t care if you hang up on them.” 

He can hear an eye-roll in her tone. “Fine. Good–”

He hangs up.

Her chest burns, but it is the feeling of a knife in her back that overwhelms. Nausea bubbles in her stomach, yet she can’t focus on the sensation. Is her spine broken? It can’t be . Wouldn’t that mean she’s dead? Oh, is she dead?

When her eyelids flicker open, she is alone. The room she was assigned to slowly becomes less fuzzy. The broken door of the small closet, the musty duvet and mustier cover, her backpack against the wall. This is her room. This is the Fogg’s house. When she moves her hand, (trying not to cry), her hair is dry. 

It usually takes about two hours for her hair to dry. That means it’s probably the next morning? She glances at the mirror. Looking at the reflection of the sun, it must be. But it’s the sun . Johanna begins to get ready for school hours before its start time. Between styling her hair and the commute, she takes advantage of every second. It must be about eleven AM now. 

And she’s missed school. 

Once she finds a clock, she can figure out how late she is. For now, her focus is being ready for it. 

Her hand slides down the covers and wraps around the sheets as she attempts to sit up. 

One, two, three.

She can’t. 

It’s probably the blanket. Her body suddenly recognizes it as an obstacle. That is, right? She probably hit her head, too, (she can worry about that later). 

Johanna pushes the sheets away with arms that feel like weights. 

She looks down.  She’s wearing the same thing that she was wearing when Mrs. Fogg confronted her. Bra straps barely clinging to her body and all. Her skirt is dry, pushed up to her thighs. Socks are about to slip off her toes. 

Something squirms inside her chest. As much as she tries to tell herself that it’s a relief no one tried to change her, something about this feels wrong. Mr. Fogg hadn’t…Not when she was like that …He wouldn’t …

That doesn’t matter now, Johanna reminds herself. She needs to get up. 

It proves to be a mistake. 

As she tries to pull herself up, the pain flies throughout her limbs, cascading to her fingertips, ending at her toes. Johanna bends over and can’t bring herself to lay back. Curls fall around her face, tickling her back and cheeks. She’s going to be sick. 

Pain eventually subsides. Or, at least transfers itself to around her waist and hips and spine. It never leaves her spine. She can practically hear a clock ticking, even if there isn’t one in this entire house that isn’t digital. It’s fine. She’s already late to school. Someone will be able to call in to explain her absence during her morning classes for her. The first name that comes to mind is Mrs. Fogg. If she wasn’t afraid of it rattling her bones, she would laugh at the prospect. 

If she turns a little, her feet will find the floor. She’ll twist her matted hair into a braid if it can handle that or she can tie it to the nape of her neck. Whatever clean sweater and skirt she finds first will do. 

Mrs. Fogg is usually downstairs at this point on the weekend. Why would she be any different today?  

On the count of three, Johanna swings one foot over the side of the bed. Her torso leans closer to the sheets. One arm reaches for the wall and she grits her teeth. The other is at the same position as the day before, circled around her breasts. Her guardian had a hole in the wall. She’s still trying to find the hole in the wall here. Or perhaps, Mr. Fogg was more fond of secret cameras. Either way, she gets dressed in the closet and has her hiding spots.  

She grunts. The fingers tucked under her arm are shaking underneath. She attempts to move the other foot to no avail. Eyelids squeeze shut. Her teeth sink into her lower lip and she tastes blood. 

The door opens. There’s a small whimper. Johanna knows it has to have been her. 

Mrs. Fogg doesn’t say anything, just pushes her back on the bed. Johanna wonders if that finally cracked her spine. 

When she opens her eyes, all she can see is her guardian. 

Vulture eyes stare down at her as if she is a fresh corpse. His cologne sticks in her throat and his hands are perfectly smooth after throwing a gavel down all day. When he pins her down like this, she knows where his other hand is going. She doesn’t even have the strength to twist her legs together. 

But her vision clears. It’s Mrs. Fogg over her. Not her guardian. 

Then she remembers the bathtub. 

Another whimper. She could feel it this time. A pathetic hum against her lips. 

“You’re on bedrest for a while. Just lay down–” She shoves her hand against her shoulder again to make a point “--Don’t get up. It’s bad. Sleep or whatever. I don’t care. I got medication. Strong stuff. I stole it from the hospital.” 

Mrs. Fogg opens her jaw for her, shoves a pill in and follows it with a slash of water that mostly gets on her face. Swallowing the pill raw distracts her briefly from her back. Another pill before she screws the cap back on and sets the glass of water on the farside of the bedside table. Out of reach. 

“Oh, forgot one thing,” Mrs. Fogg says as she leans against the doorframe, “I canceled your whole meeting or whatever with your father. You’re sick. Got it? You’ll be sick for a long time. I’ve been calling you out of school.” 

“Oh.” If she could, Johanna would wince at how hoarse her voice was. Barely a word and it made her throat sore. “How long will it be?” 

“A long time.” She begins to close the door. “Make sure you heal up. Daddy’s waiting for ya.” 

Mrs. Fogg closed the door. 

Anthony is waiting for her at school. Had he panicked when she wasn’t at their spot? Is he asking around, trying to figure out what happened to her? (She doesn’t want him to worry… but knowing that he is worrying sends a delightful spark through her chest. He really does love her. )

She’ll find a way to call him. Somehow. 

Though, if her back hurts this much just laying down , she doesn’t know how she’s going to manage sneaking around to use a mobile phone. 

Her heart stops as she realizes that it took all of this pain to have a dreamless sleep. Has her reality become a nightmare enough for her mind to give her a break at night? Still, she closes her eyes. 

Benjamin still doesn’t know what happened to most of their things. If they’re in a storage facility, all of it must have been auctioned off by now. Who would pay its rent? Everything of his wife’s is gone. Disappeared to second-hand stores. He doesn’t care much about his items from the past, but he wishes he had at least something of hers. Something for him to see and be able to pretend for a moment that she is still alive. 

And he wishes he could lay one of his daughter’s baby blankets on her bed. His wife made all of them. He can still picture one or two, his favorites. One with lambs playing in a field surrounded by pink trim. The other painted a picture of turtledoves flapping their wings against their sky. The other side of the blanket was…yellow. Yes, the same shade as Lucy’s hair. The same color as their daughter’s, too. He’s sure of it. Benjamin used to hold it up to his face before work just to remember her milky newborn scent before trudging off to class. 

As he strolls through a department store, a similar pattern catches his eye. He picks up a throw blanket. Obviously, not meant for infants, but it has the same exact shades as those old blankets. Yellow, pink, cream. There’s little doves, wings spread, flying over the blanket. 

Already, he can see her wrapped up in it. 

Benjamin buys it without a second thought. He feels like a victorious general as he carefully spreads it across the bed. 

He doesn’t think twice about how he imagined his daughter as a baby in this blanket. 

Laying on her back, she counts the footsteps on the stairs. 

One, two, then a pause. It lasts four seconds before they begin again. Three, four, five. Another pause. Six. A pause before the rest.

That was Mary Jane. When she doesn’t have anyone to help her up the stairs, her limp prevents her from taking more than a few at a time. Something she gathered from observation. Johanna doesn’t ask questions. 

The only reason she knows anything about Toby is because he approached her, rambling about something and wringing his hands with such enthusiasm, she began to fear he would dry his skin to the bone. All of the information about a specific kind of model truck came all at once. He would burst if he didn’t tell someone soon. Though she barely said a word back to him, he started bringing home pies for her from the stand he works at. Johanna hadn’t the heart to tell him that she doesn’t like steak or eel pie (or any kind of meat pie… or that she can’t eat if she wants to be thin). She gave them to Sheree who is always starving. 

Toby’s biggest problem, Johanna thinks, is how ready his heart always is. It works with his brain to fall in love with niche topics and opens his mouth to tell someone he barely knows all about it. Excitement unable to be contained, his heart commands his hands to twist and turn and make his listener wonder if the bones will snap. 

He’s only fourteen. A boy like him can’t survive the foster system. Even she can see that. 

She can hear him now. His footsteps creak among the floorboards. His footsteps are always quick, something he claims he got from work. She wonders if it’s the pie stand or the internship. Or something from before. She can’t imagine anyone hiring a thirteen-year-old . However, he got the job and the internship at fourteen is beyond her. 

The Foggs obviously don’t like him. There are slurs from their lips every time he passes them. Toby just smiles his wide-gaped grin and quickly walks away. 

Once his footsteps have gotten him upstairs, she stops counting them. Her shoulders jolt when he swings the door open and pain ripples throughout. She didn’t need Mrs. Fogg to tell her not to make any sudden movements. 

Johanna is able to lift herself up now. She does soon, covering herself with the sheets to her collarbone. A few days ago, she was able to get out of the now wrinkled skirt and put on the only night clothes she has: a white nightgown that she absolutely hates. A reminder of her guardian that she wears to bed. Sometimes when she glances at the hem, she sees it ripped like that one night all those years ago. She has to trace her fingers over it to remind herself that night is over. 

“Feral parakeets are a’ introduced bird to Great Britain and they breed fast. They–” 

“Parakeets?” her tone hardly ever sounds this hopeful. A smile spreads across her lips. “I love birds.” 

Toby hums and begins to rub his hands together. “I know.” He nears her, closing the door behind him. She winces and wishes he turned the knob instead of just slamming it. “Some of the parakeets escaped from the set of The African Queen and flew through the city.” 

“--Some escaped from a pet shop on Sunbury-on-Thames in 1970.” 

She doesn’t mean to interrupt him, but her smile grows. She memorized every detail of the case of feral parakeets in London when she was eleven, laughing in the library at the bird’s antics and wondering why they would stay in London when they could go anywhere. 

“Yeah!” Toby beams.

“How do you know I love birds?” 

He takes something out of his pocket and places it on the nightstand. Not a pie. It’s an unfamiliar product from what she guesses is from his school’s vending machine. “Cause you look at ‘em. I saw you throwing seeds to pigeons once and no one likes them. You’d have to really like birds to feed the pigeons.” 

“And you’re leaving soon. Aren’t’cha?” 

Johanna blinks. How does he know that? “I haven’t even met… him yet. I don’t know when I’m leaving.” 

“Your dad?” Toby rocks on his heels. “Mine left me.” 

So did mine . But not really. She knows that now. It’s hard to remember that he wants to see her. Wants her to be his daughter.

She doesn’t know how to be a daughter. She doesn’t know how to have a father. 

“I don’t know when I’m leaving,” she repeats.

“I’ll miss you when you’re with your dad. I’ll learn all about the birds.”

A weak smile. Toby is already quivering from the excitement of learning something new. 

An ache hollows out her chest. She’s going to miss him. 

“Thank you for sneaking me Mrs. Fogg’s phone,” she says. “That really… I don’t know how to repay you for it. You risked so much for me.” Her voice catches in her throat. She clears it. Oh, she really would rather not cry right now. “Thank you.” 

Toby shrugs. “It wasn’t too bad. Not as bad as you’d expect and she didn’t wake up or nothin’!” 

“I was able to call… someone very important to me because of how brave you were.”

Anthony had been a mix of relieved heart-throbbingly concerned when he answered. It had been three days without hearing anything from her. Not seeing her at school. No calls until now. Nothing. Was she alright? Had the Fogg’s done something? Was it the judge?  

Johanna dodged his questions with Mrs. Fogg’s excuse that she was sick and had been called out of school for the week. That it was looking like she would miss another. There wasn’t much time, she said then, trying to avoid any concerns about her supposed illness (Anthony knows she doesn’t take the day off even if she happens to catch a cold). He told her he’d nearly gone to the police. She thanked him for not. She wished she could disappear into the phone and kiss him. It’s been terribly long since the last time she’s kissed Anthony. 

“Mrs. Lovett’s expecting me,” Toby says. “That’s a good snack. Eat it. You’re too skinny.” 

A winter wind brushes through her chest. Toby’s head gestures towards the bag he set next to her before leaving and closing the door behind him. Her fingers tap at her collarbone before rubbing against her arm. She isn’t skinny. Not yet. But she can tell that wasn’t a compliment from Toby. Is that the reason for all of the pies? 

She sits, tapping at any place in her body that she can feel bone. It’s comforting to know that there isn’t a huge layer of fat there anymore; that she’s fixing herself up to be an Audrey Hepburn. But she glances at the bag. McVities Mini Cheddars . At least it isn’t a fatty pie. 

Johanna rips the bag open, careful not to spill. She takes a single cracker out and places it on her tongue. 

A tang of cheese. A bit of salt. 

Fat. Sodium. 

She chews, letting herself pay attention to the crumbling sensation. She swallows. 

She puts the bag back.

No. She can’t.

It’s too dangerous to tread that territory. 

What if she doesn’t have any clothes? Should he buy clothes? How is he supposed to shop for a teenage girl? 

Benjamin shoves the closet door open, something he’s been meaning to fix before tomorrow, but tomorrow wasn’t exactly expected. Only a few items dot the shelves. The hanger space is only reserved for exactly that–hangers–for now. There’s another throw blanket that he picked up solely for the fact that it reminds him of another baby blanket. It was one he remembered at the sight of it: dots and doves scattered in nonsensical patterns. More birds. It’s the softest thing he’s ever held. 

Another shelf is stacked with school supplies. He went school supply shopping . Stacks of pens and pencils and even a pack of mechanical pencils. Erasers, binders, tabs, post-it notes, notebooks–he’ll buy her textbooks if she needs them, too. His chest roars with pride. He’s certain she’s the top of her class. 

There’s only one thing on the third shelf: a picture frame. His wife holds their child as she looks into the camera, dazed, exhausted and glowing as if an angel came from Heaven to have tea with her. He leans awkwardly into frame, barely present, but his grin is ever-present. It’s the only picture he could find of them. It’s the only picture he could find of them. He won’t mention that it was that picture that he held onto in prison. No one can notice the creases and how the bottom left corner has fallen off in this frame. 

The tenets a few doors down were moving and they’d sold him a little night stand for fifteen pounds in cash. His daughter already had one, but this one he could jam into the closet to give her a bit more storage space. He still has no idea what she has. 

Exactly. He has no idea. If his daughter comes with the clothes on her back and nothing more, they’ll hit the store. She can pick everything out herself. Not the mother-daughter back to school shopping trip that his wife used to dream up, but it’s the end of January and he can’t imagine they’ll get much closer at the moment.

His phone rings from another room. Technology had changed more in the past decade and a half than he expected it to. Every day, Benjamin learns something new. Most of it, he finds stupid or flat-out hates. 

It’s a race between himself and his shadow to pick it up. When he glances at the number, his face falls. He sends it to voicemail. It’s not another phone call like the one yesterday after all.

That phone call came while he was at work. His crew was either warming their hands with cups of coffee or handing wooden beams to the next guy in line. Hands in his pockets, he supervised the process. The man he’d asked to stick around him in case he needed something translated held a cup to him. 

Benjamin was about to reach for it when his phone vibrated in his back pocket. With a grumbled excuse, he dug it out of his jeans, but mumbling and groaning stopped as soon as he saw the number (but he can’t deny there was a twinge of dread). Without taking his eyes off the construction crew, he answered. 

“Mr. Barker?”

He really hated that social worker’s voice.

He took the coffee and set it down. 

“Yup.” He wished she would get to the point already. 

Someone turned on a drill near him. Benjamin makes sure the man sees his scowl before taking a few steps away. It’s difficult enough to listen to a phone call with everyone shouting around him and wool beneath his yellow hard hat. 

“I just got off the phone with–” 

His chest tightened. Good news? Bad? 

Before Mrs. Wilson could specify what kind of news she had in store, one of the wood beams fell, hitting two men hard enough in the head to knock them down.

Benjamin pressed his phone between his ear and his shoulder like his wife used to do while washing the dishes and ran towards the scene. A quick assess of his workers. Both rubbed at the back of their necks. Other than a bruise here or there, they seem fine.

“Mr. Barker, are you listening?”

“What? Of course-of course. You called me during work.” He grabbed the beam and realized this is a two arms job. He adjusted it to rest between his shoulder blades with half a yard sticking out above his head. 

“Well, you did specifically order me to tell you the moment I have news about when you can see her.” 

Benjamin nearly dropped the board. 

“What? What? I can see her? What did you hear?”

“I just got off the phone with her foster mother. She was back in school today. Seems to be doing better. Whatever the heck she had wiped her out for two weeks, woah. Glad I wasn’t anywhere near that. Anyway, we’re thinking tomorrow at four PM. A little after she gets home from school. Does that work for you or do you have–work?” 

“That works.” It was little more than a whisper. “I’ll take the whole day off.” 

Mrs. Wilson snickered. “Does that not sound like overkill to you? But we’ll be in my office building. Her foster parents will bring her over. You come a little early for us to discuss what is going to happen. Fifteen before the hour will be fine. So you don’t freak out or whatever. You seem like you’d do that. Then we’ll meet the Fogg’s in a conference room. We’ll talk for a little bit all together. Then–” she took a breath and Benjamin wished she would choke on it for making him wait “--We’ll leave you two alone. Bond. I don’t really know what you do in this situation. You’ll have an hour.” 

An hour . An entire hour with his daughter .

The first hour he spent with just him and his daughter was when they were still in the hospital. He looked at her little, white face and kissed every one of her ten fingers and knew that she would have yellow hair just like her mother. The wagers between him and his wife about what color her eyes would turn out to be would come later. The hair was one he would beat tens of thousands of pounds on. He was right and he knew it. 

She was so small back then. A preemie with a blue tint to her skin, but she was full of life . Strength.

“Any questions?” Mrs. Wilson didn’t seem to be very interested in if he did have something to ask.

“You didn’t change your address on me.” Less of a clarifying question. More of a demand.

Mrs. Wilson sighed. “ No , we didn’t just change our address to throw a prank on you. That would be a waste of my time.” 

She hung up before he could. He didn’t care. 

Benjamin’s muscles remembered the weight of the beam before he did. It slipped  down his back and he let it. 

His daughter was coming home. 

Now, Benjamin moves through the flat, opening cupboards and cabinets at random. Everything has to be perfect. He doesn’t possess the same homemaking talents as his wife, yet he can feel her here between the shelves, sitting on the counter, sipping coffee. Dancing.  

Fridge opens. It’s still fully stocked with vegetables, fruits, healthy proteins, sandwich supplies for school lunches. Everything a young girl needs. He opens the freezer. More of the same, just with small, dissolvable pieces of ice decorating the boxes. A few cartons of ice cream hide in between. He wants his daughter to be healthy–yes, but a scoop here and there can’t do any harm. Besides, he’d missed fudge brownie.

Plenty of cereal in the pantry. Work starts early. He doesn’t know if he’ll be there when she eats breakfast and he doesn’t know if she can cook. He found them on the healthier side of the aisle. But if she tells him she likes the most sugar-packed brand, he’ll get it for her. 

There’s a pack of bottled water at the bottom of the space in case she prefers it to tap.

Benjamin adjusts the pillows on the sofa. The throw pillows were all his wife. She used to tease him for using them to rest his head on and remind him that they’re for decoration, not for sleeping. He retorted that they were pillows . 

He settles himself on the chair, tapping on its arms. For the first time in fifteen years, he’s almost calm. 

Tomorrow, he gets his daughter back.  

The Foggs sit on either side of her like guards making sure the prisoner they’re transferring doesn’t escape. 

She feels like a prisoner. Her sentence is for life. 

Her new jailer is waiting at the Department for Education. Even after all these long weeks, she still has no idea what he looks like. She knows she should put in the slightest bit of effort to imagine it. Other adopted children daydream their biological parents coming back. Johanna’s daydreams are of birds, of growing wings, of flying away from this city. She thinks about Anthony and before he kissed her, how much she wanted him to. She’s never once given a thought about what her father looks like. 

Once, she tried to imagine her mother. The woman is condemned in her guardian’s flat. He told her once that she looks like her. He said her mother was beautiful. 

It couldn’t be both. 

Johanna imagined her as beautiful.Yellow hair and eyes the exact shade of blue she wishes she has instead of the green she’s stuck with. A pretty, freckled face. When she walked, it was with the grace of a swan. She wore blue jeans on her long legs–the kind of trousers other mothers wear–and she wore a fern green blouse with it. Polished, yet someone she could cry to. 

Her father is a shadow. She never wanted a father. She still doesn’t. 

The judge wanted her to call him by the title when she was younger. Something about always it felt off. She never did. He locked her door every night so she couldn’t escape, playing judge and jailer in the household. Those two words dissolved into one; jailer and father exist as the same role. She was less of a ward and more of a convict. She doesn’t know what her crime was. 

The key to her cell has been handed around. Her guardian had them as soon as he signed the adoption papers. They came as an accessory. Those keys were ripped out of his hands the day after Christmas and Mr. Fogg twisted his boney fingers around them. He considered it permission to treat her almost the same way the judge had. Once again, they are forced out of his grip when they give the key to her biological father. Not today, but knowing what this meeting is about, it will be soon.  

Johanna hadn’t known his name until the welfare worker sat her down in her office to tell her the stark truth. Benjamin Barker. She nodded at his name, but it was her mother’s that seized her heart and suffocated it. Lucy Barker . She always imagined it would be something beautiful. It was. She was right. 

She still doesn’t know what she looked like.

She still doesn’t know exactly what happened to her. 

Her father–Benjamin–was convicted of a false crime. Johanna had gotten used to anti-judicial remarks in the weeks leading up to the arrest. One day, she came home from school (Anthony only accompanying her until they got to the park, as they always did), to find an organized protest had taken over Kearney’s Lane. Weaving between the crowd, hunched over to try to disappear, she held her books close to her chest in case someone tried to grab one from her. The next day, there was a newspaper on the dining table. Her guardian was gone, but when she glanced at the front over, there was a large photograph of her trying to come into the building while a crowd swarmed her. As soon as her guardian got back from the courthouse, he moved them to a different flat. 

It was the same day she released her birds from their cage. If she never got to be free, they at least deserved it. 

Try as her guardian did to hide the rioting (over the good name of Turpin), Johanna saw it everywhere. There were articles. There were students stopping her in the hall. Johanna tried not to think about it. What was there to consider? Her guardian got away with whatever he wanted. 

She saw the name Benjamin Barker for the first time in an article. She didn’t read the rest of it nor did she consider the surname and how it matched hers. 

Christmas was the day he was released from prison. She still hadn’t paid attention.

The day after, there was the knock at the door. 

She never expected to see her guardian in handcuffs. 

“-- That’s six-one-O-one-six. See it, say it, sorted.”

Johanna glances at Mr. Fogg. He’s staring at her leg. She pushes her skirt further down. 

There’s a bright pink sign about unwanted sexual touching from strangers in the corner of her eye. 

Sometimes, she wishes there was a sign about unwanted touching from people you know .

Her knee begins bouncing. She holds her hand on it, if just to prevent anyone else from touching her there. 

Mr. Fogg reminded her of her guardian from the beginning. He was younger, but only by fifteen years or so. His hair is graying and his teeth yellow. Perhaps he could be a younger and less-well-off version of her guardian. Two large moles sit centimeters away on the right side of his cheek. They make him look like a mean dog. Where wrinkles have developed on his face only make him look worse. His hands are clean, yet dry. The kind of touch anyone would flinch at. 

His wife paints her nails to match her gray eyes. Scowl marks have been become permanent. Though, Johanna won’t dare to ask why she got fired, sometimes she wonders if it has to due with the fact that she looks like a witch rather than a comforting nurse. Instead of dressing somewhat professionally for a meeting with the welfare worker, she threw on a pair of dark jeans and shoved half of her shirt in it. She wonders if her freckles look sterner or if they just appear that way because of her nature. 

Tax purposes is the only reason she can imagine why they got married. Neither of them seem to like each other much. She can’t imagine them falling for each other. Mr. Fogg is more interested in his younger clients. Mrs. Fogg is a slob. Even after she got fired, she didn’t bother to clean up the house. Before, she said that her job was too demanding to take care of the housekeeping. She continued to play countess and the foster children were her help. 

She left Johanna alone when she showered this morning. During the two weeks of bedrest, the nightmares had gotten worse. She couldn’t run away in real life either. Dreams of being paralyzed dissolved just for her to remember that was her reality too.

She adjusts her hair over a shoulder, catching a whiff of her shampoo as she does. Congratulations, Benjamin Barker, she went through the grueling process of washing her hair for today . The scent of lavender relaxes her muscles somewhat. The tension in her back makes her shoulders hurt. Before the police showed up, the first thing she packed were her hair products. They’re as essential as food or air for her. 

In a few weeks, Johanna will probably be packing them up again to move in with him. 

Another sniff and she runs a hand over it, trying to hide any noticeable halo. 

“Stop shaking your leg,” Mrs. Fogg snaps, “It’s driving me mad.”

She stops. 

Years of criticism and remarks from her guardian has formed her into a suppressed people-pleaser. Wanting everyone to like her, yet being too spiteful. Perhaps, a psychologist like Mr. Fogg would say that contributed to the fact that she doesn’t eat. It bothers her how much she does want Benjamin Barker to be at least a little impressed. Or if not impressed, not disappointed in her. 

Her guardian taught her that everyone else’s opinions of her matters more than her own, especially when it comes to herself. If he wasn’t pleased, then she shouldn’t be either. 

Johanna tried to make herself look as pretty as possible before they left for the tube. The outfit that makes her feel the prettiest (that hides her insecurities the best) is combined with letting most of her hair fall down her back with some of it twisted into a small bun on her head. She wishes she could be a pretty girl, but this fuels her fantasy a little. 

The train announces their station. Mr. Fogg pushes her out of her seat and she catches herself against a pole before running to catch up with them. She’s lucky she didn’t hit her head. 

The walk to the office is in complete silence. She wonders if Mr. Fogg is already mourning the loss of her body. She wonders if Mrs. Fogg is thinking about falling asleep on the sofa.

The carpet can’t have been replaced since the nineties in the conference room. The maroon wallpaper somehow contrasts it and a small window invites in the sun from a too-bright January afternoon. The kind of sunlight that gives London’s citizens hope that spring is coming only for it to snow an hour or two later. 

Hands are folded in front of her. Words are spoken. She hears none of it. Is that buzzing coming from the heating system? Or does she have chronic tinnitus? But as much as she tries to get herself to panic about that–to focus on something else –she feels like a ghost in this room. She doesn’t belong. What does she say?

The door opens. Should she stand? Should she sit?

Johanna stands. 

Shards of panic rip through her, yet she thinks about the door. 

She turns.

There he is. 

There she is. 

He quakes like a man in the presence of God and all he can do is look at her. 

She does have yellow hair.

And it falls past her waist in tight curls. Lucy won their bet: she has her mother’s bright green eyes. She stands with an expression he doesn’t know how to read. (He tries to ignore the horror in her gaze.) Pink lips are parted the same way she did when she was a baby. One model-like hand rests on the back of a chair, the other tugs on a curl. There are small birds embroidered in her blue cardigan and Her blush-pink skirt falls at mid-calf, revealing white leggings and Mary Janes. For a second, she reminds him of a doll. Her skin is even porcelain. She’s short, which he never would have imagined. He stood tall over his wife who was average height. Their daughter seems to be barely a meter and a half. Her skin is porcelain, like a doll. 

His wife’s hair couldn’t hold a curl no matter what iron she tried. The curls on his daughter’s head are from him.

She looks just like her mother. 

She’s perfect. 

Benjamin isn’t a dreamer. He hasn’t been for many years. When he was younger, he and his wife used to dream of a small house in the countryside and a garden. A place to raise their family. Shortly after his arrest, he imagined a guard opening his cell door and nodding. He would run through the halls. His girls would be waiting at the end. He would kiss their heads and squeeze their fingertips. He stopped fantasizing after he realized they were never coming. He would never escape. 

If he shifts, it looks like it’s a halo around his daughter’s head. 

What does he say to an angel? 

“Have a seat, Mr. Barker.”

He takes a step towards his daughter. Her shoulders jerk away. He stops. 

He steps to the side. She still doesn’t relax. Benjamin frowns. Why do her eyes keep darting between him and the door?

Her hand leaves the chair. 

Mrs. Wilson follows him inside and Benjamin is forced to step further into the room to let in her. She’s blabbering about something he doesn’t care about. His daughter is right in front of him. 

She glances back at him.

And then she runs. 

“Johanna!” 

The door slams behind her and she doesn’t think twice as she runs down the hall. There was a small space between him, the welfare worker and the door and she tucked her arms against her chest to make her way through. The elevator dinges as it arrives. She pulls at the door to the stairs instead. They’ll expect her to take the elevator. 

Lungs burn. Back pain roars back to life. Johanna keeps running. 

At the second flight, she slips. The woman climbing the stairs with a laptop and stack of manilla envelopes quirks her brow. Johanna throws her hair back over her shoulder, taking the stairs two at a time. Greater risk she’ll trip again, but it’s the risk of getting caught is worse.

She always wanted to be free. Always daydreamed she would stretch out her wings and take to the sky. This is her chance . 

The door to the lobby is thrown open. Her hands sting. 

Her Oyster Card is in her pocket. Anthony’s flat is four stations away. She’ll pound on the door and he’ll come. He’ll come with her.

They always said they would run away once secondary school was over. They don’t have the luxury of waiting anymore (not that they ever really did, but especially now). They can figure something else out. Education hardly matters when it comes to a lock and a key. 

A man in a suit steps in front of her. She ducks around him. He’s too tall to avoid. 

“And what are you doing, love?” 

She bites back a request not to call her love. 

Again, Johanna steps around him. She reaches for the door. They won’t be able to find her once she’s on the street. The sidewalks are too crowded. The nearest station is just around the corner. Get on the central line, disappear into the crowd, four stops until Anthony. 

Just as her hand hits the glass, someone grabs her wrist. 

She protests against it, clawing at the door. Fingerprints leave a mark where she presses. Fingers form into a fist. She really has become a prisoner, trying to fight back. 

When she turns, she’s staring back at Benjamin Barker’s eyes.

She doesn’t want to be trapped again. 

There’s the welfare worker, the security officer and even both of the Foggs behind him. Her heart falls to the pit of her stomach. A glance back at the window, at the world, at this horrid city that’s kept her trapped her entire life.  

The security guard approaches her, asking a question that she doesn’t understand. She yanks her arm away from him , cradling her wrist with her free hand. When she glances back again, Benjamin Barker is blocking her escape. Already acting like a father, like a warden.

Everything blurs as Johanna follows them back to the office, shoving away Mr. Fogg’s hand on her shoulder. The security guard reaches to her, but decides it’s a bad idea and drops his hand. The elevator door opens. They seat her with her back to the window, table separating her from the door. She glances over her shoulder. The door closes. Benjamin Barker sits across from her. 

They’ve caught the bird in their net and threw her back in the cage.

Chapter Text

He expected an embrace. Although Benjamin doesn’t believe in wishes anymore, he had simply come to expect that. To hold her and cradle her head just like he did when she was an infant. 

Not him having to grab her to prevent her from running away. 

Desperation overtook him as he reached out and yanked with the strength of God. It wasn’t his daughter running away of her own violation, he saw the judge ripping her away from him just as soon as he got her back. He did what he should have fifteen years ago: took her back and ran . He would have kept her safe that way. He’ll keep her safe now. 

He’ll never be able to forget the look on her face when she looked back at him or how it felt like someone had shoved ice down his throat and he could feel it slowly melting in his stomach. She didn’t look at him like he was her father. She looked like she was a new convict, she looked like he used to. 

She grimaces when that male foster pats her on the shoulder. 

“Don’t touch my daughter,” Benjamin snaps. 

Fogg laughs. “Just trying to comfort my girl.”

Benjamin stands, fist forming at his side. 

My girl . 

The security guard leans towards him. For a second, he’s in prison again. Any sudden movements got the guards on his back, despite his fake charge being on the less violent side of the spectrum and the fact he never got up to any trouble. He doesn’t wear a number on his chest anymore, yet they view him as the same framed man. Wilson told him before that people develop bad habits in jail. They can’t be so sure that he was completely in control of himself. She’s lucky he won’t hurt women. If she was a man—

After another beat, he sits back down. Johanna’s eyes have gone wide. Fogg smirks. Benjamin tightens his fist. 

Fearing she would try to run away again, Mrs. Wilson and the security guard took forty-five of their minutes away. They would keep guard outside. Benjamin wonders if they actually were or if it was some psychological attempt at convincing his daughter not to take off again. There isn’t any point to it if she thinks they’ll stop her right away. 

Finally, all of them file through the door. 

It’s just the two of them now. 

His daughter glances at him before looking down at her hands on her lap. He wonders if she picks at threads in her skirt like his wife used to. 

Does he ask her now? None of his books prepared him for the actual reunion. Legal advice, tips that made him feel like an idiot and reminding him to have an open mind and open hands–(which sounded like perverted)–that was all in those pages, but none of them taught him what the first thing he should say to his daughter should be. 

The first thing after fifteen years, that is.

He remembers the first thing he never said to her. Her little body wrapped in a thin, pink blanket and a soft hat on her head. His wife had called him when he was in class. As he patrolled through the halls, she told him that she was in pain and he said that they’re supposed to have a month. It was a rare occasion that she snapped. He apologized. He said he’d come straight home after class. She said that was a good plan. 

Message after message came until his professor interrupted himself to ask what was going on. Everything his wife said made it undeniable: she was in labor. 

Their baby was nearly born at home, just that quick. They hadn’t planned on a natural birth, it just happened. The first time he ever saw their daughter, she was screaming and laying against her mother’s chest.

The first time she was taken away from him was when the nurse scooped her right off of his wife. She was premature, the nurse told them, there were tests needed to be run. 

Benjamin had been in too much shock to follow. All he could do was hold his wife’s hand as they stitched her up and waited for someone to tell them something . 

Years of trying to have a child lead them up to that point. He refused to lose it all right there. 

A miracle, they said. Although there were potential procedures in her future, their baby was as beautiful as a rose and healthy as springtime. His wife cried. His eyes stung. Those tears fell when he held her for the first time. 

“She’s so beautiful,” and “I can’t believe it” were all directed at his wife. Benjamin looked down at the newborn in his arms, admiring her tiny nose and perfect face and spoke to her , 

“You’re just the way I’ve dreamed you were.” 

He proudly called her “mine” and referred to his wife and their daughter as “his girls.” 

(Does he even deserve to look at her now?) 

He says again it now,

“You’re exactly the way I’ve dreamed you.” 

She looks up at him again, shifting away in her seat. If she wants to attempt another escape, he’ll notice. He’ll stop her and she knows this. He was a childless father. He is determined to keep her.

She doesn’t say anything. 

Benjamin sets his hands on the table, releasing his fist. He is not a threat. There is nothing here that can hurt her. People may continue to view him as a guiltless criminal, so be it. This is the same stance he and other prisoners took to prove they weren’t planning anything nefarious. He hopes his daughter understands his meaning. 

I’m not going to hurt you. I love you.

“You look just like your mother.” 

She bristles at that. 

Benjamin leans back. What is he supposed to say? He’s beginning to get the feeling she won’t talk to him no matter what words he uses.  

“I’ve missed you.” 

Three words doesn’t begin to describe the ache. There was a beast trapped in his chest, tearing at cartilage and his heart strings, bumping its head against his spine, destroying him from the inside until he collapsed. He thought of their faces and the animal roared to life. He remembered how his daughter waved her hand as he was dragged away from them and how he broke free of them long enough to reach out…and wave back. There was a promise in that wave. He will come home . 

Did she ever try to imagine what he’s like, the same way he’s dreamed about her? 

The beard is new , he wants to joke, but the words don’t sound. It’s a product of how fast his hair grows and his neglect to shave after being released. His wife used to tease him about growing one.

Your curls are from me . It strikes him again how proud it makes him. Benjamin was an advocate for their kid to look like his wife, even before they conceived. He knew their daughter would be the splitting image of her mother. Yet the fact that she inherited his curls fills his chest with a great strength. She is his daughter. Anyone can tell.

I used to point shooting stars out to you. Do you still stare at them? Does she still make wishes? He used to pretend, on those late nights when he wanted to give his wife a break, that their infant was wishing. Benjamin thought of her whenever a star passed by barred windows. 

I love you . 

They sit in silence. Benjamin, thinking of all the things he wishes he could say. His daughter, looping a curl around her finger. He can’t take his eyes away from her. He’s trying to memorize every part of her face and relate it back to his wife. But he can’t help noticing when her casually playing with her hair becomes more intense. 

The lower part of a curl is tied around the finger, but the rest of her hand clenches around it and tugs. To the point where her head is tilting. 

She’s about to pull her hair out. 

Benjamin reaches over and grabs her hand, ripping it away from her. 

His daughter tears her hand back, looking at him with the same expression that she had when he stopped her from running. Hands slowly fall back to her lap. Why is she shocked he’s trying to stop her from hurting herself? 

“What were you doing?” he asks. 

She bites her lip. “It doesn’t hurt. I can’t feel it.” A beat. “My scalp is numb.” 

She spoke . And her voice sends shockwaves through his veins. Whenever Benjamin imagined her, she had almost the same voice as his wife. His daughter doesn’t sound like either of them. The dialect is different. 

Soft and gentle. Angelic, like a dove. 

Benjamin thought he would get to never hear her voice.

Her expression shifts to confusion as he simply stares at her. Benjamin clears his throat and sits up taller. She can speak. Perhaps, she’ll talk to him now. He’ll learn everything about her life. 

“That’ll make you bleed, even if you don’t feel it.”

Eyes dart to the window behind him. She scans the room again. Is she trying to find another way out?  

“I’m used to it,” she whispers, “It doesn’t bother me.” 

“You shouldn’t be.” 

Something in her shifts. He can’t tell what. 

The door behind him opens. 

“And that was fifteen,” Wilson says, slapping a folder on the table. “Your lawyer has arrived, Mr. Barker, I figured we could get down to business discussing a few legalities while we have Miss Barker here.” 

A court date is arranged. Benjamin promises to drop everything for it. Reminders about protocol are announced. Benjamin makes swears to obey them between clenched teeth. Documents are signed. Benjamin memorizes how his daughter writes her name. She writes in cursive. 

“Just a clarifying question,” Wilson directs her eye contact at the yellow-haired girl, “Do you want to live with your father? Your adoption is already getting annulled. Your other option is to go back into foster care. Your father will have full custody of you until you come of age at eighteen years old. Is that what you want?”

His daughter’s gaze remains on the table as she nods. He hears a soft “yes.” 

Ridiculous question, Benjamin thinks. Of course, she wants him to have her back! She’s his daughter . She’s been living with a monster for most of her life. Why would she choose anything but this? 

He signs his name next to the last little “x.” His daughter signs hers. 

Wilson adjusts the papers back into the folder. “That settles it. We’ll see you all in court on February tenth.” 

The Fogg’s lead his daughter away. He represses the urge to throw his hand in Fogg’s face. Both for the way she quivers as they tear her away and for taking her away from him. 

Benjamin leaves the building whistling. 

He doesn’t have any right to–

Tell her what to do? Touch her hand? 

He’s her father . 

Both sides of the argument are well-practiced. The side the judge invented, the defensive, always at the ready to find a good intention when she feels like she’s covered in mud. An excuse for any action. Then, there’s the prosecutor has been shaped through her own thoughts and experiences. It dreams up song lyrics and picks apart the smallest action, trying to decide if something will actually keep her safe or if the defense is her guardian in her head again. 

Her guardian never stopped her from pulling at her hair. Johanna wasn’t lying, her scalp had gone numb years ago, with how often she pulled at her curls. A coping mechanism. Something to give her hands to do when her thoughts begin running. Anthony was the first person to notice dried blood and gently intertwine their fingers together so she wouldn’t make herself bleed anymore. 

Fathers are like her guardian. Neglectful jailers. 

Why did Benjamin Barker gently pull her hand away? 

He isn’t supposed to do that. 

But– the other side argues – He grabbed her earlier. He didn’t let her run.

Was he supposed to? 

“Huh, it’s you.”

Johanna ignores the voice. There are too many strangers in the world. Too many people who stare on the train. 

“What-ignoring me? Because I left?” 

She looks up then, recognizing the voice. “I haven’t seen you since you did.” 

Naomi leans to a pole next to where Johanna is sitting. “Once a foster kid, never again.” The train stops. She sweeps up the now-unoccupied seat next to Johanna. “Don’t worry. My stop is the one after this. I got the flat.” 

Johanna wishes she knew what flat she was talking about. No one acknowledged her after what happened with the bath. Her back still hurts, but now that she’s able to walk, everyone under the Fogg’s roof feels comfortable looking at her. Toby was the only one who had actually tried. 

“Congratulations.” 

“Yup.” Naomi clicks her tongue. “No one notices how often you shower when you’re out. You must be looking forward to that.” 

Johanna bites the inside of her cheek and doesn’t reply. 

Naomi rambles about something. The train screeches as it makes its way to her stop. No amount of yelling could help her hear, but Naomi doesn’t seem particularly bothered by it. 

“I do hope you get out,” she says as the name of the station is announced. Johanna’s brow narrows. Naomi has never wished her well. If she wasn’t getting on her case for being in the shower so often, she was ignoring her. “And I hope no perverts touch you again.” 

Johanna’s chest is cold as Naomi steps onto the platform. 

How does she know?

Does everyone know? 

No. They can’t. 

Only Anthony knows. Anthony is the only person she’s never told. And ever will . 

It could just be a case of assumption, Johanna tells herself when she runs up the stairs to get to the street. This couldn’t have been the first time Mr. Fogg has hurt a girl. Naomi might be one of his victims. She doesn't know about the judge. She could have just assumed. 

Or, she saw something. 

Either way, Johanna turns on her heel and starts in the other direction. Back into the station. Her Oyster card is scanned again. The light flashes green. People stand around her, all ignoring each other as they’re forced to breathe air thick enough to eat. She gets off at Blackfrairs Station. 

At 186 Fleet Street stands a little pie stand between a church and a newspaper. The scent turns her stomach.

Toby grins when he sees her. 

“You finally came!” he exclaims. She can tell he’s suppressing himself from running through the door and coming to talk. “What can I get for ya?”

Johanna smiles. “I don’t have any money.” 

“Good! There’s a special today! One pie in exchange for one bird fact!”

“Well–” She taps her chin, giving into the illusion that it’s more difficult to think of something than it actually is (at least ten facts came to mind immediately) “--Pigeons recognize human faces.” 

“Woah,” he gasps. 

“Was that an acceptable fact?” 

“I do believe so! What kind do you fancy?” 

She gestures towards the glass case. “Whatever you’d like. I’m not hungry. I’d like you to have mine.” She lifts a finger. “Don’t try to decline! I know how much you love them.” 

Toby isn’t stubborn, especially not as much as she is. He picks out his ideal treat and digs out a paper plate. He takes a bite as soon as the pie is out of the case. 

“Is this the last time I’ll ever see you?” 

The question comes in between bites of steak and dry crust and as nonchalant as bringing up how it’s beginning to rain. Johanna leans back, slightly, as if being accused of something. 

She doesn’t know why she’s surprised. Toby asked her the same question after she came back after the trial where the adoption was annulled. It hasn’t even been ten days between now and then. She hoped he would forget. The last time he asked, she could tell him that she isn’t moving yet. They still had about a week. She doesn’t have an answer for him now. 

“I’d like to see you again,” Johanna says, slowly. Trying to come up with a good answer. “And, tomorrow is Saturday. I’ll see you then. Before.” Before Benjamin Barker comes.

Toby seems satisfied with the answer. At the very least, he nods and finishes the pie. 

She can hear his boss in the back, humming to herself between jabbing a knife into a block of wood. It isn’t a secret that Toby wants to introduce her to him. As much as she wants to make him happy, there have been too many strangers introduced recently. She doesn’t know if she’s ready for another. 

An excuse about needing to get back before dark is mumbled as she turns from the counter. She isn’t going back to the Fogg’s. Her mind is set on Waterstones. Then the library.  

“Johanna?” 

“Yes, Tobias?” 

He wipes flour from the countertop. “Please come visit me.”

“I promise I will.” 

He worries about Johanna walking home in the dark. As optimistic as he is, Anthony has seen enough of the world to have the understanding that isn't always safe, especially for a girl like her. He knows Johanna. He’s determined that no one will hurt her again. 

Especially after she got sick. For two weeks. She still hasn’t told him what happened, but he’s there to wait that time out until she’s ready to. On the off-chance Johanna Barker catches a cold, she drags herself to school anyway. It isn’t like her to feebly accept defeat. (Though, he wishes that she would more often and let herself rest .)

Something happened. Something bad enough to keep her at the Fogg’s house. 

Anthony lingers by the door, watching her yellow curls slowly disappear. Now that she’s away from her guardian, she accepted his offer to borrow his gloves. After much reluctance, but he considers it a win if her hands won’t turn blue. A few months ago, she somehow snuck home while wearing one of his jumpers. He hasn’t seen the jumper since. 

It makes him grin to think that she still has it. 

“Are you taking the customer’s coats for them?” his manager asks. 

“I could!” Anthony turns. “Should I? I could keep them–” 

Mr. Turner rolls his eyes. “They’ll think you’re stealing their wallets.” 

If an employee offered to take his coat when he went somewhere, Anthony would accept with a smile. It would be terribly kind of them to go out of their way for him. 

Instead of becoming a human coat rack, as his manager described, he goes back to the counter. 

He’s read enough to get this job and enjoys it, but most of his knowledge of literature comes from Johanna. It helps him with conversations with eager customers and he’s even been entrusted to give recommendations before. Most of his personal expertise is in the travel section. A customer brings him a book about Manhattan, “I’ve lived there before!” he exclaims and tells them to see the Alice in Wonderland statue in Central Park. A tourist purchases a guide to London, he points them to the nearest tube station. Someone needs a book in their research for an upcoming trip to a Disney Park? Might he suggest an unofficial guide for unbiased opinions? 

After that one customer–the one with a beard that was planning to adopt–he started to look closer at the sections near travel. Family is only a few shelves away. 

A stack of books is pushed onto the desk. Reviving Ophelia 25th Anniversary Edition: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls greats him. Underneath is a plethora of colorful covers with images of teenage girls–laughing, hair in their face, their arms wrapped around their friends. He scans through them before looking at whoever is doing research on the teenage girl. 

Anthony nearly drops his scanner as he recognizes the face. 

“Hey!” Remember me? “How are you?” 

The man stares at him. Brown eyes are intense, exhausted and there’s a flicker of excitement in them. His beard is a little longer today. 

Anthony glances back down at where he’s bagging the books. It’s a girl , he realizes. The bearded man has adopted a teenage girl. Didn’t he read somewhere once that teenagers have a more difficult time getting adopted? He’s giving this girl a new chance. That’s beautiful . He’ll be her father and he’ll take care of her and she’ll get to be loved if she wasn’t before. 

The bearded man takes his bag.

“Congratulations!” Anthony calls as he exits the shop. 

What an excellent father. He’s happy for them both. 

February 20th. 

It’s her birthday. She wonders if anyone knows.  

Between goodbye kisses, Anthony promised to get to school even earlier to see her sooner.. He knows how she feels about gifts, that to her, they feel like a dirty method of seduction. Her guardian sent too many flowers. Johanna kissed him again before mumbling another reminder that she doesn’t want him to spend any money on her. You’ll like this , he whispered. And she trusted him. 

Would the judge for the annulment trial “send her home” if he knew it was her birthday? Or is that the exact reason he chose today, thinking she would consider it a gift as good as frosting on a cake? He might be trying to tie this situation up with a bow and pretty wrapping paper, but she wants the gift receipt. 

Her birthday wasn’t much of an affair with her guardian. It wasn’t until she witnessed the Hopes celebrating that she realized how much she was missing.

There were always those random gifts from her guardian. Cake is fattening. Frosting turns teeth yellow. Parties full of too many people are overwhelming. She has every reason not to care about her birthday. 

But there’s still a part of her that wants people to celebrate her being alive. To acknowledge it and be proud of her for making it this far. There have been times, Johanna thought she wouldn’t. 

Johanna sits on the neatly made bed, hands in her lap, awaiting her fate. 

Perhaps a sundress isn’t the brightest idea for February, but she likes to pretend it’s spring on her birthday and the birds are coming back. Her leggings and tights have been packed. There’s a few centimeters of bare skin between where the skirt ends and where her socks begin. A sacrifice she’ll have to make. Beauty is pain. At least, she’s wearing long sleeves underneath. She likes the way the collar looks like Audrey Hepburn’s in Roman Holiday . 

Curls are twisted into two braids that shrug over her shoulders. They end just below her ribcage. If her hair is braided, she can’t tug at it. Which means he won’t grab at her hand again. 

She hates her coat. She hates all coats, but her guardian picked one out more properly suited for a woman his age. Not a girl in secondary school. If they make her, Johanna will throw it over her shoulders. That’s the closest she’s willing to get. Anthony’s gloves have been tucked into the pocket. Maybe she’ll give them back. Maybe she’ll keep them. 

The suitcase rests near her Mary Janes. Feet gently swing, an anxious habit more than anything. One hand rests on the top of the bag. 

In all, she looks like a character from a black and white movie waiting at a train station, excited to go to Paris for the spring. 

She’s just not as pretty as those actresses. 

A glance at the clock. 10:58 AM. He’ll be here soon. 

Her free hand reaches for a braid. 

Three seconds pass. Johanna has been sitting here for an eternity. 

The doorbell rings.

“ Barker!”  

He’s early. 

The suitcase isn’t terribly heavy. She packed just enough. Last Christmas, she envisioned herself grabbing the bag and sweeping past the police when they inevitably arrived. She would go straight to Anthony, they would board a train–

The same thing she imagined when she lunged towards the door at the Department of Education.  

She can hear their voices from the sitting room. Mrs. Fogg tidied up for this occasion, not wanting their pension as foster parents to be taken away. That’s where she’s meant to go. But Johanna can’t step away. 

The front door stares back at her. Her suitcase is light. Her coat is under her arm. Anthony is nine stations away. 

She reaches for the knob. 

“There you are ,” Mrs. Fogg says, coming into the foyer. The sing-song voice she’s adopted for the welfare worker still rings of warning bells. “We’ve just got some tea and coffee out.”

