Ten Thousand Lies by Kelli Jean

pen.
    “I try to. Sometimes, it feels like I can, but I don’t know if the people I remember are my family or…” Ulla took a deep breath and told us her horrifying tale.
    After about a year of living in this family household, she had been sold off to another owner, who raped her the first night. She was maybe six years old. She spoke of the pain and blood—what she remembered most—and the old woman who had tended to her after, another slave who had great sympathy for the other girls this man owned. Ulla remembered her and sometimes thought of this woman as her mother.
    She had been this man’s slave for a few years until, one night, a few men had come into the house and murdered him and the unattractive older slaves, her “mother” included. Then, they’d stolen her and the other girls away.
    Once more, she’d been sold off, and her new owner did the same.
    Over and over, Ulla had been bought, sold, traded, used, abused. Beaten, raped, and forced to do hard labor.
    She told her story to us in a very quiet, monotone voice that broke my heart and seared its way forever into my memory. By the time she finished, I was silently weeping, wiping the tears leaking from under my sunglasses every few seconds. Xanthe, too, had to put down her pen several times to blot her face.
    Ulla didn’t shed a single tear. Perhaps she’d shed enough already, but, my God, I was broken inside.
    “I am very tired,” she said. “Could we go back to Ellen’s?”
    Xanthe sniffed. “Of course.”
    Reaching across the table, I took Ulla’s tiny skeletal hand, squeezing gently. “Thank you.”
    Startled, Ulla’s almond-shaped dark eyes met mine. “What for?”
    “For sharing that with us. It couldn’t have been easy.”
    Ulla smiled. “It was a lot easier than living it.”

    If I’d had any doubts before about dedicating the rest of my life to helping these victims, there were none by the time I stood by my gate in the airport. Being with Ulla had opened up my eyes to the horrors that people faced, and there was no way I could live my life without doing something about it.
    David was the first to hug me. “If you ever need anything, Jaime, don’t hesitate to call me or Xanthe. Or Ellen,” he said almost as an afterthought. “We’re family.”
    Reining in my tears, I nodded.
    Rex pulled me in. “I’m going to miss you, cheeky-deeky. Don’t forget us.”
    “I won’t if you won’t,” I replied, giving off a drowned-sounding chuckle.
    Xanthe openly wept, pulling me into a tight embrace. “No matter what, Jaime, we’re in this together. I can’t do this without you.”
    “Always, Bro Dawg,” I said, making her snort through her tears.
    She pulled back and retrieved a large envelope from her knapsack. “Here,” she said, handing it to me.
    “What’s this?” I asked.
    She sniffled. “It’s Ulla’s story. In case we ever lose sight of what we’re meant to do, we’ll have Ulla to keep us on the right track.”
    The lump that had formed in my throat dissolved, and I broke down in Xanthe’s arms.
    “We got this,” she whispered in my ear, choking back her sobs.
    “We got this,” I replied.

    Eleven hours later, my flight touched down in Newark. Exhausted in body and spirit, I made it through customs and baggage claim, and I called my mom. Getting no answer, I tried a few more times, only to wait for an hour before I broke down and used my last bit of money to take a cab home.
    My mom had forgotten to pick me up.
    I wasn’t surprised, which was just sad. After knowing what Ulla had lived through, being forgotten by my mother didn’t seem so bad, and I couldn’t find it in me to care about something so trivial.
    The fact was…I had been emotionally starved nearly my whole life. My mom was an okay woman, had made sure my siblings and I were taken care of, but she wasn’t ever the emotional type of parent. Perhaps it was because she had worked two jobs and was so physically worn out that she couldn’t