Griffin got out his penknife – his fingers brushing the knob of the cigarette lighter – and cut the shoelace around Cheyenne’s wrists. She must have been twisting her hands, because it felt frayed. She spent a few moments rubbing her wrists. At first he thought she was exaggerating but then he saw the red lines braceleting them.
Griffin put the glass in her hands. She drank without stopping and held it back out. “Can I have some more, please?”
He thought about saying no, then changed his mind. Instead, when he went out to the kitchen, he left the water running in the sink. Then he darted back on tiptoe to watch her. He had thought he would probably find her trying to untie her ankle, but instead she was still rubbing her wrists. Her expression looked beaten down, and unexpectedly he found himself disappointed. Griffin went back into the kitchen and finished refilling the glass.
While she was drinking it, his stomach growled loud enough that she turned her head in his direction. He looked at the clock by the bed. It was nearly one o’clock. “I’m going to make some lunch. Are you hungry?” The oddness of the question struck him. What was the etiquette for how to treat someone you had kidnapped?
Cheyenne shrugged. “I guess.”
Back in the kitchen, he looked through the fridge. There was a package of hot dogs that hadn’t been opened. No rolls in the cupboard, but they had bread.
Every few minutes he tiptoed back to look at Cheyenne, but each time she hadn’t moved.
HOPE AND FEAR
Cheyenne put the can of Coke between her knees so she would know where it was. It was better than having to find it by running her hand over the table until she bumped it with the back of her fingers. After Griffin had untied her ankle, he had led her here, to what she assumed was the dining room, and then retied her ankle to a rung of the chair she now sat in. Given enough time, Cheyenne was sure she could untie herself. But when would she be given enough time?
Before they had been able to sit down at the table, Griffin had had to shove a lot of stuff aside, confirming what Cheyenne had already begun to believe about the house. People might live here, but this was a house, not a home. Nobody cared about it. Except for the room where Griffin had first taken her, everything seemed messy. Whenever he led her around, he had to jerk her to one side or the other, or he kicked things out of the way, swearing under his breath.
In her right hand, she held a hot dog wrapped in a piece of bread. The hot dog had been boiled until the skin split. The bread hadn’t even been toasted. It didn’t matter much because she wasn’t hungry. And it was easier to eat than something that required a knife and fork. No scraping her utensils across her plate, trying to figure out where the food was. She never liked eating with anyone besides Dad and Danielle. What if she splashed sauce on her top or she was grinning away with something green wrapped around a tooth?
“When you eat, how do you know where the food is?” Griffin asked.
“My dad likes to tell me like he’s a fighter pilot. You know” – she deepened her voice – “the peas are at eleven o’clock, the meat loaf is at two, and you’ve got mashed potatoes coming in at seven o’clock.”
Griffin laughed. For a second, Cheyenne forgot she wasn’t talking to a friend, like Sadie or Kenzie. But only for a second.
She spoke around another bite of hot dog. “He used to cut up my food for me, because he was afraid I would choke. It was really embarrassing, especially if we were in public.” Secretly, Cheyenne always hoped people still took her for a sighted person. In restaurants or movie theaters, she would try to tuck her cane out of sight. Everyone told Cheyenne that she didn’t look blind, that she looked “normal.” If she hid her cane, then people talked to her, not to whoever was with her. Everything changed if they figured out she was blind. She was tired of waiters who took everyone else’s order and then said, “And what will she be having?”
Griffin said, “Even if someone tells you where everything is, it must be hard to find it on your plate.”
“That’s why I bring my lunch to school. Then I can just unwrap and eat one thing at a time. And since I made it, I know exactly what it is.”
Another reason Cheyenne brought her own lunch was that she didn’t want anyone to have to carry her tray for her. People had to help her enough already, without her asking for more. She didn’t like to accept more than she could give back. She kept a mental tally of people who did favors for her, and she tried to keep the balance sheet even. If she helped Kenzie with an essay for English, then it was okay for Cheyenne to accept Kenzie’s offer of a ride home.
“You know what?” Griffin asked. “The whole time you’ve been talking, I’ve been trying to eat with my eyes closed. It’s harder than you would think.”
Cheyenne resisted saying something sarcastic. Sometimes people did this, closed their eyes for a few seconds and imagined it gave them insights into what it was like to be her. Only, at the end, they could still open their eyes and see.
Instead she said, “You know what I miss? Like if you have a baked potato and it has some cheese on top but it all ended up melted on one spot? When I could see, I could move the cheese around so I got some in every bite. Or if there was something I didn’t like in a casserole, like green peppers, I could pick them out. Now I usually just eat whatever ends up on my fork, even if I don’t like it very much.”
Every word Cheyenne was saying was true, but it was also a mask, a lie to lull Griffin into relaxing around her. She had heard Roy’s car start up and drive off. Since then, there had been quiet. No vehicle engines, no whining saws. Even the dog was no longer barking.
Cheyenne thought it was just her and Griffin. In the house, for sure. Maybe, if she was lucky, the rest of them were gone from the property, too. However many there were. She had heard four voices while she was in the car, too terrified to move – Griffin, his dad, and two other men. Of course, it was possible there were even more but they just hadn’t spoken. She hoped the vehicle that had been driven away as they were walking into the house meant the other two men had left, too.
So she was pretty sure she and Griffin were alone. But how long would it be before one of the other three men came back? This might be her only chance.
She popped the last bite of hot dog into her mouth. Trying to sound casual, she shifted the food into her cheek and mumbled, “I have to go to the bathroom.”
“All right. Just a second. I have to untie you.”
He knelt beside her. For a second, Cheyenne wondered if there was a knife on the table. Did she have the strength – emotional and physical – to bury it between his shoulder blades? Could she kill a person if her own life was on the line? And was her life on the line? Maybe these men would ask for ransom and then let her go. But wasn’t it just as likely that they would take the money and never give her back?
Griffin finished untying her ankle, then helped her to her feet and led her down the hall. He opened a door. “The sink’s to your right, the tub’s on your left, and the toilet is all the way back on your right.”
“I’m going to turn the water on in the sink a little bit,” Cheyenne said. “Just for some privacy.” She emphasized the word privacy. Hoping to embarrass him a little. Hoping to push him farther away from the door.