She could still run. There’s no one in front of her. They wouldn’t be able to catch her . 

Johanna follows her to the sitting room. 

Mrs. Wilson has one leg over the other, as she gives a poorly-hidden fake laugh. A cop sits next to her. His expression tells her that Mrs. Wilson is in his space, but he’s asked one time too many for her to move. 

Benjamin Barker is in a chair, cup in his hand, but not sipping at it. He doesn’t seem to be paying much attention to the story Mr. Fogg is telling either. His gaze lifts when she steps through the entryway. 

But Johanna doesn’t move. Where would she go? The Foggs have taken over one sofa. The welfare worker and officer have the other. The only chair is occupied. They’ll be leaving soon anyway. 

Benjamin Barker stands, gesturing to the chair. “I don’t mind standing.” 

“I don’t mind either.” A little shrug. 

“Just sit in the bloody chair.” That came from Mrs. Wilson, digging through her bag. She almost wants this over with more than anyone else. This case is about at its end for her. She’ll be free of it. Johanna doesn’t have the same luxury of being able to stamp something and check up on it every once in a while. 

Sit so you can’t run away . She gets their message and takes the seat Benjamin Barker offered. He stands behind her, hand resting against the back of it. He can catch her like a butterfly net if he needs. 

Johanna sets the suitcase on her lap. Her fingers drum against her collarbone. She likes the way it echoes next to her cheekbone. 

Reminds are repeated for the uptenth time and there’s always more paperwork to be signed. The Foggs pretend to grieve the loss of a foster child. The cop looks more and more like he regrets being assigned to this case.

Finally, they’re escorted out the door. Assuming they would ride the underground, she begins in the direction of the nearest station. She likes the shade of blue on the oyster card and how it can fight against getting bent in half. It’s been her ticket to freedom these past three months. Even if freedom is spread between school, Waterstone’s and the library. 

Instead, Benjamin Barker steps in front of her, eyes ablaze with fear. She steps back. The cop holds his hands out, preparing for a fight. 

“Aren’t we taking the train?” Her fingers weave into her braid. “This is how you get to the station… Or, the bus station is on the way, too. That’s… how we get there, right?”

“That’s why I’m here,” the cop speaks for the first time. “I’m your driver. We just figured it was safer this way for me to give you lot a ride instead of dealing with transferring lines and all that.” 

“Oh.” 

They’re afraid of her. That she’ll run again.

They should be. 

Benjamin Barker offers to take her bag from her. She politely rejects the offer. If he takes her suitcase, she won’t have her things– just in case . 

It sits by her feet in the backseat of a police car. Johanna isn’t a stranger to riding in them. Occasionally, there would be one parked for her at the end of the school day. She stares out the window without a word, the same way she did when she was younger. It isn’t like there’s much to talk about anyway. 

(Except for… everything.)

Occasionally, she steals glances. Benjamin Barker’s shoulders are tense enough to cause some sort of medical emergency. He doesn’t relax for the entirety of their journey. He must be thinking about the last time he was in the back of a car like this . Fifteen years ago, was it? A charge led him here. 

The car stops in front of a modest building. A few interestingly-shaped notches say it survived the Blitz. Her grip on her suitcase tightens as she accepts his help getting out of the car. 

The lift ride up is silent. It rattles and feels like a cage. She’ll have to ask him where the stairs are. She can breathe again once the doors open.  

Benjamin Barker stops them a few doors down. 

“Right, well, I’ve done my part. Everything looks good.” Mrs. Wilson makes a ch-ch-ch sound against closed teeth. “We’ll leave you to it, then. Not much else for me to do.” 

Lips part, as if to beg her to stay. Don’t leave me alone with him .  

Johanna watches them down the hall. As they disappear down the lift. She continues to stare, just in case they come back. In case she wakes up and it’s not February 20th after all. 

Benjamin Barker clears his throat. When she turns back, he’s holding the door open for her. 

The flat is bigger than she imagined. Her perception of the middle-class and what the average Londoner lives like is all based on what she sees of Anthony. His family is lucky to have what they got for that many children. Luckier that some of them have moved out. Her guardian’s flat put the Hopes’ to shame. Build from a Victorian-age mansion, it housed two floors. The neighbors were hardly home as their main residence was in Edinburgh, ensuring them quiet. Kearney’s Lane was nothing to scoff at. Despite the size of the flat, it managed to feel suffocating to her. 

This is what life actually must look like. Not a house on the outskirts of the city. Not the flat for a huge family. Not what old money could buy. She is greeted by a humble kitchen with green tiles and a wood table set. A sofa with a few chairs sit around a small television set. There are three doors from what she can tell. Probably to small rooms. It doesn’t sound terrible at all. 

This flat doesn’t make her feel guilty. Or like her guardian will burst in at any moment. It feels… normal. Not her normal, but a normal most people know. 

“Your room is this way.” 

Her knuckles flash white. This is it. This is where he locks her up. 

For the first time in months, her stomach is full as dread pools in. He opens the door for her. She takes a step towards it, not daring to go inside. 

The first thing she’s greeted by is a long window. From where she’s standing, she can make out the metal of a fire escape. Is it? She dares another step inside. Ignoring how he lingers by the door. 

Her guardian’s cell for her was feminine in every which way. Pink, floral wallpaper, pink vanity, pink duvet cover. A constant reminder of her own femininity and her girlhood. She never minded the color pink, but blue has always been the color to catch her eye. When she embroiders, the thread she usually chooses is a shade of peacock or aegean. Bluebirds and blue jays are usually her subject. 

This room is colorful . The bedspread looks like Eastertime, swirls of pastel yellow and green on a back the shade of a flower petal. A pretty vanity (she’ll cover the mirror with something later). A door to what she assumes will be a small closet. A little bookshelf in the corner. Sheer curtains. She’ll find her needlework supplies and get to work on that as soon as possible. She can already see the cyanocitta she can print onto it. 

“You can change anything you’d like. This is just a way to get started,” Benjamin Barker says. 

Johanna’s shoulders jump. She’d forgotten he was here. 

“Thank you,” she whispers. For the room . Gaze shifts to his hand on the knob. It doesn’t look like it locks from the outside. 

The room at the Fogg’s didn’t lock at all. Mrs. Fogg just ensured that she couldn’t try to run away. That’s still a possibility . 

“I’ll leave you to unpack.” He turns slightly before remembering something and looking back over his shoulder. “An hour maybe? There’s lots of closet space. If you need anything, let me know. I’ve got something for you.” 

Chest seizes with panic . “You do?”  

Benjamin Barker turns around, thumbs in his jean pockets. “Not everyday you turn seventeen.” 

“ O-oh .” He remembers. (Well, of course he does. He’s your father.) “It’s really alright. You didn’t have to get me anything. You’ve already done so much…” 

Instead of snapping at her, his expression melts into something of adoration. “I missed out on too many of your birthdays. You’ll like it. I promise.”

Johanna nods. He leaves. 

She waits for the click of a lock. Five minutes pass before she realizes that one isn’t coming. Before she drops the suitcase, she turns the knob and when it still turns the way an owl’s head does when looking for prey, she steps away. Like a criminal preparing for the perfect crime, Johanna unclasps it. At an even more grueling pace, she begins putting items on the bed. Skirts, blouses, pajamas and her single pair of trousers are divided into neat sections. She doesn’t realize it when she begins going at a regular pace. One that someone comfortable within her situation might get into. 

This isn’t comfort… but the door is still unlocked. 

Johanna checks again just to be sure. Unlocked. 

Feet plant almost a meter away from the closet, but she doesn’t dare to get any closer–just in case. She peeks inside at the objects she missed. There is a shelf of school supplies. A few blankets. The picture of the hospital catches her eye. A man that looks like Benjamin Barker, a baby… and the yellow-haired woman. Johanna’s heart squeezes. Is it her?  

After some time, there’s a knock on the door. Not a demand to open it, not a lock turning, a knock . Her shoulders jump back. Another knock and she realizes that she’s supposed to answer it. 

“I figured we could head to the kitchen?”

“ Alright. ”

Why is she panicking? There’s no reason to be panicking! 

It surprises her how much of a gentleman he is. From the way her guardian used to talk about her biological father (only in passing mentions, always in a derogatory tone), he sounded like the common prisoner he locked away. How strange to think it is the opposite. Now Benjamin Barker is holding doors and helping her into a chair and Judge Turpin is behind bars. 

“Happy Birthday,” he says. He pushes a small, wrapped box in front of her. 

Her guardian was too prideful for wrapping paper. Jewelry boxes showed off their brands and plush decorations. Bouquets overflowed with flowers. Never a surprise, just dread. 

Johanna carefully unwraps it the way she’s seen Anthony handle gifts: corners first. Instead of tearing the rest of it off, she pushes the box out of the paper. That way if he wants, Benjamin Barker can save it. 

It’s not a diamond necklace or a pile of roses. 

A mobile phone.  

She wants to slide is back across the table. It’s too expensive. What does he want from her? But her guardian never would have allowed her the world at her fingertips. The ability to look at pictures of everywhere she’s ever wanted to go. He wouldn’t have given her the opportunity to call anyone her age. (The first person who comes to mind is Anthony.) 

If Benjamin Barker wants to control her, why would he give her all of that? 

(Suspicions are somewhat lowered.)

“I heard you didn’t have one. I wanted to talk to you when…” He clears his throat. Johanna looks up at him. “It’s pretty much set up. The box is just for show. You just have to adjust a few settings.” 

Lips tilt. Not quite a smile, but close to one. “ Thank you .” 

Between her classmates and Anthony, she has a better grasp on using it than she initially assumed she would. Setting up the device only required some of the help that he offered. (She could tell he struggled with it, too.) He put his contact information in. She made a quick test call to his number. She noticed hers was already saved in his contacts with a too-bright, cropped picture of the baby in the hospital photo. When it worked, she excused herself. 

Layer after layer of sweaters fall over her shoulders. Another skirt is added. Her coat has been tucked away to the corner of the closet and that is where it shall stay. But she grabs one of the blankets from the edge of the bed. Turtledoves, she immediately recognizes.  

Johanna opens her window. The fire escape bends slightly as she steps onto it, but she isn’t afraid. She tucks herself against the railing and the metal bites into her back. 

“Hello?” 

Of course he answered when no one else would pick up for an unknown number. He’s always ready to become friends with a stranger. 

On most other Saturdays, she would sneak off to the library and Anthony would meet her there and he would meet her there and they would hold hands and walk around as if they owned the city. Hearing his voice is the second-best thing today. 

“Hi.”

“Jo?”

She smiles. She never thought she would get to just call him like this. “It’s me.”

“What? But–whose phone are you using? Mrs. Eastman didn’t even let you–you couldn’t risk it–did you find a payphone?” 

Almost giddy, she grins. “I have my own now.”

Johanna has never called anything of her own. The room she slept in at her guardian’s flat was still her guardian’s room. He just had a bed in there for her to sleep in. The flat was never her home. She’s become afraid of possessing, afraid of becoming like her guardian, even if things are inanimate and they don’t feel used like humans do. The words “my own” shock even herself. 

“Oh! For…your birthday?”

“I suppose.” Johanna tucks her legs against her chest, using them as a shield against the cold. “He gave it to me.”

She didn’t want to bring him up so early on in the conversation. Or at all. 

“He remembered your birthday?”

“I suppose he was kind of there when it happened.”

“Oh. Right!”

Anthony can’t keep his excitement to himself. She can tell that he’s about to burst with questions. She doesn’t know if she has any of the answers. 

“You’re going to be at church tomorrow, right?” 

It feels silly to ask, but she can’t imagine having to explain herself to Benjamin Barker. There was one benefit to living with the Fogg’s. It allowed her to start attending Anthony’s parish and even hold hands with him during the service. 

Anthony sighs. “Betsy’s baby is getting baptized tomorrow. We’re all heading to Plymouth for it. I’ll be gone all day.” 

“Oh.”

Anthony is the third of six, but this is his first nephew. While it baffles her to think about a family that big and how it’ll only get bigger as he and his siblings grow up and have their own children, she doesn’t fault him at all for wanting to be there for the baptism. Part of her is tempted to ask if she can come along. The Hopes are the kindest people in the world. They would let her come along for the Christening, won’t they? But the thought of asking for permission is already humiliating. She wishes she could be more excited, like she had been when Anthony showed her pictures of the newborn, but disappointment is drowning.  

“I’m so sorry, Jo. I would’ve, if I could.”  

“It’s alright, Anthony, I don’t mind.” 

“Do you need help getting there from…your new address? I can send you the instructions to get there!”  

She hums. “Maybe.” 

To her surprise, Johanna isn’t half-bad at navigation. Bring her somewhere once and she has the directions memorized. Anthony has told her on more than one occasion that between the two of them, they can make it anywhere in the world. 

“How are things? With your–”

Before he can say “dad” or “father” who however he views the man inside the flat, Johanna bursts out, “We’re still going to run away together, right?”

“Like after school?”

Johanna nods. Remembering he can’t see her, she continues, “We’re still going too, right?” She curls the end of a braid around her hand. “Despite… all of this?” 

Part of the reason they were going to run away together was because of her guardian. She couldn’t be in London if that man was also in the city. He’d find her . And the little “trip” that he talked about would come to fruition. But the police came and took both of them away. And now she’s here . With… him .  

“I’ll run anywhere with you.”

“Anywhere?”

“Plymouth or Dover. I don’t care where I am. Long as I’m with you.” A beat. “I’ll sneak you onto every aerocraft I’m on just so we’re together.”

She laughs. “You can’t sneak your wife everywhere . That’s like sneaking me into a corporate meeting.” 

“Why do you think I sneak you into Waterstone’s breakroom sometimes? I’m practicing for the aeroplanes. Besides, I like having you there.”  

“You told me that some people get sick in the air. What if I turn out to be one of those people? Will you still want me when I’m throwing up in the facilities for three hours?”

“I’ll hold your hair back and everything.”

“Anthony! You have to fly the plane!” 

“I’ll find a way.”

A pleasant pause, but as Johanna forgets herself, she hears the question she dreads uttered, 

“How is he?”

Lips stay closed. What is she supposed to say? Lie and tell him that it’s wonderful that she’s been found? Tell the truth? How is she supposed to explain something so complicated? And the idea of him finding her out here sobbing is… embarrassing for one and something that can’t happen. 

“You don’t have to tell me anything really. I just… can you just tell me one thing? That’s all I want to know.”

A pause. “Alright.” 

“Has he hurt you?”

Previously, the question might have filled her with dread. The truth is called unutterable for a reason–even to Anthony. Too many things could go wrong. Even telling him about her guardian was a risk. The few things he learned about the Fogg’s were even riskier. For the past few months, Anthony has been distraction from it. A break from her life. He could be that for her. She could be that for him. But she knew that eventually, he would need to know. She isn’t very good at faking smiles in front of him. 

Now, the question relaxes her shoulders. Anthony’s father seems to be more married to his work than his wife. A father to paperwork rather than one to his children. She wouldn’t be surprised if Anthony asked her what it was like to have one actively. She doesn’t have an answer for him. She doesn’t know if she really has an answer for this question either, but it’s an easier question. 

Besides, it always makes her heart do a little jump when he reminds her of how much he loves her. 

“No.” Johanna shifts. “I don’t know…” A sigh. “No, he hasn’t hurt me.” 

“Okay. Good.” He pauses. “How’s your book?”

With a smile, she dives headfirst into a quick and detailed description of the one she's rereading. Anthony had brought it back for her after his first day of work and she kept it hidden under a loose floorboard in her guardian's flat. He wouldn't mind her reading yet another guide about birds in Britain, but he would get suspicious if he didn't know where it came from. 

Soon, Anthony has to go and she hangs up with a smile. The sky is dark. Street lamps illuminate. The temperature has dropped down fifteen degrees. She can no longer feel her ears. 

It’s the happiest she’s been in weeks.  

 A mix of relief and excitement follow her back through the window. Just in time for Benjamin Barker to knock and enter. His gaze flickers to the still-open window.

“Were you out there?” he asks. 

Was she not supposed to? If he had her stay in the room with the fire escape, then why wouldn’t she? Even with her guardian, she was allowed to use the balcony. Was the–

“Um, yes.” 

Benjamin Barker closes it with a booming thud . Johanna tugs on a braid, letting go before he looks at her again. 

“It’s cold. Take your coat with you next time.”

Her gaze remains on the ground as she nods. 

“Your phone worlds okay?” he asks. 

Johanna looks up at where he has his arms crossed over his chest. Does it feel awkward in this room to him, too?

“Yes,” she replies, “just fine.”

“And your room? Everything’s okay?”

She nods, but her gaze lands on the closet door. “Who is the picture in there of?” 

Benjamin Barker follows her gaze. A smile overtakes his face. Is there a story behind it? Other than the hospital setting?

“The one with you?”

“Well–” She stands “--I think it has you in it.” Just a younger, less-run down version of him . “And a woman?”

“Your mother.”  

It is her. Her mother has the same yellow hair as her, but no curls. Pretty, pale skin and a wide smile. The judge was wrong. They don’t look anything alright. She’s beautiful. 

“Her name was Lucy,” Benjamin Barker says. “Lucy Averley Barker. She turned her maiden name into her middle name after we got married. She has a beautiful name, doesn’t she?”

Johanna nods. She can let him think that he’s the first person he heard her name from. There isn’t any need to spoil that for him. 

“There’s some, uh, food on the table if you want to get some. I wanted to take you somewhere, but it’s late.” Benjamin Barker looks back at her. “Is that okay? I didn’t know what you liked so I got just about everything. We can go out tomorrow.” 

“That’s alright.” 

“Right.”

Benjamin Barker slams his hands on his thighs, glancing around the room again. He looks at her once more before wishing her a good night and she mutters one back. Lights are turned off which furrows her brow. Why did he do that for her? She’s perfectly capable of switching the light switch herself. 

Her phone buzzes from underneath her pillow.  

Anthony: How are you doing? :D 

Anthony: Or are you going to sleep now?

Anthony: I’m so sorry if you are! 

Anthony: I miss you!!!!

Anthony: Good night!!!!!!

The grin returns. Like a lovesick girl, she pulls on a nightgown (she really ought to get some better pajamas now) and sits in bed smiling at the messages.

When there’s a hint of light outside the window, she screenshots them and deletes them. 

Better to be safe than sorry. 

It was like knowing there’s a mouse in the flat, but being unable to do anything about it. The mouse hides. There’s always a new crack in the wall for it to disappear into. Another cupboard to steal. It leaves behind little bite marks on everything and the cheese has completely disappeared. 

Benjamin hears his daughter all night. Yesterday, he had been giddily planning father-daughter activities for them to do once she came home. Picnics, ice skating (though he’s never been before), maybe even find a relatively inexpensive high tea for them to go to. He’s never been able to do that either, though Lucy would joke about taking him to one. 

Today, he spent long hours aching to knock at her door. Yet, every time he found himself near it, he couldn’t bring himself to. What does he say to a girl he’s always known, but she doesn’t know him back? 

He knocked once. When there wasn’t an answer, his heart drummed in his ears. She’s gone, she’s gone, she’s gone –in a steady rhythm. Benjamin opened it and his fears were true. She was gone. 

He took a step inside and noticed her wrapped in one of the blankets and talking on the phone. 

Best not to interrupt her. Even to bring her the coat hanging in the closet. He'd just have to remind her to wear it out there next time. 

Instead, Benjamin went to the Sainsbury's around the corner and flooded his basket with half the store. He didn’t know what she likes. The initial plan was to celebrate her birthday with a big, expensive dinner wherever she wanted. Was he brave enough for that?

Her little feet scurry across the flat now, taking a snack here and there. He doesn’t mind if she eats everything. He’ll be all the more happier about it. (She seems so thin .)

The little mouse keeps him up all night. He listens to her steps and memorizes the patterns. In the morning, he hopes there will be many little bite marks. 

Does her entire wardrobe only consist of dresses and skirts? It makes him wonder as his daughter comes into the kitchen wearing yet another dress. It’s more appropriately suited for the weather this time, blue and long-sleeved and covered with small dots. Though, it’s more extravagant than the other outfits he’s seen her wear. The fabric looks like it would need dry cleaning rather than a tumble in the wash. 

She holds a small strand of beads in one hand. They’re too big to be a bracelet, but not wide enough to go around her neck. They look like those beads Catholics carry around with them. 

“I’m going to church now,” she says. 

Benjamin tilts his head to the side. “Are you Catholic?”

“No.” She looks confused before glancing at the beads in her hands. “Oh! This is an Anglican rosary. I got it a few years ago.” 

It is too much to wear that cross necklace that she always has on and bring the rosary? Don’t those do one in the same?

But what do you know? a little voice in his head accuses, you haven’t knelt before God in ten years .  

Benjamin gave up on Him a few years into his sentence. It was usually Lucy dragging him to services on Sunday and Easter and Christmas anyway. His lifestyle before her didn’t exactly include God in it. Always a believer, but not quite a follower. Yet, Benjamin found himself leaning on Him more often than not. He whispered prayers when they were trying to start their family. He prayed for tender mercies. He begged for his daughter to survive.  

For the first few weeks of his sentence, his prayers were relatively the same. He couldn’t find any suitable pleadings in The Book of Common Prayer so he put together his own words to cry. 

After the first year, he began lashing out. The next day, he would ask for forgiveness. Something would go wrong again and he would curse Him. The cycle continued. 

Until, Benjamin realized God wasn’t going to help him. He would continue to waltz among angels in the skies and turn a deaf ear to a falsely imprisoned man. 

He screamed at Him. Cursing and thrashing. Anything to show how much He had betrayed him. 

Would God want him in one of His churches after all of that? 

Still, Benjamin rises from his seat and finds his coat draped over the sofa. “Where to?”

His daughter blinks. “It’s about twenty minutes away.” She shifts her weight onto her other foot. “I have the instructions.”

“I can take care of that.” A girl shouldn’t have to be leading her father around a city he knows better than her. “What’s the address?” 

With some hesitance, she reveals it. 

“Grab your coat. It’ll cold out there.” 

His daughter opens her mouth–potentially to argue–but she ducks into her room and returns wearing a sweater. Benjamin raises a brow at her. 

“Where’s your coat?” 

“I don’t like it.”

She doesn’t like her coat? So she… refuses to wear it? She can take a look outside and freeze with just a glance at it. The freshly-fallen snow from last night should convince everyone to pile on the layers– including a winter coat. 

“You should still wear it. You’ll freeze yourself to death.” 

“I won’t–” His daughter sucks in a sharp breath. “I don’t like it, but I have about a thousand layers on right now. Doesn’t that count?”

Benjamin narrows his eyes a touch more–for the sake of the effect (perhaps, she’ll be convinced into wearing one if he looks convincing enough). “How many?”

“My dress which has long sleeves, a cardigan, another sweater, another sweater and this one.” She pinches some of the fabric as proof. “And I’m wearing nylons and leggings. And socks. Two pairs!” 

That still doesn’t sound like enough, but aren’t parents supposed to let their children figure things out for themselves? That was a big part of the parenting books he’s been reading. When she gets too cold, he can offer her his coat. 

“Alright. Fine. But if you get cold–”

“I won’t.”

“--That’s on you.” Benjamin checks his phone for the map again. “Let’s go.”

It’s a quiet walk there. Before they enter the tube station, Johanna stuffs her rosary into the pocket of a sweater underneath her outer layer and exchanges it for her oyster card. He catches a glimpse of her phone before she hides her belongings away. 

She’s using it. The present he gave her.  

The train is silent other than the occasional screeching of the tracks and the constant PSAs about calling the transport police. Benjamin had the number memorized within a week after being granted his freedom. A group of American tourists disrupt the peace, chattering away about the sights they’re planning to sea. Most of their fellow passengers scowl at the interruption, but when he glances over at his daughter, she’s listening in on every word with a sense of wonder. 

The church service is exactly the same as the ones he attended with his wife. It’s the first Sunday in Lent and they read Psalm 25. They sing hymns that are familiar. They say prayers for the hungry. He watches Johanna occasionally bring her rosary to her lips, wondering what she’s praying about. 

Benjamin is a ghost in the room, trapped between the past and the now. His mind is of a young man with an arm around his wife and imagining what their nursery will look like. His spirit is an angry man. Fists pounding on creaking wooden floors. Strings of curses flowing from his lips. Shouting at the sky, at God who delivered the Jews of out slavery but refuses to deliver him from his cell. His body is worn-down. A tired man who is searching for happiness, yet as much as he tries to grab for it, it slips from his grasp. 

Mind, body and spirit collide and create a wisp of a man. A creature. Someone floating between life and death. 

Does God know he doesn’t want the judge to be imprisoned? 

Does God know what he intends to do to him?

His vengeance isn’t something he’s willing to give up for Lent. 

The service ends in prayer. They all stand for the priest as he leaves the room. As they leave, they are surrounded by QR codes (he still hasn’t figured those out) and little bowls asking for donations. His mind searches for anything to tell his daughter. That it was a beautiful service (he barely heard a word of it). A question about what she was praying about (a conversation between God is inappropriate to share with others, isn’t it?). A quip about one of the verses they read (is it sacreligious to joke about the Bible?).

Instead, they are once again confronted by silence on the train. However, he grabs her hand before their stop and leads them out of the station. Once they’re out, she rips her hand away. 

“What are you doing? We’re not supposed to get out yet! We’re–”

“There’s the best place for seafood around here. Your mother and I used to go to it all the time.” Benjamin smiles. “We missed your birthday dinner last night. Let’s go.”

With obvious hesitance, his daughter begins following him. Perhaps, it wasn’t the best seafood in London, but it was the most luxurious they could afford back then. The prices aren’t terrible now, though he scowls at the slight increase. He had promised her an expensive dinner. 

She ends up ordering one of the cheaper meals on the menu. With her fish and chips in front of her (and lobster bisque in front of him), she begins rearranging the food using her fork. 

“Try the chips,” Benjamin says. “I used to dream about them.” In prison . They both know what he means. 

His daughter stares at the plate for a moment before picking what must be the smallest chip from her plate and putting it on her mouth. She chews, then her expression changes. She reaches for another and another and breaks into the cod. Benjamin smiles. Lucy was the same way about this dish. 

Over the meal, he maps out her route to school the next morning. She nods when he says he won’t be able to be there. Nods some more at his request to call him if anything goes wrong. (All of the possibilities float through his head: she gets kidnapped, she gets lost, she gets murdered, she gets–)

There’s a wisp of a grin on her face when they get back to the flat. He doesn’t second-guess it when she says she’s taking a shower in the mid-afternoon. Perhaps, she’s learned her lesson from the coat. Benjamin didn’t like to admit it when his parents were right either. It doesn’t bother him. 

He spent just about the whole day with his daughter. 

In the morning, there are several boxes of cereal on the table. There is a jug of milk. There is a perfectly set table and a note.

Have a good day at school! There’s a lunch for you in the fridge. 

– Dad

It trembles in her grip. Johanna rereads the words again. Again and again and again. Fifteen words jump at her on the page. The last one feels like it was written in red. In blood. Dad . 

He’s packed her a lunch. He’s written a note.

He’s signed it “Dad.”  

Like a father . 

Well, he is her father. It doesn’t calm her down as Johanna finds the brown paper bag in the fridge. It’s even a little crinkled, proving that it’s actually been used and everything. The sack lunches from her guardian and other students at the private school were too crisp. There wasn’t any sort of parental touch to them. Johanna is accustomed to a cold lunch box that’s filled with vintage recipes. Not a paper sack with a sandwich, crackers, an apple, pomegranate seeds and a small biscuit in it. 

She chokes on the domesticity of it. 

With some reluctance, Johanna slips the bag into her backpack. It would look suspicious if she didn’t take it. He wouldn’t know if she didn’t have a bite of it. Perhaps, he would be proud like her guardian was for keeping her figure. Anthony would enjoy a few more snacks. 

Onto the cereal issue. She opens one of the boxes and the plastic bag within. He doesn’t know how much cereal was in there. Hopefully, that will suffice. She was able to fool him with little pieces going missing a few nights ago. And yesterday… she lost complete control over herself at the seafood shop. Her tastebuds are beginning for  that cod and those crispy chips again, but one look in the mirror makes her silence them. She can’t afford to lose control again . (Johanna can’t lose to her stomach.) She layers her jumpers again and begins on her way. 

At school, there are stares. The story of Judge Phillip Turpin continues to be anything but quiet. Johanna had even recognized some of her classmate’s faces during the protests. Perhaps, they are in the same boat as she: just beginning to know a family member that’s been behind bars. 

The first week at this school, people knew her as the rich new girl from a private academy. She wasn’t supposed to stay in a public school for long–just until her guardian found another suitable place for her. Johanna kept her head low, thwarting off any attention. Most people were more interested in the other new student: Anthony Hope, (if they were interested at all), whose family lived everywhere in the world and could get along with anyone. After it became clear that she and Anthony were together, they were simply two peas in a pod. Holding hands in the halls. Meeting up at each other’s classrooms to walk each other to the next period. 

Johanna had hoped that this would be kept quiet. It isn’t anyone’s business what she does or doesn’t do. Who she lives with and who she doesn’t. There are plenty of other foster children in their year. 

But not many other students whose adoptions were annulled. 

If anyone asks any questions, Anthony can protect her. He would crack a joke and have them walking away with a laugh in a moment. She clings to him during every passing period like a koala holding onto a tree (a fact she had learned from one of his younger sisters).

Fortunately the stress and wear of secondary school prevent any such approaches. The stares do not stop, but she should be used to that by now. 

At lunch, she gives him most of the brown paper sack’s food. He stares at her like a puppy begging for a stake so she takes a satisfyingly loud crunch of the apple. She does not eat the pomegranate seeds. He keeps an eye on her, making sure she consumes the entire fruit as he munches the rest of her lunch.

“Before you go,” Anthony says as he escorts her out of the building after the final bell has rung, “Happy birthday.” 

“Anthony, it’s not my birth–” 

When she looks down, he is holding a safety pin. 

She gives a breath of a laugh. “It will be good for laundry.” 

“It’s um, it’s a pin.”

“Yes.” Johanna looks up at his blushed face. “I see.”

“I was reading one of those books you recommended to me and in it–the one that takes place in the fifties?--the guy in it gave a girl a safety pin and it basically meant that they were promised to each other.. Like engaged to be engaged.” 

Engaged to be engaged? Well, it is a lovely thought… and Johanna feels her own cheeks warming. 

“I figured we still have one more year. Until we graduate and we’re eighteen and everything, so it’s a little early to be engaged, but I wanted to do the next best thing.” Anthony begins to smile, edging away from his previous shyness. “So a pin. Engaged to be engaged.” 

Both hands cover her lips as Johanna feels a laugh overpowering her. Not at Anthony, no, never! Her joy has been suppressed and beaten down for so long by her guardian and his principals that he’s placed on her shoulders that she hardly knows what to do with it when it boils over. Joy leaves her in giggles. In huge grins that morph into complete chuckles. Anthony takes a single look at her and his own grin grows. He knows .

“I really should do this properly.” 

Her voice is muffled by her hands. “Proper–?”

Anthony bends his knee, holding the safety pin up to her. “Will you, Johanna Barker, do me the honor of making me the happiest man–” She shakes from her laughter and he beams “--in the world–” He takes her hand “--and marry me?”

They always talked about running away together. Train stations and airports. Suitcases packed with necessaries and pure devotion. They marked maps with the places they were determined to see. But there was never a proposal. It had slipped her mind. 

She’s glad that she has one. 

“Yes!”

Anthony kisses her knuckles before standing. He pins it onto her cardigan and swings her hand. No one is around to witness them. With a coy smile, Johanna kisses him and he spins her like a fairytale book prince.

“If you’re this happy when I just gave you the pin, I can’t wait to see how happy you’ll be when I actually have a ring for you!” 

Johanna taps at the pin, then her collarbone. “Who says I won’t want to keep the pin? I don’t need a ring when the pin does the trick.”

He kisses her again. 

Lucy was not a cook. Most of their meals came from their landlady’s pie stand downstairs. Just two uni students trying to get by on subpar talents in the kitchen and cheap meals. As soon as they started actively trying for a baby, Benjamin took over the cooking. Mostly salads and other meals he knew would be good for both of them. Lucy craved rapunzel when she was pregnant. She wanted bell peppers with butter and three milkshakes a day. As soon as she got what she wanted, she would clap her hands and call him the best cook in the world.  

Benjamin knows it was the hormones talking, but as he peppers dishes and chops fruit, he doesn’t feel half-bad. There was a relearning process once he was out of prison for most things. Cooking was second-nature when it hadn’t been before. And ironically, it’s even easier when he doubles the recipe. It’s another reminder. 

His daughter is home. 

Benjamin found her doing her homework on her bed, listening to what sounded like the instrumental to She Loves You . She nodded at his greeting and when he asked about dinner, he made a joke about not poisoning her when he noticed her expression. The cook or housekeeper or whoever the judge hired to make their meals likely wasn’t a man. Turpin was born somewhere in the sixties. Probably shoved all of his old-fashioned ideals of men not belonging in the kitchen in her head. 

She’s home now. She doesn’t have to feel pressured to play housewife. His fund for med school was all there when he returned. Instead of using it on classes and books, it’s covered their rent and then some. Any extra funds are for his daughter. 

He calls for her from the kitchen as he places two plates full of food onto what’s become their places. There’s a little “coming!” and for a second, he is transported to another universe. 

This is the way they were meant to be. The call to dinner. Doing homework before a meal. Sitting across from each other at the table. 

His daughter slides into her chair. He picks up his fork. 

“Aren’t we going to say grace?” she asks. 

“What? Oh.” 

He doesn’t think God would want to hear him giving thanks for a meal after how many times he’s lashed out on Him. But if that is what his daughter wants, then it is what she will get. He copies her, as uncertain as a man who has never known God.

“ Bless, O Lord, this food to our use and bless us to your service, and make us ever mindful of the needs of others; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

She sounds as if she’s said those words a thousand times before. The judge always thought himself a religious man. 

As her arms move away, it reveals a small safety pin on her cardigan. Benjamin stares at it for a moment before looking away. She probably just forget she placed it there. (Wasn’t there a tradition where boys would give girls they were going steady with a pin? Getting pinned or something like that? Is she– no .) Before he dwells on it to insanity, he asks, 

“How was school?”

She pokes at a pile of vegetables. “It was alright. Normal.” 

“Normal is good.” 

His daughter nods before taking a small bite of the peas. He goes back to chewing. 

What do other fathers ask their daughters during dinner? There’s school, but they’ve just covered that. There are extracurriculars, but he knows she isn’t part of any. Friends? How does he bring that up naturally? News? 

Ah. There is news. 

“They selected a trial date,” he says, as casually as if he were asking about her friends. 

She looks up at him with a furrowed brow. “For him?”

A nod. “June 21st.”

“That’s a long way away.” 

“That’s how the system works.” Benjamin leans back slightly. Better to pretend it doesn’t bother him as much as it does. “I didn’t have mine until–” No . That’s in the past. He has his daughter back. Why dwell on the times he didn’t have her sitting across from him at the kitchen table? 

However, she tilts her head, interested to know more about this trial. She had only been a baby when it happened. Benjamin would push a boulder up and down a mountain for thousands of centuries for her, but unless it is the only way to save her life, he can’t tell her about that part of himself. It is not for someone as pure as her to know. 

His phone buzzes in his back pocket. He shuffles it out of his pocket, but it slips out of his hand and onto the table. She grabs it for him with a glance at the screen. 

“It’s an unknown number,” she says as she passes it back. 

Benjamin takes it. The number is not so unknown to him. 

He sends it to voicemail. 

“Do you know who it was?” she asks, setting aside her fork. 

How is he supposed to lie to his daughter? 

The judge lied to her. About him. About his wife. Called them people who weren’t willing to take care of her. He’s taking care of her now . Is he supposed to lie to her, just like that man did?

“What do you like?”

The question is out before he thinks it through. 

But that is what fathers know about their daughters, isn’t it? 

She blinks, crossing skinny arms over her chest. Not in a defensive way. She looks as if giving herself an embrace. “What I like?”

“Yeah. What do you do in your free time? When your homework is done?”

A pause. A shrug. But then, “I do extra credit.”

She is the top of her class . 

She bites her lip before continuing. “I like to read.” It is uttered like she spoke the prayer. As if she is admitting to God that she enjoys books. 

“What kind of books do you read?”

“All of them.” She seems to think her answer was too quick, too passionate as she blushes. “I read whatever I can get my hands on. I like the classics. I was just in the middle of A Tale of Two Cities when… It was a library book. I had to return it.” 

“Did you ever finish it?”

Another shrug. “There wasn’t any time. I didn’t want to check it out again if I didn’t know for certain I could finish it.”

Benjamin can’t say if she’s missing out or dodging a bullet. The most he got through the book was the three chapters he was required to read in year ten. There wasn’t much time to read before his imprisonment between class and an infant and a job. Even during, he didn’t frequent the library often. 

They finish the meal. She helps him tidy up, asking timidly where the broom and dish towels were. When she went to turn the sink on, he noticed the line of a burn scar on her wrist. 

“What’s that from?” Benjamin asks. 

His daughter shrugs her cardigan over it. “I’m not sure.” A pause. “I suppose I just touched water that was too hot.” 

He takes over the dishes and senses a bit of relief in her expression as she turns away. He almost chuckles. Not wanting to do the dishes. Just like any other family.

Johanna: Could I possibly call you later on tonight? 

Johanna: If you have homework, that’s quite alright. I don’t mind at all. I would hate to be a nuisance. 

Johanna: Or you could call me when you’re available. 

Johanna: We had dinner about two hours ago. He hasn’t disturbed me since. I don’t think he will again tonight. I’m rather certain any time will work for me.  

Johanna: I hope that wasn’t too many messages.

Johanna: I’m sorry if it was.

Johanna: Is this alright?

Johanna: Have a good time for the rest of your shift! 

Johanna: I would send you a heart like you do, but I do not know where to find them. 

He’ll have to show her the emoji tab. He would love to see a little heart sent from her. 

Anthony pockets his phone before setting back in at the front counter. Once again, he is the second to last here. Gina is on the first floor, readying herself to go home. Anthony hopes she remembers to keep her phone in her (closed) bag this time. He doesn’t know if his heart could take it if she gets yet another stolen. 

Five minutes to closing, a familiar face enters the shop. 

The bearded man isn’t rushing in or demanding as he usually is. His beard is a little longer, curls a little grayer, but he seems happier. Not that he’s smiling (Anthony hopes he’ll be there the day that man smiles in the shop). Anthony has done his research, collecting an assortment of titles of the best literature on adoption and raising teenage girls. There’s an entire section on his laptop dedicated to the subject, filled with appropriate websites, articles and blogs. One day, he might be able to offer his help. 

However, the bearded man continues to surprise him. He strolls over to their clothbound classics, selects one and brings it to the counter. 

A Tale of Two Cities. 

Not what Anthony was expecting. 

But he grins nonetheless. Perhaps, this is his adoptive daughter’s favorite novel and this is a present to her. 

“How are things coming along?” Anthony wonders, as casually as possible as the receipt prints. 

The bearded man simply nods, but thanks him for the bag and leaves with something of a pep in his step. 

Anthony logs of the computer. He glances back to where the man is walking, illuminated by street lights. His phone buzzes. Once the bearded man is out of sight, he looks at it. 

Johanna: I love you.

He grins. 

He wishes he could introduce that man to her father. Their situations are somewhat the same: having a teenage daughter they didn’t know before. 

The two would be excellent friends.

Chapter Text

She is starving. 

Most mornings, she wakes up and feels nothing. Her body has adjusted to a lack of nutrition. It knows there is no point in sending hunger pains ripping through her. Johanna has out-stubborned her own body. It doesn’t bother her as much anymore. As much as it bothers Anthony. 

Lady Macbeth and the invisible blood on her hands comes to mind as she dips a hand into the cereal box and consumes the handful of dry flakes. Her fingers are shaking as she swallows the last grain. Johanna steps away, as if the very sight of the box is too tempting. It tastes of wood and hardly fills her up, but her stomach needed it. Her stomach desired food, then fine . He might get suspicious if the amount of cereal never lessened anyway. The bin isn’t full enough to hide any in there either. That couldn’t have done too much harm, right? 

There isn’t a scale by the shower like there was in her guardian’s house. He kept it there even after he intervened . Johanna always had an eye on her body’s weight. But the shower next to her room isn’t the only one in this flat. 

She opens the door to his room like a thief breaking in. She holds her breath. 

Benjamin Barker’s room is simple. Only the necessities: bed, dresser, a few books. The room he set up for her is comparable to a diva’s dressing room next to his. But she doesn’t dwell on it for long. There isn’t a scale next to his shower either. 

With a sigh, she goes to clean up the table. But as she moves cereal boxes and rinses plates, she finds a book in the midst of it. 

A Tale of Two Cities . 

It burns into the surface as she tidies. As if it will tear a hole through the table and fall out the other end. It feels like fire in her hands. 

A hardcover. Clothbound with little images of knitting needles and a red scarf.

It’ll look beautiful on the shelf.

Does she leap for joy? Does she leave it on the table? Is it really for her ? Well, if it is… who is she to refuse books? That would be sickening . Yet it doesn’t feel exactly right in her hands either. It is a gift. Her guardian would send her gifts. 

Johanna sniffs the top of it and all the pages. It’s magical. 

Her guardian sent flowers or jewels. Things she didn’t want or need. Gifts that reeked of seduction. Of mistresses. This is a book and not only that, it is a book she told him about.

She hasn’t finished it yet. 

She would like to know what happens to blue-eyed Lucie Manette and Charles Darnay. 

Johanna tucks it into her backpack. 

He’s been looking forward to dinner. 

After finding his daughter in the same position as the day before (just with a different Beatles song playing, but with the same domestic greeting), he went to make and serve their meal. He learned something new about her last night and it changed his life. Instead of watching first steps, he got to learn what book she was currently reading. Not exactly a fair trade, but when it comes to his daughter, he is more than willing to accept anything he might receive. He dares to let himself hope he will learn something new tonight, too. 

Yesterday simply felt normal . As normal as life can be without his wife. In the perfect world, they’re all eating together. Even if it’s just the two of them, this is closer to that world than he ever thought he would get. Talking about school, about hobbies, or just the silence. This is life . 

He calls her in. She comes. They sit. 

Yes, this is life.

“How’s the book?” he asks after she says grace. It was a different prayer today. He wonders if she actually has one of those prayer books or if she had just memorized all the different ways to bless a meal. 

“I finished it.” 

“Oh. Were you about at the end, then?”

He can see a swell of pride in her expression as she answers, “I had about thirty chapters left.”

“And you finished it? Today?”

She smiles. A shy little thing that just barely curves the corner of her lips. “Yes.”

“Wow.” Benjamin leans back. That’s already a long one. Four million words of Dickenson language across a hundred chapters or something? He struggled to get through three chapters of that in a secondary school lit class. She can just see more than he does. Top of her class, just as he’d predicted. 

His daughter looks back at him. Her brows narrow before her gaze falls. Did she find what she was looking for? The smile hasn’t fallen, at least. 

“What are you onto next then?” 

Using her fork, she trims her salmon into several pieces smaller than the prongs. “ Les Miserables , again, I think. I’m due for a reread.” 

Victor Hugo’s mess of millions of words and chapters? Next? No break to read… Nancy Drew or anything?

“Wow,” he says again. 

There’s that eagerness again when she looks up. Is she trying to impress him? (Or did the judge never give her the credit for reading that much? Did he not at least give her the satisfaction of making a parent proud? But then, he was never her father.)

But his phone rings and she resumes her staring-contest with her plate. Benjamin chokes back a groan. It better be the welfare worker or his lawyer. If it’s the same number as last night–

It is. 

He sends it to voicemail. 

Why must he always call at dinnertime?

“Was that the same number?” she asks, as timidly as a child asking for dessert, “as last night?”

“No.” 

“They called at about the same time.” 

“I know.” 

She seems to give it up as she goes back to her meal. His chest fills with a brutal pang of guilt. He doesn’t mean to be short with her. They should be conversing or sitting in a comfortable silence. Not this.

He sighs.

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, did she say?

Tonight ends his string of closing shifts. More time off is necessary, Anthony reminds himself. His new friends will still be here. Some time off is healthy. It makes for more time with Johanna. Perhaps, this way, she will introduce him to her father. She might invite him over to dinner—no, not dinner, just tea—and he will shake Mr. Barker’s hand and… not that he’s rushing her into it or anything. It’s just… nice that he’ll have an in-law now. A family to marry into. That’s selfish to think, isn’t it? He knows how Johanna feels about the situation. 

They’re under new management anyway. Anthony misses their old manager amongst all the secret cheering of his co-workers. He thought he was getting somewhere with him. The man had even smiled at him once. Their new manager is lovely and bookish, but he can’t help but miss the older man. 

However, another familiar face enters the shop. 

Once again, the bearded man strides over to the classics and tilts his head to the side. Anthony’s stomach buzzes. This may be his chance. If he recognizes him, Anthony can ask about how the adoption is going and they could have a meaningful conversation and he might want to give him some fatherly advice and–

The bearded man places the book on the desk. Anthony looks up at him like a puppy begging for scraps. Does he recognize him, too? 

“That’s a good one,” he says to his choice. Les Miserables . Anthony has only been able to get through a select few chapters, but with the way Johanna talks about it, he feels like he knows every Jean and nun as if they were his own neighbors. “My sweetheart loves it.” 

The man says nothing. Anthony can’t help but wish he knew what his voice sounds like. 

Johanna is about to reread Les Miserables soon, isn’t she? Now that she’s finished Dickens? 

The bearded man must be getting this copy for his adopted daughter. Anthony knows not to judge a book by its cover but he doesn’t seem like the type to indulge in such lengthy fiction, but his daughter is a very fast reader if he’s picking up another book for her already. 

They would be great friends. That man, his daughter and Johanna and her biological father. They could have a book club.  

One day, perhaps, one day.

He’s like a crow, Johanna thinks when she finds the book on the table in the morning. Bringing home shiny things to her. Just like a crow. She plays crow, too, treasuring them in turn. 

Another book in her backpack. Johanna hardly feels the difference. If it gets too heavy for her, Anthony will carry it. Once, she offered to carry his and he gave a little chuckle. “It’s not a very gentlemanly thing to do to make a lady carry his bag for him,” he said. She told him it isn’t ladylike to make someone suffer like that.  

However, there is no lunch where she can ask him to carry her bag for her today. No pomegranate seeds to feed Anthony, no stains to kiss. Instead, the class before their break, she receives a note from the counselor’s office and she drags her feet there with stomach full of dread instead of slices of apple. She’ll have to feed the food in the brown paper bag to him after school. 

“Well, Johanna,” Miss Chudwell says. She is likely a very patient woman who wears pink cardigans and crimps her hair, but Johanna finds herself squirming in the chair in front of her desk. “It’s been a few days. How are you feeling?”

“A few days since what?”

It’s Tuesday. A few days since the weekend? A few days since last Monday? 

“Since you got settled with your father.” 

  Oh. 

She would prefer to talk about the weekend, but it was the weekend when he and that car came. 

“Yes.” What else can Johanna say? It’s an acknowledgement and not a rude one, if a tad curt. She would have preferred to snap at her. She holds herself back. There’s no reason to lash out at the woman, who seems to only be doing her job. Besides, if she did get cross, what if she sends her to the headmaster’s office? 

“This is a big change,” Miss Wilson says, “I’m sure you weren’t expecting to ever reunite with your father. Were you?”

Her guardian had told her that he was in prison and that is where he would rot. Johanna never considered he would get out. Never considered that he didn’t have a lifetime sentence. How long was it? She couldn’t dare ask him now. Twenty years? Twenty-five? That would give her guardian enough time to–... get away with everything. 

She never wanted a father. She never wanted to be anyone’s daughter. 

She wanted to be free. 

“No.” Johanna finds a curl to tug on. “Not really.”

Miss Chudwell chews on her pencil’s eraser. “Are things with him going well?” 

A shrug. Her gaze wanders in the direction of the headmaster’s office. She doesn’t mean to be impolite, really!  

“He asked me to speak with you today.” 

He asked. He told her to call her in? Not only is she losing precious time with Anthony, but also talking to the school counselor . Only students who are failing or going insane or something along those lines go to the counselor. To talk. To be… counseled. 

Miss Chudwell drones on about adjustments and coming to her if they need anything. She recognizes a few sentences from her ramble from quotes art teachers print onto Father’s Day projects. After “ Any man can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a dad,” Johanna feels bile in her mouth. She inhales. 

“It is.” She doesn’t quite know what she agreed to. “Um, did you need to talk to me about school? Or anything academic-related? My GCSE exams have all gone well and my grades are in order, I believe. But perhaps, something has changed?” Johanna hopes it has if only to be a distraction from the person behind this meeting. 

“Well…” Miss Chudwell puts the pencil down and furiously shakes the computer mouse. After a painful minute of typing and clicking and impatience, she looks back at Johanna. “Like you said, everything seems to be in order. Especially after the transfer from Harmony Private. You’re doing splendidly. Do you feel like there’s anything you need to talk about? Do you want to transfer classes?” 

Johanna puts on a smile. “That’s alright.” She swings her backpack over her shoulders. She can feel the brown paper bag mocking her from inside. “Thank you! I best be on my way.”

“Oh. Alright.” 

As she files through the door, Miss Chudwell calls after her, 

“Oh, happy belated birthday!”

Johanna lets the door close behind her.  

After the final bell, Anthony is already at their meeting spot when she arrives, huffing and cross. If her cheeks are still pink from the embarrassment of the call, she wouldn’t be surprised. He asks what’s wrong. She wishes she could enjoy the moment of him worrying about her. He’s always sweet like that. When she tells him, his jaw drops. 

“If he wanted to call me mad, he could have at least done it to my face,” Johanna says. She hates the way her voice cracks. Why can’t she be angry without the accompaniment of tears?

This isn’t anyone’s business. Not her guardian’s. Not Benjamin Barker’s. Not any so-called “mental health professionals.” Not the school counselor. They don’t need to know her “history.” Or even if she has one.

Her first relapse happened when she was fourteen. 

But at the age of twelve, she began taking advantage of the scale next to the shower. It was consistently once a week before it was every morning. Then every evening, too. Then after every meal. Every time she ate. It lasted a little over a month before Mrs. Eastman ratted her out for skipping meals. Then it was fourteen where she felt exhausted and sick and prided herself on how much that number was shrinking–and so rapidly! But she woke up in the nurse’s office one day. Her guardian had been a lawyer once. He prided himself on facts and figures and putting them together like puzzle pieces. He knew exactly why she was there. He pretended as if he hadn’t been pleased with her progress when he screamed at her. Pretended that her life truly did matter to him. (Her body did, perhaps.)

Two weeks. Johanna never missed school before, but she was gone for two weeks after he yelled. 

When she came back, she arrived with rumors. What was the point in disproving them? Everyone at that school knew it was unlike her to miss any school. They didn’t know the why , but guesses weren’t hard to come up with.  

Vacation was a yawn-inducing guess. Family emergency was too typical. Some sort of accident was the closest to the truth. Almost being married off to a foreign ambassador was popular during second period. None of them knew that her guardian would never marry her off; he was too selfish for that. 

During those two weeks, her guardian threatened to have her sent away. Did she want to be like her mother? Did she want to kill herself, too? Did she want to rot away in a mental institution? Did she want to be insane as her? 

If Benjamin Barker isn’t asking the same questions, (albeit differently), why did he make her go to the office?

“He should have asked you if you wanted to go,” Anthony replies. “He shouldn’t have just made you.”

“Right?” She shifts on her toes, glancing over her shoulder for said counselor. Just in case. 

“Do you want… do you want to keep talking about it? Or do you maybe want to come home with me? I’m off for the next week. We could just hang out like we used to.” 

A distraction. Anthony really is Heaven-sent. 

Johanna takes his hand. “I’ve missed your room.”

“And my brother? And my other brother?”

A laugh. “Well, since you politely ask them to leave beforehand, I can’t really think of it as theirs when I only see you in there.”

“I just hope you don’t think the Paw Patrol books aren’t mine.”

“Oh, but aren’t they?”

“ Ooh , you’ve caught me.”

And without a second thought, they begin on their way to the Hope’s. 

She isn’t home. 

She isn’t in her room. She isn’t on the sofa. She isn’t at the kitchen table. She isn’t in his room. 

His daughter is gone. 

He tells himself she was at the library, working on her homework there. 

He messages her. 

Ten minutes pass with no response. Benjamin sends another. No answer. 

He calls. No answer. 

He’s closing to calling the authorities when the door creaks open. She doesn’t lock it behind her, just wanders towards her room with backpack hanging over a single shoulder.

“Where are you going?” 

His daughter stops, looks at him over her shoulder and clenches her fist around her bag’s strap. “To the room.” 

“Why didn’t you answer me?” 

“I turned the phone off.” Her gaze falls to the floor, but she keeps her head steady. “I just missed it.”

“I called you three times.” 

He closes his eyes and thinks of his wife. Her virtue and her patience. What would she do if their child didn’t bother to come home after school? He sees her picking at the threads in her sleeve as she waits at their table. Her head lifts at the click of a lock and she envelopes their daughter into an embrace that would make the Heavens weep. She would them over, scanning for bruises or scraps. She looks over them first… that’s what she does. Benjamin can’t embrace her, but he checks. Is that a bruise on her arm? A scratch? He reaches for her wrist. 

She snaps it away.

He drops his hand. 

“You were gone for hours .”

“I don’t have a curfew.” 

He knows what the next thing he’s going to do . But she is technically right. He never demanded she be home for dinner, he’d just expected it. 

That’s what families do together. Kids come home, do their homework, chat on the phone with their friend, have dinner and converse with their parents and siblings, then go to bed. It’s not exactly the routine he was living by when he was her age, but it’s what most families do. What he and Lucy expected their family to do. 

“You’ve never done this before.” Arms fold over his chest. “You always come straight home . You don’t lollygag or drag your feet. You’re always right there. ” You’re always a constant in my life . In prison, he could always count on a guard screaming in his face. On the other side, he has his daughter doing her homework and listening to instrumentals of the Beatles’ greatest hits. 

“Well, I do have a life,” she snaps. “It’s been a few days, I don’t see why I can’t go back to it.”

A life? Now she really sounds like a teenager. 

It’s almost music to his ears. (Or it would be if she wasn’t directing that sass towards him.) 

His hand drags down his face. He takes a breath. She isn’t out doing what he was when he was a teenager. She isn’t . He jerks his hand away from his face. “Were you with a friend?” 

This is where a thief is caught in broad daylight. His daughter adjusts her balance on her feet, biting at her lip and playing with a curl. She looks away from him again. Benjamin’s eyes narrow. She doesn’t have friends like his, does she?

  “No.” 

Why does he sense she’s lying? 

“Then, what , pray tell , were you doing?” Pray tell? Now, he sounds like his own–

She shrugs a shoulder. It reminds him of his wife. “I was at the library, alright? I like to go after school sometimes. I can get my homework done there and I like to read. It’s a nice place. It’s not as if I’m getting myself in trouble with the law or anything.”

Trouble with the law.  

Benjamin wasn’t in trouble . He was convicted on a false charge. That isn’t trouble. The only trouble he remotely got into was in his youth and such charges were waved due to their non-violent nature and his youth. He was fine .

“He used to let me go,” his daughter continues in a whisper. 

“What?” 

“ He used to let me. After school.”

Is she comparing them? He used to let her go to the library so Benjamin automatically lets her, too? He has to abide by every parenting practice the judge raised her by? Does she perceive them as the same person ? A fist forms at his side.

The judge who sentenced him to rot in prison. The judge who sent roses to his wife, knowing she was a married woman. The judge who asked him to use his own razor to shave his throat and he know regrets not slicing his skin? The judge who abducted  his daughter from him. The judge who ripped her away from her father. Who took her mother away. Who tore their family apart with a vulture-smile. 

“I’m not him .” It’s said in a low tone that almost resembles a growl. Apparently, it’s shocking enough that his daughter looks up at him, chin tilted towards her collarbones as if she’s was caught cheating on her exams. “ Our rules aren’t the same as his rules. You need to ask these things before you just go off and do what you want! I’m your father!” 

Her father. His daughter. 

His daughter is silent. Her chest rises and falls in deep, yet shallow breaths and she looks at him the same way she had at the Department of Education. 

“May I go to the library after school?” 

His eyes narrow. She’s asking him now ? 

But she looks terribly innocent with her green eyes and cardigan (with that safety pin clinging to the fabric for dear life). She isn’t a fellow prisoner leading him into a trap. She’s his daughter . This is the first time she’s ever asked for permission to do anything. Fist still clenched at his side, he wonders if he should be proud of this stupid , pathetic milestone. 

But instead of pride, he sighs. “You need to message me or call me when you want to. And turn on your mapping tool every time so you don’t get lost. If I call you or message you, answer it. Immediately.”

“Can I… go to the library if I do all of those things?”

He’s tempted to say no. 

(He isn’t the judge.) 

“Yes.”

His daughter nods before removing her backpack and ducking into her room. The scent of chicken jerks him back to reality. He has to call her back in for dinner as soon as the door closes. 

Despite granting his permission, neither of them treat it as a white flag. 

She was with a friend . She just doesn’t want him knowing about her. (Right?)

Tonight, Benjamin watches her eat. There’s only a small bite there. A nibble here. She cuts her meat up into small slices and moves them around on her plate. Everything points to her eating, yet he only sees her consuming a few bites of dried apples and a single string bean. 

“Did it get cold?” Benjamin gestures to her plate with his fork. 

She glances up at him before looking away. “No. It’s fine.”

“Then why aren’t you eating anything?”

“I am–!” Fork falls onto the plate with a cling. The silence deafens as she stares at him. “Why did you call the counselor?”  

“What?”

“The school counselor! You called her and told her to talk to me! Like I’m completely mad!” 

His brow furrows. It was a recommendation he’d actually taken from one of the books he’d read. Sometimes children are more likely to talk to an adult they know they can trust, but aren’t their parent or guardian. Someone like a teacher or a school counselor. He called her, believing (no, knowing ), it was likely the best thing to do. He was in med school before. He knows how all of that works. And maybe, if his daughter did speak to the counselor, she would talk to him . The counselor could at least encourage that for him. After she talked to her, then she would go to him about the judge. About the foster house. She would fill him in about every aspect of her life and he would get to be a part of hers. 

“You’re not mad , you’re just–” 

Her hands grab at her hair. One curl, then a fistful, then another. She yanks as if there’s a spider trapped in her tresses.  

“As if I’m like my mother! You treat–”

“Your mother was not mad!” 

Benjamin stands. 

His daughter looks up at him, but doesn’t cease her rambling. “I’m not her! I’m not her! I’m not insane or need to talk to anyone or–”

“Stop that!”

She rises. He can see blood trickling from her scalp. 

“Don’t you ever say that about your mother again! She’s not mad! She wasn’t!”

“I don’t need to talk to anyone!” 

He can barely hear her over the sound of his own shouting. 

“You didn’t ask me if I wanted to go! You just sent me to her! Are you going to send me away next? Are you going to make me go–”

Her blood comes in drops, running down the side of her head, staining every yellow strand in its path. Drops and drops and drops and he clenches his jaw. She doesn’t seem to realize he’s no longer yelling as Benjamin grabs both of her hands and tears them away from her hair. When she protests, he tightens her grip. Her gaze dart between his eyes and his hands like a frightened bird. He stares back, playing predator. 

Like a predator, he won’t let her go without the final confrontation. He doesn’t think of the counselor or his wife or madness. 

“ Why aren’t you eating ?”

Her jaw clenches. Another firm yank. He lets her hands go. He is the predator, not the trap. 

He watches as she disappears into her room. 

They fall into bitter routine. Scowls while passing each other and a heavy silence over the dinner table. The air has become as unbearable as humanity in the summertime. He hears feet scurry across the creaking kitchen floors at night and this time, he wants to confront the mouse. What is she doing up at this hour? She should be asleep . It’s a school night . 

He goes to work. She goes to school. He hears footsteps all night–is that pacing? 

The silence finally breaks over dinner. 

“Are you going to the trial?” she asks, making her spoon dance the waltz with a carrot. 

“What trial?”

“The one for… him .”

Did something happen at school that prompted this line of thinking? She hasn’t brought up the judge in almost the entire time she’s been home. It’s always been him and he doesn’t mind avoiding the subject. 

The judge is his. The judge keeps him up at night and lurks in the back of his mind. He sees him in dark alleyways and around street corners. Once, Benjamin had found himself on Kearney’s Lane when he was supposed to be getting home from work. He lingered there, staring at the building that housed his flat.  

Was that balcony where his daughter used to stand? Did she like to look at the birds from up there?

But imagining his daughter looking for songbirds didn’t take away the foul truth of this building. That flat was the cause of his wife’s death. 

Benjamin spent the train ride home contemplating his plan. 

“Yes,” he finally says. “I want to be the first to know.” A pause hangs in the air for another minute before he continues. He can give her some honestly, (all those books recommended it). “But I don’t want him imprisoned.”

“ What? ”

He takes a bite. Too much pepper.  

“Do you really want him imprisoned?”

“ Yes!” Her voice shakes like the voice of God. That voice could shake the whole earth. Both hands pull at her hair. “Yes! If he’s behind bars… Don’t you want him imprisoned? Just like you were–”

“Not just like me.” His tone is the opposite of hers, steady and low and authoritative. “He was a judge. They won’t put him in a cell like mine.” 

“Then what–”

“He will be in protective services.” Protected the same way he kept himself surrounded by cops and that Bamford fellow. It’ll be exactly the same, but the judge will trade Bamford for a gray jumper. “You can imagine how many inmates want him dead . They won’t let a highly-respected, even former judge to rot with the rest of them. It won’t be anything like me. Do you want him to live like that after everything he’s done?”

She rises from the table as she stammers out, “Yes!” 

Benjamin rises, forcefully tearing her fingers from her scalp again. There isn’t any blood this time. That’s at least one win in this blasted conversation. She rips her hands away, eyes dating all around her before focusing on him. 

“If he’s in prison , that means he can’t…” There is something more on her lips and it quivers with them. She takes a breath before sitting. “He can’t escape.” 

  If she were anyone but his daughter, Benjamin would laugh. “That doesn’t guarantee he won’t. It’ll just make it hard for him to.” 

She shakes her head, glazed eyes looking into him as if she is pleading for mercy. “He won’t. He loves the law too much. Sometimes I thought he would marry it.”

He doesn’t know the judge. His daughter does. Whatever relationship they had, however twisted it was, she still knows more than he does. But Benjamin knows metal bars and blocked windows. 

“The law just kicked him out and threw his bags right next to him. He won’t be as devoted to it anymore.” (Though, if it does come worst-to-worst and the judge is given a sentence and he does run… Benjamin still has a chance. Either way he wins.) “It’s better he’s ridiculed by everyone out here for the rest of his life than coddled by his former colleagues from His Majesty’s Prison Services .” 

“I don’t understand why …” His daughter shakes her head. “He should be locked away. I don’t care how they treat him. A gilded cage is still a cage.” 

And a knife is still a knife. 

“Finish your soup.” 

The last thing he needs is for her to get suspicious. Based on the phone calls he gets nightly, she’s already picked up on a thing or two. Hopefully, she hasn’t figured out who the caller is just yet. 

She does what she is told. If just picking at her meal instead of consuming it. The grating of her spoon against her bowl makes his jaw clench. He thinks back to little footsteps. 

“Have you been sleeping?” Not “ how have you been sleeping?” or “have you been sleeping alright?” Straight to the chase. 

His daughter scowls. “Yes.” 

“Really? Because all night I hear little footsteps going between the kitchen and your room and every night–”

“Have you been sleeping?” she asks with the utmost innocence. “If you’ve been up all night hearing noises, it sounds like you haven’t been. Why don’t you retire now–”

“I’m an adult and you are–”

“Adults still require slee–”

Fist hits the table. “I am your father! You are my daughter. I get to be concerned about you. I need you to sleep at night.”

Silence hangs in the air like a bitter scent. His daughter’s shoulders roll back like a prisoner preparing for a fistfight over a bowl of oats. Instead of lunging at him from across the table, she takes a breath, stands and pushes in her chair.

“Where are you going?” Benjamin asks in a tone that gives away his exhaustion. How doesn’t she feel this worn down from their arguments? 

“To sleep,” she calls back without stopping. “You told me to.”  

He doesn’t reply. 

“You really are acting like one,” she says before disappearing behind her door. 

“Like… what? ”

“A father.”

The door closes. 

It didn’t sound like a compliment. 

Benjamin continues to sit over his sacred father-daughter dinner that he used to look forward to. Hands cover his face, rubbing at his eyes, unable to keep him awake like caffeine does. Med school taught him not to consume caffeine after dark, but what has he never learned?

They went to church just a few days ago. Just him and her. She had even smiled. Just a few days ago, they were getting along-awkwardly, but nothing like that . 

He wishes he had more than the sky to talk to. He wants to pray to his wife. 

He’s going to lock her in. 

Johanna has done it now: given him a reason to. Her ear presses against the door waiting for the click of a lock. Any minute now. Any minute… 

Leaning against the door, her gaze wanders like a jungle animal around her room. She can hear the clanging of dishes and silverware, yet she searches for him. As if he’s somehow teleported inside. But as she does, her gaze lands on the window. The fire escape. The stairs. (Of course the fire escape has stairs , it would be a rather poor one if it didn’t.)

From what she’s gathered, typical punishments for her classmates include getting their mobile phones taken away. Whether it’s for the night or the week depends on the misdoing. Before he comes in to do the same…

Johanna: Is it alright with you if I come over to your flat?

Anthony replies immediately. 

Anthony: Of course! You’re always welcome!  

Anthony: Do you need directions?

After replying with a polite no, she pulls up his address on the maps application. This will be her first time going over there from this new address. Not the first coming back from his house, but this is a somewhat new experience. She’ll be able to get to Anthony from anywhere after tonight. 

If she doesn’t beg him to leave London with her tonight. 

Johanna begins the process of layering jumpers. When she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror, she almost mistakes the reflection for a frumpy, old woman. Fat old woman. She can’t wait for spring when she’ll only have to wear one or two. (Even then, Anthony might still find her shivering–she can’t help the fact that she runs cold!) She pulls down the collars of the jumpers to tap on her collarbone. It still echoes the hollow noise she is almost addicted to. 

She deletes the messages, then scribbles down his phone number before deleting his contact–just in case. A glance at the directions. After a few more clicks, she slips the phone under the pillow. He won’t be able to find anything on her when he goes through it. No evidence of Anthony, no map, nothing . 

She pockets the few pieces of cash she had stored in her backpack. Emergency money from Anthony that he’d given to her in case she needed to get to his flat. She wouldn’t be able to bring her beloved oyster card with her–they can track those with the snap of a finger.

It is a windy night and the window feels the iciness of London as it refuses to open. Johanna leans down, pushing up with her forearms. 

Mrs. Fogg’s heel presses into her back again. 

She stumbles backward as the window pops open. She lays–blinking like an idiot–as she stares back at it. One, two, three . She throws her hand to the window sill, biting her lower lip to stop herself from screaming. The way her back throbs brings her back to the day she woke up in bed and tried to get up for school. But it can’t be that bad. Mrs. Fogg was a nurse . When she said she was alright, then she was alright.  

Still, Johanna’s grip is weak and she stumbles like a swimmer trying not to drown as she hoists the other hand next to it. One, two, three– she holds her breath. 

A foot slips under her as she rises. A choked sound of a dying woman escapes her as she thuds back to the floor. Johanna squeezes her eyes shut. It’s fine. Her back is fine. It’s been all-healed for a while now. Even if Mrs. Fogg harassed her, she was still a nurse. She still knew what she was doing.  

One, two, three–

Johanna slams herself into the sill. Her hips cry from being stabbed by metal, but she ignores her. Her spine is being too needy as it is. 

There’s a creek from the kitchen. She doesn’t know if she’s holding her breath to stop herself from crying or to prevent herself from being spotted. 

She stops thinking altogether as she thrusts herself over the window sill. 

The stairs are just as-if not more–rickety as the fire escape. They quiver and ache under each step, but she is full-speed-ahead. As long as she’s quiet enough, no one will notice her leaving. No one will call the police. No one will tell him .

He, who didn’t want the judge behind bars. Does he want the judge to find her again? Neither of them are safe as long as he’s on the streets. Benjamin Barker will be… likely killed. Johanna will be in an aeroplane to Thailand, seated next to him. He’s done his research and she has to in order to keep up with him.

On the London streets, she pretends to be a teenage runaway from her books. Clutching her jumpers to herself (digging her nails into the thread to keep herself from screaming), filing through crowds of people (hoping they don’t notice how pale she’s certain she’s going), a small bunch of cash (wishing it was some of Mrs. Fogg’s stolen medicine instead). With every step, her spine creaks and cracks and she finds herself closer to bursting into tears. Her fingers take a break to wipe unshed, burning tears from her eyes. 

She passes a Cafe Nerro. Anthony wouldn’t be too angry if she stopped to take a break? She could buy him tea and he would let her in. She could sit . Would sitting feel any better? 

Instead of sinking into Mrs. Hope’s sofa, she forces herself through the door and orders their smallest size of peppermint tea. Johanna hardly notices the other seating as she finds an empty table by the window. As she sits, her spine shoots a sharpness from bottom to top and it rests near her head. Wasn’t sitting supposed to feel better? She attempts to look over her shoulder. The slight motion is met with another cascade of misery, even her teeth ache. She faces forward, gives a small smile when the barista delivers the tea. She pushes the paper cup away from her. 

Rest, that’s what Mrs. Fogg said, she needed rest . 

She’d rather face nightmares than this. 

She slowly lowers her head onto the table. Only one arm is brave enough to meet her there, the other dangles like a noose at her side. She melts into her makeshift (and uncomfortable) pillow. 

Perhaps , Johanna thinks as she closes her eyes, Anthony will meet me halfway .

He throws his spoon back into his bowl and the sound of metal against glass sends a ripple of satisfaction through him. Benjamin picks up the bowls with their spoons and marches to the sink. He isn’t careful as he runs the faucet and scrubs. What is she thinking? She doesn’t eat, doesn’t sleep and she disappeared a few days ago like that? Does she want him to think she’s out snorting white powder or chugging horrific bubbly substances down his throat? Does she think he was never his age? He knows what some teenagers get up to. He was one of them once. 

Hand falls under the water and he rips it away from the steady stream. He glances at it, finding a small, pink mark between his thumb and where the rest of his fingers connect. Benjamin doesn’t change the temperature, just leaves it running as he brings the rest of the dishes over.

Shoulders weigh more than the load of cement they dealt with today. His coworkers made jokes about sticking their hands into the gray, wet substance and leave behind a part of themselves on this project. Instead of leaving part of himself, the cement left part of itself on Benjamin. It wears down his back, his hands, his feet. He pauses, looking at the crumb-covered table and listening to the sink. 

His daughter burned her hand the other day. How could she be so foolish to let the water get so hot? She didn’t even think about it, did she? 

Floorboards creak beneath him as he stomps to the sink to switch it off. 

Benjamin packages what they hadn’t eaten–which was most of it. But perhaps, later when he isn’t so worn down, he can try to convince her to finish her food. He dries his hands. He and Lucy had a pact not to go to bed angry at each other. There was no sleep until there were apologies. It led to one night where they only got two hours of sleep. It was all worth it. They never went to bed with any gripes with each other–despite his stubbornness. 

He musters some of that stubbornness again as he knocks on his daughter’s door. 

“We need to talk.” Another knock. “Let me in .” Another. He lets out a heavy sigh. “I’m opening the door.”

With a twist of the knob, he enters. She isn’t on her bed. He turns. Not in the corner. Not in her closet. Benjamin prepares himself for battle against the window, but it opens with ease. She isn’t on the fire escape either. He calls her full name out to the stars as he begins running down the steps. When he reaches the bottom, a stone falls to the pit of his stomach. He glances back up at the window. 

She’s gone. 

She ran from him the first time they met. He’s been on guard ever since, ready to catch her again, too stubborn to let anything–from the judge to her own will–take her away from him again. 

He calls her name again. A man sticks his head out of his window and yells. Benjamin shouts at him back. They glare at each other until the other surrenders by closing his window. 

His daughter is gone .

With heavy shoulders and a pit in his stomach, he dials the police department. Look at him begging on his knees to those he considers the enemy. 

They file in through his hallway with an order to him to stay in his kitchen in case she comes back. He bites back a remark about since she’s his daughter, if she shows up at home to several uniformed officers and various strangers, she’ll turn right back around. Enemy or not, they have the manpower to find her faster. He’s questioned at the table. He answers the questions in a somewhat shaky, but firm voice. After the third round of the same questions, he barks the same answers back. 

When was the last time you saw her? When do you think she left? What happened?

No, he doesn’t know why she would run away. Yes, she has her own phone. Yes, here it is. See, there isn’t anything of noteworthiness on it. Yes, he found it under the bed. Have you checked to make sure the judge is still in prison?

  They say they talked to the prison. He’s still behind bars. 

Benjamin screams his objection back. 

(It is better to be angry than to think of the possibilities.) 

“Sorry! I’m coming through! ”

The sound of the voice makes Benjamin’s own chest cave in. 

“ Mis-ter Bar-ker .”

Gritting his teeth, he turns. He doesn’t reply. 

Mrs. Wilson flicks her fingers at another person hounding him for information and sits in the chair across from where he’s standing. She opens her laptop. “You say that–”

“What are you doing here?”

She sighs. “The girl ran away, right? That becomes my business when I’m her welfare worker. I’m not any happier about this than you are. Now–” she struggles with her pocket to retrieve a pen. “You noticed she was gone how long ago?” 

“What time is it?” he asks through gritted teeth. 

After a glance at her phone, she reveals it’s fifteen past ten. 

“Thirty- four minutes.” 

“And you haven’t noticed any–”

“If you want to know, talk to the police.”

Mrs. Wilson doesn’t suppress her eye-roll. “How was she acting before you realized she was gone?”

“I told the–”

“I know, I know! You told the detectives everything from the first street you lived on to your mother’s maiden name. They know literally everything about you now, but I don’t and my unfortunate priority is making sure that you didn’t do anything to the kid to make her take off.” 

“I didn’t– ”   

“I know.” 

He can’t tell if she believes him or not. 

Inmates came in and out of his section. Benjamin hardly paid them any attention. The new man that joined them didn’t have anything remarkable about him either. Benjamin assumed he wouldn’t remember him. Quiet and thin, he didn’t attempt to mess with the order of things or try to make any friends. Benjamin still doesn’t know his name. He didn’t think anymore of that man until he came across fight in the corridor. At least three men were on the guy, beating his face into his skull. When Benjamin heard why they were, he didn’t hesitate to throw a fist in his face too. 

How could a man hurt his kid like that? 

During his stint in solitary after the fight was broken up, he thought about his baby girl back home. How he would cradle her head and treat her with nothing but gentleness the moment he set eyes on her again. 

(But has he fulfilled that promise?)

“What happened before you discovered she was missing?” Mrs. Wilson asks. 

This must be his sixth time answering that question. 

“We were eating.”

“And? Did anything happen? What were you talking about? Did she seem off?”

“We argued.”

Usually, whoever he’s talking to is satisfied with that. They write it down with a nod as if of course, of course, they were arguing . As if he isn’t a good father or she isn’t a good daughter. They assume they know everything about them with that two-worded answer. 

“About what? School? Grades? Boys?”

Benjamin pretends she didn’t mention boys . “What does it matter?”

“Believe me, Mr. Barker, it does. I was your daughter’s age once. I argued–”

“ I was, too .”

Mrs. Wilson pushes her lips to one side of her face. “According to our records, you two didn’t have exactly the same teenagehood.”

He doesn’t reply. 

“This isn’t too unusual for this situation,” she says. 

He doesn’t know if he wants to understand her meaning or not, yet he asks, 

“ What situation? ”

She shrugs. “I mean, nothing’s usual about all this, but I can’t be surprised she ran off. Lots of foster kids do–”

“She’s not a foster child.”

“She used to be.”

“She wasn’t –”

“According to–”

“I was right here!” Benjamin slams his fist against the table. “The whole time! You–” he points at Mrs. Wilson, then the detective, then a cop “--Didn’t let me have my daughter back. If you did , you wouldn’t have to be calling her a welfare child and she would have been back home where she should have been since the beginning!” 

The cop nears him. “Mr. Barker–” 

“Don’t.”

He speaks to him with the same finality that he spoke to his daughter. He isn’t here to engage in any talk down spiel. They are here to find his daughter. Why aren’t they?

The Barkers become the least popular residents in their building. As anyone tries to exit or enter, they are greeted by a long array of questions from a cop. People scowl at his door as they pass by. He glares at them back. It’s the same thing they would do if their daughter went missing. 

They go through her phone again. There’s nothing on there but a screenshot of Paris and several missed calls from him. Even the maps app has been deleted. 

“Excuse me? Excuse me?” 

Benjamin has his back turned to the door, yet the voice makes his shoulders tense. Why does that voice sound familiar? He rarely talks to his neighbors if he can help it. Not anyone from work. Not– 

“Is Johanna here?”

An officer approaches the voice at the same time Benjamin turns to face it. He looks the boy over. Seventeen or eighteen-year-old, can’t be older than that. He’s tall with a subtle curl to his brown hair. What’s some kid doing at his flat?

It’s the boy from Waterstone’s. The weird one. 

What’s the kid from Waterstone’s doing here?

The boy stares back with mouth agape. The cop interrupts their staring contest with a question. 

“I, uh, I’m looking for Johanna.” 

“Why?” Benjamin asks before anyone else can. 

The boy glances at him again. “Is she not here? Why are… why are the police here?” 

“No.” Benjamin’s patience is wearing thin. “Why are you here?”

“She was on her way to my flat but she never–”

Oh her way to his flat? His? Those are a few words that should never be uttered in the same sentence. His, his, his–who is this boy?

“Why was she supposedly going there?” Benjamin can’t stomach the idea of saying “your flat” out loud. She isn’t part of any extracurriculars. She goes to the library and she does her homework at home and she doesn’t have any friends like–like he did . She shouldn’t be speaking to– “Who are you?”

“I-I’m her… guy.”

The sound that emerges from his throat is a scoff. He doesn’t know if he intends sob or scream, instead he scoffs .

Her guy. Her guy. As if it’s nineteen-fifty-seven or some vaguely vintage-sounding year. Her guy . Who says things like that? At least admit to being her boyfriend–

Is he her boyfriend? Is that what this means?

How does she have a boyfriend? She’s only seventeen. 

She’s been wearing that safety pin lately. 

She was with a friend the other day (or so he suspects).

Benjamin looks back at the boy. 

The detective approaches them and wraps an arm around the boy. Playing the part of a stern, but comforting figure or preventing him from taking off? “What’s your name, son?”

“Anthony Hope, sir.”

“You’re her boyfriend?” The detective leads him inside the flat. 

“Y-yeah.”

Why does he seem so nervous to be her boyfriend?

The detective sits them down at their table. He gestures for Benjamin to take a seat, as well. Mrs. Wilson looks up at them from her seat. Benjamin stays standing, arms crossed over his chest. If he were to sit, he would collapse.

“How long have you two been an item?”

An item…

“About five months, sir.”

Five months . 

Well, that’s not long at all. They can’t be all that serious. 

But, then, how long did his secondary school relationships last? Not five months…

She’s been wearing the safety pin.

“How do you know she was on her way to your flat?”

“She told me.”

“How?”

“WhatsApp?”

The detective stands, bouncing on his heels. “Did she call you? Text you?”

“Messaged me…” He rustles with something in his pocket. “Here. This is her telling me.” He pushes his phone across the table. 

Benjamin reads the chain of messages between lovesick teenage sweethearts over the detective’s shoulder. They deduce she must have permanently deleted the exchange on her end to prevent them from finding her. If Benjamin wasn’t so furious–at this boy, at the detectives, at himself –he might have been at least a little proud of her. She’s brilliant. Even if she used her brilliance to keep him from finding her. 

To his misfortune, the Waterstone’s boy is right. She was on her way. 

“I can bring you to my home. Along the way, she might…”

Benjamin practically pushes the boy out the door. People call after him and a cop is ordered to follow while they gather plans and people. He doesn’t care. She’s along there somewhere. He knows she is. He intends to get to his daughter before anyone else does. 

The boy pauses before getting out of the elevator. Benjamin gives him a less-than-gentle nudge. The boy looks over his shoulder, searching for permission within the uniformed cop with them. After securing a nod, he began back on his way. What is he up to? Why did he hesitate? 

They move at a fast, yet careful pace as they scan the streets around them, peeking into every window and looking around each corner. Benjamin ignores the boy who keeps glancing over at him, keeps trying to talk to him. 

Until he sees yellow hair. 

Leaning over onto the table barely welcomes sleep. Instead, it is another sturdy burst of pain that’s knocking on her door. It morphs itself into her lower back and her throat is as dry as something choking. Using the hand on the table, she reaches for the tea. Cold now. If God let it be warm for just a minute longer, she could have circled around her back and used it as a heating compress. 

Mrs. Fogg said she was fine. Why isn’t she suddenly not fine anymore? 

“Johanna?” 

She must have rebroken her head, too. That sounds like Anthony. 

“Hey, Jo? Are you alright?” 

His hand rests on her shoulder. When she opens her eyes, he’s looking back at her. 

He is here. 

“ Anthony ,” she breathes. The motion of her jaw sends ice chips through her lymph nodes. But he’s here . They’ll go to his house and Mrs. Hope will have aspirin or something for her and she can rest there, with Anthony’s arm around her shoulders. “Help me up?

He offers a hand and she leans on it. Knees wobbling beneath her, she throws her arms around his torso. Head rests against his chest, listening to the echoes of his heartbeat. She can’t be dreaming. No dream would ever be able to replicate the perfect melody of his heart pumping blood. He kisses the top of her head. 

“Jo, the police… Your father…” 

Her father? She blinks. What was the color of Anthony’s shirt? Yellow? It’s gray now. The tables and people behind him are gray, too. 

“He’s in prison.” 

“Johanna, he’s right here. Next to me. He was looking for you.”

He snaps at Anthony about giving her some room. She pulls Anthony closer to her. (Is she?)

He’s talking to Anthony. 

Oh no.

Johanna blinks, opening her eyes to… Why is it still dark? Where are they? It’s night, yes, but not completely black? She can feel Anthony, hear his breathing, she knows he’s there, why can’t she see him? Is God suddenly making her go blind? Anthony clings to her and a fresh slice of pain rushes throughout her back. 

“Anthony…” she mumbles without hearing herself. Is she slipping? 

She barely feels the impact of hitting the ground. It should hurt more, shouldn’t it?

“Johanna!”

She doesn’t hear him.

Chapter Text

Beep. Beep. Beep. 

“Uhhh–what do I do?!”

Beep. Beep. Beep.

“Lay her on her back!” 

Beep. Beep. Beep . 

They shrug off layers upon layers of sweaters. Benjamin nearly screams at the boy. Overly eager son of a—

Beep. Beep. Beep . 

“She’s still breathing!” 

Beep. Beep. Beep.

“Pulse is fine.” That was from Benjamin. “But slow.” 

Beep. Beep. Beep . 

The boy runs alongside them as the ambulance crew pushes her into the back of the vehicle. He steps inside and Benjamin holds up a hand, warning him away. He looks back at her and the doctors around her. 

“She doesn’t like doctors,” he says, “I want to come with her. Please . I can ride in the front if you don’t want me back here. Please just let me come . I don’t want to leave her like this.”

“She isn’t yours to leave.”

The doors begin to close on the boy biting his lip. 

“What hospital are you going to?”

The doors shut. Benjamin sits. 

Beep. Beep. Beep.

At one point, she groans. It’s the most painful sound he’s heard in years. 

Beep. Beep. Beep. 

Beep. Beep. Beep.

It’s strange to think he wanted to work at a hospital when he was young. Sitting here, he can’t stomach the starkness of the walls and the constant beeping . It smells of people passing from one life to the next, even in the pediatric ward. 

Their dream was for him to finish his schooling, get his degree in London and move to the countryside. The Lake District, perhaps. Lucy always talked about childhood trips there. He was partial to Essex himself. The specific location of where they ended up didn’t matter, as long as Lucy got her garden and their children grew up on fresh air. Quaint house filled with laughing children–Benjamin said he wanted four. Lucy said six. Their dreams of that family began to dwindle with how difficult it was to get their daughter, yet it didn’t stop them from talking about it. Perhaps, it would only be their girl running barefoot among the flower beds. Every day, he would go to work at a place like this. Lucy would greet him with a kiss. He would bounce their daughter until she was dizzy and they would crash into the sofa. 

Now their daughter is in a hospital bed and his wife is gone. 

Beep. Beep. Beep .

Benjamin doesn’t know whether to hold her hand or braid her hair or leave the room. None of his books prepared him for this . Daughters aren’t supposed to end up in hospitals after an attempt to run away . 

(They don’t know that for certain though. They just found her on her way to someone’s else’s home with money in her pocket.)

There is a certain righteousness that trickles through his anger. She shouldn’t have run away . She shouldn’t have left her phone. She shouldn’t have neglected to tell her about an apparent boyfriend . She shouldn’t keep secrets from him, her father.  

But it’s hard to be this furious with her when there’s a needle sticking out of her arm. 

( He should have kept a better eye on her. He should have talked to her. He should have protected her. He shouldn’t have let the judge near his family.)

Beep. Beep. Beep.

“Excuse me? Is this room one-eight-six?” 

But anger seeps back into his veins like an IV pumping liquid through the course of the body. Benjamin snaps to his feet, planning to throw the boy out at a moment's notice–at least he will sneer down at him. 

The boy is taller than him. By an inch , no more than that. 

The boy wears an almost-ill expression as he looks towards the girl in the bed. He nears her. Benjamin puts a hand on his shoulder before he realizes what he’s doing. 

“ Sit. ”

The boy stares at the hand on his shoulder, then back at Benjamin. He edges towards a seat–before missing and falling to the hard floor. With spluttered apologies, he stands and sits down with the caution of one of Benjamin’s workers. He takes the seat next to him, closer to the bed. His back has been sore for some time now with having to rest it against unforgiving metal. He shrugs it off. He’s been in worse positions before and that was without his daughter in front of him. 

Benjamin folds his arms over his chest again. “Who are you?” 

“I’m, uh, Anthony. Hope! Anthony Hope.”

Is this really her supposed boyfriend?

“And–” Benjamin looks at him through a narrow gaze “-- why are you here? ”

The boy glances at the bed. He smiles. ( Smiling at a moment like this?) His expression soon turns back to the sickly-worried one. “I’m worried about her.”

“Why?”

“I love her.”

He answers the question simply. Without another thought. Without considering… well, anything. It’s as if it’s second-nature to him to admit to loving things. To admit to loving people. Especially Benjamin’s daughter . What a mistake–

Is it a mistake?

Benjamin turns his head at him. The boy is already rambling. 

“She’s the greatest girl– person– I’ve ever met. I fell in love with her the moment I saw her, I think, no–I know . That’s when I knew. And she was always really shy and it was adorable . I couldn’t dare lie about that. She’s the smartest person I’ve ever known. Did you know that she can name just about every species of bird? One time, we were on our way to the library and she found a baby bird hopping along the sidewalk and I went to help it, but Johanna told me not to and that it needs to figure that out on its own and then, sure enough, it did! She knew the exact way to help that bird. She’s kind .” This is where the boy blushes. “And, well, it helps she’s the most beautiful person in the world. I’ve seen a lot of pretty things before, but Johanna was the first person to ever really steal my breath away. But it’s more than not breathing when I’m with her. You know? I feel like I can be normal and myself when I’m with her and I just really love to–... be with her.” 

The boy looks back at him, the red on the tips of his ears has slowly spread to his cheeks. 

But who is this boy, really? Why is he trying to pry into their lives? Why is he–

Benjamin didn’t know half of what he said about his daughter. 

He didn’t know she liked birds or that she could list every kind. Or that she was shy at school. Or her experience with tending to chicks. Or that this boy is apparently with her life. 

This boy knows more about his daughter than he does. 

Benjamin glares at him. 

“Has there been any word?” the boy asks, silently drumming his fingers on his knee. 

“No.” Benjamin sighs to himself. “There hasn’t been.”

He leans back in his chair. The boy continues to gawk at his daughter. 

“The doctors said they’re waiting for her to wake up to do x-rays,” Benjamin says, “And etcetera.” 

Benjamin clung onto every word that doctor said. He went as far as to type the procedures into his phone just to fact-check them. Is this really the best course of action? He jotted down a few notes. For the first time in his life, he missed the oversized textbooks from his university days. 

“Okay, okay.” The clerk boy exhales slowly. He doesn’t relax any. “It’s not… life-threatening, right?”

“No.”

If it was, Benjamin wouldn’t be sitting here idly. He wouldn’t hesitate . 

They sit in silence. The boy’s hand drums on his knee. 

“It’s a school night,” Benjamin eventually says, “aren’t your parents worried about you?”

“My mum called me out for tomorrow.” A brief pause. “She said I could–and should – come, but I needed to come home if you or they or Johanna didn’t want me here.”

Benjamin glances behind them, towards the day, as if a similarly brown-haired woman might burst in. “Where is she? Did you come here alone?”

The clerk boy looks at him with a head slightly tilted. “I’m almost eighteen. I called her, but I didn’t want to keep her up too late. I can only imagine how exhausting it would be to take care of four children.” 

He comes from a big family. 

“She said you could come here by yourself ?”

The boy nods. “Like I said, I didn’t want to keep her up too late and she doesn’t mind it, really. I know the city really rather well. And I’ve learned how to read a map.”

“What about your father? He let you walk over here in the dark?”

“Dad’s at work.”

“This late?”

He shrugs. “He has an important job.”

Large family. Stay-at-home mother whom he adores. Absent, workaholic father. 

Benjamin turns his attention back to the bed, still feeling the boy’s stare on him. In the corner of his vision, there’s an outstretched hand. 

“I haven’t properly introduced myself yet,” says the boy, although he had. “I’m Anthony Hope.”

He stares at his hand before reluctantly taking it. Now doesn’t seem the proper time for introductions, but he can humor the boy. “Benjamin Barker.”

They shake. 

“You’re Johanna’s father?”

Why else would he be here? Who else would be that worried when his daughter wasn’t in her room?

“Yes.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.” He smiles again. Same eager grin that makes the sun sweep into the room. “I really have been looking forward to actually being introduced to you. Since she found out, really. I was just as excited for Jo to get away from that judge and to be with her actual family and finally be able to…” Anthony hesitates. “I just couldn’t wait. I’m really glad she has you now.”

Benjamin doesn’t say anything. 

“We met, um, each other before. I think,” the boy called Hope says. “I work at Waterstone’s–as a clerk–and I’ve seen you come in a few times.”

Benjamin remains silent, but offers a short nod. That seems to inspire the boy.

“I didn’t realize that you were buying those books for Johanna . That it was you …”

Well, the boy isn’t very bright, is he?

“I thought you were someone else .” Anthony laughs. “I thought you were adopting and it was a teenage girl who is conveniently a lot like Jo. I can’t believe I didn’t figure that one out. But I guess I don’t work closing shifts anymore so I haven’t seen you in a bit.”

Benjamin turns his head slightly towards the boy. Now he knows when to do go Waterstone’s. If he ever dares to show his face there again. 

And that explains the endless congratulations . 

“She really appreciates the books.”

Now, Benjamin fully turns to him. “What?”

“The ones you got her. A Tale of Two Cites and um, Les Mis ? She loves them. I’m glad she’s reading again. She didn’t read a lot after… but now she is. She is again. And she’s reading more than her one bird book over and over again. That’s a good sign. She feels… getting books again.”

With Lucy, it was flowers. She would mention a new plant she was studying and with the few pounds in his bank account, he would go and find it for her. Every store in train-distance was searched until he found the proper one for her. He’ll never forget her smile when he presented the plants or flowers to her. Only a goddess could light up the world like that. 

For Johanna, he supposes it’s books. 

She actually does like them. 

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

She can hear herself whimper. 

“Johanna?”

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Eyes are still closed, yet she can feel them filling with tears. Her entire throat becomes dry within seconds. Why does her back still hurt? 

In one, two, three, she’ll get up. One, two–

The best she can do is (very slowly) open her eyes. 

“Jo?” Anthony’s trainers squeak as he rushes to her side. She can feel the rush of wind that comes with moving fabric on the other side too. Benjamin Barker. Johanna ignores his presence, instead trying to move her hands closer to where Anthony’s are. Instead, that causes hot tears to streak down her face and Anthony gets her message and wraps his fingers around hers. “Hi. You were…”

“This is the hospital.”

She had been only once. Just in case they also needed to try the judge for child abuse or neglect or– something when the police came for her. Social services said it would be beneficial. Johanna remembers similar hot tears falling down her cheeks as she sat in the waiting room. The chairs were too tall, forcing her to awkwardly dangle her legs down. For the first time in years, she felt like a child . 

There hadn’t been a bed like this when they examined her. There had been the same bright lights and the same blinding wallpaper. Too stark. Too uneasy. 

She wanted to run. 

She still does.  

What is that beeping?

“Jo–”

“You collapsed,” Benjamin Barker interrupts. “And passed out.”

Passed out . It isn’t the first time that’s ever happened, but the first time they brought her to the hospital for it. Her guardian threatened. As they sat at the dining table, he sneered and let threats fall from his lips and seemed to be more than happy about it. 

Who brought her here? Was it her guardian playing some twisted game with her from behind bars? She always thought that he would toy with her differently, that he had more sadistic pleasures, but she shouldn’t have underestimated him. Of course this is what he does. It’s what she least expected. 

Why are her fingers shaking so much? Why is her chest? Why does it feel like her spine is moving on its own despite her every protest? Stop!

Johanna attempts to move her head to properly look at him. It proves to be a more difficult task than intended. She makes it to the point where she can see a sliver of him in the corner of her vision. She can’t see Anthony very well anymore. It makes her wish she could scream. 

Benjamin Barker has his stare on her as he says, “The call button is on your side, lad.” 

“ No! ” She speaks in more of a gasp than actual words. 

Benjamin Barker ignores her weak protest. “The call button.”

Anthony glances between the two of them. She can only guess Benjamin Barker is fuming at him–trying to scare him into submission. If she could look just as authoritative, she might have a better chance at winning this… showdown. Is that what this has become? Instead of looking anything short of certain, she likely looks half-about to burst into tears. 

“Jo, I know you don’t like them…”

“I don’t. Don’t call them.”

“Johanna, they’ll come in either way.”

“You could help me escape before they do.”

“ Lad… ”

Anthony closes his eyes and presses the button.

“ Anthony…! ”

No one comes. 

Ten seconds later (yes, she counted), there is still no one there. 

Perhaps God really does love her and broke the button for her to lessen her misery on His earth. Perhaps Anthony didn’t press it after all and just pretended. Perhaps she isn’t actually in the hospital and this is just a terrible nightmare that somehow includes both Benjamin Barker and Anthony. Perhaps–

Benjamin Barker scowls. “Get a doctor.”

“What? No –”

Anthony nods. When Johanna doesn’t let go of his hand, he kisses the top of her head with a promise that he would hold her again the moment he comes back in. It doesn’t soothe her any, just fills her stomach with a horridly guilty feeling that causes her to let him go. 

Once he’s gone, it’s just her and Benjamin Barker. 

“Who is that? ” he spits out the last word like it's a rodent. 

There is a reason she didn’t want to introduce the two of them to each other. She hadn’t exactly understood her own thought process herself, but now she realizes why. Nothing good could come out of it . She won’t ever close her eyes again if that means preventing any further accidents!  

“Anthony,” she replies. 

“I know, but who is he? ”

Johanna doesn’t respond. 

“He said he was, and I quote, ‘your guy’.”

A smile tugs at her lips. Anthony knows how she feels about being called a girlfriend–not that she isn’t proud of being in a relationship with Anthony–but it wasn’t safe for them to be calling each other that with the judge around and she frankly didn’t like the label. It sounded terribly juvenile. Like something that wouldn’t last. They would last. A name for what they’re called simply doesn’t exist. But Anthony still considers himself “her something.” It makes her more elated than it should. 

“Then it sounds like you know who he is.”

“But is he–” Benjamin Barker catches himself. “Is he really?”

“Really what?”

Now, she wants him to say it out loud. 

“Your boyfriend?”

Nevermind, that was awful.

“Yes.”

Benjamin Barker sighs. 

Beep. Beep. Beep .

She doesn’t say anything. Neither does he. 

“I have the doctor!” Anthony comes into the room. “Well, a nurse, but that’s not anything less than a doctor! Nurses do so much for all of us and Nurse Denise here–”

“You can just call me Denise, dear.”

“Denise!”

“Anthony,” Johanna says. Once she has his attention she mouths, “form an escape plan.” He knows she’s completely serious. 

“Right, missy,” Denise says, planting herself between the lovers. She holds a stethoscope. “Can you sit up for me so I can take your vitals? The doctor will be in soon. Three minutes, tops.”

She hopes Anthony is formulating a plan. (Though, it is always her who figures out how to get away.) 

She tries–she does. But if she can't even move her head, she can’t sit up. 

“Right, miss,” Denise says, planting herself between the lovers. She fumbles with a stethoscope around her neck. “Can you sit up for me so I can take your vitals? The doctor will be in soon. Three minutes, tops.”

Johanna is the one who runs away. She wouldn’t be here if she didn’t. But in this moment, she hopes Anthony is willing to be the runner too. If he formulates a plan, they could get away and–

She tries to sit up at the nurse’s command–she does. If she can barely move her head, sitting up is comparable to the impossible feat Donte Quoxide was determined to complete. 

The nurse–Miss Denise?–assures her that it’s fine. She can take her vitals if she’s flat on the bed. Johanna closes her eyes and opens her fist in response. Anthony understands. Their fingers brush, then intertwine. 

She can feel Benjamin Barker looming over her. 

Miss Denise runs her through the motions–pulse, heart rate, temperature, etc. This wasn’t supposed to happen . She should have arrived to Anthony’s door and conveniently found aeroplane tickets they could afford. Then run away together with hardly anything between them. Board the plane. Land next to the Eiffel Tower. Feed a chocolate-covered strawberry to him (and Anthony not making a deal out of her not having one of her own). Stroll the streets. 

Freedom. She thinks of her freedom. 

Right now, she is a silly young girl laying in the hospital and dreaming of Paris, despite never having seen it before. Needing Anthony to hold her hand or she would burst into tears and getting close to it every time the nurse approached another tool at her chest. If she could wince, she would. 

“You’re alright,” Anthony whispers, “I’m here.”

“Why am I here?” she mumbles. She wants Anthony to answer. What he could possibly say, she doesn’t know, she just wants to hear his voice describe things to her in his gentle Hope way. 

“Well, your dad here had an ambulance for you come after you collapsed. At the cafe, remember? He was right there the whole time. He’s been right here ever since.”

She bites back her lower lip before it quivers. 

The doctor wears a suit as if he’s not a doctor at all. Aren’t doctors supposed to be wearing white lab coats and green scrubs? That’s what all the doctors she’s known look like. He’s just now throwing that lab coat over himself as he waltzes in through the door. He smiles at her. 

He. He. He. Why is it always a man? 

Johanna widens her eyes at Anthony. He shakes her head at her, eyes narrow in response. His expression doesn’t clear until she mouths something about a man .

“Uh, sir, I’m very sorry.” Anthony rises slightly, but squeezes her hand as a reminder that he won’t let go. “But is there potentially a female doctor on shift?” 

Cross her heart and hope to die, there better be . 

“Sorry.” The male doctor shrugs. “You’re stuck with me.” 

The doctor smiles again. Her organs shrivel and die within her.  

She can smell Mr. Fogg on him as the doctor nears her. Hear his heavy breaths as he rises the bed and it’s Mr. Fogg’s wrinkled hands on her. Johanna freezes. Too much pain to try to run away. Too frozen to even consider a plan. 

“Don’t touch me,” she barely manages to get out. 

How many times has she said no? 

Her guardian towering over her, circle of keys in one hand and his other caressing her knee. Traveling along her leg, squeezing her thigh, faltering back to her knee again. The ring of keys jiggled–mocking her–as the old man’s knees creaked to sit in front of her. As if he was a lover courting a nymph. His lips pressed against the bumpy, boney knee. Hand suddenly lifting her skirt, eager to see–

Mr. Fogg coming at night. She, dreamless girl, looking at the ceiling. Bunching the sheets over her chest as he came closer and closer to the bed. He never hesitated. Didn’t treat her like a lover or wife. He treated her as if she was the corpse of a cat in an alleyway. There were no whispers of virtue or virginity. He was just a man. 

This doctor makes small tears fall down her face. He does not ask about them. His hands do not even stray to places she thinks they should not be. He asks her to breathe in and out. He mumbles questions revolving around medical history. He places his hands along her spine. She cries out. He makes a note. She doesn’t feel as if she is inside herself. He pats the back of her neck. She wishes she could sob until she’s sick. He orders tests. 

“Very good today, Johanna,” he says as if congratulating a small child. She is old enough, she is! “I suspect this is a compression fracture. The tests will tell me if I’m right or not.”

She doesn’t say anything. He attempts to push her back into place on the bed. She doesn’t mean to push against him. Anthony gently offers to help and she goes limp in his arms. 

“Let me talk to Dad for a moment outside, hmm? I promise I’ll only steal him away from you for a minute.” The doctor glances at Anthony. “I’ll let you stay with… him.”

Johanna nods. She doesn’t care. She wants to feel like herself again. 

“Hey, Jo? Are you alright? You…”

With another cave of her chest, she whimpers. Anthony understands when she tugs on his hand. He pushes his trainers off before crawling into bed next to her. Head resting on his shoulder, she tries to relax into the warmth of him.

“Compression fracture?”

“Yes–” the doctor–Dr. Something-Something-Black?--makes sure the door is properly closed before looking at Benjamin. “It’s when a vertebrae in your back collapses. It’s interesting–usually these things happen when the patient is older. Not Johanna’s age.” He glances back at the room. “Does Johanna show any symptoms of disordered eating?”

“Disor–what?”

Benjamin heard what the doctor said. That doesn’t mean he won’t try to avoid it. Disordered eating?

“Does she share any thoughts with you about her body image or does she seem hesitant to eat around you? Diets? Stomach issues? Feeling cold all the time?”

His girl? With problems that only seem to plague cheerleaders in bad American reality tv shows Lucy used to eat popcorn to? Or popular girls in the halls of secondary schools? Not smart girls like his daughter. Not healthy girls like his daughter. 

But then he sees his daughter shivering on the fire escape, despite the layers of jumpers and blankets. 

He had come in to check on her once–during all of the fighting of the previous week. He told her that he had a meeting, that he wouldn’t get home until well-past her bedtime. She’d tilted her side to the side, all but rolling her eyes at him. For a moment, Benjamin could pretend that they were like any other family. Teenage girl rolls her eyes at dad: What a criminally boring headline. When he got home, he’d knocked–one, two-three times before twisting the knob. There she was. Curled until about six blankets and still shivering. He swept the comforter off his own bed to unfurl around her shoulders. The shivering didn’t stop. Not completely. He cranked up the heat, forgetting about the heating bill. He went to crawl into his own bed, satisfied with the thought that he was giving her shelter. 

Every night at dinner, he looks forward to food being on his plate. To the freedom of seconds and the ability to prolong the meal for as long as he wants to, though he never does. Prison has beaten that luxury out of him. It had long ago. Benjamin eats everything on his plate and then he does go for those seconds. He sees his daughter picking at her food on the opposite side. She only takes a bite or two. 

He sees her reluctance to try the seafood place. He hears her insisting on something healthy. 

“I saw in her file that you two have been separated for some time,” the doctor says. “I couldn’t blame you if you haven’t noticed any of those signs. Especially not yet. And according to her file–” he flips through a paper “--she seems to be good at keeping secrets. We can’t confirm whether or not she has been sexually abused without her word–”

“What?”

The doctor looks back at him. “You didn’t know?” He moves the clipboard to hold at his side. “They did an exam on her before she was moved into the welfare system and they suspect she was sexually abused.”

“H-how… they can tell?”

“Well–” the doctor brings his attention back to his notes “--being weird around touch for one. That’s a big indicator that a child has or is being abused. She especially panicked when a nurse attempted to do a breast examination on her–and while it’s usual for a girl to panic but once it’s explained to her, she’ll consent. She refused it all together. She had some suspicious-looking bruises and cuts on her.” A pause. “Do you… do you have any suspicion of this?”

Phillip Turpin.

When Benjamin learned what happened to his wife, he was unable to breath. He had stared at a brick wall, yearning for a taste of nicotine or booze or even a sleeping aid. Something to distract him. That would prevent him from thinking of the agony and sleepless his wife had endured until she couldn’t any longer. 

Then he began repeating every word of the story to himself. 

The party. 

The champagne. 

The chatter. 

The sofa. 

Lucy. 

He vowed vengeance. He vowed for their good names. He promised his dead wife that he would take care of them–all of them. 

Yet, he’s failed to take care of their daughter. 

“The judge…” 

“Sorry?”

Benjamin pushes past to doctor, slamming the door open. There is Anthony, stringing his hand through the blonde girl’s curls, murmuring something gentle and sticky-sweet to her. All he can do is watch. Her eyes are closed. Anthony continues to hold her. Continues to press kisses on her crown. He wonders if he is comforting her through nightmares. 

“Mr. Barker?” Anthony whispers. 

Benjamin freezes, dear caught in headlines. He glances over the scene once more before retreating back to the doctor. What was he intending to do? Vow to kill the judge? To snap his fingers so he couldn’t touch her ever again? To slice his throat with a sharp blade so he won’t say anything to her again?

“Mr. Barker?” the doctor asks. 

He looks over his shoulder at him. 

“Do you need a moment? I understand this can be nerve-racking, but also keep in mind that we don’t know this for sure. She didn’t confirm nor deny it.”

He feels overwhelmed with the idea of getting her to confess. 

But he’ll do it. 

He takes a breath. 

“You said something about an x-ray?”

The doctor describes procedures and exams and finishes with describing a back brace. Benjamin nods along, makes notes, promises himself to do his own research. They won’t do anything to his girl that will hurt her. 

He listens to her little breaths on his shoulder. He tries to count them. And when he can’t keep track, he keeps the seconds. When seconds tick by too fast, he smooths out her hair, careful not to corrupt any curl or create any tangles. He holds her the way he knows how to. 

He was utterly helpless early. The look in Johanna’s eye kept her far away from Earth and as if she couldn’t see him right in front of her. He traced her name along the side of her hand, squeezed her fingers, rubbed circles–yet none of it managed to bring her back down to the ground. At least, he isn’t entirely useless now. He can hold her. 

Mr. Barker returns with the doctor. There’s an order to keep her resting and a reminder of how good sleep is. 

Despite all of this (the running away, the passing out, figuring out some things about the Fogg’s), Anthony is grateful. Johanna is asleep for what seems like the first time in her life.

Anthony has a thousand questions swirling around in his mind, but the doctor leaves before he can briefly interrogate him. Only one is answered, but that’s better than nothing. 

He knows what happened during those two weeks she was gone now. 

Mr. Barker sits down again, staring at Johanna. Is it strange of him to see his daughter being held by her… boyfriend? They just met each other and it doesn’t seem very gentlemanly of him to just… cuddle her with her father right there watching them. But he can’t let her go, even if he wanted to. In sleep, Johanna has her hand clutched around the fabric of his shirt. 

“You’re missing school,” Mr. Barker says after a time. “I’m with her. You can–”

“My mum already called me out.” He doesn’t mind having to repeat himself. Poor Mr. Barker has dealt with enough this morning. He can’t blame him for forgetting. “But thank you. I haven’t had hardly any absences all year and I can pick up my missed work tomorrow.” The thought of leaving poor Johanna and poor Mr. Barker in this state makes him frown. 

Then it hits him that this is probably Mr. Barker’s polite way of telling him to leave . 

Oops. 

Usually, Anthony tries to respect adults. Especially this man who up until a few hours ago, he believed had just adopted a teenage girl. (Though, those books he got are also applicable to this situation, he thinks now.) 

Johanna told him that Judge Turpin wouldn’t like him very much. He always told her that if he could just meet the old man that perhaps, he might be able to change his mind. As they moved throughout time together and he got to know her–the flighty and insistent part of her, too–he believed her. 

That doesn’t mean he can’t get Mr. Barker to like him. Anthony likes him. 

Not to toot his own horn, but people do tend to like him (other than that judge).

Mr. Barker stares at him– glares? --and Anthony provides a weak smile back. 

He keeps sitting. Anthony doesn’t let go of Johanna. 

She shuffles. 

She doesn’t wake up. 

His arm is tired. 

But Anthony doesn't let go. It wouldn’t be right for her to place all of her trust in him just for him to throw it all away in one fellow swoop. He tries to ignore the glares, the heavy feeling in his stomach, and continues to run his fingers through Johanna’s hair. She won’t like it getting messed up. Hopefully the staff will let her wash it.

(Does Mr. Barker know he should bring her things from home? Well, of course he does. He’s her father.) 

When she does finally open her eyes, she smiles. At him and nothing else. Heavy eyelids are able to relax when he squeezes her somewhat. But the moment comes to a screeching halt when she realizes who else is there. 

Mr. Barker looks as if he’s about to speak, then thinks better of it and closes his mouth. Instead he pushes the call button and Johanna tenses. 

“I, um, uh–” Anthony sputters. “Should I…?”

“Yes. You probably…” She looks as if she wishes she could have said anything other than that. 

Anthony rises, but keeps her hand in his as he sits himself in a chair. The nurse comes in with a tray of food. 

Vitals, she explains, will come first, then she can eat to her heart’s content. What the nurse doesn’t know is how Johanna’s heart is content with an empty stomach. No scolding about needing to let her bones heal will convince her otherwise. Tomorrow, they’ll do an X-Ray. Johanna glances back and forth between the platter and the nurse. She looks almost relieved to be doing the medical side of things first . 

She’s gotten worse. 

Anthony tries to coax her into eating something from her lunch every school day. Fruit, for the most part, is safe. It seems silly to be elated when she has a few strawberries, but when he initially met her, it was nothing at all. 

He checked out a book from the public library. Anorexia Nervosa . Nervosa caught him off-guard. All he could think was about how they studied the brain in the biology class he had. Did that mean that this– anorexia –had to do with the brain, too?

All he could think about was how her brain might rot away and he’d lose her. 

Seeing her eat now–staring at the plate until Mr. Barker says something, shaking hands, forcing herself to swallow–makes him feel as if he’s existing somewhere outside the room. He’s viewing this from the slim window on the door. He might as well be. He’s never felt more at a loss. 

“Um, Mr. Barker, maybe–”

Mr. Barker refuses to look at him. His stare is determined on his daughter and her platter. 

“Mr. Barker–” Anthony steps closer to him with a promise to return to Johanna “--She really doesn’t like eating in front of other people, maybe you could step outside for a moment? I’ll make sure–”

“No.”

They’re at an impasse. 

Anthony takes a breath before smiling back at Johanna and rubbing her gently on the shoulder. 

“I’m not hungry,” she says. 

“Take a few bites,” Mr. Barker snaps back. 

“I’m full.”

Mr. Barker covers his face. “You can’t possibly be.”

“I don’t want–”

“Well, you need .”

“Mr. Barker,” Anthony tries again, “please–”

“She’s my daughter,” Mr. Barker snaps. “I take care of her.”

Daughter or not, it doesn’t help Johanna. 

Especially with the reminder of my . 

Anthony doesn’t want to pride himself, but he has technically known Johanna for longer than Mr. Barker has. They’ve only been living together for about a week. A little less than. Anthony has known her for a few months. They’re going to marry each other. 

Or has Mr. Barker technically known her for longer? He was there on the day she was born, he had known her until she was one before… does that count? Do the years separated mean more than a few months?

It makes his head spin. 

Finally, Johanna pushes the tray away. 

“I’m done . I can’t eat anymore. They gave me too much .”

When Johanna lies, there is a certain pattern he’s noticed. Eyes move in certain directions. Her breathing changes in a certain way. He knows her well enough to know her tells. Anthony doesn’t see any of that now. Perhaps, that’s how possessed him to step in when Mr. Barker began to argue (again the battle of going between the fact he’s her father and Anthony knowing her ), 

“She ate most of her food, sir. I really do think she’s alright.”

For a moment, Mr. Barker holds an almost threatening (threatning?) stance. Anthony can’t blame him! What does he know? He’s just a seventeen-year-old boy that he hardly knew existed until tonight to him. 

However, Mr. Barker releases a long breath. Anthony sends him a smile that is ignored. The nurse comes back to take vitals once more and to schedule the X-Ray.

And until then, Anthony stays at her side. Between stories and humming a few notes of a song, he fluffs up her pillows just to hear her laugh. It isn’t easy to pretend like Mr. Barker isn’t lurking in the corner of the room–nay impossible. Is that a bad thing? He’s present in Johanna’s life. Now. 

Maybe someday Anthony will be able to bring them closer together. 

Maybe. 

“Your mum may have pulled you from school,” Mr. Barker says eventually, “but she didn’t pull you from the rest of the day. Get on home before she worries.”

“Oh, but–”

Mr. Barker’s stare tells him there’s no room for argument. 

Johanna frowns, but lets his hand go eventually with an unspoken question. He promises to come back the next day. 

He wouldn’t have it any other way.

“May I have the phone back?” 

Benjamin had seen machines like the one they pushed him out of the room for and strapped his daughter under. Years ago, he had watched it all with wide eyes, knowing he would be seeing those machines once he started his residency. That was the dream once. This machine–this technology–is too new. The sound of buzzing spins around his skull, taunting him, teasing him. 

And the look on his daughter’s face under that machine… 

(She would have a father to protect her, that’s what he promised himself and to her when she was just an infant in the crook of his arm.)

Would she even want him in there with her? 

Or would she rather have that boy ? 

Why hadn’t any of those books prepared him for meeting… boys ? 

They can’t possibly be very serious, Benjamin tried to tell himself. They’ve only been dating for a few months … 

But that pin… 

Why would he give her a safety pin ?

The nurse removed it when they came in. It sits on the bedside table, mocking him. 

That pin knew before he did. 

Why didn’t she tell him about the safety pin?

Benjamin remembers being a grin-stupid university student coming home to tell his parents all about the most beautiful woman in the world. He was a lovesick fool describing every detail of her studies, her affinity for botany and her desire to see Australia. His poor parents forced smiles through every word. Any time they hinted at departing the table, he dragged them back with another comment. 

Is it just different with teenage girls and their fathers? 

Is it just different for them? 

Not for the first time, he wishes Lucy were here. She could sit on their daughter’s floor while she was perched on the bed, chatting her ear off about this boy. He can imagine Lucy’s soft, yet excited expression. How she would invite him over for dinner for them to meet. 

“The… your phone?” Benjamin asks, trying to keep the bark out of his tone. 

“Yes.” A pause. “Might I have it back?”

Wanting to call or message that boy?  

Part of him is tempted to shove it back into her palm out of the mere gratitude that she’s alive and he found her . Or should he use it as a punishment? That’s what those books mentioned. He can’t be a complete pushover, no matter how much he feels like a cube of butter left out in the sun. He just got her back .

“How did you hurt your back?

Benjamin isn’t shocked at her silence. 

He doesn’t surrender either. 

“Did you fall?” he probs. “Did you bend it?”

Silence. Then, 

“Yes.”

“Which one?”

She doesn’t reply. 

He doesn’t either. 

Stubborn father versus her stubborn father. A battle for the ages. 

Why won’t you tell me? Don’t you trust me? 

I’m your father.

“Was it the judge?”

She shakes her head. The quickest reaction he’s gotten thus far. 

He’ll take what he can get. 

“You said it happened a few months ago?”

“Weeks, I suppose.” 

Weeks. Weeks ago, he was slaving away with his back hunched over at work and counting every pound in his account. He was looking at furniture and laying out paint samples on the walls (imagining what color he would cover them in if he could). Weeks ago, he was pacing the nights away, making threats to imaginary figures just in case things didn’t go the way he intended for them to go. 

Weeks ago, she was still so far away. 

“When you were… with the Fogg’s?”

No answer.

“Did he do something to you?”

No answer.

“Did she do something to you?”

Again, silence. 

His daughter keeps her stare down. She’s risen the mattress so she could properly sit up, the blankets gathered over her legs, but carelessly slipping away. Benjamin represses the temptation to move them to cover her again. She’s barely skin and bones, how isn’t she shivering? (When he runs back home, he’ll grab her a blanket). Her fingers run through the ends of her curls, still too weak to grab at her scalp. 

“I slipped out of the bath.”

“Onto your back?”

“Yes.”

How badly was she hurt if she just slipped out of the bathtub? 

( But that isn’t it , he remembers, usually frail bones like hers aren’t seen in a young girl her age; it can be caused by…)  

“How did that happen?” he asks. 

(She can’t be starving herself, she can’t be.)

His daughter shrugs back. 

The first day he met her, she practically threw Mr. Fogg’s hand off of her. He called her “my girl” (despite Benjamin standing right in front of him… her actual father ). He gave snide looks and made quiet comments that made his fist quiver. 

“Did Fogg have something to do with it?”

She is quick to answer, “No.”

But God Himself would have to walk down the steps from the pearly gates to convince Benjamin otherwise. Even then, it wouldn’t entirely work. 

“ Mrs. Fogg?”

She is silent. 

Mrs. Fogg, then. 

“What did she do to you?”

She’s quiet. He didn’t know what he expected. 

He used to lie to his father, too.

“It was an accident,” she says and it sounds as if she’s more trying to convince herself than him. “I wasn’t supposed to…”

 “ What did she do?”

His daughter sighs. “I slipped. And her foot… it tripped over me.”

His fist clenches at his side. 

Foot tripped over her… Benjamin has seen enough, has heard enough, has known enough… Who does she believe she’s fooling? 

He promised himself, he promised her . Safety. 

He was supposed to keep her safe . 

He will. 

First the judge. 

Then the Fogg’s. 

“She kicked you?”

“No.”

“She… stepped on you.”

A long silence. 

“Yes.”

Perhaps the Fogg’s will be first. 

His mind falls back to that man in prison. How Benjamin landed the final blow before he and the others who pounce were dragged off. Who hurt a child?

Who hurt his daughter?

“It was an accident!”

“No, it wasn’t .” 

She shakes her head. “Don’t tell the–” A sharp sigh (the way she shakes gives away the fact that the motion hurt her). “Don’t… tell anyone .”

Does Anthony know? 

Benjamin steadies his breathing. “I won’t.”

She doesn’t relax after that. 

She told him a few days ago that she wants the judge behind bars for forever. Benjamin can’t promise her that. He can’t promise that fate for the Foggs’ either. What he can guarantee is that they won’t hurt her again. 

His daughter falls asleep an hour later without asking about the phone again. He still has it tucked into his pocket–on alert in case someone tries to take it. For a moment, Benjamin simply sits back and listens to the machinery of the hospital. Squeaky shoes. Alerts. Stark whiteness that nauseates. 

Beep. Beep. Beep.

She looks even thinner with the crisp sheets falling around her. 

Paler, too. 

Is that a symptom of one of those…?

He adjusts the blanket over her. 

The squeaky soles of a nurse approach and he moves back to his chair. She taps at a few things, mentions that it’s good she’s asleep and promises not to wake her before she finally looks at him. 

“Have you been here since she came?” she asks. “You look exhausted.”

“I’m her father,” he says and it’s the only thing he really feels entirely certain about now. 

“Her mother can wait for her while–”

“Her mother is dead.”

The nurse doesn’t seem phased. “Is there anyone–?”

His mind flickers to Anthony and has soon as that thought enters his mind, he chases it away. The boy isn’t here anyway. 

(He’ll be here soon, though. Benjamin can’t shake off that feeling.)

The nurse takes his silence for a no and opens the door. “She’s dead asleep. You’ll both be fine if you go home, shower, change, eat an actual meal and come back. I’ll never tell her you were gone.”

Leave his daughter again…

The nurse doesn’t let him sit. Her face creases into something of sympathy as she pushes him in the way of the door. “Actually I demand it.” She looks behind her. “Did you not bring a coat with you? Pick one of those up at the flat, as well. You’ll want it. You have to take care of yourself in order to take care of your daughter.” 

Then he is standing in the rain outside of the hospital. 

He turns. 

He doesn’t go home. 

Benjamin steers himself in the same direction, but to a different, yet familiar place. It’s practically a second home now. 

When he glances in the display window, covered in imagery of historical figures and pages, he spots a flash of brown hair. The boy. 

He doesn’t stand at the cashier. Instead he’s browsing between the stands, a young boy and girl tugging at his hands. Does his daughter know them?

Benjamin doesn’t stand there long enough to dwell on the thought. He turns. The fact that the boy was playing customer there is enough for Benjamin’s mind to remember the other location he spotted. One closer to the hospital anyway. 

The cashier at that location doesn’t question his choice of books. Nor bids him a congratulations. 

When Your Teen Has an Eating Disorder, Anorexia and Other Eating Disorders, Sick Enough, The Inside Scoop …

Benjamin almost misses the confusing congratulations. 

He sneaks past the nurses along the way. He hadn’t gotten a good-enough look at the one that sent him home to know exactly who to avoid. Better to be safe than sorry. He swoops along the halls until he arrives at his daughter’s rooms. 

She’s still asleep, though she turns her head. He takes a book and hides the rest and the bag in a drawer. She doesn’t need to know. 

Phone buzzes in his coat pocket. 

The same number. 

Benjamin sighs. 

He sends it to voicemail. 

He almost wishes he didn’t. 

Beep. Beep. Beep . 

Chapter Text

It makes her sick. 

The buzzing. The pain in her back. 

Sick. 

But at least she has her schoolwork now. 

A tired smile at Anthony. She never used to be this tired. Anthony would prod her into resting her head for a few minutes when she went to his flat. Sometimes she would. Most of the time she whispered to him about her guardian and declined. Never rudely. She just didn’t have the luxury of closing her eyes even if Anthony promised to wake her up before she was expected. 

“--If you need help on any of it, I’m just a phone call away,” Anthony finishes. “Well, not really. I’m not planning on leaving your side unless God Himself kicks me out.”

“Good,” she whispers back. “I wouldn’t let Him.”

A pile of assignments in front of her gives her something else to focus on other than the pain in her back and a certain figure looming over her at all hours of the day. (Would it completely destroy him to go to work one of these days?)

“How did the fitting go today?” 

Initially, she replies with a long sight. That is one way to describe how the event that took place earlier that day went, isn’t it? 

“I don’t think people need to see that much of me,” she says. 

“Yeah.” He frowns. “They didn’t hurt you, right?”

“It certainly didn’t feel good .”

That whole time she was unable to breath–both for the fact that she’d seemed to have forgotten to and she couldn’t make herself look any bigger , even if that comes at the cost of her breath. 

“Did they hurt you?”

She wants to say yes. “ Yes, ” followed by a giggle to convince him that she’s really alright. But the proximity that was between her and the doctor… that is something she would like to forget. 

It reminds her of hands all over her body. 

Goodness , if she doesn’t stop thinking about it, she might well start sobbing in front of Anthony. Neither of them need that. 

“No,” she says, “I’m alright.” 

“Are you certain?”

Anthony’s way of begging her to tell him the truth. 

He used to do the same thing when she was with her guardian. After he found out why there were bruises and scrapes all over her arms, he asked every morning. Sometimes twice. It wasn’t often she wanted to talk about it–if at all. She hadn’t meant to tell him the truth. It was a moment of panic and the most safety she’d ever felt in the proximity of Anthony that made her slip. She made him promise not to tell anyone else. Not his mother, not even the birds in the trees. 

She couldn’t tell those birds either.

“Your, uh, dad–”

“ Anthony– ”

“Mr. Barker got right on it when you… fell.” Anthony glances around, looking for something she doesn’t know. “He told me to call an ambulance and get you on your back so you wouldn’t… I don’t really know. Choke? But he was really assertive like that. It was a bit impressive, really.”

“Oh.”

“Do you know if he was a doctor before? He really acted like one.” 

Johanna shrugs. She’d never given a second thought as to what he did for a living when she was a baby. Perhaps, she should have. Asking would have made for some less awkward dinners together. It would have provided better distractions than her weak attempts at them. 

“I don’t know anything about him really,” she says. “I don’t really know how to ask that. I can’t just go, ‘How did you provide for your family before you were wrongfully convicted’ and for us to just… talk about that.” She sighs. “I’m living with a stranger.” 

“Well, could you make him less of one?” 

“Anthony, you know you’re better at that than I am.”

“ Maybe , but there’s no reason why you can’t get better at it. You may not be as good as I am–” he smirks and kisses her hand “--But I can help you.”

“Oh? You can?” 

Anthony eases into a casual smile, knowing she’s just humoring him. “I can try.”

She hums then, squeezing his hand again. These past few days have all been about her. Everyone here must think her to be terribly selfish. She doesn't mean to. The moments where it’s just her and Benjamin Barker in the room, she doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t know if there’s anything she could say. There are times, she shuts her eyes to pretend to be asleep and listen. The constant beeping hasn’t gone away. Nor has the sole of shoes squeaking. Sometimes the ambiance tied with her exhaustion move her to sleep. 

The nightmares still haven’t gone away. 

“Johanna?” a nurse says, stepping into the room. “Are you still up for a wash? Your dad is already outside.” 

Johanna nods. It’s been far too long. 

“Alright. Honey, you’ll need to step out too.”

Anthony complies with a whisper on his lips and a quick kiss. 

The boy steps out of the room. 

Benjamin watches him. 

He shifts from foot to foot like a stray cat wondering where to go. Neither of them dare to sit down, as if sitting will prompt the nurse to leave the room and tell them some sort of terrible news. Why are they so frantic waiting for her to finish taking a shower? 

For a moment, Benjamin wonders if Anthony has heard terrible news before. If he’s had to wait for him before. 

He doesn’t want to ask. 

This boy knows more about his own daughter than he did in the year he was in her life. He’s learned more about her in three months than Benjamin is beginning to wonder if he will ever get to know. 

What is her favorite color? Does she like to dance? Does she pick at the seams in her dress?

“What books does she like?”

He hears his voice before he comprehends what he’s saying. 

“Johanna?”

Benjamin represses the urge to roll his eyes. “Yes.” He wants to know. 

“Anything with birds. She wants to know everything there is to know about them. I don’t know. She’ll read anything she can. She really likes love stories, but she won’t admit it. Children’s books, biographies… just anything. She likes classics. But you already knew that, didn’t you? You got her A Tale of Two Cities and Les Mis .” 

Only because she told him. 

“You said she likes birds.” 

Anthony nods. “She had two with the… then they took her away. But she still loves the books about them. She has one that she takes to school with her every day.”

Birds. He can do something with birds. 

“What hasn’t she read yet?”

Anthony laughs and Benjamin isn’t quite sure if he had interpreted his question as a joke or not. He’s too tense to smile. 

“Well… I think Birds of Paris has been on her wishlist for a while. I think that’s what she’s aiming to read next.”  

“ Birds of Paris .”

And now he knows when this boy doesn’t have his shift. 

His daughter is asleep. He feels a bit like her as he sneaks out of her room, careful not to wake her and as he tears down hallways and around corners. 

It is a different store than before, yet Benjamin feels tension melt away when he notices Anthony isn’t there. He doesn’t dawn on the fact that the boy probably wouldn’t be there in the first place. He has only two thoughts on his mind: birds and books. 

Perhaps, that is what Johanna thinks most of the time, too. Why think of anything else? 

For Lucy, it was flowers. 

For him, it was both of them. His girls. 

He knows bookstores intimately now. He knows exactly where to turn to get to the section he now imagines his daughter spending much of her time at. As he gazes through the other titles, he wonders which ones she reads. (Anthony said it was most of them–he’ll have to ask her if it’s true.) 

Birds of Paris greets him with a pretty illustration of a bluebird sitting on the side of the Eiffel Tower. 

For him and Lucy, it was Sydney. A pipe dream, one that if it never happened, they wouldn’t be too upset over. But still a dream.

He walks out of the store holding a small paper covering over the book. A distraction. Something for her while she’s forced to lay in bed all day. 

Benjamin almost doesn’t allow himself to consider the fact this could spoil her. Can a child really be spoiled after years of neglect? Besides, his daughter seems hesitant to reach for anything… aside from that boy. 

He puts the brown paper covering and bed on her nightstand for her to find when she wakes up. 

It has been two days since she found the book on the nightstand. 

And she’s almost free. 

With a few more reminders, a few more notes and instruction, she is standing outside for the first time in what feels like forever. The air smells the same as when she was on the steps to the library–free away enough from her guardian. She had rejected the offer (order) to sit in the wheelchair and practically ran to fresh air, ignoring reminders thrown over her shoulders to take it easy and be careful and trying to forget the worry Benjamin Barker was drawing onto her back. 

She was free. 

Closer to freedom. 

The commute back to the flat was silent. 

For the first time in her life, she wishes she could read minds. That sort of ability always seemed more counterproductive to her. Not to mention grating . How could someone manage that for so long? 

When she catches glimpses of Benjamin Barker, she wonders if it would make things easier. She could figure out how to prepare the defenses. What shields she should bare. 

Instead, when they get inside the flat, she speaks before he can. Whether the question is why she did what she did to get here or about the Foggs. Or if he’s going to order her to bed. 

“What was my mother like?”

Was she the blue-eyed, green-blouse wearing woman Johanna used to imagine? Did she take a fancy to birds? Did she sing or dance or write poetry? 

Johanna hardly ever dared to imagine her, just in case that fantasy fell away in a single swoop or gust of wind. Just in case she jinxed it all and discovered her mother was as mad as her guardian claimed she was. 

(Beautiful. Slut. Whore. Adulteress. Breathtaking.)  

Was she even a person? 

Benjamin Barker blinks before his expression relaxes into something more familial. The dew of a lost love frosts his gaze. His hands fold on his knee. 

“She was the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” 

Beautiful . The judge was right about that. 

Johanna had glanced at the picture in the closet, not daring to study it anymore than that. What if she jinxes herself again? 

“You look just like her.” 

Johanna can’t help the way she shakes her head. He’s wrong. She can’t be beautiful and look like her. It’s impossible. She wants her mother to be beautiful. She wants her to be human . 

“What was she like ?”

Benjamin Barker turns to her, lips parted to argue that he is telling her what she was like. 

“What did she do?” she asks before he can protest, “in her free time?”

Once again, his expression melts into domesticity. 

“Flowers. She loved flowers. Her favorites were buttercups. Those became my favorite, too.” 

A different image begins work in her mind. A yellow-haired woman standing over a garden, smoothing petals and digging through weeds. Did they have a garden? Did they always live in London? Did they always plan to live here? 

“Did you have one of those balconies that people plant vines over? Or the purple flowers?”

“Lavender?” 

Johanna wonders if he would have known that had he met her mother. 

Benjamin Barker shakes his head. “No, no. We were broke. We were renting a little room over a pie stand. On Fleet Street.” 

“I’ve only been there once.”

Fleet Street. And she had no idea that was where she came from. 

“I was tempted,” Benjamin Barker begins, but then pauses. “I was tempted to get the old flat back.” 

“Why didn’t you?”

“It wasn’t the same without your mother inside.”

“Oh.” And she nods as if she understands what it’s like to lose someone like that. 

It’s funny: they both lost this woman, yet only one of them can feel the loss. To Johanna, the loss of her mother only brought on her adoption by the judge. It lead to heartache and hurt. But for Benjamin Barker, he’d lost his wife . She doesn’t know how she could survive if she lost Anthony. 

It’s funny: she had a mother once. 

What was it like the day she was born? What was she like when she was a baby? What were their lives like before? 

But she doesn’t dare ask. How arrogant of her. She’s asking about her mother . Not about herself (despite all the mysteries that follow her name). Perhaps later. Perhaps, she can get herself to trust enough. 

“What were you doing in London? Was she… studying?”

“Botany.” Benjamin Barker’s lips turn. “She was. She graduated long before me.”

“What were… you doing?”

“Medical school.” He sits himself down on the sofa. When Johanna glances around, she notices how neat it is. Did he not go home at all? It certainly felt like it, but he stayed all that time? (For her?) 

Brief hesitation before she asks again, “What were you… hoping to become?”

“An otolaryngologist .”

“Excuse me?”

He chuckles. “Doctor for the throat, ears, noses… I wanted to perform tonsillectomies.”

“Getting your tonsils out?”

“Exactly.”

“Oh.”

This is the most she’s ever learned about him–from his own mouth. She’d been too afraid to ask, too nervous to find out some twisted truth from him, too paranoid… Hearing more about him, about their lives before, doesn’t bother her as much as she thought it would. 

“Did my mother work?” 

He leans back in the chair slightly, lips pressed into a frown. Johanna feels her head tilt to the side. It has been more than fifteen years. She couldn’t blame him if he didn’t remember everything (as much as she wants him too, as much as she wants to know everything even if she’s too afraid for it). 

“A little. Until you were born.” 

“What did she do?”

Again, he pauses. But when he speaks, he tells it as if it happened yesterday. 

“There was a florist shop she would take the train to. I’m sure it’s gone now. She would arrange bouquets and sometimes, she made pot holders and the like for them. She was quite the hand-stitcher.”

A hand-stitcher. Perhaps, she and her mother would’ve made pot holders together. 

With the caution of a man braving a beast, she sits across from him. It feels better than standing, at least. 

“What else did she like to do? In her free time?”

“She read.” This time, he answered without any hesitation. “Not the same way you do, but she liked the little books you could get for a few pence. She sang, too. There was never a day I came home not to find her singing or humming or whistling.”

“She whistled.”

Benjamin Barker nods. “That was one of her favorite things to do when we were waiting for you.”

Waiting for you . Johanna hadn’t considered the fact that her mother had carried her in her womb for so long. Even that felt like a privilege other children got–not girls like Johanna. 

“She was in her secondary school’s musical theater program. She couldn’t act–” He laughs “–but she would stand on that stage with a massive smile while singing I Dreamed a Dream . She loved to sing that much.”

“Is that when you met? In secondary school?”

He shakes his head. He taps at the table with a smile that’s slightly shrunken, but with the same passion of a man composing a poem for his lover. Johanna hadn’t considered the fact that they loved each other either. There is too much she hadn’t thought of–should she have?

“We met in uni. At some sort of ballroom dancing event.” He relaxes. “She was a beautiful dancer. On our wedding day, we dance for hours. After the ceremony, that’s practically all we did.  There’s a…” A pause. “We just danced.”

A what?

“Sounds lovely.”

“It was.”

They fall into a silence she can’t taste. Whether it’s awkward or comfortable, she allows herself to sink into it. Perhaps, this is what he’d imagined when he brought her here for the first time. Comfortable silence, actual conversation–minus the back brace and the context of this conversation. It’s a sweet thought. She doesn’t know. 

She taps at her collarbone. 

“I think I would like to lay down for a few minutes,” Johanna says. 

Benjamin Barker nods and stands. “Do you need…?”

He extends his hand. 

The idea of trying to stand–even with the brace–makes her lower back ache. She looks at the hardwood, away from his fingers and palm. The act of letting herself go, of allowing stubbornness to fail, to throw her independence away is in that hand. But, oh, doesn’t she want someone to lean on? Someone who can take care of her? Someone who's willing to help her out of the chair? 

Johanna takes it. He lifts her onto her feet. 

A mumbled, “ thank you” as she turns toward her room. 

Perhaps, she actually will lay down for a moment, she considers as she falls into bed. Then, a shower. 

A picture of us . 

Where are the wedding pictures? 

Those would have gone with Lucy which would have… 

He should have thought about that. Benjamin hadn’t considered that he lost anything of real value (aside from his wife), but those pictures . It’s not as if they had the same devices that saved them for them. Any backups would have… 

They’re gone. All gone. 

Or–if he could get in contact with that photographer. She didn’t have all of them, but if she had some that would be enough. He could show a few snapshots of the ceremony to their daughter–isn’t that the reason for taking the pictures in the first place? They were going to show their children, tell them about the little details such as how their landlord and lady showing up was a complete surprise and how his uncle got wasted two minutes into the reception and–

The rings. Her dress. 

Those pictures have it all. 

Every smile, every time Lucy threw her head back and laughed, every slice of cake, every pudding, every time their fingers touched. 

His wife’s face. Her yellow hair. Her bright eyes. All the same color as their daughter. 

He would be young in those pictures. The Benjamin Barker in those shots is a naive Benjamin Barker. A Benjamin Barker who has no idea what would disrupt the course of their lives. 

He even wants that man back–even if he can’t step into the same shoes anymore. 

Who would have them? Not Nellie–that’s for certain. The woman didn’t even hint at a smile the whole day. Albert was sorely focused on the free food and drinks offered. He can’t call up Lucy’s parents after all these years. He doesn’t have their numbers anyway. Or address. Or know anything about them anymore. 

They must blame him for all of it. After all, if Lucy had married someone else, she would be safe. She would still be alive. 

He can’t get in touch with her sisters either. They might hate him even more than their parents. He doesn’t blame them. 

Though, it’s not only him anymore. Would they want to talk to their granddaughter? Their niece? Their cousin? She holds so many titles in this family she doesn’t know the existence of.  Would she even want to know them? Benjamin doesn’t know this family anymore either. They would both be meeting them. 

Later. He’ll deal with that question later. 

His brother was there. Would his brother…?

No. He wouldn’t want to talk to him. 

It springs to mind then–not a name, but a number. 

No. He can’t. Neither of them can. 

Benjamin slumps himself down onto his bed, hands covering his face. He balances his elbows on his knees, almost enjoying the way the sharpness digs into his flesh. How else will their daughter know her if he can’t show her? A photograph can’t do any justice to how beautiful, how joyous, how virtuous Lucy was in reality, but it could bring her a step closer to understanding. 

All he has now is a family who wants nothing to do with him and not a single picture of them to show. 

He forgets the number, tries to ignore nagging thoughts about people he shares a name or person with, and finds himself wandering down the street. He swings open a door to find the boy there. 

“Anthony,” Benjamin says without thinking, “Help me find a book.”

It’s a very pretty cover. It’s a very pretty material. 

It’s a very pretty note. 

For your first day back at school. Don’t forget your schoolwork. Turn in what you have. Get whatever else you missed. Do some reading. 

- Dad

It’s like a poem, all written in the same line. If she squeezed her eyes shut, she could see the words hanging in stanzas and in rhymes. 

And every poet needs to sign off their work some day. He’d chosen “Dad.”  

Johanna picks A History of British Birds up from the table as if handling a Bible. Typically, she blends into the walls of a school. Unnoticeable as she used to eat alone and study in the library in solitary afterwards. Only once did a teacher actually notice who she was. She’d combined birds with her subject somehow–bringing her to recommend this book to her. It hadn’t been at the library. She’d only dared to steal a few glances at it at Waterstone’s. This book is as sacred as a holy one in her mind. 

How did he know? 

How has he known any of this?

He’s known enough times to sign off “Dad.” Dad. 

Johanna slips the book into her backpack and begins on her way to school. 

But celebrities certainly aren’t the only ones who struggle with eating disorders. Besides anxiety and depression, today’s teens are more prone to developing eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge-eating disorders. Celebrities have these struggles too–

He has read far too much about apparent “celebrities” than he’s ever wanted to in his entire life. For a book specifically on anorexia, it seems to prefer fawning over people with a bit of fame. If they’re trying to appeal to parents, he doesn’t see the point. Wouldn’t teenagers be more interested in that sort of thing anyway?

He flips through a few pages.

Symptoms of anorexia nervosa include: 

• Extreme weight loss
• Being very tired or weak

• Dizziness or fainting 

• Feeling cold constantly 

• Stomachaches 

• Never feeling hungry 

• Low mood

• Increased anxiety 

• Stress fracture or reduced bone mass

• Irregular or missed menstrual cycle 

• Fear of weight gain

• Stress on appearance 

• Insomnia 

The weight loss he can see, even if he hasn’t known her long enough to fully witness it–and he doesn’t trust the Foggs or the judge either. Being tired is easy to see in her eyes. The fainting… The feeling cold… He’d have to ask about stomachaches. But he can see the anxiety, the fear, the stress. He’s overheard the insomnia. 

The menstrual cycle…

He scans through a few more of the pages. 

Women of reproductive age should have a period once about every 28 days.

Yes, he had a wife, he knows this. 

Losing a significant amount of weight can stop your body’s hormonal processes. Without these normal hormones, your teen’s body may start mensurating irregularly or stop altogether . This disorder, called Amenorrhea, can cause problems such as fertility issues, bone loss, early menopause…

He’s already seen the bone problems. And the rest? 

Discussing such a topic with his wife was never a spot of embarrassment for him, especially after they started trying for a baby. Lucy had a spot on her chart for it and everything. There were many late night trips to Gregg’s to pick up chocolate or Advil. A lot of afternoons after class where he would work on his homework while rubbing her belly. He’s familiar with that aspect of the opposite sex. 

But how is he supposed to bring this up to his daughter?

It’s a far cry from such a discussion with his wife. Or better yet–a conversation between his wife and daughter. 

It’s only been a few weeks, but he hasn’t seen her come home with anything like that or been asked to track them down. 

But, as his alarm buzzes and beckons him back to work, he knows that is a problem for him to confront later in the day. 

“Is it uncomfortable?” 

Biting her lip, she hesitates before answering, “Well, it certainly doesn’t feel very good .”

She uses Anthony’s hand as she slides onto the bench. He takes her backpack from off her shoulders and hands it to her to get her lunch from. She has yet to peek inside, though the sight of the brown paper bag already exhausts her. Then, he pulls out the book. 

“He left it on the table this morning,” Johanna tells him. “Just like he did with the other ones.”

“He leaves them on the table for you?”

She nods and gestures for him to put it back. As he does so, she continues, “I just don’t know how he knows about that one. I haven’t even told him that I like birds.”

Anthony places the backpack near their feet before sliding next to her. “Well, I spoke with him a little.”

Right. Benjamin Barker had gone as far as to call him her boyfriend . He knows enough.

“I’m sorry,” she quickly whispers. She opens the bag. Anything to hide her blush. She’d just let that happen! He isn’t supposed to know about Anthony, he isn’t supposed to know much about her at all. If he knows about Anthony… how long will it be before he tries to take him away?

Tries . He won’t be able to actually tear them apart. 

“No, no. It was nice. He’s not so bad.”

Johanna turns to face him with a dead stare. “Did you actually talk to him at all?”

“I would be lying to you if I said I didn’t.”

“Anthony, did you see anything that happened?” She pushes the bag away. “He practically shouted at you to fetch a doctor for him!”

“For you.” His tone is more gentle than she wishes it was. She wants an argument. She wants to rant about this entire situation and how unfair it is. She wants her own sense of justice. “Jo, I think he’s just concerned about you–and actually concerned about you. Not in the way the judge was. I think he actually cares. He’s just… gruff in the way he shows it.”

She shakes her head. “No, no, no–he’s just–!” A sigh. “I don’t know what it is exactly, but… it’s not right. None of this feels right.” 

“It doesn’t, doesn’t it?”

Gaze remains cast away, not quite yet accepting his empathy. In the beginning of knowing him, it was difficult to reach for him at all. Why does it feel like that again? Why does she still feel just as scared even though she has him now?

“I can’t pretend like I understand any of this, but you can still talk to me about it, right? I may not be able to understand all of it, but I’m still here. I want you to talk to me. I want you to just rant whenever you feel like it.” He slides the bag back to her. “I’ll surrender next time. Won’t try to argue his or your side. Deal?” 

“Deal.”

“Are you comfortable?”

She nods, though she doesn’t know if she’ll be exactly comfortable until she can take this off . The doctor had sent her off with instructions for pain medications, yet every time she sees them, she can’t help but think of the picture of her mother in the closet. Those little pills from those little bottles are what killed her. She always resisted the idea of becoming her mother. Johanna was never certain if her guardian wanted her to become more like that woman or if he wanted her to become nothing like her. 

Either way, she won’t. 

She glances through the bag. Same apple, same pomegranate seeds, same small treat amongst everything else. Why the seeds?

“You’ll eat the apple?” Anthony’s voice is gentle. 

She nods and passes him the seeds.

Every pause, every break, she has is dedicated to the book. She tears through each page and studies every illustration as if it is hung in the Louvre. When the day ends, Anthony is called off to work too early for him to walk her home. She devours the contents on the train. At the flat, she sinks into the bed with the cover nestled near her nose. 

She doesn’t realize she falls asleep.

It is a sweet scene to find his daughter fast asleep on her bed when he comes home. A scene reminiscent of times decades before when she was only an infant and he only a naive man. Gently, gently, Benjamin closes the book and sets it on her nightstand before any pages crease. She would appreciate that, he thinks. 

He prepares her medication for when she wakes. He did this before, too. When she was that baby and he was that man. Lucy was in the other room, patting her on the back as she wailed. His job was to crush the small pills that were somehow meant for a child only a few months old. Sleep deprivation and anxiety for his child had him tumbling over himself time after time. It took nearly fifteen minutes before he was able to get the crushed medication in the bottle. It took nearly an hour before their daughter finally succumbed to its effects and calmed. 

This time, Benjamin doesn’t crush the pills. Simply jiggling a few from the bottle onto a napkin next to a glass of water. 

Though his body aches and groans, he doesn’t let himself lay his head down to drift off. His daughter doesn’t need that now. He has to make sure she takes her medication right before he can dare to. Does she know how to swallow a pill? Does he know anything about what she already knows? He was supposed to be there to teach her how to be a person. 

The flat is so still. His daughter is asleep. He wants to close his eyes. 

He can figure out how to approach the subject later. 

Benjamin sits himself on the sofa, like he used to do. He hasn’t fallen asleep right here like this in years. 

And he'll make dinner. Later.  

She finds him asleep on the sofa. 

All peaceful, unlike the worn-down man that she’s only known. There is no anger in his expression when his eyes are closed. Now that she thinks about it, has he ever let himself lay down like this in the time she’s been here? Last week, it was her falling asleep at random moments. 

Johanna backs away and turns back to her room. Though, she notices the cup in the corner of her eye and it takes her curiosity before she gives it permission. She sees the pills next to it when she gets closer. 

What killed her mother…  

The judge always told her that she’s the reason why her mother took them.

Johanna takes the water. She doesn’t take the medicine. 

She really ought to do her homework now. 

When he wakes up, the first thought that comes to mind is the one he’s been dreading every day. 

Symptoms of Anorexia Nervosa: 

• Missed menstrual cycle 
• Missed menstrual cycle 

• Missed 

• Missed 

• Missed

How is he going to do this?

Once he lifts his sore body up from the sofa, he turns to the kitchen. Dinner first would be nice. Yes, dinner. He’ll see her eat and then he’ll bring it up. And it will be a good meal. One that not even she could shove away from herself. Chained to the plate, she’ll have to answer his questions–and honestly .

He starts throwing everything together. Yes, this is good. That’s good. This conversation will work itself out. 

He’ll know what to say even if he doesn’t have a clue right now. 

Perhaps, the spirit of his wife can possess him–just in that moment. She would know what to say. 

At last, Benjamin calls her to the table. She’s still rubbing some of the sleep from her eyes. It makes him smile to see. 

She used to do something similar as an infant. 

But he sits across from his nearly-grown daughter and lets her bless the food. If he hadn’t turned his back to God, he might ask Him for help. But God is also a man. Would He even have a solution for him?

They eat in near silence. Though, she actually eats. He shouldn’t disrupt this strange peace with such a question. 

She begins to clear the table. He rises to join her in it. 

Benjamin still doesn’t speak, even too afraid to ask about school. 

But as he puts the final dish away, he sees the napkin and two pills still on the countertop. Where he had left them for her. 

“Wait–” Benjamin scoops them into his palm, reaching them out towards her. “You forgot to take…”

“Oh.” 

It’s the same tone she uses when she gets caught in something. He’s learning about his daughter. 

He collects a glass for her. She pops the first pill. 

This is his last chance for the night. How much does he want to postpone it?

“Do you need tampons?”

That was certainly fast. 

Her head jerks forward and she takes another sip. Once the tears are blinked from her eyes, she looks at him as if he asked if she knew every horror in the Old Testament. 

“ What?”

She heard him ask it once, why is she making him repeat himself? 

It’s just like when he asked her if she had a boyfriend. 

(Except this is worse. Much worse.)

“Do you need… tampons?”

That’s what they’re called, right? In sixteen years they hadn’t changed the name? Tampax? Playtex? Pearl? Applicator? What did Lucy use? Why didn’t he pay more attention? 

Her eyes widen. The hand with the pill turns into a grip. And slowly , he watches as her face turns from a swan pale to death . 

“I… I don’t… I don’t think you need to know that.”

“Well, I’ve noticed…” He rubs the back of neck. Is it getting stuffy in here? In February? “You haven’t… I can pick some up for you at the store… If you…” He clears his throat. It was never difficult with his wife, why is he nearly fanning himself with humiliation now? 

She stares back at him wearing the same terror. 

“You should probably… swallow that.” Before you squeeze all the substance and excipients out of it . 

She doesn’t move. 

This is getting nowhere. 

Benjamin sighs. He would wipe the sweat from his forehand if he could move. 

“Do you menstruate?” 

And that question is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. 

“That is certainly none of your business!” his daughter exclaims. She stares a moment more–just a moment–before turning her back and fleeing to the safety of her bedroom. 

With the pill, without the glass of water. 

Does he take that as a no? A yes? 

He’s going to have to study that particular section in his books. 

It’s the only time he’s ever wished he could talk to someone about this. Is there such a thing as a menstrual specialist? Well, obviously. Gynecologists. But other than that is there an expert to tell one how to ask his daughter about such a thing? Or is this some rare occurrence that’s just between them? Are other fathers and daughters more open about this topic? 

If only Lucy…

But Lucy is gone. 

He sighs again. This isn’t even the worst part of the night. 

Benjamin raps two fingers against her door. As expected, there’s no answer, though he can tell she’s still in there. She can’t exactly try to run away in the state she’s in right now. 

“Mrs. Wilson is coming over tomorrow. Just as a check-in,” he quickly clarifies. No one is taking her away from him again. “I’ll be home early for it.”

Nothing. 

Benjamin backs away from the door. 

It turns out, he has a lot of studying to do. 

Tampons?

Menstrual cycle?

Fingers claw at the roots of her hair. There’s a different texture there and she easily recognizes the blood before she sees the red. It doesn’t discourage her from her tugging and nearly breaking. 

Who is he to ask about such a thing?

That is a subject for womankind and womankind alone . Goodness, she wouldn’t even bring it up around Anthony. If she ever could bring it up around him. 

For the entire time she’s known him, she hasn’t bleed like that. Not once. 

It isn’t the first time. Something like that hasn’t exactly been as regular as other girls for a while. 

When she was twelve and when she first saw blood staining white fabric, she’d assumed she was dying. What other explanation was there? People don’t just bleed like that. The pains and aches that accompanied it was further evidence of her humiliating condition. 

But why wouldn’t she leave the world like that? Silent and in agony? It sounded just like the rest of her life. And she had committed sins God couldn’t forgive her for. 

It was Mrs. Eastman that discovered the stains. She sat her down to fully explain. 

Johanna heard whispers of the affliction of girlhood around the halls of the school. She’d heard strange noises in the toilet, but always assumed other girls were eating a bag of crisps during their break. Their teachers certainly wouldn’t have allowed it in the classroom. Johanna didn’t pay it any mind. There was never a reason to tell anyone. 

It used to come every month, heavy and awful. Then, the less she ate, the less it affected her. Until it stopped coming altogether. 

Why should she complain? If that was the effect of her dinner habits, what was the harm in it?

She still doesn’t understand. 

Mrs. Eastman caught onto her. Mrs. Eastman told her guardian. 

After the meals of being practically chained to the table and force-fed, she bled like normal again. 

At fourteen, she got lucky again. It was freeing when they stopped paying her much attention. When they brushed it off as just a phase. 

Until she collapsed at school. 

Even after the two weeks almost tied to her bed and kept from school, it still hadn’t returned like normal. Between the ages of twelve and fourteen, she’d gotten smarter in her approach. 

Only Anthony noticed. 

And now, it seems like Benjamin Barker has, too. 

Why couldn’t it have been Anthony to ask? Johanna could have been honest with him .

Well, more honest. 

Do you need tampons?

What sort of question is that! 

No. She hasn’t a need for tampons. 

Johanna preferred the napkins anyway. 

(Don’t tampons take one’s virginity?)

And now Mrs. Wilson is coming over. Is she also going to interrogate her? Mock her with femininity, laugh in her face and walk away? Are they all going to copy Benjamin Barker? 

She slumps her forehead against the cold glass of the window. Perhaps, if she did require such a feminine product, they wouldn’t ask–they would leave her alone. 

For the first time in her life, is she wishing that she was bleeding? 

Fingers slowly fall from her scalp with a long sigh. Her cheek squishes against the pane. Terribly cold, yet she doesn’t turn away. She studies the drops of waters as they race to the end together.

When she was younger, she would cheer for one of them. 

How ironic. Whoever wins isn’t a winner after all. That drop disappears. That drop wins no prize. That drop dies.   

The phone buzzes from the bed. With another long sigh, she drags herself across the floor to reach it. 

But finally, she smiles. 

“You wouldn’t mind a visitor right now, would you?”

Her grin breaks. “Never from you, Anthony. Never from you.”

“Okay, that’s really good. Because… I’m right outside your window .”

Her head jerks to behind her. Nothing. Before she can ask, he clarifies, 

“ Well, I haven’t climbed up the fire escape yet–”

“Anthony!” Johanna lets out a delighted squeal. “You can’t just climb up–”

“ Um, well, it’s a bit too late for that.”

“Anthony!”

And she laughs. 

And she hears the rapping at the glass. 

She opens the window to find Anthony with snowflakes in his hair. He greets her with a kiss–his lips cold and nearly blue. And she rewards him for climbing up the tower by removing his gloves so she could rub the life back into his icicle fingers.  

“What are you doing here?” Johanna barely manages to ask between furious giggles and desperate, little kisses. 

“I wanted to see you.”

“You wanted to see me so badly you climbed up an icy fire escape just to knock at the window?”

“Always.”

He sits her on her lap, one arm ‘round her waist. His lips poking at her shoulder blade. She leans against his cold, always desperate to get warm. 

“And I realized on my way that I should probably call you and make sure you’re alright with me coming… so i did. If you told me no, I would have turned around without any questions about it.”

Her nose brushes against his. “I know.”

“I like the way you did your hair today,” Anthony whispers. His free hand falls over the style, a touch she barely feels. He doesn’t want to mess it up. He understands her hard work, even if she’s going to wash it away later on tonight. “I forgot to tell you at school today, but I wanted you to know.”

“You’re too sweet to me.”

“No.” Anthony twirls a curl around his finger. “But I try to be the kind of person you deserve.”

Floorboard creaks from outside the room. He can feel her tense and opens his lips to ask. Her hand quickly covers his mouth. 

This is the first time he’s ever been in her room. 

They couldn’t dare risk it with the judge. Can they really risk it with Benjamin Barker?

He’s met Anthony. He’s spoken to Anthony. 

But that doesn’t mean–

He hasn’t told her that she’s banned from seeing Anthony. No amount of shouting or scolding or being locked away would stop her anyway. 

But that doesn’t mean–

They can’t be too safe. 

Slowly, she moves her hand. 

“Sorry,” Anthony whispers. “Should I go? I didn’t know if…”

“No. No.” She sighs. “I just… He hasn’t said anything.” 

“So we’re…?”

“I don’t know.”

Stubborn girl. Determined, romantic boy. It’s impossible to tear them from each other. 

But Johanna pushes that thought away. If Benjamin Barker comes in, so be it. 

If he finds them like this–her on his lap… oh, dear .

But he hasn’t. 

She lets herself relax into a grin. “This is the first time you’ve ever been able to come inside.”

“Is it terrible that’s part of the reason I wanted to come over?”

“Ah! You wanted to kiss me in my room instead of having to do all of our kissing in just yours? You wanted to expand the location you’ve kissed me?”

“And–” A rare mischievous grin falls over his features “–all the places you’ve kissed me.”

“You’re silly.” 

“Am I wrong?”

She leans in to kiss him again. “I suppose you aren’t.”

And they fall into simple conversation. He tells stories from work. She giggles along. 

Johanna doesn’t mention the questions Benjamin Barker asked. It isn’t the time for it. She is free of it. 

“And I thought of somewhere else we should go.” Anthony tucks his forehead against hers. They can’t fully look at each other this way, but the feeling of skin-on-skin makes up for it. “Sydney, Australia. Think of the tan you’ll get there.”

“ Ha! –Do you plan on letting me burn to a crisp?”

He copies her laugh. “Just think of my tan.”

“That’s all too easy.”

Oh, dear! 

She cups her hand around her mouth, though unable to let the laughter escape. Anthony doesn’t bother hiding his as his head is thrown back and he lets himself be buried in his fit of chuckles. 

Finally, he shrugs. “I don’t mind you imagining. Soon, you won’t have to.”

“You torment me with your teasing.”

Another shrug. “So be it.”

As her smile relaxes, her shoulders tense. 

It’s getting late. 

“You’d better get back home,” Johanna mumbles. As if somehow if she doesn’t speak clearly he won’t have to leave. “We can’t have your mother worrying. And he might… I don’t want him to…”

He understands. “It’s alright.”

And she has to leave the warmth that is existing against him. Helps him to cover himself in every layer. Kisses bare patches of skin. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he promises as he says goodbye in a last kiss. 

She lingers against his lips. “I’ll be there.”

Sydney, Australia , she thinks as she watches him disappear down the fire escape. She’d never considered it before. 

She can hear Benjamin Barker clear his throat in the other room. 

They’ll still be able to do it. Even with him. 

They’ll escape together. 

They have been staring at each other ever since she arrived. Benjamin wears a scowl he doesn’t try to hide. Why should he? He knows just as well as Mrs. Wilson that she isn’t exactly welcome in his home. 

She is a part of the life before. She shouldn’t haunt them like this. 

She makes the flat feel as if his daughter’s bedroom still only consists of a bedframe and nothing else. 

“You already knew we would have to have these visits before, right Mr. Barker?”

The way she says his name makes him sound as if he’s still an inmate. He grips the chair’s armrest. 

“As luck would have it, it just happened to fall after, well, what happened .”

He doesn’t give her the satisfaction of an acknowledgement. 

Wilson sighs. “She’s going to be home soon? I don’t have all day, Mr. Barker.”

As luck would have it, he hears the jingle of keys outside. 

Benjamin doesn’t make her wait. With long strides, he throws open the door finding his daughter with a bewildered expression. She spots the social worker behind him. He wishes he could say something to her. Some word of comfort. Some encouragement. They’ll get through this together .

“Good afternoon, Johanna, please take a seat.”

Benjamin leads her to the chair he was previously sat upon. He takes a protective stance behind her. Animal defending cub. 

“Mr. Barker–”

“I’m fine where I am.”

Wilson doesn’t hide her eye roll. “Well, let’s get started then. Mr. Barker, how have things been?”

“Just fine.” Not quite fine, but better than they were before . “Occasional bickering. But there always is.” 

“And this bickering is what caused Johanna to attempt to run away?”

“Yes.”

To his surprise, it is his daughter who answered. 

Mrs. Wilson’s brows jump. “What exactly was the cause?”

She lifts her frail shoulders. “I just panicked. Nothing more. You saw who I was with before. Why wouldn’t I feel that way?”

“Johanna, what it sounds like to me is that you’re describing anxiety, is that right?”

She is silent for a moment. “I do not wish to discuss this.”

There are doctors out there. Would bringing her to one fix this? Stop her from flying away? Calm her fears? 

Would it even work?

“Mr. Barker, there’s a few things I’d like to ask your daughter in private, could you possibly do me a favor and leave?”

Frozen fear strikes against his daughter’s face. How could he leave her like this? Against an enemy, quaking? No, he wouldn’t leave. Anything she had to ask, she could ask in front of both of them. 

“I am happy here,” his daughter speaks up, “If that’s what you’re going to ask. I’m sorry I left.”

“Mr. Barker–”

She is happy here . 

His stone expression faces Wilson’s. Finally, he relents. 

He waits in his room for his daughter’s interrogation to cease. 

He paces until the rug seems to wear out.

Why should he worry? 

She said she is happy here. 

Is happy here . 

A prayer catches in his throat. Please let that be true. 

They can’t take her away from him again. 

His last piece of his wife. The carrier of his curls. His girl, his daughter, his only reason to keep living. 

Let her stay . 

There is a gentle knock at the door. 

Time for his interrogation. 

How many times had Benjamin gone against the police for this very thing? Whatever Wilson tries to accuse him of, he’ll disprove it. Just don’t take his daughter away from him. Not again. 

He almost expects to see the yellow-haired infant on the other side of the door. He sees the face of his daughter. Worried and creased and all-too-strong of a reminder of his wife. 

“She wants you,” his daughter whispers, “then she’ll go.”

He wishes he could embrace her as he walks to his jury and judge and she goes back to her room. 

The questions aren’t as complicated as he expected them to be. She questions arrangements, about her schooling, about his work. She demands to know if he feels fully equipped to take care of her. Benjamin could laugh. This is what his entire life has led to. How couldn’t he be ready for it? 

“Alright, Mr. Barker.” Mrs. Wilson slips her notebook and pencil back into her briefcase. “Seems you have everything taken care of. And the situation seems to be… also taken care of.”

He nods. It feels as if acting as triumphant as he feels might lose him everything. He sees her out, even if the door is only a few yards away from where they were sitting. He is in a good-enough mood for it. 

When the door closes, he lets out of a cry of relief. 

He still has his daughter. 

When they found out that everything had worked and Lucy was finally pregnant, they bought a cake they couldn’t really afford and dined on it. They laughed on each other’s chests and stomachs and rejoiced in the news of their child. They apologized to their landlady for not purchasing one of her pies, indulging in their little secret. 

Benjamin wishes he could pick up a cake for them both. Or perhaps just for him. 

But it wouldn’t be the same without Lucy to enjoy it with. 

(It should have been the three of them.)

Instead of a feast of sugar, Benjamin prepares his daughter’s painkillers and delivers them to her room. She looks up at him with the expression of a cat wondering what it had done wrong. 

“You’re alright,” he whispers and he doesn’t know where the words are coming from, “you’re safe.”

She doesn’t question him. Just takes the pills and closes the door. 

Tomorrow, she will still be there to close the door. 

Tomorrow, he will still be arranging her breakfast and putting the pills next to it. 

Tomorrow, he will bring her a book. 

Tomorrow, they are still a family. 

Chapter Text

Is it silly?

But what is the point in asking Anthony who already so-sweetly has his phone with a map to get them to where she asked him to take her to leave now? The way he studies it with a furrowed brow and biting his lower lips is… well, it’s quite handsome anyway. She should request him to take her about town more often. 

Though, she’s almost afraid of it. What if she falls in love with the city?

This isn’t exactly “the city” though. London is just where she comes from. 

And this street… 

Johanna hadn’t known that the first time she went to Fleet Street. This time, she gets to see Toby and guess at which bakery she lived above when she was a baby. If she wants to. It’s strange to think that this is where she lived and she hadn’t even known the first time she came. This was where she was brought when her parents came home from the hospital. 

“And then from here–” Anthony mumbles as she leads him up the escalator. “–it’s a ten minute walk.”

“Get out your card,” she reminds him. Once they’re through the train station, she takes his hand again. “Which exit?”

He looks up long enough to point. Johanna moves them in that direction as her role as navigator. It’s what she falls into when they’re navigating the city like this. Their first few weeks together, he hadn’t entirely figured out the train system. Johanna wasn’t used to it. He would find them where to go and Johanna would make sure he didn’t bump his head or lose her in the crowd. Both roles are equally important. 

“Does this look right?” she asks once they’re out of the station. 

Anthony nods. “This way. It’s not hard to get there from here.”

“Thank you,” she says again. Aside from, “I love you” or “Can I kiss you?” those two words may be the ones she says the most often to him. 

He grins down at her. “I’m honored to take you home.”

“Not really.” Though, there’s a gentle grin across her lips. “Just to where I came from. You’ll take me home to Plymouth when we’re married.”

“Where will we get married?”

Gentle smile turns into something brighter. It’s impossible not to light up when they discuss their future wedding, even if she doesn’t want anything more than a simple church ceremony. “You have a good point. We’ll go home to Plymouth to get married.”

Will they be able to get married there? Well, Benjamin Barker doesn’t exactly control her. She’ll be eighteen, then. He has no control over her at all. 

Anthony will get his pilot’s license at the school there. He’ll take her all over the world. 

She still doesn’t know what she wants to do with the rest of her life. Under the rule of her guardian, her only goal had been to stay quiet and survive. The judge expected something from her. Some schooling before…

But now, Johanna can become whatever she wants. 

What is that?

“This is also where Toby lives, right?” Anthony asks. 

“I saw him at work once here…” Several weeks ago. “I hope he still works here.”

But at the time, she doesn’t. That poor boy had too much on his plate. Only fourteen and carrying a job and some sort of internship. She still isn’t sure what the internship was. Toby didn’t talk about it so much?

As they walk onto Fleet Street, Johanna halters. Why is there a courthouse on this street? 

Anthony notices immediately. “What’s wrong?”

Her neck is craned. In one of those windows… Is that…?

No, she reminds herself, he’s in prison . 

(For now.) 

Apparently not even her biological father wants him behind bars. 

“Hey, Jo?”

“This way.” She falls back into their previous pace, then begins a little faster. Just to get to their destination a little faster. Just to see Toby. (She knows the judge isn’t at that courthouse. She isn’t afraid of that silly little building.) “It’s just a little stand–”

Toby recognizes her right away. 

“Johanna!” Both of his hands fling up into the air. Not a wave, but more of a sign. “You came back!” 

“And I’m very glad to be.” She settles herself against the counter, grinning. Anthony takes his place at her side and she squeezes his hand. “This is Anthony. Anthony, this is Toby.”

Anthony outstretches a hand. “Pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.” 

“You have?” Toby doesn’t take his hand, but turns back to Johanna. “Who is he?”

She never really knows how to answer that question. With a glance to Anthony, she doesn’t have to. 

“I’m her guy,” he says and Johanna confirms it with a little nod. 

“Oh.” Toby looks back at Anthony. “You’re good? You’re good to Johanna, right?”

“He is,” she confirms, “very good.”

Anthony gets down to talking to the other boy while Johanna looks down the street. Is it any of those buildings? She looks down the other way. Any of those? Is there another pie stand on this street?

Then she looks up. There’s a window up there. 

“Toby?” Johanna voices without looking back at the stand, her gaze is focused on what towers above them. “Does someone live up there?”

“Up there?” He arches himself over the counter to look. “Oh. Mrs. Lovett told me to never go up there. People say it’s haunted. And she says that, too.”

“Haunted?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know how.” A beat. “I don’t really want to know.”

She nods, finally looking back at him. 

“But speaking off–you gotta meet her!” Before either of them can agree or decline, Toby rushes to the back. “Mrs. Lovett! Can you come to the front?”

Anthony can tell her shoulders have sagged. He squeezes her hand. It’s good that he’s here. Johanna is hardly good at meeting new people. But Anthony… if introductions could be a talent for a show, he would win first place. 

There’s a brief little argument between the woman in the back and Toby before finally, Mrs. Lovett emerges. All ginger wisps of hair piled into two buns on the top of her head and a tall, pouty stature. She wipes her freckled hands on her apron before greeting them with a wide smile. Her rolling pin is tucked away in one of her pockets, looking as if it was a tree about to tip over. 

But then she pauses. A flicker of something Johanna can’t place falls across her face. “ Lu–no . Can’t be.” Mrs. Lovett takes a step closer. (This woman haunted by the flat above her shop.) She relaxes again–but only slightly. “And who might you two be?”

“That’s Jo, mum!” Toby says, catching up from behind. 

Mrs. Lovett doesn’t look away from her. “From the house?”

Toby nods. “Jo and… Anthony.” He points both of them out before wringing his hands together in front of himself. 

Anthony attempts to shake her hand. This time, she does, though rather limply and her stare continues to focus on Johanna. 

“Jo… What is it?” she asks. 

“Johanna Barker.” She says it almost as if her name is a question. Is it the wrong answer? It feels as though it is. 

“ Barker .”

It’s a name from another time, another decade, another century. It’s a name that makes it look as though Mrs. Lovett finally uncovered the truth of a secret from her youth. It’s Johanna’s name. 

Johanna nods, taking what she hopes to be an unnoticeable step closer to Anthony. 

The last thing she wants now is to talk about someone who saw her or her guardian on the news. 

(Where else would she know her name from?)

“Barker…” Mrs. Lovett pulls the rolling pin from her pocket before it can fall onto the floor. She points it towards them. “Your father’s Ben, eh?”

" Benjamin Barker, yes.” Johanna doesn’t like the name Ben. It feels too youthful for him, anyway. 

 “ Benjamin Barker ,” Mrs. Lovett whispers as if it is just as sacred as the name of God. “I heard the old bloke just got out’ jail, but… is he coming back?”

“Coming back…?”

“Home. Here.”

Home? Johanna looks back up. 

That window she was staring at. That was theirs. 

Did she use to look out it when she was a baby?

“He lives…” Johanna talks about him as if he’s just a neighbor. Not a name on her birth certificate. “We live elsewhere now.”

“You live with him again?”

Johanna holds her free hand over Anthony’s wrist. With both of her arms wrapped up in his, she feels as if she is a bird, looking for solace within a tree’s branches. “Yes.”

Mrs. Lovett taps the rolling pin against the counter. “Well, I’ll be…” She points the tool back at Johanna. “I remember when that judge took you away.”

“What?”

She nods, but doesn’t say any more on the subject. “Tell your dad to come back here. I’ve got his razors still. Could’ve sold them for a pretty penny, but I didn’t. He’ll want those.”

“ Razors? ”

“I’ll get them out for him again. Keep him humble, though. Always a good man that Benjamin.”

“What?”

Razors. Flat. Haunted. 

Mrs. Lovett turns, almost ready to resume her place in the back. She can’t just leave Johanna with all–with that! Whatever it was!   

“Did you know my mother, too?” Johanna asks quickly, as if afraid Mrs. Lovett may throw that rolling pin directly at her head.)

As if a shadow rolled over her, Mrs. Lovett scowls. She sets the rolling pin against the corner of the counter with a loud thud all of Fleet Street can hear. Johanna jumps back. Anthony re-adjusts himself to put a hand over the small of her back. The hand that was on his wrist before dives into a pocket. It feels safer than being without anything. 

“I did.” Mrs. Lovett’s tone is curt before she warms (ever-so-slightly) again. “But remember what I told you, girl. Get your dad over here. Remember those razors!”

And with the reminder of the razors, Mrs. Lovett turns back into the kitchen. 

Razors?

The judge had one. Silver edge and stupid decorations on the handle. She always wondered why he risked slitting his own throat every morning when this modern age gave them modern conveniences. Though, he was always old fashioned. It didn’t take long for Johanna to notice the way he dressed her made her look like yearbook photos of girls her age… in the 1940s. Perhaps, he also liked the risk of the past. 

She can’t imagine he’s faring well in prison. 

She didn’t in the one made for her. 

But he had luxuries she didn’t: money and influence. 

And pride. 

“She’s a good woman,” Toby says. “Gave me a job when I thought no one would ever.”

“You’re a hard worker, Toby,” Johanna says in a low voice. “Everyone should be scrambling to hire you. I can’t believe you’re able to handle an internship and a job at the same time.” And you’re only fourteen . 

Toby gives a chuckle that’s on the breach of nervousness before changing the subject. 

They talk for a while more between a few glimpses of Mrs. Lovett in the back. She stares at Johanna with the expression of someone perched over a complicated crossword book. Almost as if Johanna is just an animal in a zoo. She can’t understand what the mystery is. Mrs. Lovett knows who she is: the daughter of two individuals she used to know. Johanna prefers to keep her attention on Toby as he tells stories about the stand and a random fact he’d learned about carrots. 

After goodbyes and promises to come back again soon, Anthony says, 

“He’s a sweet boy.”

Johanna nods. “Yes, he is.”

Stepping down the stairs to the trains, it consumes her how much she misses him.

“I didn’t know you lived on 146 Fleet Street.”

Before he can ask anything (who she was with, where she was going, why she got back from school so late), Johanna begins with her own confrontation. He never told her exactly where he and her mother lived on Fleet Street. She just hadn’t expected it to be the same place Toby now works. 

Benjamin Barker adjusts himself where he’s sitting. “How’d you figure that out?”

“Your old landlady was there.” Johanna bends down to unlace her shoes. “Apparently, your old flat is now haunted.”

“Haun– landlady? ” He looks over the sofa. “Mrs. Lovett?”

“Yes.” Johanna steps out of both shoes before picking them up to put back in her room. 

“What were you doing around Fleet Street?”

She shrugs. “Visiting an old friend.”

“At 146 ?”

“It turns out to be.”

She opens the door to the room just as he asks, 

“What did she tell you?”

So much and yet nothing at all. 

“She has your razors.”

Johanna watches his expression shift from confused to slowly –ever slowly–knowing. What sort of person kept someone’s razors for that long? After a few uses, she tosses hers away… not that she would ever talk about the feminine art of shaving her legs in front of him . 

“Were you two friends?” she asks. Mentally, she crosses her fingers that she’ll get a few actual answers . Were her mother and Mrs. Lovett friends? 

Benjamin Barker runs his fingers over his beard. “She was our landlady.” 

“Well…” Refusing to let this opportunity run past her grasp, she retreats away from the door. Shoes still in hand. “She kept your razors for sixteen years…” You’d have to be somewhat close for someone to do that . 

“Did she… show you?”

“Show me?” Johanna wrinkles her nose. “Why would she do that?”

“What is the set?”

“What set? ”

“Are they the ones your mother gave to me?”

Johanna tilts her head. He doesn’t really look to be the type to shave. He’s had a beard as long as she’s known him and she can’t imagine him dusting off a plastic razor or silver blade to do the trick for him. In fact, she can’t really imagine him without the beard. Just as she can’t imagine him with straight hair. It just… not right. In the picture of them at the hospital, he was relatively clean shaven. But she hadn’t looked at the younger version of him much. Not when her mother was right there. 

“I don’t know.” 

Benjamin Barker wanders into the kitchen. She hears the jiggle of pills in a bottle and grimaces. (Speaking of her mother…)  

Doesn’t he know this is how she died?

“It must be,” he mutters as he passes her the appropriate medicine and the glass to go with it. “They were good razors.”

Johanna ignores the glass and the medication. “Were they…” she swallows. “Um… why ?”

Well, that was elegant. 

“They were straight razors. It was a bit of a joke between your mum and I.”

But a joke worth saving for sixteen years?

Benjamin Barker pushes the glass slightly closer to her. A clear signal Johanna chooses to ignore. If it was a joke between him and his wife, why would their landlady feel the need to keep it for so long? 

He slides the pills closer. Johanna closes her eyes for a second before surrendering. She won’t ever adjust to the feeling of the tablets falling down her throat. She places the glass on the counter with the slightest clink . Other than that, the rest of today shouldn’t be too bad. Some homework to do before the weekend (not that it ever mattered to her, she isn’t used to having anything to do over the weekend), then she’ll go over to Anthony’s… 

Oh. Anthony’s . 

There’s no sneaking out with the excuse of a library anymore. And they do know each other now…

“I’m going over to Anthony’s tonight,” she says, hoping she gives off an air of defiance loud enough for him not to question her. “He invited me.”

“ You are? ”

Johanna nods. “Yes.”

She stands and begins back to the room. 

Could it really have been that simple? She hopes so as she gets closer and closer to the door. It could be that simple–

“When?”

Well, it wasn’t that simple. 

Johanna turns around. It isn’t a poisonous question. “Seven.”

“Where does he live?”

She lets out a silent sigh. “It’s not too far. Just a short train ride away.”

“Didn’t you try to go to his flat before?”

Why is he bringing that up! (Of course, the brace that’s around her back is a bit of a reminder and… but it was terribly embarrassing to pass out in a shop and wake up in a hospital room!)

When Johanna looks up at him, his request is as clear as the lights in this dark city. Hopefully, he won’t want to talk to anyone? He doesn’t really seem like the type to converse for hours. 

“Do you want to see it?” 

Benjamin Barker nods, tucking his hands into his front pockets. “What time did you want to leave?”

“6:45?”

Again, he nods before making his way back into the sitting area. Johanna doesn’t waste any time in getting to the room. 

She has to warn Anthony. 

It was evening. She was still in her wedding dress. Veil was discarded somewhere in the room and several buttons were open. Ankles were crossed and twined over his. His wife had just become his wife and she was beautiful. 

There was no decorative paper over it. Just something brown and a string of twine. “For a retro feel,” Lucy joked as she handed it to them. 

He laughed when he opened it. Then gasped. 

How she had been able to find the money to buy him sterling silver straight razors as a wedding present, he has no idea. His initials were engraved in the handles and everything. 

He had married the best woman in the world and he didn’t know what to do with himself. 

Benjamin wishes he was smarter. Wishes he made the most out of everything. He didn't know just how crushing it was to lose her. 

When they told him… 

There is no reason to go back to Fleet Street. Except for the fact that a piece of his wife is still there. Guarded by Mrs. Lovett throughout all the years. He isn’t the same broke student anymore. He doesn’t really need them. But Lucy is engraved in that silver. She is both blade and handle and screw. 

It’s almost like getting his wife back. 

He might go tomorrow. 

For tonight, there is Anthony. 

He buries his face in his hands. He almost wonders if the judge ever met the boy or if this is all his privilege. Not that Anthony isn’t a good example. There are several boys out there that he wouldn’t want around his daughter. 

The judge comes to mind. 

But the judge… He still doesn’t know what the judge did to her. 

Maybe he can convince her to let him stay longer. If they’re at his flat, just together like that, who knows what that boy could pull off? 

Will his parents even be home? 

Though Benjamin tries to reason with himself, the boy mentioned having siblings, right? He can’t… They can’t… Not with them around…

He isn’t ready for this. 

He’d barely begun to even picture his daughter as anyone more than the infant he used to walk around the park late at night while trying to give his wife some moment of peace. He’s come back and here she is. Grown. Almost. Grown enough to think about boys her age and even fancy one enough to enter some sort of a relationship with him. 

What did his father do with this?

Did his parents even deal with this?

He wishes times hadn’t changed so much. Benjamin might have known what to do otherwise. 

It’s 6:45 before he blinks and his daughter is bundled in layer after layer. She tells him the route. He follows. Unsure and avoiding any feelings he has about this boy or his family. It’ll be easier this way. Easier than letting himself delve into paranoia. 

Though, his thoughts act differently. 

What if. What if. What if. 

That boy. That boy. That boy. 

His daughter is silent. He could guess at what she’s thinking. 

Would things have gone smoother if he met the boy under different circumstances? Instead of just hearing him claim to be “her guy” and rush to the hospital? 

They arrive at a very normal flat. With a very normal door. And his daughter gives it a very normal knock (while looking at him with a strange look). 

A very normal woman answers it. 

“Oh, Johanna!” she exclaims, wasting no time in bending slightly to wrap her arms around the girl (despite the wet spoon in her hand). “We’ve missed you! Come in, come in, come in.” And she begins to drag his daughter inside. 

Benjamin watches, helpless. 

Homecoming is written all over his daughter’s face. 

“Benjamin, right?” The woman asks before also ushering him inside. 

He nods. All he can do. 

“I’m Sarah.” 

It’s as if he’s forgotten how to talk to adults. Normal, ordinary adults. 

He just watches as Anthony glides up to her and wraps his arms around her. The two run off like two children on a playdate. That’s sort of what this is: he, the parent, dropping off his daughter and entrusting her with another adult that he barely knows. It probably would have been Lucy dropping her off more often. Then he would come and pick her up and hold her little hand as they took the train home. 

“You grew up where, Benjamin?” Sarah asks, melting the illusion of his child-daughter. 

“Here.” His voice is gruff. Soft. He doesn’t mean it to be. “In London.” 

“Really? You spent your entire life here?”

“Not entirely.” 

Sarah’s brows rise and fall, realizing what he means. Their story–his story–isn’t private. Besides–of course that boy of hers would be giving her updates with every new thing he learns about their family. 

“Both Victor and I grew up in Plymouth. It’s where we intended to raise our family, but alas!” She laughs. “He’s not home or I’d introduce you to him.”

Absent father , just as Benjamin guessed the moment he met Anthony. It may not be fair to judge the man based on the little information he has of him. It’s not difficult to do so, though.  

He’s still lingering by the doorway. If Sarah gave any indication he should step further into the flat, he can’t seem to move anyway. This is the first time he’s ever dropped his daughter off for a playdate . A playdate! And yet he can’t wrap his head around it. 

“We love Johanna very much,” Sarah continues. A smile. “She’s already part of our family.”

Family . The word is a shard of glass against his skin. That’s what he’s afraid of, isn’t it? His daughter relaxing into this other family, leaving him behind for forever. He just got her back . 

“She’s my daughter…” he whispers. 

Sarah tilts her head to the side in a strange-sort of nod. Benjamin wonders if that’s a special gesture for this occasion or if that’s how she always nods. 

“I can’t tell you how relieved we were to find out she was able to be reunited with her family. Anthony hasn’t told us much–he’d keep that girl’s secrets for her even if he was tortured for them–but it’s not hard to guess what’s happened. With that judge-guardian. I can’t say I’m very sorry he’ll be behind bars soon.”

Not bars . 

He hopes not. 

Benjamin just nods. 

He leaves without saying much. He doesn’t get back on the train. In a few hours, he’ll be back to pick her up anyway. Like an actual playdate . 

Hands in pockets, he encircles this part of the city. Images pass by. He doesn’t take them in. Lone man across the city. 

There hasn’t been time like this. In prison, everything was rigid to the point of insanity. Once he tasted the fresh air of the world outside again… there was something. Work, legal meetings, more work, go, go and go again. Looking after his daughter. Trying to keep her alive. Trying to keep himself alive. Books to read. 

Never… Time. 

Benjamin checks his phone. Again. Just in case. 

What would he do if life went the way it was planned? If this was dropping his daughter off at her friend’s house for some sort of playdate? 

Is this actually a date? She’s with her… 

It’s a date. 

Lucy would have helped her get ready. Perhaps, her practice on their daughter’s dolls would turn out and she would be able to do her hair. Benjamin would come home often to find her pouring over those dolls–making sure they looked perfect. Between the loose strands and the knotted hairs, to Benjamin, they did. 

And him? What role would he play? 

Would he tease? Would he be in complete denial? Perhaps, a mix of both. 

(He’ll never know.)

One day, when his daughter brings her own baby to his side, what will he do? Cradle the infant in his arms as if he were a natural? Crack some sort of joke about how much the child looks like her? 

Why is he thinking like this? Fatherhood is still right in front of him. Grandfatherhood is years away. 

(With what he intends to do, will he even get a chance to be a grandfather? Like the way he didn’t get a chance to be a father?)

Benjamin doesn’t know how long he’s wandered but he faces the apartment again. And he knocks. How long has it been? An hour? Two? How long was he in the cold walking? 

His skin burns. Just a little. 

“Hel–Oh!”  

He looks down. (Down?) Into Anthony Hope’s eyes on a little girl with mismatched braids. Sheepishly, she stares back up at him with a leg shuffling, almost as if she wishes she could run away from this situation. Not that Benjamin is any better. What does he say to a child? Fortunately, the girl comes up with a solution before he has to, 

“Mum! There’s a man here!” 

Benjamin takes an involuntary step back. The girl gives him one last look before galloping away. 

“May! I told’ya not to answer the door!” Sarah calls over her shoulder as she makes her way to the door. She smiles. “My dearest apologizes for that. Little Miss May’s forgotten we’re not in Rye anymore.” 

He just nods as if he knows what or where Rye is. 

“Here for Jo?” Sarah asks. 

He’d heard Anthony call her that before. The nickname used to slip when she was a baby. And there was that song his wife sang. What was it again? Swiftly to sleep now, my jo, my jing? Somesort of sweet nonsense. 

Sarah calls for May and instructs her to collect the girl. He’s invited inside again. And he enters, lingering awkwardly in the hall while Sarah tries to guide him into the kitchen. Almost afraid to let himself into a perfectly normal family scene. As if he might ruin it. 

If his daughter had a sister (if he had another daughter), would she have been another Lucy? Or would she have taken some of his features? 

She returns with both of them. 

“I know how to get home,” his daughter says, “and it’s not dangerous out there.” 

Why does he get the feeling she would have had Anthony escort her home to make it less dangerous? It’s a dark London night, what could possibly prevent it from danger? 

He can tell the two of them are wanting more, though they leave it at an embrace and a goodbye. His daughter shrugs on her layers as they make their way down to hall. She’s just gotten it all together when they get to the tube station. 

“Would your father pick you up?” she asks. 

The questions comes from empty space and he suspects malice at first, but as he falls upon her expression, it seems to be nothing but a careful curiosity. There’s a “Is that why you picked me up?” in there somewhere. Those words also aren’t bitter. Just a gentle way of trying to understand. 

She’s never asked about his family before. Only about her mother.  

And she’s asking about his father. 

“Not at your age,” Benjamin settles on. “But London’s different now.”

If anything, technically it’s safer. But not in his head. Not to mention the fact that she’s a seventeen-year-old girl with a broken back. 

Her lips purse briefly into a scowl before lifting into a perfectly neutral expression. “Is he still alive? Are your parents still alive?”

Did someone open a window in their compartment? Benjamin glances over his shoulder. His daughter is seated in front of him, though he stands, with a casual hand swing over the railing. 

“My father is.” 

Benjamin’s grip tightens as the train hastens to a stop, pressuring his body to stay in line and not tip over. As people board, his daughter rises with a sort of awkward air to her. He opens his mouth to protest when an older woman takes her spot. He glances between the two of them. Did she do that on purpose? Who taught her that?  

“Does he–” she begins as they start again “--live here?”

“No.”

With that, a pause forms. She looks up with him, head tilted. 

“What’s that?” he asks. 

His daughter shrugs. “I suppose it’s never clicked for me that you would have a father, too.”

Too . Some sort of acknowledgement. 

“What happened to your mother?”  

And his little beacon of acknowledgement is washed away. 

He can’t possibly share that with his daughter. 

“She’s dead.” 

I have a dead mother, too . 

His daughter pauses. Cautious. His glances drifts away to where she’s only in the corner of his vision (never out of sight). 

“I’m sorry.” 

Her soft tone snaps him back to her. 

“What for?” 

She shrugs. “It’s not easy to have a dead mother.”

His chest stings. He isn’t sure if it’s because of the loss of his own mother or if it’s the lack of her own. She didn’t even get her mother. What does a single year count when he had so much more? 

There’s a buzzing in his pocket when they roll into their station. He ignores it. There’s that little block button, yet he can’t bring himself to press it for that number. 

He let her walk over to Anthony’s apartment by herself. Though, his distrust of the dark won’t allow him to let her walk home alone. And he doesn’t exactly trust Anthony to walk her home (date or not). 

As they walk around the corner, she asks, 

“Are the calls you get from your father?”

Ice pours in through his blue, blue veins and he cannot look at her. Shame? Truth? He cannot be sure of it. 

“Did you have dinner while you were there?” he asks. 

Benjamin imagines that same ice pools through her veins. They are the same. Both blue. 

“Yes.” 

And he doesn’t believe her.  

There may be nothing worse than the sound of trainers across an impossibly-clean floor and white coats around her. The environment itself seems to have done everything to make her feel exposed . Arms folded over her chest and ankles at the ready to run, she keeps her knees as close together as possible. There is no one she trusts here. Why should they deserve her trust? These who prod and poke and question. 

Benjamin Barker seemed to have been at a loss earlier in the day. He began saying something about a treat afterwards, though he stopped himself. Even if he doesn’t know her, he understands that isn’t technically a reward for her. More of a cruel punishment (he doesn’t need to know the extent of it). 

He stands with an awkward air–hands in his pockets, gaze burning into her. Johanna doubts he’s trying to. He doesn’t seem like it. (Or perhaps, it’s all a foil. Perhaps, this is something he does to creep into her mind. To–)

(Why is she still trapped in the judge’s house?)

“Can you confirm for me your full name?” 

“Johanna Barker.” 

The nurse enters something into the computer. “Your date of birth?”

“February twentieth.”   

“Right.” The nurse turns in her chair before dodging the chair altogether. Time for them to shove whatever equipment they desire at her, Johanna supposes. 

They do. Mouth open, closed. Elbows out. Knees hit. Questions asked. It’s a horrid, neverending routine. It doesn’t help with how tense Benjamin Barker seems throughout all of it. 

“Alright, now,” the nurse says. “We’ll have Dad step out for this next part. We’ve got just  a few more questions that we like to ask the adolescent individually.” 

Now she’s just an adolescent . Johanna doesn’t feel young. 

After some protest from the man, he finally leaves. She’s too exhausted to care. Sinking into a pile of pillows doesn’t feel like a terrible idea. Perhaps, she’d even close her eyes. Allow herself to… 

“Are you at all sexually active?” 

What?

 She chokes on an “ excuse me?” instead, blinking rapidly at the question. Does she panic? Does she scream? Does she run out of the room?

It isn’t the first time she’s been asked this question. 

At the first appointment when they took her, she couldn’t answer the question. No! No! No! she wanted to scream. But is that true? Johanna doesn’t know if she feels purely pure . Strictly virginal. 

Hasn’t she said it herself? The judge took some of that from her. 

All of it?

“No,” she lies. 

She leaves it there. 

“Any drug or alcohol use?” 

That question is easier. 

“No.”

And she never wants to. The judge enjoyed his wine. Enjoyed the type of mood it put him in. 

The nurse nods. “How are you doing in school?”

What sort of question is that? No one really cares about how she does in school other than him and herself. Perhaps Anthony a little. He would be the one more likely to interrupt her studying for a breath of fresh air. Always worried about her shutting herself away from the world. She wishes she could say that wasn’t something he needed to be concerned with. 

“Fine.” Johanna runs a hand along her leg. “Grades are always fine.” 

“What about your social life?”

Why does she care?  

“Fine,” she says again. 

“Do you feel safe at home, school, in romantic relationships and with friends?” 

Why does she feel so clinical? Well, after a brief glance around… it makes sense in a way. But it doesn’t disregard the fact that she feels like a number and nothing more. 

“I’m fine .” There’s a bit of a bite in her words. 

The nurse nods. “What’s your favorite food?”

Did she catch her tone? Did she realize part of it is how sterile she sounds? Or is this a typical question they ask during an appointment regarding a back injury ? 

Teeth grit. Breath sharpens. Stop asking her questions! 

“I don’t have one.”

“What if you did? What would you say?

Johanna draws out a breath–long enough for her to notice. “Shrewsberry cake.” 

“That’s not a dessert you hear about every day,” the nurse replies. 

Johanna says nothing. 

“How would you describe your eating habits–generally?” 

Benjamin Barker is behind this, isn’t he?

“ Fine .” She bites down on her back teeth before continuing, “Just fine .”

“Three meals a day?”

“Yes.” 

It makes her feel like the typical teenager portrayed on the screen. She suppresses the urge to roll her eyes. Classic adolescent. 

“Do you know why I’m asking you all these questions?”

Benjamin Barker . “It’s just part of the appointment?” Johanna guesses. 

When the nurse turns back to her, she can tell by the slight curve to her lips and the light wrinkles between her eyes that this is going in a direction she does not like. The nurse rolls herself closer to Johanna in her chair, hand open as if Johanna might want to take it and gives a small smile. A sort of smile she’s seen a thousand times in her seventeen-year-old lifetime. Pity. Something-Is-Wrong-I-Can-Tell. I-Won’t-Fix-It-I-Just-Want-To-Know-Your-Buisness. 

Johanna clenches her knees closer together. 

“The sort of injury you got…” the nurse begins, “it’s not the sort of injury that girls your age tend to get.”

“Then I’m just a minority,” Johanna says as if that might end the entire conversation. As if her words have more ability than a technically-trained professional. 

“You are in the minority, yes. But–” ( There’s always one of those)  “–when girls your age do have a spinal fracture like that, we get concerned. Oftentimes–” the nurse sighs “–it’s because the patient isn’t eating right. Eating enough.”

It isn’t the first time Johanna has heard that accusation before. It was one of the only times she and Anthony actually fought . So unwilling to let go of her safety net, so determined that it was him in the wrong and not her… Anthony listened as she prattled on about how she does eat enough. And it is enough! She’s still alive. A truly, actually starving person would be dead, wouldn’t they? She doesn’t mind missing monthly bouts of “womanhood”. When she does look at it, she likes seeing the number on the scale shrink (before she realizes it isn’t low enough). This is the happiest she’s ever been. Thin. Away from the judge. Johanna Barker can make herself absolutely gleeful if it will prevent anyone from taking this away from her. 

“You have nothing to be concerned about,” Johanna says. Perhaps the nurse will consider it a lie. Johanna doesn’t. 

“Johanna…” the nurse pauses. “Johanna, do you eat?”

She doesn’t like the way she says her name. She wishes they would test her reflexes again. She would have no shame in kicking the nurse. 

“ Obviously .” As if this is a stupid question. Well, it is a stupid question! “I’ve just…” What do they always say to her? “...had several stressful and emotional situations as of late.” Isn’t that supposed to be severely impacting her from how dramatic everyone is about it?

“I know you have. But do you eat?”

Again, Johanna wishes she could roll her eyes. (Technically, she can, right? Though, the judge’s voice that lives in the back of her skull won’t allow her too.) 

“Yes.” Perhaps, a tamer tone will be more convincing. 

“What is your attitude towards food?”

Ridiculous question! 

“It’s food.” Johanna shrugs. “That’s all it is.”

(Poisonous. It’s poison.)

“How often do you exercise?” 

It sounds like a more normal question. Something a normal medical professional would want to know. Something she’s been asked in the past. 

But never after such an interrogation. 

Johanna isn’t in the clear yet. 

“The normal amount?” Quite frankly, she’d never figured out how to answer that question. What she considers exercise, most doctors find pathetic. None of them knew she was scarcely allowed outside. “I tend to just… work out in the room.” 

“How so?”

“I, um, follow a pamphlet I was given by a phys ed teacher a few years ago. It has a few different things… I just… do one.” 

It hasn’t been as often as of late. Those exercises were lifesavers during the years with the judge, however. Otherwise, Johanna’s muscles would have shriveled up and her bones would have melted. She’s certain of it. 

(And it saved her from weight gain.)

The nurse says nothing as she wheels back to the desk. A few notes are made before she looks back over at Johanna. “If you are seeing food as some sort of… enemy or something like that, please tell someone,” the nurse says. “This is a safe space. You can tell me.”

Safe space . Johanna could laugh. If she did have anything to admit to the nurse, how long would it take before every doctor in the vicinity knew? Before Benjamin Barker knew?

Johanna nods, ready for it to be over. 

But it never really is. 

Waiting amongst the tall stuffed creatures and the safari paintings on the wall, he wishes there was a teenage ward. Though, even if there was, Benjamin can’t tell if he would still feel so out-of-place. Ex-con sitting in a waiting room, worried through his bones for his daughter while small children play around him. 

He can count on one hand how many times he’d been to a pediatric clinic; all at least sixteen years ago. Benjamin tried to make it work as much as possible to go with them to their daughter’s appointments. Her one-week-out-of-the-hospital appointment terrified him to the point he’d taken the baby shift, too awake to try to rest. What if they found something wrong? he’d thought. What if they’re losing their daughter? 

Now, similar questions are swirling through Benjamin’s head. Young-Medical-Student-Father turned Formally-Imprisoned-And-Has-A-Teenager-Father. Not much is different at times. He wishes it got easier. But nothing could be easier after all they’ve been through. 

What if her back is completely unfixable? What if her spin is shattered? What if they wheel her out in a chair? 

What if she’s completely starved herself? 

She eats dinner. He witnesses that. 

But during the rest of the day… he isn’t there. 

Why isn’t he there? 

It’s the same guilt Benjamin experienced seventeen years ago. Having to say goodbye to his wife and daughter at sunrise. Leaving them to another day completely vulnerable. 

Should he be in the room with her now?

This is the guilt of the moments he had to leave when after she was born. The tiniest living thing he’d ever held–she fit perfectly in his palms. In the local neonatal unit where there were little wires connected to her body and her skin was pink. She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. As he stole a glimpse of Lucy holding her against her chest as he went to fetch a coffee, his heart squeezed. 

He shouldn’t have left–not ever. That Benjamin Barker had no idea how long he really had. That Benjamin Barker didn’t know they would be here one day. 

His daughter was a born a month early. His daughter is experiencing her whole life too early. It has to be too early for all this pain. 

Benjamin scans the area around him again. If there was space amongst the children solving puzzles, getting called back and mothers forming a brief friendship with each other, he would pace. Instead, he’s stuck in a chair that’s far too small for him painted with ladybugs. 

But– finally –he hears his name. 

A doctor wearing a lamb-covered mask guides him into the hall, stopping before they read the door he presumes his daughter is behind. The doctor removes the mask, keeping his voice low. He introduces himself. Benjamin doesn’t remember it. 

“All-around she’s doing fine. Healed a lot quicker than I think she was expected to. We’ve already transitioned her to a less intense brace.”  

This is all good news. Why does the doctor have that crease in his brow? 

When Benjamin does nothing other than nod, he continues, 

“However, she did give some strange… reactions when asked about food. Do you suspect she may suffer from some sort of eating disorder?”

Eating disorder. There’s that phrase again. 

And he hates he has to be the one to admit it. 

“Yes,” Benjamin says, voice hoarse and raw. “I do.”

He’s questioned about what he’s noticed about her eating habits. Slightly judged when he admits he isn’t home for much of the day–but he does pack her lunches for school. No, Benjamin doesn’t know much about her eating habits before she lived with him. He stayed silent when asked if he knows much about her life before in general. 

His daughter is starving herself. 

It’s all but been confirmed now. 

They can’t do much until they can actually technically confirm it, they tell him. It’s all up to him. 

Benjamin couldn’t even be there when she was a newborn. How is he able to do this now?

Once he’s welcomed into the room she’s in, she sends him a cold look. She is silent throughout the conversation with the nurse, with the doctor. They continue the quiet through the waiting room, onto the train. In their flat. Only until he breaks as she’s twisting the knob of her door. 

“You’re doing better,” Benjamin says. 

His daughter pauses, then opens the door. “Yes.”

“What did they… ask you about?”

She hesitates again. “Pain, mostly. And if I had any questions for them.”

“Was there… anything else?”

Her curls had been pinned to the back of her head in some sort of majestic swirl. Seeing how she does it every day makes him wonder where she learned it from with the lack of women in the judge’s household. Perhaps, she carries a gene for it (one she must have inherited from him). 

She lets one of those pins out before tilting her head slightly over her shoulder. “Nothing that I’m certain you don’t already know.”

With that, her curl spirals down her back and the door shuts behind her. 

There seems to be two monsters in his daughter’s life: the judge and him. She can find a way to connect anything she doesn’t like to either of them. Benjamin doesn’t doubt anything she connects to the judge. But with him… she wouldn’t believe him even if he did try telling her the truth. 

He wanders into his room, leaving the door open. Once again, Benjamin flips through the pages of the parenting books. Maybe this time they’ll tell him how to help his girl. 

Chapter Text

Though they showed videos and made presentations, nothing on earth can truly warn one about the mortifying ordeal of being a girl. Even if she has a mother. Not in Johanna’s opinion. 

She shudders to think about that particular subject when she was under the judge’s reign. There was always something… off about it. A feeling in her stomach she couldn’t quite place. Something uncomfortable, something, well, awkward… Something wrong . She never considered the fact that it’s something that happens to every girl, that she isn’t the only one to experience certain things in the entire world. 

Shame is the normal behind it. That’s always what it’s been. 

The day she learned about how girls bleed, she kept her head lower than usual. Johanna was nine years old with a crumpled paper in her backpack that required a guardian’s signature. How was she supposed to bring it up to the judge? Could she get away with not or would they phone him about it and he would be angry at her and yell and she would be in trouble forever and, and, and–

How grateful she had been when they separated the boys from the girls. Neither of them could look the other in the eye after learning what the opposite sex went through. 

But class couldn’t completely prepare her for what would happen. 

She remembers waking up in blood. She remembers stuffing toilet roll in her pants. She remembers quietly crying to herself. 

It was Mrs. Eastman that caught on. She went to the store and came back to show Johanna what to do. 

It was Mrs. Eastman that caught onto the even earlier sign of “womanhood.” At least, Johanna wants to think so. She wishes it was another woman, something who she put some trust in (though, no one can quite describe hers and the housekeeper’s relationship as “mutually trustworthy”). 

In reality, it was hands. Hands that traced and lips that purred and a knee that held down. 

Johanna didn’t want to become a lady, yet the thought of being trapped in childhood was paralyzing. Why couldn’t she grow up without growing ? 

When she was given her first bra, she couldn’t bring herself to put it on. The clasp was strange, unlike any other garment she’d worn before. The padding was too adult, too something she wasn’t ready for. 

Johanna stared at it. Still in its packing. “ Training Bralette” written across the top of the cardboard in bold, silly colors. It seemed so kid-ish. It represented something terrifying. 

But with adulthood comes freedom. 

That was the thought that finally got her to try it on. 

This is just one step to adulthood. And once she turned eighteen, she was gone. Free. Her guardian didn’t have her anymore. 

If only girlhood wasn’t something that had to be sacrificed along the way. 

Johanna stares at the garment laid out neatly on the bed. If mornings aren’t too ordinary to have tradition, then this is one of them. After rising (if she had slept at all), her hair is her first priority. Before that, she lays out what she plans to wear on the bed. Whatever cardigan or sweater or blouse with whatever skirt. Well, that isn’t entirely true. Sometimes she wears dresses. Then she dedicates however much time it takes for her hair. 

Even before that , though, she can’t just be braless . 

Although, this one has been giving her trouble as of late. And it’s the one (out of three) that’s in the best condition. 

When was the last time she got a new one?

Mortifying. The question. The thought. The garment. 

Why? 

She should have thought about this before. When she still had an active woman in her life to give her assistance. 

Who does she have now?

Benjamin Barker? 

He’s paranoid. Johanna has barely much as seen his wallet. If he sleeps with it, she wouldn’t at all be surprised. 

If she had her own money, she might be able to go online and order something. She does possess a cell phone now. 

Johanna buries her face in her hands. 

Why is this so complicated?

What do other girls do? Do they just go up to their fathers, ask for a bra fund and go shopping with their girl-friends? 

Most other girls have mothers for this sort of thing. 

Johanna crawls under a blanket and fastens the clasp. This predicament is something she’ll have to figure out later. 

When she’s an adult, she won’t have to worry about it. 

She emerges from the sheets once she’s completely dressed. An old habit from when she lived with the judge. Proven to be less than easy to break. Benjamin Barker isn’t nefarious–not in that way–yet, she can’t escape the idea in her mind that there is something that could be watching her. There’s a window. What if a neighbor in the other building is watching? What if there’s someone in the flat? What if the judge escaped from prison, found where she’s living, and is watching from the keyhole like he used to do? 

Benjamin Barker isn’t even home. 

There’s another little note on the table with a book. There haven’t been as many books lately. 

The Outsiders . S.E. Hilton. 

Anthony has a copy in the room he shares with his brothers. It was required reading when he lived in the States. 

It’s an old copy. It’s a good book. 

Lunch is in the fridge. 

 

--- Dad 

Johanna picks it up, flipping through its pages, but stops. 

Someone’s written in it. 

Did Benjamin Barker pick this one up from a secondhand book store? Some sort of thrift store? 

She lands on a page with the name “ Johnny” circled. Next to it, a line and the words, “Like my Johnny .” Suspiciously familiar handwriting. 

Johanna darts between the book and the note. The “Y”s are the same. 

Was this Benjamin Barker’s book? 

She turns the page. Another annotation with letters too familiar but too small to read. She lifts the book to her nose. It smells old. When she finds the title page, it confirms it for her. This edition was published when Benjamin Barker would’ve been a teenager. Around her age. 

It feels like some sort of strange heirloom. Is this what an heirloom feels like? The judge’s flat seemed to be full of them, just not available to her. Everything in that flat was old. Not an ounce of youth got past the front doors without shriveling up and turning to dust. One of the many reasons she couldn’t let Anthony come over. 

Eyes glance to the oven’s clock. She packs the book in her bag, taking extra care with it. 

It’s a strange feeling to be carrying something of Benjamin Barker’s around with her. If she could tell herself five years ago that she would be living with her biological father, she would have asked if she’d taken that opportunity and run away. 

Johanna tried. Once. 

Can’t exactly run away from someone when borrowing their book. 

Groggy eyes look over the stack of papers in front of him. For the first time in months (years, really), he had slept an entire eight hours. Not a restful eight hours. He had been woken up by his own body more times than he can count. To sneeze, to cough, to simply lie in bed, miserable. 

The periods of awakeness did give him opportunity to look through the few old things he has. That’s when he found what he considered to be his favorite book. It’s likely it’s still his favorite. The parenting books he consumes now hardly are. 

Perhaps, his daughter would like The Outsiders , too. 

He’d found some of the old handkerchiefs Lucy had embroidered his initials onto, as well.  

Seasonal allergies weren’t much of a problem in prison. Now that he’s back in the city, he’d forgotten they were a thing until now. Apparently, pollen drives his sinuses mad. Not something Benjamin remembers from eighteen years ago. Maybe it’s something he’s just developed. 

Benjamin takes a long swig of cold coffee. The way his body aches, he’ll need a few more to get through just the workday. He’ll have to pick something up on his way home. The idea of his daughter seeing him like this would be humiliating. The girl needs a father. A strong, capable father. If she sees him like this, she won’t see him like that. She’ll see a man who can’t take care of her. She’ll take off again. 

He can’t see that again. Especially not now.     

“Hey Ben?” 

Benjamin doesn’t comprehend the interruption (though, it’s not interrupting much other than blankly staring at a report). It takes another few tries to realize that he’s being called Ben . 

He hadn’t realized how much that nickname bothers him until one of his old mates called him that in front of Lucy. Seeing the way her nose scrunched and how she shook her head set the opinion in stone for him. If Lucy hated it, chances were, Benjamin does, too. 

Are. Changes are Benjamin hates it, too. 

It’s been sixteen years. 

“Ben? Ben! Hey, Ben!” 

Groggily, he looks up to find a recent hire–someone to go between this makeshift office and the actual construction zone. Benjamin’s responsibilities had a shift, not quite a promotion according to his boss but a slighter higher pay and somewhat different responsibilities. A welcome change than having to stand all day in the rain. 

“Yeah?” Benjamin finally replies. 

The other man throws another clipboard onto the desk. “Need you to sign off on this.”

Just to get him away, Benjamin takes it and lifts his pen to the line next to the X . But before he can–before he catches himself–the other man does,

“Might want a little context before you just go firing out orders.” 

The documents are horrifically blurry. Benjamin looks up at him. 

“Fill me in on it,” he orders, voice gruff to cover his weakness. 

The clouds today indicate rain yet it seems as though every pollinated plant is thriving all around him. As Benjamin receives his explanation (which he’s glad he demanded for now), he sneezes more than once. He crumbles a handkerchief in his hand, now expecting another sneezing fit to attack him at any moment. 

“Too dangerous for anyone to be up there. I won’t sign off on that but everything else…” Benjamin scribbles his signature across several lines and flips the clipboard back to the other side. “Anything else?” 

“You, uh, feeling alright today, Ben?”

“Don’t call me Ben,” Benjamin says. “Just some hay fever.” 

The other man accepts Benjamin’s self-diagnosis just as well as Benjamin had accepted it for himself. He exits the tent. 

Benjamin sneezes into a handkerchief. 

It is a good book. Unlike most of the fiction she consumes, but good. Interesting. Johanna never thought she would be interested in a group of adolescent boys from Somewhere, America (Tulsa? she wonders where that is), yet here she is. 

What makes the book more intriguing are the notes. A scribble here that isn’t legible, an exclamation point next to a witty comment, a line underneath a phrase that perhaps touched him. The actual comments are the best. This version of Benjamin Barker had so much to say. Perhaps, he’d said it all in his youth that he’s run out of things to say in his adulthood. 

Supper had been silent, save from a few sneezes and coughs from Benjamin Barker ( goodness , he sneezed loudly!). Johanna had never heard him give any indication of illness before. Had this recently started? Why did he go into work today if he was poorly? 

She didn’t ask. 

Once schoolwork was complete and a shower that clouded the room with steam was taken, she hadn’t put the book down. Johanna had read book ten times as long, yet The Outsiders stretched on in a way she enjoyed. It’s fun to read all of the little notes in the margins. 

She only looked away for a quick glance at the phone–in case Anthony reached out. 

1:26 AM. 

Oh goodness, that’s late. 

After replying to a message from Anthony (a goodnight to a goodnight), she places a bookmark between the pages. But, if it’s this late, then Benjamin Barker will likely be asleep, especially after how he seemed earlier. A change of scenery for reading might be nice. Would be nice. 

Johanna takes the book with her to the living room. 

But it isn’t empty–as it should be . 

She can’t tell whether her eyes grow bigger or if Benjamin Barker’s do. Though, hers is in shock– he usually isn’t out here . And his… a flicker of surprise shortly followed by crossing. (Like a parent, in a way.) Johanna is stuck between those emotions, unable to flee back to the room or walk across to the kitchen as if she owns the place. She might be able to avoid punishment if she goes back to the room. Though, he’s seen her out here. He’ll likely follow her back and yell and scream and– but if she goes to the kitchen, she’s stuck. She can’t go to the room. Can’t climb down the fire escape. 

Before she can make a decision, Benjamin Barker asks, 

“What are you doing up?” 

So he doesn’t know that this is a usual bedtime for her. (It’s not even that, she tends to be up much later than this). That’s good, at least. 

“It’s a good book,” Johanna says without gesturing to the book in question. 

Benjamin Barker’s gaze trickles down to what she’s holding. His brows lift in some spark of joy as he recognizes it. “You’re enjoying it?” 

She nods.

He looks as if he has something more to say. He doesn’t say it. 

“Well, I know it’s good, but you should get to bed now. It’s late.” 

That’s a win enough. She should nod again and go back to the room. No more comments, no more questions. That could get her in trouble. 

But she doesn’t. 

“I’m having a hard time falling asleep tonight,” she says. Technically, a lie. Johanna has a hard time falling asleep every night. (He doesn’t need to know that.) 

What is she doing? Take the book, go to the room, read, stay up… Not get caught! 

Benjamin Barker sneezes. “You are?” 

Johanna nods. 

It seems to put him at a standstill. Johanna stands, arms hanging awkwardly. Benjamin Barker sits, looking as if about to sneeze but in a confused sort of manner. How can people be on the brink of a sneeze, yet so confused? Apparently, it’s by being a daughter telling her father that she can’t sleep. 

“Would you–” He sneezes “–like some…” He pulls a handkerchief from his pocket. It’s pretty, embroidered with all sorts of wonderful imagery. “...tea?” 

Despite herself, she nods again. 

He gets up and goes to the kitchen. 

Should she follow him? Should she sit on the sofa?

If the Judge ever caught her out of bed when she shouldn’t have been… his shouting still rockets off her skull. Those words seem to have carved themselves into every cell of her brain. If the Judge caught her, Johanna would be rocking with her hands pressed over her ears now. 

This wouldn’t have been a matter of tea. Or a matter of following or staying. 

Or leaving. 

Should she go back to the room? Pretend as if this never happened? Oh goodness, she shouldn’t have accepted the offer for tea. How rude of her! It’s an ungodly hour and Benjamin Barker doesn’t seem to be well and here she is! asking for tea , as if she is the queen of England. 

“It’s alright, though, if you don’t…” Johanna begins. 

Benjamin Barker sticks his head out from the doorway. “It’s my pleasure.” A pause. “You can keep reading on the sofa, if you’d like.” 

Read on the sofa. Yes, she can do that. 

Tucking the book under her chin, she slowly lowers herself onto the cushions. 

Step One: Complete. 

Step Two: …Seemingly impossible. 

It’s just a book! Reading a book! She can do that! She loves to do this! 

Yet every click from the kitchen pushes her to the edge. 

She shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t be here. It’s too late. It’s too late. 

Johanna glances over her shoulder. 

There’s Benjamin Barker. Holding out a paper cup for her. 

She tastes raspberry. 

“It’s your mother’s favorite,” he says as he sits himself onto the chair. 

He speaks about her as if she were alive, sometimes. Is that what grief is like? Pouring a cup of their favorite brew and suddenly they’re still here? 

Johanna has never known that kind of mourning. 

As an orphan, she told herself she wanted her parents to be dead. She had chosen that title for herself–“Orphan”–rather than live with a convict father and mentally unstable mother that she would never know. As a daughter now, she doesn’t quite know what she is. The daughter of a man and no mother. She had never known that woman. She never will unless they somehow meet in the afterlife (where will they go?, she wonders). 

She takes a sip. 

It’s nice. 

Sweet with a tang. Not what she typically seeks after in a beverage, but it’s good all the same. 

“It’s good,” Johanna says. “Thank you.”

Benjamin Barker nods. 

They retreat back to their silence. 

Will they ever know what to say to each other? 

“What part are you at?” Benjamin Barker asks. 

She glances at the book, now on her lap. “The fire… it just happened.”

He nods. “Have you gotten to the hospital yet?”  

“Not yet.” Johanna gently blows on the rim of her cup before taking another sip. “I don’t much like hospitals. Reading about them is alright, I guess, though.” 

“You were in hospital for about a month after you were born.” 

Another sip. “Really?” 

These aren’t really the stories the Judge had for her. Or could even tell her. It isn’t as if he was there. Like Benjamin Barker was. 

“You were a few weeks premature. Your mother and I… we were worried about you. Scarcely took a moment not at your side.” 

Without knowing what else to say about this newly-revealed knowledge, she says, 

“Oh.” 

He is also silent–for a moment. 

“You were supposed to be born on March 13th,” Benjamin Barker continues. “It was a… uh, Friday.”

Almost born on Friday the 13th. There’s some sort of irony in that. 

“What day were you born?” Johanna asks. 

She doesn’t know what bring her to say it out loud. All this talk about her birthday and the day she was born feels selfish–even if she wasn’t the one who brought it up. 

Benjamin Barker stares at her for a second before his gaze turns to the empty air in front of him. It looks as if he’s forgotten his birthday and is trying to remember it. 

“April,” he says finally. 

“What day?”

“The eighth… I believe.” 

He believes? He doesn’t remember? 

Her birthday has never been anything special but she even remembers hers. It’s something important. Documents need that sort of thing. 

She wonders how old he’ll turn. 

But she can’t just ask that! 

“That’s in a few weeks,” she says. 

“Yes,” he replies. 

Johanna sips at her tea. 

“What, um, did you do for your birthday?” (She has been overcome by some force several times this evening!) 

Benjamin Barker pauses for a moment. “My mother…” He pauses again. (Has he ever spoken about his mother before?) “...would make a cake.” 

Johanna nods. 

“What did, uh, you, uh, do? For… yours?” 

There was a sort of pain in his tone. The “ with the judge?” goes unsaid. 

“Nothing.” Perfect honesty. “When I was younger the housekeeper would make shrewsberry cake, though. That’s the most… it was ever celebrated.” 

He looks surprised. 

“What did my mother do? For hers?” 

Benjamin Barker turns a small smile. “Your mother was surrounded by friends. There was always at least someone who threw her a party. When I tried to help… I got lost. Quickly. They had all sorts of traditions I didn’t understand. Before we got married, I was told that it would be better if I didn’t have to help next year.” 

She smiles. 

It’s good to know her mother was loved. 

“You read a lot of classics,” Benjamin Barker says.

“I just tend to gravitate towards them.” Johanna shrugs. “That and… well, books about birds.” 

“Why birds?” 

“Before…” with the judge “...I had two. I always had two ever since I can remember.” Their names are forever embroidered on one of her handkerchiefs. “Always larks.” 

“Would you…? Would it make you happier if…?” 

Johanna shakes her head. “I don’t want anyone to be caged.” 

He understands. Both of them have been stuck behind bars. 

“You should get back to sleep,” he says. 

The tea is gone. The book permanently put down. 

It is time for bed, shouldn’t it be?

Benjamin Barker begins to say more but is interrupted by a coughing fit. It makes her grimace. She’s never really been any good at helping ailing people. Always more of Anthony’s talent. 

“Are you staying back from work tomorrow?” she asks. 

He looks at her as if she’s just asked him to take her back to the judge’s house. As if that’s the more peculiar request she could have ever given–and it’s not even a request! Just a question. 

“Unless some natural disaster falls upon us,” Benjamin Barker says. 

She purses her lips. “Well, perhaps… you might consider it. You seem a little… poorly.” 

There remains that look. 

(Can she blame him? She would be giving him the same look if he suggested something like that to her.) 

Perhaps, it’s the lateness of the night and the stars make her dizzy in the head. Perhaps, it’s the memory of this morning and a feeling deep within her gut that she knows she won’t be able to rid of until it’s done. Hands squirm in her lap. Oh, the humiliation…  

“Um, I had a bit of a question,” Johanna says. Is her voice too quiet?

“Yes?” 

Stop squirming, Johanna!  

“I was…” She takes a breath. “I was wondering if I might borrow some… money. I need it to… make a purchase.” 

Benjamin Barker looks at her. Is he wondering what she needs to buy? Is he already making guesses? Is he going to ask her?

“How much do you need?” he asks. 

Oh. Interesting. 

“Well, these things can be quite expensive…” Johanna swallows. “I haven’t been to look in a while.” Or ever . “I just… now I require… It’s been too long, I know, but I do need… But I know that… yes…” 

Benjamin Barker nods. He goes into his room, then emerges with his wallet. He takes a stack of cash out and hands it to her. 

“Is this enough?” He carefully tucks the corner of a fiver trying to peak out. “I remember from your mother… she would get as much as she can just in case.” 

As much as she could? What could possibly…? 

Does he know she’s needing a brassiere?

Or…?

Or… does he think it’s another feminine product? 

Johanna could laugh. Instead she folds the money in her hand and nods. “Thank you.” 

Benjamin Barker scans the room before sliding his wallet into his back pocket. 

This isn’t the worst solution. She didn’t have the say the word “brassiere” and he thinks that she’s a perfectly normal, working girl. She won’t have to be thwarting off any sort of (truthful) allegations. 

“You’d better get to bed,” he says. 

But Benjamin Barker lingers there for a moment. She has half-a-thought that he might kiss her forehead. 

He goes to his room. 

She does not go to the other. 

When he comes back out, he doesn’t leave until she’s gone. But Johanna doesn’t tuck herself beneath covers or rest her head down. She reads by faint streetlamp until she’s certain that he’s asleep. He’s poorly, it shouldn’t take long . 

And she goes to his room. 

His phone’s password is her birthday. 

Tomorrow morning, he wouldn’t have to wake to any dreadful alarms. He might sleep, rest aching bones, and lazy the day away. It might make him better. 

But there’s his manager–or boss–or whoever it is that is in charge of him. How to tell them that he won’t be there the next day? And if she had done this to the judge… oh , there would have been trouble.   

With a breath, she leaves his room. 

Only noon and it’s already been a long day. 

First, Benjamin had overslept. Not by terribly long, yet those twenty minutes seemed to have thrown him off the rest of the morning. He’d slugged his way through the London Transit System before being flooded with problems the second he’d stepped foot onto the property. 

Second, his head is searing . 

Third, through his headache and groggy mind, he hadn’t noticed a screw left on the ground. Pointed in the perfect direction to tear off the outsole and jap him in the sole of his foot. 

Unfortunately for him, it was an injury several had witnessed. When he was a younger man, he might have been embarrassed for such a public display. Now, his teeth are clenched as one colleague insisted on him taking a seat for the rest of the day. Problems are more difficult to solve when one is stationary on a metal chair. 

Yet the worst part of it all? Those boots were already falling apart. Benjamin won’t be able to get them to last any longer. 

The day will be even longer with a visit to the department store. 

Long, long day, indeed. 

It is an incredibly shameful thing to be a woman. 

Sometimes, it is made worse to have someone you’re in love with. 

Sometimes, it is made better. 

“I have to say, I much rather enjoy this shift rather than my old one,” Anthony says, brown paper bag crinkling in front of him. “Spending more time with you is, quite frankly, the best thing to ever happen to me.”  

There is a knot in her stomach, yet Johanna is able to smile. Will he ever stop giving her butterflies! But she can’t have that sort of swirling sensation in her stomach now. Not when she’s about to give him bad news. 

Johanna digs a fingernail into an orange peel. “You might want to make this a ‘homework’-sort of afternoon.” She carves the fruit open. “I’m afraid I have an errand I do need to run before he gets home.” 

“What sort of errand?” Anthony takes a strand of white pulp and tosses it inside the bag. “I can come with you.” 

So there are consequences to finding the sweetest boy alive! 

“Well… it’s not exactly…” With a sigh, she pushes the slices towards him. “It’s a bit of, um, a feminine errand.” 

“Feminine?” 

“Yes. Feminine.” 

Anthony continues to stare at her with a blank expression. 

Johanna sighs. “I have to make a purchase.” 

“Are you…” His eyes widen. Orange slice drops to the paper-bag bottom as he grabs for her hands. “Do you need something for that time? Is that happening again?” 

“What?” (There’s one benefit–if that’s Anthony’s first thought, it’s bound to have been Benjamin Barker’s.) “No. No. No.” She lets go of his hands. “I’ve told you… there’s nothing…” A sigh. This isn’t an argument she particularly wants to get into today. “I need a… brassiere .” 

“A–”

“Shh! Not so loudly!” 

(His tone was hardly above a whisper.) 

Johanna’s gaze falls. “That’s what I need. I have the money for it. I’m going to the store after school. I’ll make the purchase and come back before he gets home. I don’t want him knowing …” 

“Do you want me to come with you?” 

No! Oh, goodness, no! Going shopping for that with a man? Nothing could be more embarrassing! Goodness, goodness, goodness! 

But… it might have some good if there’s someone who can prevent anyone from speaking to her. 

Anthony’s big blue eyes are staring back at her, waiting for her response. His hands linger inches from her forearms, ready to protect, to comfort, to squeeze. If there was any man on earth she would want to bear this with… without a single second of thought, she knows it would be him. 

Johanna sucks in a breath. “Yes. I would like you there.” 

Anthony nods. Not to say anymore. Perhaps, afraid that if he did, she would change her mind. 

“But…” Johanna continues. “Know that this won’t be the most interesting experience.” 

“I’ll do what you want me to do.” 

And she knows, without a doubt, that he means every syllable in that sentence. A mere few hours that stretch on for weeks, yet don’t take any time at all, later, they stand outside. Johanna grips onto his hand, as if they are going into battle. Not a department store. 

“Well, where should we start?” Anthony asks.  

 A pause before she looks up at him. “Well… I think, perhaps, it won’t be very comfortable or convenient to have our bags on while we’re… Don’t you think?” 

He nods. “To your flat?” 

“Yes. I think.” 

It seemed to take very little time to get to the flat. Even less to set their bags down in an appropriate place. 

“I suppose he went to work, after all,” Johanna says. 

( Not at all trying to put off the task.) 

“Your…?” Anthony stops. He also doesn’t know how to refer to the man. “Mr. Barker?” 

“Yes.” 

“Why wouldn’t he be at work?” 

“He was feeling a bit poorly, I think. He couldn’t sleep last night. He’s been coughing and sneezing, a bit.” 

“And he went to work like that?” 

Johanna gestures. “He left the door to his room open. He isn’t inside there. He isn’t in here. He must have.” 

Anthony frowns, arms crossed over his chest. Oh dear, he’s coming up with some sort of plan to help him, isn’t he? Which isn’t a bad thing … She just doesn’t have the best feeling about it. 

(Why doesn’t she? It’s not as if Anthony will put anyone in danger or anything. She technically has no reason to be paranoid.) 

Perhaps, she should do something tomorrow. 

Or tonight. 

“Let’s be on our way?” she says, sliding her hand where his arms are crossed to link them. 

He smiles at that. “Where are we off to?”

Where are they off to? She never asked Mrs. Eastman where she bought her’s for fear of the humiliation. Why didn’t she? She’s humiliated now. 

“Um… perhaps…?” What is one supposed to do in such a situation? It isn’t like she has… 

Oh, she does . 

Johanna pulls out the phone. Within seconds, she’s found the closest place that seems like could help with her predicament. 

Without a word, she sends the directions to Anthony. They take hands and begin on their way. 

The moment they walk through the door, an icy chill runs up Johanna’s spine. There’s rows and rows and racks of clothing. Eyeless mannequins stare down at her. The faint scent of someone’s expensive and overused perfume drifts through the air. Perhaps, this is a bit more than she expected. 

“I’ve never been to a department store before,” she says it in a whispers, as if in a library instead. She’s much more comfortable in a library, anyway. 

 “There should be a sign that can point us in the right direction,” Anthony suggests. He’s been to a department store before. “Ah!” He points and begins walking in the right direction. 

But they just got here! They can’t already be going to that section. It’ll look like that’s what they came for (yes, it is what they came for). Then everyone will know she’s desperate for a new undergarment so she went straight to that section. 

“Look at this hat!” Johanna exclaims before they can get too close. She picks it up from its shelf, plopping it on Anthony’s head. “It makes you look like an old man.” 

He looks into the adjacent mirror and Johanna holds her breath. 

“I really do!” Anthony laughs as he adjusts the hat. “Or like a young lad in the 1800s.” 

When she looks up at him, she wonders if he can see right through what she’s doing. 

She doesn’t mind either way. 

“Well… you simply must have a–” Johanna scans the rack “–scarf!” She wraps it around his shoulders “–to go with it!” 

And he flings the thing ‘round his neck. 

“Then you must have one to match!” 

It is as if they are children, running through the aisles, whistling each other’s name. They decorate each other, on occasion, they accessorize themselves. Rushing throughout the store, they can’t recall what they came for. For once, they are their own age. No worries, no anxieties can wrinkle them. And it has been so long since Johanna felt young. 

There is the sound of bright adolescence floating through the air. It nearly convinces Benjamin to step back out of the store, but this is the cheapest he’s found boots to be and he’s in desperate times. It has been a long day, hopefully this is at least easy. 

His handkerchief is tucked into his shirt’s pocket for easier access. Fortunately, it seems his body and mind have shifted focuses for now to his foot. Twenty years ago, he would be limping as he walked upon it. Twenty years ago, he would faint at getting his blood taken. 

He is no longer that man. 

As Benjamin further ventures into the store, the sound of the teenagers begin to sound more familiar. He blinks, as if that could clarify the voices for them. 

(What he wouldn’t do to lay on the sofa with a warm cloth over his eyes.)

“That one only looks that big on you because you’re so short!” 

Anthony rushes by, laughing and grinning and acting like all youths do. Benjamin doesn’t move out of the way, whether it was due to exhaustion or curiosity–

“Oh!” Anthony looks over his shoulder, noticing him. “Hi!” 

And then the boy is off again. 

Benjamin doesn’t reply or try to track him down. He watches as his daughter–draped in a coat that drags behind her–runs across the aisle to join him. Yellow hair flying behind her, wide smile on her lips, head jotted back mid-laugh. She looks like a girl. 

“No, just because you’re so tall–! ”  

And she’s disappeared. 

Shoes in tow, he wonders if he will ever get to see her so carefree again. 

17:06 . 

Time to put everything back. 

Once they do, the pit in Johanna’s stomach is gone. It’s replaced with a sort of lightness. A joy. Something as simple and complicated as that.  

“Do you want me to go over there with you?” Anthony asks, with her hand in his. 

“Not… in , no, I don’t think.” She chews at her lip. “Could you wait for me… by the front?” That seems like the best way in avoiding Anthony seeing her with such an embarrassing garment. 

He kisses the crown of her head before he leaves her to the intimates section. 

There are… many choices, is the first thing Johanna notices. Options that are something called a “push-up” to “strapless.” Who knew there were so many! 

Another woman sweeps into the aisle. Johanna’s eyes widen. She was alone just a moment ago! Shouldn’t a girl be able to do this sort of shopping in peace ! A sharp breath that she holds between her teeth. Well, if she can’t do it in peace, she’ll have to do it quickly. 

The lacey one there looks nice… And the pink one… Oh, the blue is gorgeous! No, that one is far too much… No… Perhaps, might as well take it off the rack, as well… 

Thank goodness, the dressing rooms are right there. 

She throws the stack of hangers onto the rack. Now, how does one go about trying one on?

Over her clothes? Under? On top of the one she’s already wearing? Without…?

Well, she can’t just get fully naked in a changing room. The best solution would be to try it on over the one she’s already wearing. 

With a deep breath, Johanna tugs on the first option. 

When she looks into the mirror, it isn’t the garment she notices first. It’s her own ribs. How they seem to jut out of her skin, clawing their way through her. Her own bones are attempting escape. 

Then she blinks. And she’s silently reprimanding herself for eating a carrot earlier that day. 

But Anthony is waiting and so is Benjamin Barker. 

It’s the blue one she ends up liking. A little lace trim with some frilly touches. It’s comfortable, in a color she likes (a pale enough blue that won’t show through her blouses). Yes, this one will do very nicely. 

It’s even a little pretty. 

There’s no harm in that, right?

Warm rag over his head, foot propped up on the edge of the sofa, Benjamin is almost at peace for the first time in his day. If it weren’t for the constant coughing or sneezing, he would be able to drift off. But that’s not the actual reason, he can’t sleep now. He’s waiting for his daughter. 

Can’t rest peacefully until he sees her with his own eyes. 

The door opens. He doesn’t hear her lock it behind her. They’ll have to have a conversation about that… later. 

“You’re home,” Benjamin mumbles. He pushes the rag up to his forehead to look at her. 

His daughter’s shoulders jump and she tucks the paper bag she’s holding in front of her. As if that might hide  the fact that she bought something from him. 

He doesn’t ask. 

His daughter nods before tucking the bag into her room. She stands there, hands behind her back. 

Benjamin sits up. “Were you with… that boy?” 

Her head tilts to the side. “Are you feeling alright?” Gaze falls to the floor before meetings his again. “You look… are you still feeling poorly?” 

With a sigh, he swings his feet to the ground. He winces and without looking, he knows that she noticed. 

“Did you get hurt?” she continues to pry. 

Benjamin doesn’t reply. “I’ve got supper warmed up.” He makes his way to the kitchen (and it doesn’t hurt terribly ). Though it was clear he wanted her to follow him there, he’s still surprised when she’s at the table. Soup is poured into their bowls. Nothing has ever tasted better. 

“Are you going to call in sick tomorrow?” his daughter asks. 

She rises, takes the dishes and sets them in the sink. 

“What makes you…” Benjamin stops before pursuing the thought. He knows where it will land him. 

“You’re poorly,” she says. “You shouldn’t go off when you’re sick. Soon enough, you’ll drop dead.” 

With that sentence, she retreats back to her room. 

And he staggers to the sofa. 

It is the opposite of last night: when she leaves the room, Benjamin Barker is asleep. A snore on his breath as he seems to struggle through the air. She’s never seen him… so, well, asleep . Exhausted. 

If he’s like this , surely, he’s staying home tomorrow. Right?

His phone rests on the coffee table, right in front of him. He must have sent a message off to his boss to let him know that he can’t come in the next day. 

Perhaps, Johanna should make sure.

She types her birthday into the phone again.

After scrolling through for a few seconds, it becomes apparent he didn’t send that message. Or make that phone call. And turning off his alarms didn't work yesterday. 

With a sigh, she attempts to place the phone back down. However, in the dark she misses the placement and it slips from her fingers. When she picks it back up, it’s on an old message to his boss. One requesting time off (for her, she realizes). 

It is easy to copy and paste. It is easy to make a few minor adjustments. It is more than easy to send it. 

Hopefully, he won’t throttle her by the throat. 

Johanna turns back, but something still doesn’t feel quite right. He has no alarms set (must have fallen asleep before he could), he’s still asleep… 

She ducks into his room and returns with a blanket. 

Perhaps, her mother is haunting her now. These could be all of her thoughts rolling through Johanna’s head now. It could be her hands possessing hers as she runs it over Benjamin Barker. Is this what she would have done for her husband if she were here? Is this what her mother would have done for her if she were ill?

But her mothers is dead. At the very least, Johanna can give her mother’s husband a blanket. 

It’s two hours later that she jots awake. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep. When she blinks, she can’t even remember the dream that caught her by the throat. Just a little nausea and sweat-soaked forehead. 

When Johanna creeps out of the room, Benjamin Barker is still on the sofa. Faint snores tell her that he’s still deep in sleep.  

She holds her breath on her way to the bathroom. 

Once the dirty feeling of hands has been scrubbed off as best she could, Johanna slips into her clothes. She won’t be falling back asleep–that’s for certain. No point in lounging around in pajamas all morning until she leaves for school. Besides, if Benjamin Barker does wake up and reprimand her, she would be much less embarrassed if she were dressed. 

Though, she pauses to look at herself before the tugs her sweater on. It’s a nice brasserie. It’s… pretty. Yes, pretty. Johanna tilts her head to the side. She never thought she would be wearing so pretty, even if it was just under her clothing.

And no one else will ever see it. 

It fills her with a sense of relief. The judge will never see it. 

(She hopes.) 

Her first really pretty thing for only her and herself alone. 

His body aches as he opens his eyes. Mouth dry, he sits himself up only to realize he had fallen asleep on the sofa. It’s light out the window. There’s even the chirp of a pleasant, little bird out there. Most mornings, when he wakes up, there aren't any sort of blissful sightings to wake him up. 

In fact, it’s very bright for this time of the morning. 

Benjamin grabs his phone. No, no, no, no, no no no no… 

9:57

9:57!

He’s hours late at this point. Benjamin lifts himself up as best as he can, still staring as the clock turns to 9:58 . His thumb swipes at the screen. Revealing a message he hadn’t noticed. 

Sounds good. I’ll have someone to fill in for you tomorrow.

Benjamin blinks. Did he actually call off work last night?

No. Impossible. 

When he clicks on the message, he discovers another. 

I’ll need to take tomorrow off as I have a meeting with my daughter’s teachers tomorrow. Hoping to be back Friday. 

He doesn’t have a meeting with one of her teachers, right?

Benjamin flips through his calendar, through his messages… Nothing. 

If he didn’t write this…

It’s staring him right in the face: my daughter. 

Clever girl. 

The adrenaline has rushed through him and Benjamin practically collapses back down to the sofa. Adrenaline replaced by reminder of his aching sickness. 

They’ll have to have a conversation about her hacking into his phone. And texting his supervisor. And making up lies so he didn’t have to admit he was ill… 

Caring girl. 

That girl has some gall. Has some sure stubbornness. 

Benjamin chuckles to himself. 

Perhaps, they won’t speak of it. He can let her get away with this one. 

He lays back down. Closes his eyes. 

It’s proof of something, right?

And he drifts back into sleep. 

Chapter Text

Lucy Averley Barker 

Beloved Daughter, Wife, and Mother

“Sing here again, home again, 

Come again spring” 

It’s his birthday. 

Once upon a time, Lucy would be at his side with a small store-bought cake. She would whisper that on one’s birthday, they simply must have cake for breakfast. And he would smile and she would assure him that the cake was cheap and it was much better than anything she would whip up. He would know that too be true. Soon enough, there would be whipped cream covering their lips. 

Today, she’s in front of him. Under a layer of grass and dead flowers. 

Benjamin pushes the dry petals away. Someone who was always so alive deserves fresh flowers. 

It’s a bouquet of sunflowers, white daisies and buttercups–her favorite. 

When they were younger, she might have entangled the stems together to make a crown. She may have plopped it on his head with a laugh. Or she would dawn herself with it. Benjamin always loved to see the petals become entangled in her hair. 

He didn’t get to see her at her funeral. The most he knew about her death was the fact that she was dead… and how they ruled it a suicide. She had overdosed on pills, they said. Found by their landlady a few days later. An ambulance had been sent for. But it was long too late. 

The same questions still float around in Benjamin’s head. How had it taken days to find her? Why hadn’t anyone found her? Didn’t they hear their daughter cry? Who was taking care of their child? Who planned the funeral? Who told her family?

The lines of truth are still blurred. He’s hardly figured anything out. 

Was their daughter there? At the funeral? 

Did she cry?

Did they bury Lucy in the right dress? She should be buried in white. In the one where the sleeves flowed when the wind caught it and the skirts whirled around her like a delicate storm. Lucy would laugh and run in that dress, calling it ethereal and Benjamin thought she looked like an angel. 

Were her cheeks powdered pink? They were always pink in life, always bright and sunny. That’s how she would want to be remembered, how she would want to be laid to rest. 

Was her hair spread around her? Perhaps, that was a selfish wish. Benjamin loved that hair. Kissed it with every golden opportunity. The gold would look like a halo around her in her casket. 

Did someone give her flowers to hold? Did they spread flowers wound her cheeks? In her hair? 

That was who Lucy was–a flower. 

An angel. 

She would want music at her funeral. So much that people would tire of it and then begin to love it all over again. 

It would practically be a party. There would be stories that would make everyone laugh until their stomachs hurt. There would be food that people would crave every time they thought of her. There would be flowers overflowing from every vase–the kind that seemed to scream of life. People would wear white, pink, maybe some black–but very little. 

Lucy would be dancing amongst them. Ghost mother, ghost wife, ghost daughter. 

And they would know she was there.

Benjamin kneels. Stares blankly at the gravestone. 

It must have been her family that had this one sculpted for her. That’s their lullaby scrawled beneath her name. He can take comfort in the fact that Lucy would have approved of that, at least. 

His hands fall to the grass, to the dirt beneath. Six feet below lies his wife. 

Gaze wanders to the spot next to it. One day, that is where he will lay. Next to his wife. By her side. 

Why can’t he be there now? 

Why can’t their hands be intertwined? Why can’t he have rotten flowers all around him? Why can’t he be dressed in white to match her dress?

If anyone, it should be him dead. Why can’t it?

Why couldn’t he have taken that fall? Lucy was always so full of life. He was the opposite. Knew death from a young age. Knew hardship. And if he had only had a few years with brightness, then he would have died happily. 

Lucy didn’t have that luxury. She died with an empty bottle of painkillers in her hand. 

She died after her body had been mutilated and corrupted and violated. She died with pale lips and blue tint to her skin. The way she died was like waking up after tossing and turning in bed all night. Restless, unjust. 

Alone. 

Did she leave a note? 

Will he ever even know?

She wasn’t supposed to go until her face was wrinkled and her wrists had freckles. She wasn’t supposed to go until they lived in the countryside. Until they were surrounded by grandchildren. Lucy was supposed to slip away in her sleep, in the comfort of their own home. 

Benjamin was supposed to go before her.

How was he supposed to live a life without her?

Whatever happens on the other side… angels or God Himself or… whatever it is… 

Why didn’t He see that her time wasn’t up?

Benjamin’s fingers twist around the grass. Without realizing it, he’s pulled the root out. Without realizing it, his forehead is resting against her gravestone and the words on it are too blurry for him to really see. 

“Oh!” he gasps out. “God!”

His eyes close. It’s no longer blurry, just dark. He can feel the coldness of the stone now. 

“Let her rest.” His voice is a whisper. Nearly a whimper, perhaps. “Let her rest.”

Let her be happy. Let her see her daughter. 

Let her haunt me. 

Benjamin stays there longer than he had intended to. Even when he knows his skin has been imprinted and bruised, he remains in that position. The sun on his face keeps his eyes closed. His hand traces the letters of her name. 

L-U-C-Y

Fingers fall to the grass. It itches. 

A-V-E-R-L-E-Y

That’s who she was when he met her: Lucy Averley. Song in her step and love on her mind. Flowers in her hands. 

B-A-R-K-E-R

That’s who she was when she died. He made her a Barker on their wedding day. They made another of their own. 

“Our girl…” His voice croaks. It’s hoarse and he presses through it. “She looks just like you.” 

He talks of embroidery. Of birds. Of books. Of green eyes and pale skin and sweet, little hands. He tells his wife about how their daughter messaged his manager when he was ill. And how the next day, she and Anthony (“Oh, Anthony, yes. I haven’t told you about him yet… I think she loves him”) brought him soup and changed his sheets. 

“She has yellow hair,” he says, “but it’s curly, like me.” And for a moment, Benjamin smiles. “She’s seventeen now. But you know that.” A pause. “She’s just a little thing. You were… let’s see… Almost to my chin? She’s even smaller than that. Just touches my shoulder…” 

There’s more to say about how little their daughter is but he doesn’t want her to worry. Despite how silly it sounds to make the dead worry. 

“I don’t know what she’ll be,” Benjamin continues, “but every day I find some hint of you.” 

Fingers spread themselves out in the grass. He takes a breath. 

“You owe me a dance, when I get there.”

Nevermind his very small likelihood of him making it to heaven even now. A few years down the road, his fate will be sealed for hell. 

But perhaps Lucy can bat her eyes at God and beg Him to let her dance with her husband–just once. 

He smooths the pile of flowers once more. She would like them to be nice. 

And Benjamin kisses the stone. 

“Do you know if he likes cake?” 

The way Johanna bites her lip and shrugs makes him want to kiss her all the more but Anthony vowed to get as much information as possible for his mother. It’s not only important for her (though, it is quite important for the one in charge to know such things) but he wanted to know almost as much. Perhaps, it’s cheesy to admit but it is fun to learn about people. Anthony has met nearly every sort of person there is on this planet and he can confidently say that everyone’s story has some element of surprise to them. He knows bits and pieces of Mr. Barker’s story, but he doesn’t really know the man. That became evident when his mother started interrogating him about him this morning. Hence his responsibility this afternoon. 

“Does he eat any sort of… sweet?” Anthony asks, leaning against the arm of the sofa. Usually he wouldn’t try to be so impolite but… well, he’d forgotten. 

“No?” Johanna says. “Anthony, you know I really don’t know all that much… most of what he tells me isn’t about himself.” 

“Then, what’s it about?”

There’s the look Johanna always gets when she’s trying to decide whether or not she can tell him something. If Anthony were the bragging sort, then he’d say that nine times out of ten, she does tell him nowadays. Those statistics were not so true when they first started seeing each other. And there are still those subjects she won’t go anywhere near. 

“About my mother,” she says. 

“Ah.”

Anthony can’t imagine a life without his mother. 

“If you were to ask me about her birthday and if she liked cake, maybe I would be able to tell you.” She sighs. “I just… don’t know.”

He wonders if he pushed her too far. When Johanna wanders over to where he is, he gently loops his arms around her waist. They’re nearly eye-level at this position and he gives a small smile. 

“Hey, it’s alright,” Anthony whispers. “You told me everything you know and that helped me–it really did a lot. Thank you, Jo.”

Her guilty expression eases somewhat. Her forehead leans against his and he can feel her soft breath against his skin. 

One day, he’ll take her to the ocean where the breeze feels just like this. 

The doorknob rustles and Johanna immediately shuffles away from him. Anthony isn’t all surprised. That’s how she was when she lived with the judge. He can understand why she doesn’t even want her real father to catch them like that. She’s not big on being affectionate even around his family. 

Anthony also jumps up. Hopefully, the sofa won’t have a dent from where he was sitting on it. 

Mr. Barker’s feet seem to drag a little as he moves into the flat. His tired eyes widen a little when he notices them. When Anthony looks, he finds Johanna sitting straight-up staring back at Mr. Barker. It seems neither of them will break the silence. 

“Happy Birthday, Mr. Barker!” Anthony exclaims, clasping his hands together. 

Mr. Barker blinks a few times, glancing briefly at Anthony, then returning to Johanna. “Yes,” he mumbles. 

“If it’s alright with you, my family’s hosting a birthday dinner for you tonight!” Anthony continues. “At seven. It won’t take too long–I know you have work in the morning. My mum’s making…” What is his mother making? “Something delicious!” 

No response from Mr. Barker. 

“We should go,” Johanna says. “Tonight.” 

Mr. Barker looks at her. “At seven?”

“Yes!” 

Johanna nods. 

Mr. Barker nods back. 

“Oh! And Mr. Barker–do you like cake?”

He had been at his wife’s grave only a few hours away, yet it already feels like a lifetime. Standing in front of the Hope’s door, he sneaks a glance at his daughter. Dinner doesn’t seem to be something she enjoys. It seems like it would be something she dreads even more in front of a family of this size. 

Sarah answers the door. “Ah, Benjamin! Happy birthday! And Jo! Glad to see ya again!”

They’re led inside. Just like the last time they were both here, two small children gather Johanna away on the request to show her something new. Benjamin is led to the dining table where Anthony is setting the places. 

“Hey, Mr. Barker!” he exclaims as soon as he sees him. 

“Anthony.” And a nod. That is how Benjamin greats the boy. 

The boy pushes a chair out and gestures to it. “Whenever it’s someone’s birthday, they get to sit at the head of the table!” He smiles. “Go on, then, Mr. Todd!”

Benjamin glances around the dining room before taking a seat. Very slowly, the rest of the Hopes file in to join them–aside from Sarah, who he can hear sending children off with hot plates to put down. His daughter joins him, placed to the right of him. Anthony sits next to her. 

The Hopes are loud. Each one seems to be talking about some drastically different subject than the next. Blink and they’ve entirely moved on. In the corner of his eye, Benjamin can see Anthony take his daughter’s hand and squeeze it. 

“Alright, that looks like all of us!” Sarah says as she emerges from the kitchen with another plate. How many things did she prepare? “Tony, would you say Grace for us, please?” 

While Anthony and the rest of the family and his daughter bow their heads, Benjamin can’t help but continue to look. They seem to be missing someone–there’s a chair near the end of the table that remains empty. Is their father gone again? He never seems to be here whenever Benjamin is around. Yet none of the children question where their father is. Benjamin knows for certain the Hopes aren’t lacking one. They just seem to be… most of the time. 

Once “amens!” were chorused throughout the room, everyone begins to serve themselves or someone younger than them. This bizarre feast only grows stranger to him. 

This is the sort of fantasy Lucy had. So many children, so much chatter and laughter. 

“Well, Benjamin, happy birthday!” Sarah exclaims, prompting several more to ring. 

“Wait.” A small boy on the far side of the table from him tilts his head. “Who are you, again?”

There’s a gentle laugh. 

“He’s Johanna’s dad,” Anthony answers. “Mr. Barker.”

“Johanna’s dad!” The boy grins, then looks confused again. He glances over at Anthony. “Johanna’s dad? But I thought Jo didn’t have a dad? I thought she lived with–” 

“She doesn’t anymore,” Sarah says, in a tone to shut the conversation down. “She gets to live with her father again.” 

Benjamin can tell the boy still has several questions, but is easily distracted by the plate in front of him. 

One of the girls pulls from a deck of cards. A pile that they exclaim to him are their “birthday questions” and Benjamin is interrogated by the children. Where was he born? (London.) What hospital was he born at? (He isn’t sure.) Have you ever been surprised before? (Once.) What sort of party does he fancy? (He hasn’t been to a party in a very long time.) What is his favorite birthday tradition? 

Benjamin pauses at that one. “My wife… she used to bring me a cake to eat… for breakfast.” 

That brings out all sorts of excited noises and questions. Unfortunately, Sarah says that they cannot have cake for breakfast next birthday–but maybe when they’re a little older and don’t have to go to school. 

“Was that Jo’s mum?” a girl asks. 

“Yes.” Benjamin nods. “Her name was Lucy.”

“Was she very pretty?” 

“Lucy is a nice name!”

“Does Johanna look like her?” 

“Why didn’t she come tonight?” 

The last question seems to ring out louder than any. 

“She’s dead,” his daughter says. It’s the first time she’s spoken tonight. She glances at Benjamin before looking back at the children. “She’s been dead for a long time.”

Perhaps, it was confusing for one parent of hers to have suddenly appeared. It makes more sense for both of them to come back from the dead. That’s the way Benjamin would have preferred for the story to go, too. 

The front door opens and in comes a man. There are little resemblances between him and the children, though Benjamin can’t find any Anthony in his face. 

“Victor,” Sarah greats. She rises from her chair to whisper something in her husband’s ear. 

Victor looks up and makes his way over to Benjamin’s side, extending his hand. “You’re Johanna’s father? I’m Victor.” 

A second of reluctance before Benjamin shakes his hand. “Benjamin.”

He backs away, giving the occasional child the occasional pat before excusing himself. Sarah takes her place back. 

“He’s a busy man,” she says to Benjamin. “Whose turn was it for questions?”

The children continue as if nothing had happened. 

Between the questions, Benjamin catches glimpses of a conversation between his daughter and Sarah. 

“Just a few more bites, please?” 

“I really am quite full, Mrs. Hope.” 

“I know you like the berries. Have a few more.” 

“I’ve already eaten quite a lot, already.” 

So it isn’t just him who noticed it in her. 

When the time comes, Sarah announces that they have a present for him and all the children chime in to tell how they helped with it. She brings out a cake. The kind he had told Anthony earlier that he fancied–German Chocolate. 

“How many candles do you need, Mr. Barker?”

Anthony nudges his younger brother. “Can’t just ask that, Benjy.” He chuckles. 

The family rings out a chorus of song before slicing the cake up. They pass him the first slice. 

It’s been a long time since he’s had cake. 

It tastes like the kind his mother used to make. 

There are last-minute “happy birthdays!”s as they leave. Benjamin thanks Sarah for the meal and the cake. Sarah assures him it wasn’t any problem, hoping that it was a good day for him. He can’t tell her that for the past several years, he hardly even kept track of such an event. 

They ride the train back home in near silence. His daughter seems to be in another world. 

When they’re home, he bids her a good-night. 

He finds handkerchiefs on his bed. 

The last time Benjamin was sick was weeks ago now. He’d washed and put everything away. What were these–

But it isn’t Lucy’s flowers on them. 

It’s little strings, making up little birds. 

Crows. 

Little crows on the edges, in the middle, all around the handkerchiefs. None of these are his wife’s old handiwork. 

He glances at the door. 

Is this a birthday present?

With a chuckle, Benjamin collects the handkerchieves. He admires them with a gentle smile. He finds his initials on one. On another is the date of his birth. And on one, is LB. Lucy Barker. 

He folds them neatly, stacking the pile in the drawer next to his bed. Though, before bed, he takes one and folds it into his shirt’s pocket. It’s too beautiful not to be seen by the world. 

That’s his daughter’s handiwork, he would tell anyone who asks. My daughter made it for me. 

For my birthday. 

A diamond for your past, present, and future. 

Benjamin didn’t have a diamond for her. Yet, something told him that it would be alright. They had talked about the idea of marrying each other for a while now. It was one of those things he always knew they were destined for. From the moment he met Lucy Averley, he knew. That woman would be his wife. 

It was perhaps too late at night as they wandered through the university gardens. But this was supposed to be their moment and he wouldn’t allow any other proposals to interrupt theirs. Lucy deserved better than that. 

Her hands were soft as he brought her through the gardens. Until they ended up behind the rose bushes. 

Lucy had been tracing a rose’s petal when he dropped to one knee. 

There are roses around him in the Hackbridge Cemetery. They lay in their piles, honoring the dead they have been placed for. Benjamin himself holds a bundle of lavender. 

It’s like a homecoming as he finds her name. He’d done this only once before, yet he knows his way around like he knows his late wife’s favorite flowers. 

“Do you remember how you shrieked when you saw me?” Benjamin asks as he lays the flowers at her head. He chuckles. “You told me later that you wanted to sigh or laugh or… something more ‘feminine’ but you shrieked. And it was one of the best sounds I’ve ever heard.” 

He begins to adjust the flowers. Lucy was better with them than he is, but he can remember how she liked things. 

“I thought I wouldn’t stop laughing.” Benjamin reaches out to touch the stone. “But I did. And I asked you to marry me.” 

Lucy shrieked again. She jumped and shouted her “yes!” and leaped onto him. It was one of the most beautiful things he’d ever seen. 

“I still don’t know who was more excited to marry each other.” His finger traces along the top of the stone. “You showed everyone that ring–even the cashier.” 

It wasn’t a diamond, no. It was a band that resembled a daisy. 

“And the day we got married… there was nothing ever like it.”

Benjamin sits there–no talking, no laughing. Just his own thoughts. He brushes the grass, traces her name, arranges the flowers on occasion. The birds sing around them. The green of the leaves remind him of his wife’s eyes. 

“Happy Anniversary, my love.”

He’s been buying flowers recently. Johanna can tell. 

A slip of a receipt here, a lost petal there. 

But none of the flowers actually appear in the flat. 

That’s fine by her. 

It does make her wonder somewhat about where the flowers are going to. 

For now, Johanna opens the textbook in front of her. The schoolday had ended early today, giving students the opportunity to study for upcoming exams. Benjamin Barker is still at work. The only time she has like this by herself is on weekends. Today, she’s a little more daring. She’s studying in the kitchen. At the table. 

She’ll leave when he comes home. She’ll listen for his steps. 

Or–what if she doesn’t?

What if he comes inside and sees her here? Would he shout at her? Would he give her a weird look?

Or what if he didn’t do anything?

And perhaps, this is just a perfectly normal thing to do. 

Johanna has to bite back her smile. Maybe she’ll try it. 

“I think I remember your father telling me you were born at noon.”

It’s tradition, he knows. But this year, it seems to fall to him. Benjamin half-expected to find her father here to tell the story. 

If her father is still alive. He isn’t quite sure about that one. 

Her mother died before he met her. He knows that. Her ghost could be kneeling next to him now, correcting all of his mistakes. 

“Today. May 23rd.” 

Before he goes home, he’ll pick up some scones for himself and their daughter. Fruit scones for Lucy. 

“Your dad used to tell you that you came into the world singing.”

Benjamin chuckles at that. He still doesn’t understand that detail. 

“You had long fingers. Your lips were pink. You had a few strands of very light hair.” 

Today, he brought her wildflowers. Just as he did when they first started dating. 

“Your sister… Dot, she called you ‘Flower-Thing’. That’s what your parents said it sounded like. It suits you.”

Today, she would have been forty-three years old. 

“Happy Birthday, Lucy.”

It looks like a tower.   

Same intimidating force as before. It’s not the first time he’s done this and it won’t be the last. He intends on scaling the fire escape until Johanna moves. Even if Mr. Barker told him not to, Anthony will very likely disobey that request. How could he go along with it when climbing up to her window makes Johanna laugh so?

He taps on her window. 

No answer. He taps again. 

He can hear her voice wafting through the window panes. It’s some old love song, one that she says is stuck in her head all the time. Anthony smiles. It’s one of the songs of Johanna Barker. 

She opens the window and grins. 

“What are you doing out here?” she asks, crawling out to meet him there. Spring is come. They’re no longer limited to inside. 

“I missed you.” Anthony offers a hand. Her long skirt makes him nervous. 

Johanna settles herself down next to him. “We last saw each other four hours ago.”

“I know.” He misses her hair. “It was too long.”

And she asks him about work and he tells her about a conversation he had with a tourist from China. He wonders if he’ll ever go to Asia. Johanna tells him about a final project. He asks her what books she’s been reading. 

“I started re-reading The Outsiders,” she says, playing with a hair. “It feels a little silly to re-read it so soon after finishing it.” 

“When did you finish it?” 

Johanna looks up. “I got it in April… so, April.”

Anthony laughs. She never means to flaunt or try to sound unassuming when she knows she isn’t. It’s just one little quirk of hers. 

“I told you it’s good!” 

Johanna’s glance falls, resting back on him. “Yes… it is. There’s all these notes in there, too. It was… his–” her head gestures towards the window “–before. Everywhere there’s these notes. This time, I’ve been reading those mostly. Trying to understand them.”

Mr. Barker has presented himself as a reader, though he hasn’t been getting as many books lately. Unless he’s going in at a different time or to a different bookstore. 

“What are they about?”

“His childhood, I think. Perhaps some old friends. There’s a lot of names.” 

Well, that’s sweet. If Anthony was the type, maybe he would do the same thing. 

“Have you–?”

Johanna jumps up. Taken aback, Anthony rises with her. Both of her hands cover her mouth, eyes open wide in the direction of the window. 

“What?–what?”

Mr. Barker looks back at them through the glass, brow raised. A hint of humor in his eye. Johanna doesn’t seem to notice the gleam in his expression as she backs herself into the corner of the fire escape. If she goes any further, she’ll fall off–

“Hey, hey, hey,” Anthony mumbles as he ropes a hand around the small of her back. “You’re okay. That was a bit of a surprise, huh?” Johanna blinks. He wraps an arm around her shoulders–just in case. “He doesn’t care, Jo. He’s gone.” He thinks. Anthony looks. His shoulders relax when he finds he’s right.

They stand like that for a moment or two more. Her arms are clasped around herself, putting them in a bit of an awkward position, but Anthony doesn’t mind it.  

“You wanna go up to the roof?” he offers. “I doubt anyone’ll go up there.”

Johanna nods, but stops. “Can we go up there?” 

“I think so. It looks like it.”

He promises to go first, to check. And Johanna climbs up the ladders behind him. 

When they make it, he finds them a spot to sit down. Wrapping his arm around her shoulders again, he smiles at her. Everything is alright. 

“Oh, dear.” Johanna buries her face in her hands. 

“What?”

“He saw us!” 

“...He did…” 

“He saw us sitting together! With my head leaning against you!” 

Anthony chuckles. “Jo, he didn’t seem angry. If he was, then we wouldn’t be up here right now. He would’ve chased me down the street.” He adjusts his position. “Besides, he was our age once. He’s done worse things.”

Her eyes widen. “Anthony!”

And he laughs again. 

The shock wears off and she slowly forgets about her embarrassment. The hours rush past as they sit above London. The building isn’t particularly tall, yet it sends a sort of rush through him. Johanna points out the birds. He hangs onto her every word. At times, he wonders if she’s about to sprout wings and join them. 

“Can you show me how to braid hair?” Johanna asks. 

Anthony doesn’t argue with her. Despite the fact that the second day of them knowing each other, she had worn her hair in pigtails and he had braided her hair several times since. Whenever she asks him to, there’s a hint of a giggle in her tone and that’s a high he’s always chasing after. 

He rests her head against his knee and begins to work. “Every day, I thank God that I’ve had sisters to practice on.” 

“Me, too.” 

“I need them to give me a refresher course in Dutch braids.”

“Perhaps, you should.”

“I love you, Jo.”

“I love you, too.”

The scent of the near-end of a school year is bright and fresh. It makes her wonder what she will do when there is no longer school to go to during the day. Benjamin Barker will still be at work. Anthony has a job. 

And she can leave the flat. 

Johanna won’t be restricted to the four white walls of a bedroom anymore. She can go into the kitchen, to the living area and out the door. She can walk all over the block. Go to a park. Spend all day in a public library. Visit Anthony at work. There is so much she still hasn’t seen. So much she can see now. 

Won’t that be breathtaking? 

Johanna doesn’t notice the first time the girl to her left calls her name. When she looks up the second time, she begins to shuffle through her bag for an extra pencil. That’s usually the only reason anyone talks to her at school. But the girl–Alice–doesn’t ask for a writing utensil. 

“Hey, Johanna? Are you going to the trial?”

Gooseflesh pricks up all over her skin. 

“What trial?” Johanna isn’t sure herself if she’s playing dumb or actually doesn’t know what Alice is talking about. 

“For Turpin.”

Her stomach turns cold. 

That’s months away… 

“It’s June 21st, right?” Alice asks. 

Johanna notices the faces peering out from behind her, all anxious to know the answer. 

A week and a half away.

Where has time gone?

Has she really been living with Benjamin Barker for that long? Was Christmas really that long ago? 

Why hasn’t anyone mentioned it? Oh dear, how had it slipped her mind? Why hasn’t Benjamin Barker said anything? Wouldn’t he have? It can’t be that soon. It doesn’t make a lick of sense!

Johanna glances at her phone. 

June 11th. 

“My brother’s girlfriend is a reporter. She’ll be there.”

“Are they broadcasting it?”

“I don’t know but they’ll write about it…” 

Johanna doesn’t realize that she’s clenching a fistful of curls at her scalp. 

June 21st. 

She’s been safe. The judge has been behind bars for the past seven months. Safe months. 

Things may not be so safe anymore. 

(What if they make her go back with him? What if she has to live in that flat again, in that room? What if he comes with a key? What if-what if-what if–?)

“Johanna, are you alright?”

That was the teacher. 

Johanna nods. Numb. 

Is there any laws prohibiting students from running away from school? Well, yes, obviously! Otherwise, wouldn’t she have tried that by now? Would they tell Benjamin Barker if she took off? They would probably call him right away–just because they could. What if she…?

The numbness follows her to the spot where she meets Anthony after school. Her fingers are wrapped around the strap of her bag, yet she can’t feel the leather. Her other hand is crinkled in her curls, yet she doesn’t feel them tickle her jaw. 

It gets a little easier when she sees Anthony. 

“Hey.” He kisses the top of her head. He looks down at her, yet his expression isn’t his normal smile. “Jo, May’s got a football game I’m already late to and Mum needs me to get everyone else. I didn’t realize until…” He sighs. “I can’t walk you home today.”

“Oh,” it’s a whisper, a mumble really. 

Johanna nods as if everything is alright despite how frozen she feels. Anthony kisses her forehead again before taking off. 

She looks over her shoulder before beginning on her way.

It’s not safe. It’s not safe. It’s not safe. 

On the tube, her knuckles turn white with how she’s clenched them onto the handrail. As if the judge will show up and try to take her and that’s the only thing that will keep her safe. She’s light-headed and slow and can’t hear anything but her heart thumbing against her ribcage. 

When she makes it to the flat, she sits on the bed without removing shoes or the bag.

She stares at the opposite wall. 

Waiting. 

Waiting for the judge to come and rip her away. 

She is in the white nightgown again. It’s starch against her skin and the lace is tougher than the iron doorknob. She lays in the bed, staring at a blank ceiling. The window is shut. Locked. The door isn’t. 

This is the last night it won’t be. 

The door opens. The judge is still dressed for the day. His hair has been messed over. His eyes seem white. His lips are parted to expose ivory teeth. 

Always polished. Always a bit animal. 

Johanna is frozen as he approaches her. 

He removes a blanket. Then another. 

His fingers brush against her knee as he slides the nightgown. Up, up, up. 

She doesn’t know what happens. She doesn’t realize she’s scrambling or fully understand that she’s on the opposite side of the bed now. 

She hears the nightgown rip. 

The judge curses. 

“WHORE.”

He leaves, clutching the ripped fabric. 

The door is locked. 

Her knees are against her chin, her teeth nearly sinking into them. 

Her hair is wet. Sweat drips down her forehead, trickling down her neck. She doesn’t wear a nightgown but a gingham pajama set with thick fabric. It keeps her too warm now, but it’s not worth the risk. 

The nightmare hadn’t been about that night when the judge ripped her nightgown. Yet, her mind can’t help but circle back to that memory. Her nightmares are never about specific instances where the judge stroked her knee or his lips… or the marks he left on her body afterwards. Her dreams don’t conjure memory. They make up new ones for her. Sometimes Johanna can’t tell which ones were real and which were fictional. 

Tonight, the dream had been about what would happen if the judge escaped from prison. A knife against her throat. His body laying on hers. His teeth at her collarbone. 

She was wearing that same nightgown in the dream. 

She hates nightgowns. 

It was just a dream. It was just a memory. And yet, her skin seems to be covered in a layer of dirt and grime. 

When Johanna is able to will herself to move, she reaches for the phone on the floor. As she plugs it in, she notices the first message is from Anthony. A sweet goodnight and a promise that he’ll be able to walk with her tomorrow. Earlier, he had messaged to make sure she’d gotten home alright. Followed by a report she asked for about his sister’s game and a picture of his family there–aside from his father. 

She must have fallen asleep hours ago. One of the longest uninterrupted periods of sleep she’s had in a long time. 

Using the wall to guide her, Johanna sits up. The room is cloaked in darkness, but she can make out the outlines of a few books and the bag. 

She avoids them as she finds a new pair of pajamas. (No nightgowns.) It’s not early enough in the morning to get ready, as much as she doubts she’ll be able to fall back asleep. With the pile, she finds her way to the bathroom. 

The water is not hot enough. But when is it ever?

Johanna scrubs at her skin until it turns bright red. Though, she can’t be sure if that’s from the water or the loofah. Or even her own nails. 

Until she gets to her knees, she stops. 

Her head rests against the shower wall as she slowly crumbles to the floor. 

He always touched her knees. That was the way she could tell he was going to… a hand at her knee. Fingers brushing. Where his mouth would start. 

Johanna doesn’t realize when she begins to sob. 

She tugs at her hair until it nearly rips out of her scalp. A hand pounds against the wall, as if trying to escape. 

Ever since she was twelve, she hasn’t been a child. She never really was one from the start. Since birth, since the moment the judge took her, she grew into a small, shaken adult. Girl caged from infancy. Girl always looking for a way to run. Always trying to be skinner, always trying to be prettier. All for what? For a man to touch her breasts, to wrap his arms around her knees and bury himself in her skirts? To adopt her like a daughter and find a way to make her his wife? 

She was a child. 

She had barely even begun to bleed. 

And after seven months of being free from him, he’s just going to come back and find her. 

Anthony won’t be able to protect her from that. 

Benjamin Barker won’t be able to. 

Johanna looks up, just for a moment. 

And just for a moment, her hand appears almost skeletal. 

The moment is over as soon as it begins. 

She finds the loofah again and scrapes at her knees, trying to remove the invisible fingerprints of a vulture-man. 

She shouldn’t have eaten the few bites of supper she had. She shouldn’t have fallen asleep. She shouldn’t have talked to anyone at school today. 

Why is there hair all over her?

Johanna stands to grab the pink razor from its shelf. Only a moment her legs were back under the water–that has to be enough. As she descends again, she knocks over the bottle of shaving cream. She doesn’t reach for it. 

Her legs sting as she glides the blade up. Pools of blood bubble at her ankles, along her calves, at her knees. 

She ignores the blood. 

Let it wash away. 

No matter how long she stays in the shower, however, there is always more blood.

Johanna snaps the water off. When she looks down, she is surrounded by blood. 

Why is there so much blood? 

With a sigh, she exits and wraps a towel around herself. As she dries, she flips the water back on to wash the redness from the porcelain. 

The mirror is covered by layers of steam. Johanna doesn’t bother to wipe it off with the corner of the towel. Good. She doesn’t want to see herself. She ties the towel around herself before opening a bottle of moisturizer. 

Face, arms, neck… but when she reaches down to her legs, every dab stings. When Johanna lifts her fingers to inspect, the leftover product is mixed with crimson. When she looks at down, blood runs to her ankles. There are a few drops that made it to the floor. 

She grabs the hand towel, stomping it all over the floor. 

Sometimes there was blood after the judge… 

Johanna hangs the towel up. There are a few spots where the blood has dried into brown. That’s what she can do tonight instead of having to go back to sleep. She’ll have to wash the towels, the pajamas, perhaps the sheets… 

She pulls on her clothing. As she tugs on the pajama pants, she can already see blood pooling through. 

Another sigh. 

It should stop bleeding soon. 

Just a little razor burn. 

Johanna twists the towel she uses for her hair onto her head. The back of the pajama top is soaked through. It’s a good thing it’s a deeper green.

There’s a bigger pile of things needed to be washed than she had anticipated. She adds the hair towel to it. Her hair does better when it’s air-dried anyway. Johanna marches into the kitchen and throws them into the washer. Thank heavens Benjamin Barker just got new detergent. Just imagine if he found those towels or caught her out here–

The light flips on. 

Johanna’s stomach plummets. 

She doesn’t have to turn around to know who it is. 

“Johanna?” 

It’s not the judge’s voice. That she knows. 

“Are you… what are you doing?”

Her fist rises to scrunch her hair. Nervous, wet-hair-habit. 

“Laundry.”

Her voice is husky. As if she’s been asleep for sixteen years and screaming for all that time all the same. 

Benjamin Barker approaches her, brows furrowed. He is shocked for a moment when he can see her face. Then takes in the rest of her. 

Johanna turns away from him, trying to prevent herself from curling up into a ball on the cold floor. 

“What happened?” he asks. 

She swallows. “I was in the shower.” Swallowing didn’t help her voice at all. 

Benjamin Barker is quiet for some time more. He backs away from the kitchen, glancing backward every few seconds to make sure she’s still there. Johanna can hear him jiggle the doorknob. Locked. That sends a shiver up her spine. 

When he returns, he begins opening cabinets. He looks back at her again. 

“Go sit down on the sofa,” he commands. “And roll up your pajama bottoms.” 

When Johanna doesn’t move, he stops. He comes to his side and walks with her to the sofa. She sits. He’s back in the kitchen. 

She rests her foot against the coffee table as she rolls them up. 

It makes her wince.  

The pain of it, yes, but for what she finds underneath mostly. Most of the cuts did stop bleeding, leaving behind dark, dried blood. Some of them didn’t stop, dripping onto the sofa and floor. She drops her legs, hanging them at an angle where she couldn’t get any blood on the fabric. She can’t just throw the sofa into the washer. But cleaning the blood up from the hardwood will be easier. 

Benjamin Barker returns with a bottle of rubbing alcohol and two boxes of plasters. He takes in the sight without another expression before dipping a cotton ball against the bottle. He looks back at her. 

“Do you want to do it yourself? Or do you want me to do it?” he asks. 

She doesn’t know what possesses her. Johanna nods. 

Benjamin Barker dabs the cotton against a cut. When she winces, he stops. But she waves at him to keep going. 

He works in silence, never asking what happened or how it happened. Johanna doesn’t answer those questions in his head. 

Sometimes it stings, sometimes it burns. Though, it doesn’t seem to hurt as much once he puts the plaster on. As if a bit of plastic and adhesive can do that. 

When he reaches the scraps around her knees, she flinches away from him. Benjamin Barker stops, wordlessly. 

“Can I…?” Goodness, her head is pounding. “Can I do it myself?”

He lets her. Still watching, quietly. Johanna isn’t as gentle as he was with her, but moves with more grace than she usually would for something like this. It isn’t her first time applying a few plasters to herself. 

When she’s done, Benjamin Barker rises. He crumbles the mess of paper packing in his fist and grabs the bottle of rubbing alcohol. He is only in the kitchen for a few moments before he sits down in the chair. 

Johanna rolls the pant legs back down. Despite their darker shade, she can still see the blood stains. It’s been a long time since she’s seen blood stains on pajamas. 

They sit in silence for a moment. 

She knows what he’s itching to ask. 

“The trial is next week,” she whispers. 

“What?” 

His voice is gentle, tired. 

“The judge’s trial is next week.”

Benjamin Barker pauses for a moment. 

“Yes.”

Johanna reaches for her hair. She tugs against her scalp. 

“I hadn’t realized…” There’s the stupid lump in her throat that always forms. It always seemed to be around whenever she would speak to the judge. “I hadn’t realized that it was so soon.”

Benjamin Barker sits up, planting his hands at his knees. “I was going to ask you if you were going to it. You were asleep. I was going to ask tomorrow.” 

“Are you still going?”

“Yes.”

Benjamin Barker wants him away from bars. No matter how long it’s been, Johanna can still remember that conversation. 

Doesn’t he realize that if the judge is out of prison, they’re not safe?

It doesn’t matter how unjust it is, if the judge gets to roam free, there is only so long until Johanna is caged again. 

“Have you thought about going?” Benjamin Barker asks. 

Johanna gives a tilt of her shoulders. “I should. It’s next week.”

They sit in the quiet hours of the morning for a little while longer. There are times Johanna fears he’s about to ask about what happened. He doesn’t. If she was more alert, she would be shocked. 

Her pajama top slides down her shoulder. She tugs it back up. 

It doesn’t go unnoticed. 

“When did you burn your shoulder?” Benjamin Barker asks, staring at where her sleeve lies. 

“What?” 

He comes to the sofa. Before he touches it, he asks for her permission. Johanna nods as he unveils the redness underneath. 

Benjamin Barker goes back to the kitchen. The small tube of burn ointment is nearly out. He dabs it onto her skin with as much gentleness that can come with prodding one’s finger against raw flesh. 

He covers it with two plasters. 

They go back to sitting in silence. 

Benjamin Barker leans forward in the chair. “Do you want to skip school tomorrow?” 

Johanna shakes her head. “No.” It would arouse suspicion–she’s sure of it. 

(Who’s suspicion? What suspicion?)

“Are you sure?”

Johanna nods. 

The timer on the washer buzzes. She begins to rise to hang the laundry, but Benjamin Barker gestures for her to sit back down. 

“I’ll take care of it. Try to get some sleep before school.”

He goes to the kitchen. She goes to the room. 

She doesn’t crawl under the covers or even sit on the bed. She sits against the door of the closet, staring as the sun rises in the window. Benjamin Barker will be off to work in a little while. 

Hopefully, there’s no blood on the bathroom floor. Or in the shower. 

But what’s the point of worrying about it? He already knows. 

She wonders how much time she has before he questions her about it. 

After listening to the sounds of Benjamin Barker hanging up the laundry to dry and getting ready for work, Johanna digs through the closet to find something to cover the marks on her legs and the plasters. Usually, she would wear sundresses or skirts without tights by this point of the year. Today, she finds a pair of black leggings, thick enough to prevent any sign of the plasters fighting through. 

Benjamin Barker has left by the time she braves looking in the mirror. Her hair has suffered as much damage of her legs. Goodness, it’s frizzy! That’s something that can’t be helped as much. Two plaits will have to do for today. 

On the table, he left her breakfast as usual. It comes with a note. 

I love you

 

– Dad

She doesn’t take a single bite of the cereal. Though, she does crush a few of the pieces into dust that Benjamin Barker won’t be able to distinguish if he looks in the bin. She takes a few others to hide in the bin in the room. The few left she can safely discard in the kitchen’s bin. 

Johanna does take the note. It falls to the bottom of her bag. 

Before she leaves, she prays he won’t bring up what happened last night. 

He hadn’t fallen back asleep last night. Even if he didn’t have to rise early for work, he wouldn’t have been able to. Part of the reason he’d barely spoken last night was due to the fact that there were thousands of thoughts and questions and answers whirling around in his head last night. Where was he even to start?

Question: did she do that to herself on purpose?

She starves herself. On purpose. 

It makes sense that this would happen next. 

When he was in med school, there had been a teenager that was brought into the clinic with hot red streaks across his wrists. It hit him like a punch when Benjamin realized what it was. The pain in the boy’s eyes was his second clue. He hardly needed more than that to be able to tell. 

But Johanna wasn’t like that boy. Not quite. She just seemed dull. At the same time, too panicked. Could she have done it on purpose? Or was it just a moment of… of what?

The other scars on her body that he’s seen don’t look like that. None of them. The doctors she’s been to have never mentioned any suspicion. Only their suspicion of restrictive eating.  

Question: then why did she do it?

Multiple accidents from shaving? 

When Benjamin was younger, he may have nicked a customer once or twice. Those were in the early days, to close friends. A few laughs, a few jokes, a running gag… that was what blossomed from those mistakes. In his early adolescence, Benjamin wasn’t a stranger to a few cuts on his throat when he first began shaving. 

There were a few times Lucy would appear with a new plaster on her legs after getting out of the shower. Most of those times happened in her late pregnancy when she wasn’t able to access her limbs as easily. 

Nothing like that. 

Thought: she let him take care of her last night. 

What had come over his daughter to let him plaster her cuts and dab ointment on her shoulder? If he had tried to do that a few months ago, she might’ve ran away again.

But last night, the only time she had asked to do it herself was when he got to her knees. 

(Why the knees?)

Those bandages had been unopened in the cabinet for as long as he’s been in the flat. 

Thought: she’s scared. 

Turpin. 

It goes back to him, doesn’t it? Based off the snippets of their conversation last night, he has to be the background player in it. 

His trial is next week. 

No matter what the outcome, Johanna will be safe. 

He’ll ensure that.  

Answer: he wishes she would have stayed back from school. 

Benjamin checks his phone every few minutes to see if there’s been a call from the school. He’s half-certain that someone will notice that there’s something wrong. The moment they do, he’ll drop everything.

Half of him allows himself to wonder if his daughter will call him. 

He’ll be there in five minutes to pick her up. 

Between checking for a message or voicemail, his thoughts begin to wonder. No longer focused on the paperwork in front of him, his hand forms into a fist. It seems every ounce of energy he has goes into that fist. It nearly digs into his desk, heavy and sharp and ready to pounce. 

This is all Turpin. 

Benjamin wouldn’t have had to visit his wife’s grave on his birthday if it weren’t for him. He would have been able to come home from a shift at the hospital and celebrate with her. Lucy would have surprised him with a gift a day early for their anniversary this year. He would have bought train tickets for her sisters to join them in a surprise party at her favorite ice cream place for her birthday. 

Instead of waking up to hearing his daughter sobbing in the shower last night, he would have fallen asleep to a show they were all watching as a family. Benjamin would have been fixing up cuts and bruises with Strawberry Shortcake plasters when she was a child. They would have gone on father-daughter outings every weekend. They would have gone to feed the pigeons at Saint Paul’s. They would have gone to see Les Miserables after she finished reading it. She wouldn’t mind if he bandaged up her knee after she skimmed it. 

Turpin took those precious moments of her childhood from him. He raped his wife and let her die. 

He took their child. 

He took Benjamin’s life.

It isn’t enough for Turpin to rot behind gilded bars. To be sentenced to luxury for a couple of years. 

Benjamin needs to see his throat slit. 

If need be, he’ll do it himself. 

There isn’t a call or any sort of message from his daughter or her school. But it begins to rain and there isn’t any point in continuing so Benjamin begins on his way home. At this point of the day, she’ll have come home, dropped off her bag and left again with Anthony. She won’t be home for another few hours. 

The flat is unlocked, signaling that his daughter hasn’t strayed from her usual schedule. One of these days, he needs to talk to her about that. Not that they have anything of value or that this neighborhood is wrecked with crime (Benjamin did his research–at the time of him moving here, he was still waiting for the government to let his daughter come home). She must not have needed to ever lock the door when she lived with… in her life before this flat. 

Benjamin stomps off his boats, stacking them in his room. As he runs a hand through his curls, he moves to the kitchen.

There’s a box on the table. 

His name is scrawled on a notecard on top.

The handwriting looks familiar. 

Benjamin darts to the door, jiggling the knob to make sure it is locked. Funny, it’s the second time today he’s done that. 

When he flips over the card, he reads, 

Thought you might want these back. Visit soon. 

146 Fleet Street. 

Yours, 

Nellie  

Carefully, he opens the box. 

Chased silver gleams back at him. 

Lucy had been so proud when she gave these to him. 

Benjamin reaches for one, holding it up for the blade to glisten in the sunlight. 

His straight razor. 

Still as fine as he remembers them. They still seem to sparkle. 

They still seem to reflect Lucy’s green eyes. 

He runs a finger against the blade. 

A drop of blood. 

Still as sharp as he remembers them. 

Benjamin wipes his finger against his shirt. 

It was a few weeks ago–or was it months?–that Johanna was at their old flat. Strange, Benjamin hadn’t thought of their former landlady at all until then. Even if he had imagined it, he never would have dreamt that his daughter would be the first one to talk to a Lovett in… this long. 

He tucks the razor back into its place. The box goes under his bed. He doesn’t believe his daughter will go looking for them or do anything if she finds them… but after last night… There’s nothing wrong with exercising a bit of caution. 

A blade like that could be deadly. 

“Jo, come on.” 

With a slight smile as to not arouse suspicion and a pit in her stomach, she shakes her head again. “No, really, it’s–”

Tellie thrusts the skirt towards her again. “They sent me the wrong size. I know this will fit you! And it’s very you–don’t try to deny it!” 

They had only meant to stop by the Hope’s flat for a few moments. Anthony needed to drop off his bag before they were off to the park. Instead, his brother’s girlfriend had come at Johanna with a skirt and before Anthony could excuse them, he was dragged off to be interrogated about Victorian sailors. 

This was only her third time speaking with Tellie, yet the girl seemed to have memorized every article of clothing Johanna wore in her presence. An interesting talent to have, especially for a girl who claimed she actually had very little interest in fashion. And here they are now. 

“Just try it on, alright?” Tellie rustles the skirt again. “The loo’s right over there.”

Johanna tries to peer over her shoulder. Tellie is a good few centimeters taller than her. There isn’t any sign of Anthony anyway. 

With a sigh, she takes the skirt. 

Tellie didn’t say she had to take the leggings off. 

Johanna emerges from the lavatory, hands pulling at the fabric. Unsure and out-of-her element. 

“Alright?” 

Tellie puts a hand on her hip. “Let’s try it without the leggings.”

Oh no.

“I think it’ll look better without. Maybe this is more of a spring/summer skirt.”

“Um…” Johanna wrings her hands together. “I’m a bit afraid to…”

“Take off the leggings?”

“...Yes.”

Tellie raises a brow.

Johanna scans around them. No one else in sight. She’ll have to keep her voice low. There always seems to be one Hope everywhere. 

“I, um… have my…”

Tellie nods.  

It’s working. “I’m just afraid to… it’s a bit of a heavy day…”

She nods again. “I understand. Do you wanna take it off?”

That’s not the first time Johanna has used the womanly excuse to get out of having to explain an embarrassing truth. Who knew it would be less humiliating to blame that sort of thing over the truth?

She gets away with black leggings in the summer until they’re at the park. 

Anthony wipes the back of his neck when he makes his comment about it. 

“Jo, I know you tend to run cold but… it’s hot. Surely, that’s torturing you.”

This time she doesn’t have the benefit of being nearly a stranger. Anthony is able to see right through her.

A long sigh, as if she was admitting to running into a doorframe or trying to push through a door labeled, “pull.” 

She wishes she could simply forget about what happened. 

“I had… a bit of an accident last night.” 

Already, Anthony’s expression twists into worry and be opens his mouth to ask a thousand questions. She continues before he can.

“And I’m alright! It was minor. I just… don’t want it on display.”

A beat. 

“And it wasn’t on purpose. All an accident.”

Does that sound too much like a lie? Why does it sound like she's lying when she's telling the truth?

Anthony nods, taking the story in. 

“Please don’t tell anyone.” 

He squeezes her hand. “I promise.” He glances down. “Do you need anything? Will you need anything?”  

(God above, thank you for this man. Thank you that he doesn’t ask about what happened.)

(She isn’t ready for that yet.)

Johanna squeezes his hand back. “No. I’m alright. Just… nicked myself a little.”

(Not the full truth. But she hasn’t even fully realized what happened.)

“Want to go to the library instead?” Anthony asks. “It’ll be cooler inside.” 

“I always want to go to the library.”

Anthony was right: she does run cold. The sun had hardly an effect on her when they were in the park. She could wear leggings in thirty degrees without breaking a sweat. Last night, she hadn’t even noticed the water from the shower left a burn. 

“The trial is next week,” Johanna says on their way back from the library. 

Their hands gently swing between them. 

“For the judge?”

“Yes.”

Without asking, she wonders if Anthony has realized that a long time ago. Before she did. 

“Do you think… you’ll go?” 

Back in a courtroom. Back under the gaze of the judge. 

Yet doesn’t she have to be there? They aren’t broadcasting the entire session to the world. The people who will know the judge’s sentence first will be the people in the room where it happens. Benjamin Barker will be one of those people. 

Johanna looks up at him. 

“I don’t know.” 

Hair freshly washed and in a fresh pair of pajamas, she sits in the same spot as last night. Still silent, still somehow allowing Benjamin Barker to clean her wounds and tuck her hair behind her ear. 

Behind him she can see a pile of freshly folded towels. In the shower, it hadn’t gone past her that the pink razor was gone. She thought to herself that she should be angry. Benjamin Barker doesn’t have any right to just take that from her. But Johanna wasn’t mad. It almost felt like sweet relief to see it gone. One reminder of last night disposed of. (She only hopes that she will be able to shave her legs again in the next week… after making sure they were succinctly wet and covered in shaving cream.)

Johanna does her own knees again. While she does, Benjamin Barker comes back with a new burn formula. After getting her permission again, he pulls down her sleeve. 

“This is even better for burns like this,” he mumbles as he works. “This’ll be gone in no time at all.”

She stares at her red shoulder as it dries and he replaces the plaster. 

“I think I’ll go.” 

Benjamin Barker twists the cap back on. “Go?” He looks back at her.

“To the trial.” Johanna tugs her sleeve back over, making the wound sting. “I feel like… I feel like I should.”

For whatever reason. She hopes God tells her. 

Benjamin Barker nods. “Then, we’ll go.”

They still don’t talk about what happened. Johanna runs her hands down her legs, ignoring the soreness with each brush. 

Nine days. 

She has nine days of freedom. 

Her legs have healed. There’s still a few cuts, deeper than the rest. More stubborn than the rest. Once the days of legging-wearing were over, she found a new, green razor in the shower. Just as she promised herself, she was careful. Not a single nick that time. 

The burn is taking longer to heal, though it has become little more than a pink spot. Every night, Benjamin Barker rubs that ointment on it. It leaves behind a sticky residue that she wills herself to ignore at night. Each morning, she washes the pajamas. 

Johanna sits on the bed. A sundress is perfect for weather like today. In another world, she is waiting for Anthony to meet her on the fire escape so they can fly a kite in the park.

Despite the lack of evidence of any accident, Johanna wears a pair of socks that nearly go up to where the dress ends. Always a gamble with London weather. Though, today, she’ll be inside. 

Can never be too careful with exposing skin. 

She holds a book under her arm. Her other hand taps at the cover. 

Should she grab a jumper?

7:58 AM

They’ll be leaving soon. 

There’s a knock at the door. 

Johanna rises from the bed. 

They are silent on the walk to the train station. Their car almost screams eerily quiet as they push along. Benjamin Barker spends the ride burying his head in his hands and glancing at the map of the Underground. 

Johanna sits still, like a student undergoing a test. 

Thank goodness today they aren’t testing in any of her classes. 

They announce the arrival to Elephant and Castle station. Benjamin Barker rises. Johanna follows suit. 

She keeps both hands on the book, as if a pickpocket might try to take it instead of reaching for her empty pockets. She walks with white knuckles, alongside Benjamin Barker. Minutes before their arrival, they can tell that they’re there. A crowd has already formed hours before the scheduled session. 

Security becomes a blur. Her heart palpitates until she is reunited with the book by the end of it. 

The room is buzzing as they enter. She can’t tell what anyone is saying. 

There’s a few people that state at her as they pass through. Perhaps, recognizing the former ward of the man on trial. Perhaps, wondering if she is going to take a seat in the witness chair in the next few hours. 

They take a seat.

Johanna is terribly small compared to this room. She wonders if it makes even Benjamin Barker feel small. 

Soon, court will be in session.

Chapter Text

Court is in session. 

And today is Johanna Barker’s birthday.

By the time the sun sets tonight, she will be seven-years-old. 

Her little lips purse between the bars of the empty seat in front of her. Her hands clutch onto the two sets between her face. Usually, she is better well-behaved than this, but a six-year-old only has so much patience when something in front of them is long and boring. 

It wasn’t her idea to visit her guardian at his workplace. Though who was Johanna to argue with Mrs. Eastman’s suggestion? Perhaps, the housekeeper just needed her and the nanny out of the house for a little while to get some work done. Or it’s an attempt to make her feel a little bonded with her guardian. Either way, the novelty of it has worn off. 

Little feet swing beneath her. 

The nanny glances at her. 

“Johanna, sit up!” 

She obeys, though her feet keep swinging in the air. 

“No, please!” a man cries in the front of the room.  

Johanna snaps up at the commotion. 

The man is chained to the table, though he kneels. His body faces the bench, yet his face is turned towards a woman in the crowd. A face she can’t see. But the man’s brows are furrowed in a way that makes Johanna’s heart plummet to her stomach. He looks back at the bench.

“Please! Sir! My boy! I have a boy! He needs–”

The gavel falls. 

“And may the Lord have mercy on your soul.” 

Finally, though, the nanny takes her hand and escorts her to a door. She adjusts Johanna’s clothing, mumbling about how her hair is too much trouble. She knocks at the door and she can hear her guardian’s voice from the other side. 

Her guardian has always seemed so very big to her. As he sits at the grand desk between them, that thought echoes. Johanna has to arch her neck to properly take him in. Though, her gaze falls almost immediately. 

The nanny leaves. It’s just faery and giant in the same room together. 

“Take a seat, my dear,” her guardian instructs. 

Johanna lifts herself into a chair. Even at seven, she is one of the smallest in her year at school. 

“You are seven today, is that correct?”

It doesn’t dawn on her that’s a strange question for a guardian to ask his ward. Wouldn’t a guardian already know how old his ward was turning? 

Johanna nods. Somehow, speaking in the judge’s presence always feels wrong. 

“Yes,” the judge mumbles. His stare slowly takes her face in. “Stand up for me. Let me take all of you in.”

So she slides off the chair and stands. When he instructs her to turn around, she does. Always an obedient, little ward. 

(Why does she feel sick? The sort of sick where there’s a cough but mainly she feels bad?)

“You may sit back down.”

Johanna does. 

“Let’s see.” The judge leans back in his chair somewhat. “Next year, you will be eight. Then nine, then ten, then eleven… You’re already practically grown. Twelve is, in shortness, the age of a young adult.”

She doesn’t say anything. None of it makes quite sense to her. 

“Won’t that be exciting? You’ll be a young lady.”

He looks at her, expects a reply. 

“I suppose, sir.”

Twelve is still… (when she counts on her fingers), five years away. 

The judge leans forward now, hands pursed together. Lips in a firm line. He glances at her over again. 

“You will be very pretty, I’m sure.” He squints his eyes. “Pretty as a rosebud.”

Again, Johanna nods. 

“Well, we will have to celebrate when I arrive back home,” the judge says. “Mrs. Eastman is preparing something special, I’m sure. Now, go find Miss Floyd. She should be waiting just outside the door.”

Johanna turns to leave, though hesitates. The gavel was loud and this office is quiet. The man sitting there… was sad. The way he cried out nearly made her heart jump out of her bones. She looks back. 

“Do you require something more, my Johanna?” There is a sigh in his words. 

“Why…” her hand goes to her curls, clutching at a bunch. “Why was that man sad?”

The judge leans back in his chair, hands folded over his abdomen. “Come here, my dear. And I’ll explain it to you.”

Little ward obeys. She comes to his side and the judge lifts her onto his knee. She has never liked sitting there. Although she is older now, she is still small and unbalanced. And she never really likes how his hands hold her either. 

“You are a smart girl, aren’t you?”

Johanna nods. 

“You know what Hell is.”

Again, she nods. 

“Tell me.”

“That’s where the bad people go when they die.”

The judge nods. “And tell me, what happens to them there?”

“They burn.”

The judge pats her on the head. 

“Very good, my dear. Very good. Do you know why I’m asking you about Hell?”

Hell doesn’t seem like a very good birthday conversation. Though, is any conversation really a “birthday conversation”? Such things do not exist in the judge’s household. Johanna only really knows about what other children do to celebrate from her classmates and from the television programs she has occasionally watched. Hell is for when people die. Or maybe for when people are very old. Or very bad. 

“It is because, my dear Johanna, Hell is where that man is going. He is wicked.”

But that man didn’t look sick or old. How can he be going to Hell if he isn’t dying? 

“O-oh.”

“Yes.” The judge looked grim. He pat around her stomach. “You must be good, my Johanna. Always listen to me. I’ll make sure you are good and don’t wind up in the Inferno.” 

She does not know what “Inferno” means. She does not ask. 

“Be a good girl now and go back to your nanny.” Finally, the judge sets her down. Johanna leaps away as soon as she touches the ground. She nears the door, about to open it when the judge stops her, “Oh and my dear?”

Johanna turns. 

“Do make sure you don’t have more than one slice of cake tonight. You wouldn’t want your figure to suffer for your gluttony.”

His words feel like a winter wind ripping through her skin. Figure? But what she does know is “gluttony.” She knows not to eat more than her own fill. Knows not to ravage. 

She looks down at her body. Is that what the judge meant by “figure”? Is her stomach that big? Should she be cutting down on all sweets, not just birthday cake? 

But Johanna nods, confused tears threatening to swell in her eyes and leaves the office. 

There was a doll waiting for her at dinner that night. A pretty little, slim doll and a bouquet of flowers. 

While she hadn’t known what to expect, it wasn’t this many people. Reporters, a few people smuggling in cameras, witnesses, lawyers and all-who-else that have claimed some part of this story fill up the courtroom to await the trial of Phillip Turpin. 

The last time Johanna was in a courtroom was because of him, too. 

Just the last time, he was wearing dark robes and a powdered wig. He looked like some twisted God from behind the stand. Up high enough that Johanna had to arch her neck to see him. 

“All rise, if able.” 

Her gaze flickers to Benjamin Barker as they rise. He still wears the same, stoic expression. 

When she looks forward, they aren’t rising for her guardian. They rise for another judge. 

How strange. Part of her brain had convinced her that he would be ruling over his own trial. 

Everyone is seated when the accused enters. 

Her guardian looks over empty jury. The crowd. Then he pauses. 

He’s looking right at her. 

Not in the eye. Never in the eye. 

Johanna crosses her arms over her chest. 

Her guardian glances over her, as if trying to find something. Then, he allows himself to be chained to the table in front of him. He looks back at her, wearing an all-too smug grin that one wouldn’t typically be wearing when on trial. 

(They’re going to make her live with him again. They’ll arrest Benjamin Barker again and she’ll be locked up in that flat where he’ll–)

No one else seems to be looking at the jury. Not when the air feels too thick and everyone’s cold stare is upon her guardian. The judge at trial. The once-mighty name of Turpin now sits in tan. Not as powerful as he once seemed. If someone were to try to convince her that this was comedy, she might believe them. Yet, she can’t laugh. To her, even as he sits handcuffed to a table, he is the most horrifying thing she’s ever known. 

As the jury enters–one-by-one–there is some… theme about them. Something familiar about each of their faces. 

And she can’t breathe. 

“Look at the jury,” she whispers to Benjamin Barker. “I know all of them.”

He does. He can’t know them but he scowls. (He believes her.) 

“All his friends?”

Johanna nods. 

A jury of his own peers, indeed. 

Benjamin Barker’s scowl sinks deeper. 

One of the members of the jury glances her way, pausing at her. One of her guardian’s friends from university. Johanna remembers his son used to tug on her plaits. She wraps her arms around herself. How is this possible? Don’t they know? Don’t they know!

Before she knows it, the first witness is called to the stand. 

Benjamin Barker sits up next to her. She wonders if he knew him. 

“You were instrumental in the riots that had Mr. Turpin imprisoned, yes?” 

Mr. Turpin? That sounds all wrong. 

He sounds like he doesn’t have any authority at all. 

He sounds just like the rest of them. 

“Yes. I was.” 

Johanna notes a tattoo of two dice on the witness’s arm. 

“Why was that?”

The tattooed witness leans over. There is something painful in his eye and yet, he feels stone-cold. 

“It was me or his friend. He chose me. That’s it.”

And the tale begins. The story of a normal man working at his normal job until the blame of embezzlement is thrust onto him. The hurt, the heartache, the separation of a family. 

“I couldn’t let him get away with it,” the tattooed witness says. “I didn’t belong in there once.”

Questions ring out. How could he be sure? How could anyone be pure? The judge slams the mallet down. 

Recess. 

Johanna can’t move. If she does, the judge will look back and see her and his eyes will… He’ll take her back somehow. 

In the midst of paralyzation, she doesn’t notice a woman sit in front of her. She doesn’t pay attention to her turning around and facing her. She doesn’t blink at the way she begins to talk. It is only until she hears her name. 

“You are Johanna Barker, correct?” 

Johanna looks up, like deer targeted by wolf in the forest. 

“Judge Turpin’s ward?”

“I’m not his ward.” She is surprised to hear her own voice. 

“Ah? Interesting.” The woman–reporter begins speaking into her phone. “Johanna Barker, age sixteen, sitting in the courtroom where her guardian for her entire life, her father figure, her–”

“He’s not my father.” 

The reporter lifts a brow. “So you don’t consider him to be a father? Fascinating. Tell me, what was your relationship like with your guardian.”

Johanna glances around. Where is Benjamin Barker?

Where is anyone that could save her? 

What’s the thing someone is supposed to say when they don’t want to be interviewed? 

“No, thank you, ma’am.”

“Alright, moving on then… Do you want Judge Turpin to be arrested?”

Johanna blinks. Was that not the right thing to say? What else works? 

She has never known humanity to be kind, but even the judge could be polite. Aren’t they all wearing that disguise here? 

“No thank you, ma’am.” 

“Johanna, tell me what your childhood was–”

“I’m seventeen!” Johanna stands. Still within a whisper, she looks down at the reporter, “I’m not sixteen.” 

“In your seventeen years…”

How didn’t that not make the reporter even blink?

“What’s going on here?” 

She never thought she would be so relieved to hear that voice. 

Even after Benjamin Barker chases the reporter away (all the while, she asking questions about their relationship, his time in prison, why he’s here today…), Johanna stands. Somehow it feels safer. If she needs to, she can run out that door. If she’s sitting, she might trip over herself, she might not be able to get away before she’s caught. 

“You’re alright,” Benjamin Barker whispers. “Recces is almost over. They need you to sit.”

Johanna doesn’t say anything. 

“He might see you if you keep standing.”

And she sits. 

Anything to make her invisible. 

There is another witness on the stand. A woman, this time. Johanna has never seen anyone look more exhausted. 

The next is another man. 

“You were imprisoned before Judge Turpin had you incarcerated, correct?”

The man pauses. “That is correct.”

“That was for fraud, was it not?”

Another pause. “That is correct.”

“And in that arrest, it was due to you twisting facts and figures. Could it not be that’s what you’re doing now? Out of spite–”

“I would never! I would never!”

The room stirs. 

Gavel is thrown. 

The judge told her that the wicked would be thrust down into hell. He liked to play God. It’s obvious to herself and (hopefully) everyone else now. If the judge couldn’t be God Himself, he wore dark robes and threw a gavel. He looked a man in the eye and sentenced him to life. He saw a woman and licked his lips then looked at her with disgust. He threw her down to the underworld, as well. 

For Johanna, it was a different sort of Hell. Private and dark. There was no fire. There was no clank of iron. It was a frilly little girl’s room stuck in an awkward phase between girlhood and adulthood which she borders. 

Hell was hands. Hell was a croak in his throat, too close to her ear. 

They walk up, the prisoners of Hell. They tell their own Inferno, detailing their innocence. Some of them cry on the stand–the woman for the most part. There is a young boy sent to juvenile detention who had no hope at a future after what the judge put him through. There are men who stare into the audience, not seeing anything. One of them asks in a quiet voice not to be sent back. 

No promises can be made. 

Rallies and innocents and all those who can attest to hardships brought on by one man. Yet it means nothing when the defense gets to open their mouth. 

Lack of evidence, they say. But look over here… this is clear evidence of his schooling. Of his contributions to society. Of the sort of man he is.

Johanna glances at the jury.

Of course they buy into every word.

He is a powerful man, the judge. All they are is a group of convicts and scum. 

Another recess is called. The last one for today. 

The trial continues tomorrow. 

Benjamin offers her anything she wants to eat. She accepts the plastic cup of water he offers. She does not drink. Her gaze is unfocused in front of her, mind pooling. 

How much longer does she have? How far from London will she have to go? What about Anthony? What about Benjamin Barker? She won’t be able to tell them where she’s gone for a while–just in case. The judge could torture them or maybe he’ll strap them to a lie detector or–

“I’m terribly sorry–you’re the Barkers, aren’t you?” 

At the sound of a male voice, Johanna turns to leave. However, Benjamin Barker’s reply stops her. 

“I’m Benjamin, yes.”

If he replied, they must not be a reporter. Johanna looks up. It’s one of the lawyers. 

“Mr. Barker.”

The two men shake hands. 

She’s never seen Benjamin Barker shake hands with anyone. 

The lawyer introduces himself, launches into a mini-monologue that Johanna hardly pays attention to. Throughout, she’s watching Benjamin Barker. She’s never seen him really in a professional format. There was the adoption case… or the lack of adoption is what it really was. Though, she’d been too stuck in her head to pay much attention to him. This is different. He seems… normal. Just like any other man here. 

“I know you said you were not interested in telling your story, but it really would help us now,” the lawyer is saying when Johanna comes back from her head. The lawyer looks at her. “Both of yours. Anything helps.”

“No.” 

Benjamin Barker looks at her at hearing her voice. Eyes squinted slightly, as if trying to interpret the sound by sight.

Johanna shakes her head. “No… I won’t. Mine… it won’t help you.”

The judge had done something to her that never felt right. Never even felt lawful. But that’s not now. 

There are a thousand questions pressed against the back of Benjamin Barker’s teeth. Johanna can tell. There always have been those questions. 

She supposes it makes sense. She is his daughter. He would want to know what happened in those years of separation. 

But he surprises her. “I will,” Benjamin Barker says. 

Gratitude and some instruction. Johanna doesn’t listen to any of it. 

Something bothers her about the fact he’ll be on the stand and she’ll be alone in the pews. She doesn’t want to be alone.

Especially with him in the room. 

Benjamin Barker will get up, trapped behind a stand of mahogany. He will recount his life’s story, talk of his wife, speak of the years behind bars. The judge will not look at him, no, he will face her. He will see her solitude and somehow the metal bands on his wrists will loosen and he will stomp through the room. Tables and chairs flying out of his way. He will grab her by the hair and drag her away. And Benjamin Barker will be caught on the stand.

 Why would he do it? He said it himself:
He doesn’t want to see the judge behind bars. 

Nevertheless, his name is called. He sits on the stand. 

He swears to tell nothing but the truth. 

Now, start at the beginning. 

“My wife’s mother died when she was nineteen.”

Johanna’s gaze falters to Benjamin Barker for a second. Her mother was also missing her mother? 

“That was before I knew her,” he continues, “but I know what my wife told me. I have heard the same story from her sisters and her father.”

Her mother had sisters. 

“Her father hired Phillip Turpin as a lawyer due to some business arrangements her mother had. It was then that Phillip Turpin met my wife, my Lucy, and became interested in her.” 

Although this is an old story, Johanna’s stomach drops on behalf of her dead, never-knowing mother. 

“He attempted to pursue her. Lucy made it clear from the beginning she did not want him. She had no interest in him. However, despite how many times she made herself heard, he continued to pursue.” 

Poor, dead woman. 

“This continued until Lucy went to university. She studied biology. That’s when she met me. We met in March in one of our classes. We married the next year in May.” 

Johanna can imagine her mother. She must have been a pretty, Spring bride. She liked flowers, didn’t she? Something brighter, something more innocent than the sensual rose.  

“We moved to London for my schooling. She had graduated by that point. Our daughter…” Benjamin Barker looked in the judge’s direction for the first time. What does he see? “She was born the next year. This was around the same time he stole back into my wife’s life. By then, he was a judge.”

A shiver runs down Johanna’s spine. 

“I do not know how he found us. I only know he began attending our congregation that Easter. He made up excuses to see her. He discovered my class schedule at some point, visiting my wife when she was at home with our daughter or at work. She worked at a florist shop by that point.” 

How ironic. 

“She hid from him when she could. It did not matter to him how many times my wife reminded him she has a husband. He continued to see her. When I tried talking to the police, they didn’t believe her.”

There is venom in his voice. 

“She quit her job. We began looking for other flats. We even began looking outside of London. I would commute further to my classes but it was worth it to keep my wife safe. Her family was all gone from London by that point. My family was, too.”

Benjamin Barker stares out into the open, as if seeing nothing in front of him. 

“I had a past. I did not grow up in the same circumstances as my wife. We had very different backgrounds. My younger brother was involved in some… activity. He was dead by that point. I had barely anything to do with it. But that didn’t stop him from finding out about it.”

His focus becomes clearer now. 

“We were at the park. That’s where I was arrested. Right in front of my wife and our daughter.”

Johanna’s chest tightens. 

“There were drugs planted in our flat. I hadn’t touched them.”

She sits on her hands, looks down. 

“The trial was fast. I was hardly allowed to present my case. Lucy had a friend from school to represent my case. That was the most we could afford. Turpin had better. He was the judge over me. He sentenced me to twenty-five years.”

Twenty-five years. If Benjamin Barker wasn’t here, what would have happened to her at the end of twenty-five years? Still under the judge? Free? Married to Anthony? Would she even be alive? 

“I slaved away in that prison for nearly seventeen years. I didn’t get to watch my daughter grow up. My wife is dead.” 

Benjamin Barker snaps back to attention. His stare focuses on the judge. 

“MY WIFE IS DEAD.”

He did not yell. He did not scream. He simply said. 

Yet the room is swallowed by the statement. 

“But he knew. He knows how she died. He knows the reason she did it. He didn’t bat an eye. He stole my child and let me rot in prison. He won and he didn’t even bother to unlock my cage.”

She thinks back to the picture of her mother. How both she and her husband beamed so brightly. Neither of them had any idea, did they?

“It is overdue. All of this,” Benjamin Barker says, “is overdue. I should have been able to be a father to my daughter before now. My wife should still be alive. I should be living away from London–somewhere in the Lake District. My wife and I had it all planned out. This is what should have happened. Turpin should have been sent off to rot years ago. You–” and he begins to address the congregation “–you should have listened to a convict. You should have seen instead of looking away at something you considered to be too ugly. You should have allowed my daughter to grow up in a happy home with her two, loving parents. Now this–dust-and that–ashes–is all we have now. But at least don’t let it remain dust and ashes. Let it be seen that this man–this vulture–has picked the bones of too-man-a man and woman. Let us be free. And let him pay.”

Silence seeped in like mold on a windowsill. 

And Benjamin Barker is thanked. 

He sits next to her. 

The windows are dark as closing statements are said. The chairs have become noticeably uncomfortable. Johanna is nauseous. 

When the jury is out, they are excused from the room. Benjamin Barker once again offers something to eat. Johanna doesn’t care how much her head swims or her fingers tense. She only manages a sip of water that he insists she consume. She hasn’t noticed him eating much today either, though she doesn’t say anything. 

There are bigger things to be worried about. 

“You’ve done it, I think,” a fellow witness whispers to Benjamin Barker. He was an acquaintance of his at some point. “They can’t let him get away after hearing about your family.”

“Whatever did happen to your Lucy anyway?” another witness asks. 

In a hushed voice, a stranger cuts in, “Did he kill her?”

Benjamin Barker only shakes his head. 

Johanna notices that he takes a step closer to her. 

What did happen to her mother?

The jury returns. 

They take another seat. Benjamin Barker sits with his white knuckles under his chin, leaning forward as if he can do anything about the verdict. Johanna sits as she always does, as she was taught from when she was a toddler, sitting straight and prettily. It makes her feel like prey. 

Johanna, sit up!

Heart thumping. She can feel it beat in her fingertips and her throat. Her heart knows what happens if the judge isn’t taken away. 

But he will be, right? After all of those testimonies, after Benjamin Barker, after everything pointing to guilt, he will be treated like the guilty. Right? 

But then there were the counterarguments. Lacks of evidence. No ways to prove they were telling the truth. Just look at this crowd, do you really think they’re right? No! They’re just trying to stay out of prison. 

Should she have gone up with them? Shared her own story? 

No, it wouldn’t have helped.

Cross fingers. Pray. Wish. 

Oh, please dear God, let him be guilty.

It’s ironic: she knows he’s guilty. Why should she have to pray that he is? Why can’t they just see that? 

Is the judge saying his own prayer? Or does he not believe he needs it?

God, please. 

“The verdict…”

The world sucks in their breath. 

“Not guilty.”

Not guilty? Not guilty? 

Not guilty?

Oh, but he must be! Did they not hear the stories? Did they not look at their faces? The evidence was living! It was in each of their words, gleaming like sunlight through stained glass. 

She cannot tell if she is imagining it or not. 

“Not guilty,” a man says. 

It’s Peter Lang. A tall man with graying hair that taught law. Johanna remembers playing with the buckles of his briefcase when she was so little that the memory is more of a hallucination than anything else anymore. She remembers him lifting her up and scolding her. 

“Not guilty,” another says. 

It’s Owen Hughes. A retired lawyer. 

“Not guilty.” 

It’s Reid Craig who used to roll his eyes at her. A businessman. To the judge, a friend. 

“Not guilty.”

It’s Maxim Dorsey. He used to tell Johanna that she would marry his son one day. A tease. The judge never liked it when he made that joke. His son would pull on her pigtails and call her mean things. A friend to the judge. 

“Not guilty.”

Says Sebastian Rees. He was always at the parties the judge threw.

“Not guilty.”

It’s William Briggs. Confident to the judge. 

“Not guilty.”

“Not guilty.”

“Not guilty.”

“Not guilty.”

“Not guilty.”

“Not guilty.” 

Johanna stands as if she can fight this, as if she can run away from this. No, all she can do is crawl into a trunk and hope she can hide from the sound of those two words, from the judge who will be out to find her now, from the social worker to collect her and drag her back to that house. 

The judge stands, too. He turns. He sees her.

And he smiles.

Chapter Text

He’s smiling at her. 

Just as he did when she was a child. Just as he did when he pinned her down to the bed. Just as he did when he would make a remark about how much she was growing. Sickening. Twisted. Poisonous. The smile of a yellow warning sign. Danger ahead! Get out! Get away! 

Run! 

Johanna does. 

She hears people stand. People call out. Someone shouts her name. Whispers will follow. Rumors will, too. Don’t they know? They need to get away, too. 

Doors fly past her. Warnings to stop echo. A few concerned glances are tossed her away. 

She throws the door open to reveal the bustling London street in front of her. It isn’t enough. She has to get away. 

Johanna doesn’t know where she’s going or whether to turn left or right. She doesn’t know if she’s going to be sick or become a meal or if a social worker will show up at her side. To the flat? To pack her things? Or should she not even waste her time? 

Before she makes a decision, there’s a voice. 

“Johanna.” 

That’s all he says. 

Johanna looks up into the eyes of her father. All the worry and all the fierceness in them. His are brown. Her mother’s were green. They hardly look anything alike. 

“Johanna,” he says again. The gentle tone of rocking an infant to sleep. 

The judge isn’t going to prison. He’s going to find her and take her away. Even if her adoption was ruled as illegal and unethical, he’ll find some loophole. He always does. Then she’ll be back in that flat. Underneath the judge. 

Hot tears spike her eyes. Trembling overtakes her and she finds herself landing her forehead on Benjamin Barker. It is not a loud cry. It’s hardly even a cry at all. Just a complete collapse. 

She has liked this life. It hasn’t been perfect. Benjamin Barker hasn’t been perfect but then, neither has she. She likes the fire escape that Anthony crawls up to see her. She likes the books. She likes the freedom. 

How can they just rip that away from her? 

“Miss Barker, over here please!” 

“Johanna, would you say that this ruling…?”

“Miss–!”

“Johanna!”

There are people flooding out of the courthouse, trailing down the steps to her. At the sight of them, she freezes, suddenly unable to cry. Only able to stare at them with red-rimmed eyes. 

“Johanna,” that was Benjamin Barker. She looks back to him. He lets go of her (she hadn’t realized he had a hand on her back) and shrugs his coat off. Thank goodness he brought it with him despite the sun. “Here.”

He yields it as a shield, pushing past the crowd. “No comment, no comment,” he says on occasion. Otherwise he ignores them. 

There is part of her taunting. Why is she hiding? She shouldn’t show the judge that she’s scared of him! He should be made to believe that she doesn’t fear any longer. Perhaps then he won’t hurt her anymore. 

But she only will end up hurt, won’t she? 

There isn’t any way she’ll remember this, she thinks as they make their way back to the flat. It all happens in the flash. One moment they’ve stepped onto the train, the next they are on the right street. She does not know if she has taken a single breath in that time. The sun was only setting when they went underground. As they enter the flat, it is completely dark out. 

She sits on the sofa. 

He sits next to her. 

She stares. 

He doesn’t speak. 

How much longer does she have? A few days? A few weeks? Hours? Minutes? Seconds? 

Should she grab a few things, stuff them into her pockets? That picture of the Barker family, her mother’s wedding ring, a sweater she has an attachment to? She may never see those things again once he comes storming in. 

It disgusts her, the way she grabs for the phone. Her fingers are too quick to type to fully comprehend what she’s doing. There are so many unread messages, so many missed calls from Anthony. Later. She’ll call him later, once she has a plan. 

plane tickets from london 

train tickets from london 

boat tickets from london

Does it matter where she ends up? Perhaps, they should leave for Plymouth now. Or England might be too close, still. What about Wales? No, the entire continent isn’t enough. Paris? New York? 

Now she truly sounds like a runaway. 

“What are you doing?” she barely hears Benjamin Barker’s voice over the sound of her nails clicking against the screen. “Are you messaging Anthony?”

She doesn’t bother to nod or shake her head. 

tickets from london

tickets to nyc

tickets to australia 

She doesn’t look at the results when she presses search, just makes a new tab with a new idea. 

“Hey? Hey, hey.” 

Eyes burn with unshed tears. There’s no time for that now. Her finger flips through the options. When’s the earliest she can leave? 

“Hey, Johanna, look at me.”

Benjamin Barker puts a gentle hand over the screen. She obeys, then, if only to get back to her hunt as soon as she can. 

“We can’t just leave.”

“Why?” 

It’s a pathetic, little word that she chokes on as it sounds out. Wide eyes stare up at Benjamin Barker, pleading like a wounded deer. Doesn’t he know that he isn’t safe either? The judge will have them both taken away. He, to concrete blocks. She, to gilded bars. 

“You’ve got school. I have work. We have our flat… We can’t go.”

School? How can he think of something so meaningless right now? What is school to life? 

“I’ll pay for it,” Johanna says, not having a pence to her name. “I will. I’ll–”

“That’s not the only thing, Johanna.”

“Then what!” She jumps up from the sofa. “Do you want him to take you away? Do you want him to take me away? I won’t go! I won’t go back!”

It dissolves into sobs. I won’t go back, I won’t go back, I won’t go back…! Johanna crumples into herself on the floor, forehead resting against the sofa as her tears sink into the fabric. Both hands are a fist, as if the judge is about to walk in at any moment. As if she had been successful in any of her prior attempts to fight him off of her. 

“Johanna–”

Blotchy-tired face jerks up at the sound of her name. “This is what you wanted, wasn’t it? For him to walk free?” 

The words hang in the air, neither one of them not quite knowing how to react. This was a protest she would have made back in February. These months later, she has come to a better understanding of him. They had adjusted to each other. He has learned how to best work with her. Did it all unravel in those two sentences? 

Johanna comes crashing back down. Her limbs ache from all these tears, throat dry from sobs. All she wants is to fall into a nest and forget about all these troubles. Birds don’t have judges looming over them. Birds can leave at a moment’s danger. 

Why can’t she have that freedom?

Why can’t she chirp and sing instead of… whatever hurtful thing she just said.  

Benjamin Barker sinks onto the floor next to her. He does not touch her. Does not speak. 

He leans close to her. She can feel his hands hovering about her back, unsure if he is allowed to comfort her or not. 

“I will keep you safe, I promise.”

She wants to protest. She wants to say that he couldn’t keep her mother safe, why should she trust that he’ll be able to do that for her? The judge is still in London with all of his powerful connections, how will he–who is just a man?–keep her away from that? She is just a pale girl with a scared heart, how will he help her become more than that? In the past a “father” has never done that for her. 

Yet, Johanna wants to cling onto that promise. She wants to sink her teeth into it until her body has ingested it and it trickles through her veins. She wants her heart to pump out that promise to the rest of her organs so they don’t have to quiver anymore. She wants to sigh and nod and rest right here. 

Benjamin Barker has kept her safe so far. 

He held his coat in front of her. 

Cold fingers trace over gooseflesh-covered arms. Johanna sits up, slowly like a swan. She breaths in a shaking breath, allowing her lungs to fill with oxygen for the first time all day. 

Perhaps, he will be able to keep her safe again. 

Johanna does not look back at him. She does not rise from the ground. 

“Some tea?” Benjamin Barker asks. It nearly makes her jump. That isn’t the question one expects to hear after making grave accusations at another. 

She nods. He stands. Though, he doesn’t go into the kitchen. He returns to wrap a blanket around her shoulders before getting water to boil. 

Eyelids are terribly heavy. Everything is still and running too fast at the same time. 

She hopes he can keep this promise.

As the water boils, he feels he is behind the stand again. Words spill from his lips that he doesn’t mean to say. His mind is focused on one thing: Protect. That is the duty of a father. Of a husband. A duty he had neglected too much all those years ago.

It was something he promised his own father before his wedding. 

“I’ll look out for her,” Benjamin had said, smiling. He chuckled. “I’ll protect her, Dad, I promise. Her and our children.”

How had he laughed back then? How did he smile? Jovial, hardly taking such a promise seriously. In the end, he failed not only his wife. 

His phone rings. 

Why he hasn’t just blocked the number… he can’t. 

Hand on Bible, he promised not to lie. To tell the full and complete truth. But he hadn’t. So many details of Lucy’s story, they were not for the general public to hear. 

There was the day Mrs. Lovett visited him in prison. Where she spilled everything out. He spent the next fifteen years laying on a hard cot, realizing everything that hadn’t made sense about that story. (The two days it took for her to notice, the judge getting his daughter instead of family…) That wasn’t a story for everyone. That isn’t even a story he’s found the courage to tell his daughter yet. 

Benjamin pours the boiling water into two mugs. A teabag in each. Lucy’s favorite blend. 

He wished she could have been as surprised as his daughter when they announced the verdict. 

He carries the tray to the living room, but she isn’t in front of the sofa anymore. Or on it. 

Heart pounds faster. Was she right? Had the judge swept into their flat and taken her away already? Has he already failed her again? 

But he turns, shoulders relax. 

She is sitting by the doors, hands pressed over her ears. The blanket still covers her. From here, he can still tell she’s shaking. The tea will be good for her. Between the dehydrating tears and the chill of shock, the beverage will act as medicine. 

Benjamin gets down on her level, offers the mug. She accepts. 

He sits against the opposite wall. 

He sips. 

So does she. 

That’s the first thing she’s consumed all day. (And it’s a part of her mother.)

In the traditional sense, that is what mothers do: comfort. They prepare the warm drinks and they rock to sleep. They know what smoothing words to use and the best way to fend off nightmares. Benjamin remembers watching his wife cradle their girl before taking over for her. They never got to the years of night terrors and spraying water underneath the bed. He wished they had. Maybe, he as the father, would have some idea of what to do now. 

These aren’t boogiemen or creatures that shriek in the night. This is real. All of it. 

They continue to sit in these positions even after the tea is gone. Johanna clings onto her mug as if it’s a sword. Benjamin sets his next to him. He can’t leave her to wash it. (Part of him fears she’ll throw the door open now and run.)

(He can’t protect her if she runs.)

The sun begins to rise. Still, neither of them move. 

This may be the time. He’s still in London. He’ll be too proud of the fact that he’s gotten away with his crimes and too hopped up on arrogance to believe he is anything but indestructible. He’ll doubt that anyone can get him now. 

How will he do it? It’s not as if Benjamin can go down to the poison store to pick up some poison. It’s not the Victorian Era. There’s no apothecary shop down the street waiting to sell him unsuspecting arsenic. No. It will be brutal. It will be bloody. A knife can be discreetly shoved into one’s sleeve. Benjamin knows where he lives. It will be swift. It will be horrible. 

And Johanna won’t have to worry anymore. 

For his daughter. For his wife. 

Benjamin rises. Johanna’s neck nearly snaps at how fast she looks at him. 

“Don’t go,” she whispers. 

And he obeys. 

Soon. But another night. 

For now, he needs to stay by his girl.

Muscles protest and sigh in relief at the same time as she stretches out. Waiting by the door all night makes one sore. 

She moves slowly. First, washing the mug. Then a visit to the bathroom. She’ll have to shower later. When she emerges, Benjamin Barker is holding her phone. Screen black, he hadn’t been looking through it. 

“You need to say something to that boy.” He hands the device to her. “I think he believes you’re dead.”

Numbly, she accepts it. She is exhausted as she begins, but her eyes widen as she reads on. 

How is the trial going?

Johanna?

How are you doing? 

Just wanting to check in! 

Johanna???

I just heard–are you alright??

Johanna?????

JOHANNA????

Please pick up the phone

Do you have your phone on you?

Where are you?

Would it be alright if I came over?

What do you need?

Johanna???

JOHANNA

When you can, please call me

Are you alright?

Hey, are you okay?

Where are you?

Johanna??

Jo?

Johanna?

And that didn’t account for all of the missed phone calls. 

“He was calling,” Benjamin Barker says. “That’s why I picked the phone up. It went to voicemail.”

She nods. Oh, poor Anthony.

“Johanna!” His voice is a mix of shock and relief and gooey, hot caramel when she calls back. “Jo, are you alright? I haven’t–”

“I’m okay.” Though her voice is hoarse. Exhausted. “It’s just… well, you know.”

“Yeah.”

Pause. 

“Are you at home?” he asks. 

“In the flat,” she confirms. 

She can practically hear him nodding on the other end. “Can I… can I come?”

“Always.”

It’s not even seven a.m. when he calls her again. She’s dressed and her hair is in a braid. Washing it will have to come later. Benjamin Barker has offered breakfast, she is struggling to come up with a reply when the phone rings. 

“I’m on the fire escape… could you let me in?”

It almost makes her laugh. “You’ll have to learn the flat number someday.” 

She hangs up and goes to the window. As she opens it, Anthony’s arms reach out for her. It is second nature to fall into them. 

But not here. She can’t… What if he sees her? 

Instead, Johanna beckons him in. Anthony shuts the window behind him. Just in case he interpreted it as refusal to hold him, she opens her arms. He wraps around her. 

Kisses in her hair, to her neck. Sweet quiet comfort. 

“I’ll stay as long as you need me,” Anthony whispers. 

He does. She loses track of time. One moment it is seven in the morning and the next Benjamin Barker taps on the door announcing lunch. She picks at a piece of toast. Occasionally, she squeezes a morsel between her lips. Dry. No flavor. How can she eat now? 

Fortunately, no one points it out. A mercy, perhaps. Or they just figured it wasn't the right time. 

They settle back in the room, backs against the bed. Head against shoulder. She taps at her collarbone, twists at her hair. 

“I just don’t understand,” Johanna says in an empty voice. 

“Understand what?”

She looks up at him. “I won’t ever be free like this. As long as he’s able to go wherever he wants, I’m trapped. How could I ever be… free?”

It sounds silly. It feels silly. And stupid. But when Anthony grabs her hand, it doesn’t feel like it too much anymore. 

“With me, Jo. I’ll make sure you’re free.” He kisses her knuckles. “I’ll make sure you’re safe.”

She buries her face against his shoulder. “Please.”

He stays until the dark. His mother calls and Benjamin Barker says he should get his rest, too. Johanna sees him to the door. When he leaves, she’s frozen there. Looking down the long hallway and at the ugly carpet and how everything seems so vast. But a neighbor passes–too close–and she slams the door. 

She scrubs until her skin is bright pink in the shower. The water doesn’t get hot enough anymore. 

Johanna shuts the window all the way. But what if the judge comes through the door and she has to make an escape? If it’s all the way closed, she’ll struggle and he’ll get her. Johanna cracks it open. But what if he does come through the window? She’s practically inviting him in! 

She closes the window. 

No, somehow closing the window makes the walls feel tighter. 

Johanna cracks the window open. 

She’ll have to be on alert tonight. 

As Johanna sits on the bed, Benjamin Barker comes into the dark room. Arms cross over his chest and he leans against the doorframe. She looks up at him.

“You don’t have to go to bed now,” he says, knowing that she doesn’t sleep well. 

She nods.

“Do you… need anything?” Benjamin Barker seems to realize how pointless that question is even as he says it. 

“I’m alright.”

Lies. 

What is she supposed to tell him that she needs? A sense of comfort, a safety, a long breath she can get off her lungs–he cannot bring it to her. 

(But isn’t that what fathers do?) 

(She does not know fathers.)

“Are you sure?” Benjamin Barker asks. 

“Yes.”

He lingers–just a moment. “Goodnight. Sleep… sleep well.”

Johanna nods. 

He closes the door after him.

It is Sunday. Grey skies and rain. Johanna holds her rosary at her chest, thumb trailing along each bead. She prays in a whisper, stops, thinks, then resumes the prayer. She has been sitting like this for ages. She does not know when to stop or how to. God can hear her, that is something she is certain of. But today, she whispers everything to him for the first time in her life. 

“It’s only an hour,” Benjamin Barker is saying. He has knelt in front of her, elbow balancing on his knee. Rag in hand. She can smell shaving cream on him. “It will do us both good to get outside for a little while. He can’t find you in an hour.”

God, keep the judge far, far away from me. 

“I can’t.” Johanna cannot remember how many times she has told him this since she woke up this morning. He was already awake, fixing pomegranate seeds and oatmeal on the table. A good breakfast before church, he had said. She told him she wasn’t going. Can’t go. He has paced back and forth, trying everything to convince her. It has proved to be an impossible task. 

Johanna doesn’t mean to be stubborn. She’s afraid. 

She does not like how fear paints her. But what else can she do? Make herself prey? The judge is out for her blood. 

“He won’t find you, I pr–”

Her gaze shoots up to meet his. “It’s Sunday. He knows exactly where to look.” 

“But will he find you at this specific congregation?”

“He found you.” Johanna looks back at her knees in front of her. At the rosary between her fingers. “He found my mother. I don’t want him to find me.”

At that argument, Benjamin Barker freezes. He sits there for a moment between rising. She doesn’t know where he goes. 

Was that argument too cruel? She hadn’t known that story until the trial. 

She doesn’t want to turn into her mother. 

She can’t turn into her mother. 

Oh, God, why did you let him go free?

“Oh! Good morning, Mr. Barker!”

She perks at the sound. It is a few moments before he’s there, but soon enough Anthony is at her side. He extends a hand that she takes. However, she doesn’t allow him to lift her to her feet. 

“Let’s get to church, Jo,” Anthony says. His thumb glides over her knuckles. “I decided to come with you today.”

He is all dressed for worship. However, Johanna does not move. 

“Anthony,” his name is a warning, a quivering, shaken warning. “I can’t.”

“Jo, both of us will be there. Mr. Barker and I. We’ll be with you the whole time. Even if, he is there, he won’t be able to take you.”

Anthony wasn’t at the trial. He hadn’t heard her mother’s story. 

She isn’t even sure if that was the entire tale. 

“It doesn’t matter.” Johanna can feel the beads. She can feel his hand. Yet, it feels like nothing at all. “He can still take me from behind you. While we’re all distracted, he can… Or he’ll sit next to us…” Wide eyes meet his. “Anthony, I cannot give up my life!”

“No one is asking you to.” He sits next to her, arm around her shoulders. “No one ever will. You’ll be safe. I promise.” He moves a few stray hairs out of the way. “You know I have never broken a promise before. I don’t intend to now. I love you.” 

“Anthony…” 

Why is this so difficult to explain?

Her hair is in a braid, yet her hands still grab onto any stray locks. She is not her prettiest self this morning. (She can’t be seen in church like this anyway!) The mirror in the morning confronted her with dark lines and horrible paleness. She looks like a madwoman. Like the cover of The Woman in White she found while browsing the library. All she has to do is don one of the ivory dresses the judge always gifted to her. 

She hated them. Hated white. 

White made her look like a bride too-young. Johanna is not the blushing virgin on her wedding morning. She is seventeen years old. Her heart has a boy’s name inscribed on it and she has already vowed to him. Wears the pin promise ring he gave to her. Not a wedding ring. Not yet. She is still so young. 

White does not make sense for a girl like her. White is virgin, pure and holy. Johanna is… along the lines of her life, she was robbed of that. 

And he knew he was the thief. He still bought her white dresses. Perhaps, to try to make himself forget. Perhaps, to run away from the guilt.

Did he ever face that guilt? 

Johanna squeezes Anthony’s hand. She shakes her head again. 

Benjamin Barker enters. He is also dressed for worship. 

She is not. 

Still, she adjusts herself to her knees. She holds Anthony’s fingers and the rosary between her hands. 

And she prays. 

Again and again and again. 

They do not hear the prayer. They can only hear the quiet whimpers from her throat. 

She thanks the Lord above for Anthony. She prays for her dead mother’s soul. She hopes that she is in Heaven and that she can still see her husband from the skies. She prays for Benjamin Barker. She does not fully understand what she prays for him, only that his name runs through her mind and she knows she has to pour it into her pleading. 

Mostly, she prays for freedom. 

Anthony holds her when she has finished. Benjamin Barker leans against a wall, arms crossed. She does not cry anymore but her eyes are closed. 

She cannot become her mother. 

Hopefully, He understands. 

He cannot convince her to go to school. His daughter prays and sits and looks at the window as if she is expecting someone. 

He does not make her go. She had no exams. He, himself, does not have the energy after failing to convince her to go to church the previous day. 

And for that, he had Anthony. 

She has not eaten in days. Benjamin puts things in front of her that she would eat before. He provides glasses of water that she hardly sips at. He does not pressure her. He tries to be gentle, tries to be the man and father he once was. He is forgetting how to be that man and father. That was when he still had his Lucy. 

Lucy would have a way of convincing her to eat. She would tell a story and somehow make their daughter calm enough to take a bite or two. 

But if he still had Lucy, they wouldn’t have this mess at all. 

(In another life, is Lucy able to visit him in prison? Is he able to convince her to keep going? Or was she doomed from the moment she took her first breath?)

He wishes she could sing from the stars to tell him what to do. 

(He hasn’t even been able to tell their daughter that he loves her to her face… With his own mouth.)

Benjamin stays home from work, too. He does not know how to spend his time. He does not know if his presence does Johanna any good. He makes up meals that she doesn’t eat and tries reading words on a page that suddenly have no meaning. 

He wants to hold her. As he did when she was an infant. He wants her to lean her head against him again. 

That was the first time she ever reached for him. The first time she ever touched him. 

Was it comforting? Would it help if he reached out for her? Would she ever reach out for him again? 

He touched her hand on that day so long ago. When she was tugging at her scalp, he hadn’t thought but to make her stop. How could she hurt herself so? Now, he knows her better. Every time he’s caught her pulling at her hair since, he’s reminded her to stop. Usually, she obeys. At the beginning, perhaps it was out of the fear he would grab her hand away again. But now, it feels like there is a respect there. A knowledge that he is simply trying to take care of her. To be her father. 

He doesn’t know if that’s true. It’s mainly a hope. 

The first time he ever touched her was when she was running. He reached for her wrist, desperate to keep his daughter now that he finally found her. Her hand turned into a fist. Ready to strike? He towers above her, has seen the cement of prison walls. But it didn’t seem to matter to the stubborn, afraid girl. He blocked her path to escape. He had lost his wife already. He couldn’t lose his daughter again. 

And now, Benjamin is trying to get her to leave the flat. A few months ago, she spent as much time away from it as possible. A few months ago, she tried running. 

She’s practically locking herself up now. 

The judge is on the streets. He can’t possibly know where they are now. 

Leaving London is impossible now, that much was true. But Benjamin did not tell his daughter part of the reason they have to stay is so he can make sure the judge won’t touch her again. 

Should he go tonight? 

Knife at the ready? Scouted and positioned? 

The judge will hardly even realize when the blade hits him. 

But Benjamin won’t let him die that easily. He will make him look him in the eye. Force him to admit who he is with his dying breath. He will see the life leave the judge’s face. His bloody will be a testament to his daughter that Turpin will never hurt her again. 

He wanders into the kitchen. That is where the right tools are. 

A butcher’s knife. A smaller blade. A rolling pin. A cleaver. 

But in his pursuit of the perfect weapon, he stops. There is a noise coming from Johanna’s room. 

He runs to the doorway. The door was already open to reveal his daughter on her bed, body shaking and horrible noises from her throat. 

She is alone. 

(Relief. But not for long.)

Benjamin approaches her side. His first cellmate told him he had night terrors during the first few months of his imprisonment. His mother told him he suffered from them as a child. Did he somehow pass those through his DNA to his daughter? 

“You’re alright, you’re alright.”

It doesn’t sound like his own voice at first. It sounds like his wife’s. 

“Johanna–hey, hey, Jo…”

Her hand narrowly misses his face. 

“Come on, dove, you’re alright. You’re safe.”

With the utmost fear and tenderness, he strokes his thumb along her face. 

“You’re with me.”

(Would that work? Does she feel safe enough with him?)

“Dad’s here, lamb.”

He said those words to her long ago. Comforting a crying newborn seems to have a few similarities. In those moments, those moments long ago, he never thought they would be here. 

A hum. A gentle pet name. Slowly, she begins to calm down.

“Yeah, you’re alright, Jo.”

Benjamin waits with her until she has fully calmed down. Then for a few moments more. He used to wait by his sleeping daughter’s side. That was when she was in a crib and he was a much younger man. 

Selfishly, he takes her hand. He holds it there for a second. Pretending that she is still a child and he is still innocent. 

“Sleep well, little dove.”

There are tears trapped in his throat when he lets go and leaves the room. She must have passed out from exhaustion. Hopefully, she won’t remember whatever dream haunted her just now. She may never let herself rest again if she does. 

Benjamin does not allow himself to cry, as much as he wants the tears to run his down face. He is a father. The provider. 

He is a father.

Father first. That is what he always told himself. 

He looks back at Johanna’s door. He can’t leave her again. As much as he fantasies about the judge’s death, he does not think of the aftermath. Of how he may very well get caught and that they may take his daughter away from him again. 

Even if she never says it, she needs him. 

And he needs her. 

He has to stay. Has to protect her in any way that he can now, without bloodshed. 

One day, he will avenge his family. But for now, his daughter needs her father. 

“See! See! Look! Look!”

Relief has relaxed her shoulders. Her muscles stiffen less and less as her eyes scan the article on Anthony’s phone. From the corner of her eye, she can see Anthony looking at Benjamin Barker and grinning. She cannot see Benjamin Barker’s reaction. 

“He’s gone,” Johanna whispers. She hands the phone back. “He’s gone.”

Anthony nods. He wraps his arms around her and squeezes. It isn’t a feeling she likes but she knows Anthony can’t help himself. His relief makes her smile. It’s a testament to how much he cares. 

“Out of London! Out of England!” Anthony grabs onto her hands. “You’re okay now, Jo.”

When Johanna tilts her head, she can see Benjamin Barker still in denial. She turns back. “It is very good timing,” she says, beaming again. “I have two exams tomorrow!” 

Anthony laughs and kisses her head. 

“I think he will be gone for a while,” he says, “that’s what the articles have made it sound like. He doesn’t seem particularly interested in being in London when… well, the protests and everything.”

The protests were something Anthony had messaged her about earlier. She hasn’t left the flat in days now. The sky could be green and she would be none the wiser. 

“I am glad,” Benjamin Barker says. They both face him. He hasn’t spoken since Anthony arrived. He parts his lips to say more but only nods. 

Johanna looks back to Anthony. “Will you walk with me to school tomorrow?”

“Of course! Of course!”

Benjamin Barker rises from the table to begin clearing it. Anthony had burst in during dinner–not that Johanna ate much (or anything at all)–but his giddiness and news brought an end to it. She only missed one day of school and she’ll be able to go to church on Sunday. She can live.

Of course, it’s only until the judge returns. But Anthony’s optimism spreads like an illness. 

She’ll be a little free.

“Here, let me help you with that, sir!” Anthony picks up a plate from the table, always eager despite the fact he hadn’t partaken in the meal. 

Benjamin Barker waves him off. “It’s alright, son. You two get some fresh air.”

They run to the room as if they’d never run before. They wave their arms over their heads. For a moment here, they are free. 

They make plans to go to the park. Johanna will drop by Waterstone’s tomorrow while he’s on his shift. He’ll sneak her into the breakroom. They talk as if the trial still has yet to happen. They talk like teenagers in love. 

Oh, how she’s missed this! 

In the coming days, there is mixed emotion. When Anthony announced to them that the judge had left the country, his first thought was relief. His daughter can carry on as normal now. She’ll go to church and school. He’ll go to work. They’ll come home. He’ll have dinner. She’ll pick at her food. Homework, then goodnight. She’ll stay up… he will, too. 

He really should do something about how unnormal their normal seems. 

But on the other hand, has Benjamin lost his chance at getting the judge? Was that it? Turpin flees the country and never comes back? It’s not as if Benjamin has a traveling (or better aptly named: Chasing-After-The-Judge-In-Order-To-Get-His-Revenge) fund. Will Johanna have to spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder? 

No. One day, the judge will die. 

Oh, but Benjamin wants to be there. 

Johanna goes to school. She takes her exams. The summer break is right around the corner. 

Benjamin goes to work. He starts looking for new jobs when he comes home. Something that will pay him a little more. He has extra experience now that he’s out of prison. The resume gap is something he can explain. It might be nice to take Johanna on a little holiday while she’s on break. 

As he hikes up the stairs to his flat, he’s thinking of what he needs to add to his resume. Maybe, in time, he can work in the medical field. Not the dream he had when he was young, but it’s something closer to it. Indoors, not breaking his back, a little extra money to spend on his daughter. 

When he gets to the door, it is unlocked. Nothing out of the ordinary. 

When he opens it, there is someone inside. 

Benjamin shoves a key between his fingers, makeshift weapons until he can find something better. He makes his way into the dim flat, careful not to make a sound. 

Is Johanna at home? Is Johanna alright?

He needs to get her and get her out.

“Why, Mr. B, seems you haven’t changed at all.”

Mr. B? 

There was only one person who ever called him that. 

Mrs. Lovett sits with her legs crossed at the ankles, on the kitchen table. The sun peeks in through the blinds–she hadn’t flipped a lightswitch on. In the dimness, he can tell she’s hardly changed at all. 

Coarse red hair piled on top of her head, unable to keep the frizz down. Tall but slightly stouter now. Freckled and mischievous. There are wrinkles. Some old and some new, on her forehand and her hands. 

“How’ve the razors been, Mr. B?”

“You shouldn’t be in here.”

She is an apparition. Something so far from his past. She should not be here. He is letting that past go. 

“Well, the door was unlocked.” Mrs. Lovett smiles. He still had that look memorized. “Seems like an invitation to pop in and check on an old friend to me.”

When they lived on Fleet Street, Lovett never came into their flat unexpected. She always knocked, always scanned around the room… She never seemed to want to bump into Lucy. That was a story he never fully understood. When they were engaged and he found that place for them, she told him that she and her “Nellie” were good friends as children. But when they moved in, everything was frigid. No warm embrace for an old friend. Mrs. Lovett seemed more interested in talking to him if anything. 

“I bought your razors back to you,” Mrs. Lovett continues. She leaps down from the table. “Did you see? Precious things those were. I was waiting for you to come home and get them but those beauties weren’t doing any good gathering dust in my shop. I was hoping I’d see you here.” She steps closer to him. “Come on, love. No visit to see an old friend? I was waiting for you.”

Benjamin doesn’t reply. He doesn’t relax his posture. 

“Come on, Ben.” Mrs. Lovett wraps her fingers around a button of his shirt. “When’re you coming home?”

“I am home.”

Mrs. Lovett glances around. “This isn’t your home. Not your home in London, dearie. I’ve got the flat all ready for you. There’s space for you and your girl. We’ll…” She sighs. “You’ll be a family again.” She puts her hands on his shoulders. “Won’t that be nice.”

Benjamin dodges the touch. He goes around her, into the kitchen to put his bag down on the counter. 

“I’ve got a little boy now,” Nellie says, following after him. “Recently turned fifteen. He’s a good lad. Well, he’s not exactly my boy but I like to think of him as such. He’s in the foster system, got no one else but me. Little slow in the head. But sweet. A good worker, too. Won’t that be nice? Can come back home and raise your little girl with a brother-type. Didn’t you and your Lucy wish you had more?”

At the mention of his wife, he bristles. Benjamin turns, finding Mrs. Lovett too close to him. He scowls, drags his bag off the counter and moves towards the living room. 

“In fact, they already were siblings in a way. Foster siblings. She was in the same house as him for a moment there, ‘fore she was put back with you. They’ll love it, Mr. B.” Her hand extends, touches his back. “And a seventeen-year-old girl really should have a mother, too.”

Benjamin turns, deflecting the hand. “And what happened to her mother, Nellie?”

Mrs. Lovett goes silent. Only a moment before a sly smile appears on her face. 

“These things happen, Benjamin. Life don’t always work out the way you expect, that’s what my Aunt Nettie always told me. Life ain’t working out the way you expected but there are other–”

“You told me what happened to her.” His tone is cold, the sound representation of what he felt that day when it wasn’t his wife coming in to visit him but his neighbor. “About the judge and the party and how…” How his wife had been raped in front of everyone. And they all just laughed. “You told me that she had…” Pills. Pills for insomniacs, which he was. “But you know what I’ve found strange about that story ever since?”

His expression is dark. Mrs. Lovett tilts her head to the side, nervous smile still decorating her features. Always one for talking her way out of accusations. That’s the way her pie stand has still made it throughout all these years. A charmer. A rat. 

“You know Lucy’s family. At least, you knew them.”

“Well, I certainly didn’t know them anymore!” Her smile is fading. She already knows what he is accusing her of. “It’s been years, Ben! It had been years!” 

“But you had her phone! You knew their names to tell to the police!”

“What did it matter!” she yells. Then, she chuckles softly. “What did it matter, Mr. B? It–”

“That was my daughter’s life!” Benjamin points in the direction of her room. Not that Mrs. Lovett knows what’s behind that door. “She could have been with her family! Not the same judge that raped my wife and threw me away! She could have been happy! She could have been safe!”

Mrs. Lovett is shaking her head. “No, no, no, no! You’ve got it all wrong! He was going to… It didn’t matter what I did…”

“How long?” Benjamin asks. His fist draws his curls up over his forehead. “How long did it take you to go into the flat and find Lucy?”

She purses her lips. 

“How. Long?”

Mrs. Lovett releases a sigh. “Two days. But that–”

“When did you realize you hadn’t seen Lucy since she came back from the party?”

Another pause. This time, he lets her think. Dare lie to me.

“The morning after.”

“It took you two days to find her? When you realized you hadn’t seen her? When you could hear our daughter crying?”

Lovett is stone-faced. “Yes.”

Benjamin shakes his head. 

“Lucy could still be alive. Couldn’t she be? If you had gone up and seen her in the morning. Why didn’t you, Mrs. Lovett?”

She doesn’t answer. 

“Was it because of your feud with my wife?”

Again, no answer.  

“You left my wife to die.”

Mrs. Lovett shakes her head. “No. I didn’t, Mr. B.” She arches closer. “It’s in the past now. It’s all in the past. Your Lucy was destined–”

“To what! Lovett! To die!” 

“–But why throw a life you could have away, Ben? I’m right here. I’ve got my shop. I’ve got place for you… and your girl. We could be a family–”

“We are never–”

The door opens. 

Johanna steps inside. 

Green eyes widen as she walks into the tense air. She glances between her father and Mrs. Lovett. He can see her knuckles turn white with how tightly she grips the book she has in hand. 

No one speaks for a moment. They are caught in front of her room. Clearly, she feels like she can’t slip inside while they’re posed like this. 

“Hello, dear.” Lovett has deemed herself ready to speak first. “We’ve met before. Remember? I’m one of your dad’s old friends.”

“She’s an old neighbor,” Benjamin cuts in. “She was just on her way.”

Johanna nods, still darting between the two of them. She doesn’t need to know the conversation that just occurred. Benjamin is haunted enough by what he figured out a long time ago. He doesn’t need to force his daughter to carry that burden. 

Lovett stands still for a moment. But then she smiles.

“Always feel welcome to pop by.” She heads to the door. “Both of you are always welcome on Fleet Street!” 

She shuts the door behind her. 

Johanna looks at him with lips slightly parted, ready to ask questions. Though, she doesn’t. She turns towards her room. Benjamin raises a hand to stop her. 

“Why was the door unlocked?”

She looks up at him. “Hmm?”

“The door. To the flat. It was unlocked. Why?”

Johanna blinks a few times. Clearly, he’s noticed it a long time ago. Why hasn’t he said anything about it until now? 

“I…” She shakes her head slightly. “I, um…”

Benjamin marches to the door to lock it. Just a flip and a turn. Is that too difficult for her? 

He doesn’t notice how she flinches. 

“I know that you’re afraid,” he says. “I know you’re afraid of the judge and afraid… Then why do you leave the door unlocked? Anyone can get in! This is only the second time she’s gotten in! Do you realize how much danger we’re in when you don’t lock the door! This is London, Johanna! I know you realize that you don’t live in Kearney’s Lane anymore where you may not have to lock the doors, but you do now. What if the judge had found us! He could have gotten inside!” 

His voice raises with every sentence until he doesn’t realize he’s yelling at his daughter. When he looks back at her, she’s shaking. 

Benjamin never wanted to yell at his children, yet he presses on. 

“We cannot be exposed like this! You cannot put yourself in danger!”

With that, Johanna runs into her room. He cannot hear sobs on the other side of the door. Only panicked little noises. 

He runs a hand through his curls. Regret already spills into his chest. 

He promised himself he wouldn’t yell. 

Now look at what he’s done. He hadn’t even yelled at Mrs. Lovett.

Benjamin wanders into his bedroom. He still hasn’t taken his work boots off. He stomps off the laces and then sits on his bed.  Hands bury his head. 

He never wanted to see that woman again. Not after the day she came to the prison to tell him what had happened. At first, there was shock. There was grief. There was anger. But he was there for sixteen years. He had time to think. The story didn’t all align. The missing parts and pieces troubled him for ages. Mrs. Lovett told him that Lucy had been dying for two days. Why hadn’t she known sooner?

And the fact that she hadn’t alerted his or her family to come get Johanna… 

There is still something strange about the story. He can’t put his finger on it now. 

But just because he is confused and hurt is no excuse for yelling at his daughter. 

Hours pass before Benjamin gathers the courage to approach her. He doesn’t make supper and call her in as he tends to after a fight. He knows she won’t want it. Why stress her out now? This is still something they have to work through, he still has to keep her alive, but for this moment… it isn’t the right time. 

He wanders to her room. Taps at the door. No answer. 

She’s sitting on the fire escape. 

It’s been a long time since she’s done that. 

Benjamin goes to the window, praying that he doesn’t make it worse. He doesn’t join her on the metal, but he sits at the window. Waiting. Waiting for the right words to come to him. Waiting for her to snap or cry. 

Clueless father. 

Johanna doesn’t look at him. Though, from the shift in her expression, he can tell that she knows he’s there. 

“I’m sorry,” Benjamin eventually says. Seems like the best thing to say now. “I shouldn’t have yelled.”

A hesitation. Then, she nods. 

She stays quiet for sometime more. Benjamin stays at the window. 

“He always locked the door.” Johanna pulls at a curl, twirling it over and over around her finger. “To the room, usually.”

Benjamin says nothing. If he listens, she tends to say more.  

Johanna sighs. Looks at him for a moment, looks away. 

“Always at night. So that way he could…” 

Benjamin nods. It’s still a guess at this point. One day, that is a secret she will tell him. (He hopes.) This is the closest she's ever come. 

“Now that I’m away… I can’t bring myself to lock the door.” She lets go of the hair, wrapping both arms around her knees. “I finally… the door finally isn’t locked. And I don’t want it to be anymore.” 

He nods. Bites his tongue. 

Johanna finds another stray curl. She studies it in front of her. Benjamin wonders what she sees. 

“I know… I know that’s no way of thinking. I know that’s not safe.” A pause. “I’ll try. I’ll try to lock the door again.”

She looks at him. 

He doesn’t quite know what to say. But he tries. 

“I’m not particularly fond of the sound of a lock either,” Benjamin says. “I… understand. There feels like there is no safety in locks.”

Johanna nods. 

“Would it help if I teach you how to pick a lock? Or how to take the hinges off the door? That way you can get out if you ever need to?”

He doesn’t really know what he’s promising. Benjamin can’t quite remember how to pick a lock anymore (those days are long behind him), but he’ll remember. He’ll learn again for his girl.  

When Johanna nods, it’s already somewhat coming back to him. 

“I don’t want to ever be… locked in again.” She glances at him. “Do you know what I mean?”

“I do.” Benjamin doesn’t want to be locked in again either. 

Johanna twirls the curl around again. “Thank you.”

He nods. He takes a breath. 

“I promise you, Johanna, you won’t be locked up ever again.” 

He is her father. He will make certain that happens. 

Johanna looks at him, disbelief and relief swimming in her eyes all the same. He will have to prove to her that he is serious but that is something he is more than willing to do. He made promises he wasn’t able to keep when she was a baby but this is a promise he will keep. 

“I promise. I promise.”