She began to notice she heard sounds. Unfamiliar sounds. Frustrating sounds. Sounds that meant failure. Softly murmured conversations in hushed tones. Evenly spaced beeping noises followed by a fwwwt noise. Crepe-soled footsteps. The chattering sounds of televisions as they earned their titles as idiot boxes. An occasional ding, which for reasons that were becoming clearer to her caused a knot in the pit of her stomach.
They were coming. More importantly, he was coming. He would have questions. He would want answers. Answers that she was just not prepared to give. Not now, and maybe not ever. He would never understand her reasons. Her reasons would really hurt him. And she just didn't think she wanted to hurt him. Not the only person that had ever really cared about her. Sure there were many who said they cared. Many who would say that they would help in any way they could, but when push came to shove, there would be excuses made and reasons given for why they really couldn't be there.
He would take a bullet for her. In fact, he had in the past. Which was why this latest failure was so intolerable. She would never be able to admit to him that she really was the cause of his gunshot wound last summer. He just could not ever really accept that she really caused him to be shot, it wasn't an exaggeration or low self-esteem issue. Even though that had not been her intention. The road to hell was paved with good intentions, right? The bullet had been meant for her. He saw it coming, somehow, incredibly, and jumped in the path of that bullet. Saving her life.
They had been visiting Kevin's high school. There was some kind of parent group get together. The school had been trying to involve more of the students' parents and relatives in fundraising than in previous years due to some severe funding cuts to their budgets. Greg, Maya and Kevin were in the middle of a deep discussion with the rest of their group about a talent show they hoped to put on in the spring to raise funds for the music program in the school. Some individuals felt that the talent show should happen in the fall, when everyone was fresh out of the gate. They hadn't yet been bombarded with magazine drives, wrapping paper and candy and nut sales. Greg and Maya were arguing the Spring would be the perfect time just because people would be getting tired of the standard fundraising methods. Kevin was sketching out a design for the poster on a piece of notepaper, his friend Scott was explaining how there were several bands in the area, so if they wanted to bill it as a "battle of the bands," show, it might draw more of an audience. During Kevin and Scott's presentation, Greg suddenly perked up. He was staring intently at something on the other side of the cafeteria. Suddenly his face went papery-white and he shouted, "Maya watch out!" Greg had hurled himself across the table and blocked her view of the cafeteria's stage (had she seen a glint of steel?)
She had not expected it to happen then. She had insisted in fact, that her family not be involved. How naive and stupid was she to think that the hit would follow the plan? Maya thought back to the day she had hired this man. After she had paid him his money, she had left the coffee shop and not looked back. When she had reached the parking lot she had run over to where the dumpster was, braced herself on it, and thrown up loudly and violently. Had she been in her hometown, she would most surely would have been seen by someone who knew her and then she would have to explain. But not here in this armpit of a town. Here there were no prying eyes. Here it was best not to notice anything and if you did, you minded your own business. You tended to live longer that way.
She had been pretty clear with the man who would only refer to himself as Ed. Maya had told Ed in no uncertain terms that she neither wanted any of her children present when the job was done, nor did she want any possibility that anyone else could be hurt. How could "Ed" possibly have hoped to achieve these objectives in one of her children's schools? The place was thronging with children, and most importantly, her children had been present.
The only saving grace had been that Molly had been in the restroom with Marie when Greg had been shot. When Molly had reemerged in the cafeteria people were running for cars, pressure had been applied to Greg's gunshot wound and the ambulance was on its way. It was total chaos, but at least there wasn't any chance that Molly could be shot. Maya was probably the only person in the room who could be certain that her children were safe. The bullet was not meant for them. Everyone else in the room was terrified, crying, trying to find their loved ones after the initial panic. Soon the news crews would arrive, but before that had happened, Maya remembered feeling totally reassured for the first time in her life. She knew that her children were safe. This "mad shooter," as he was being called by the others present, was not gunning for her children, or her husband. Or Marie or Bob. She had rested in the knowledge that he had been gunning for her. The guilt would come later.
At the moment of the shot she only remembered feeling relief that she knew who the bullet was supposed to be for. She had actually begun to feel relief knowing that the waiting for "the moment," would be over. Her frayed nerves could now relax. Ever since she had paid Ed, she kept looking over her shoulder. She wondered if dying would hurt. Did Ed enjoy killing? She had never asked him that question. She had been too inexperienced in hiring a hitman to think at the time to ask the question. But now the moment of climax had come, and as soon as she endured through whatever Ed had in store for her, she would either meet her Maker or be banished from His sight forever and she could begin to adjust to the permanent state of loneliness that would belong to that arrangement. She would be able to rest in the knowledge that she had finally faced up to what she had done.
But then the love of her life had acted as the hero in some romantic novel. He had jumped out in front of the oncoming projectile (a .57 magnum bullet they discovered later) and had almost sacrificed his life. The bullet had entered his chest slightly to the right of his heart, barely saving his life. He had spent three months in the hospital due to an infection that had resulted from the bullet wound, had developed pneumonia, and had almost succumbed again. The pneumonia had earned him another two months and he was finally declared healthy and able to leave hospital property just before Thanksgiving.
Greg wasn't the only one that she had hurt by her buffoonery. Greg's parents, who were the only parents she had ever known, were devastated when Greg had been shot. The time they spent worrying about him while he was hospitalized had aged them both terribly. They had been unable to have more children and Greg was still so young. He was only thirty-six. He was their pride and joy. The thing that Maya had loved about Greg's parents most (and there were many reasons to love them) was that Greg was their pride and joy simply by being Greg. They didn't require him to be the brightest or the best. They didn't demand he follow in anyone's footsteps but his own. That didn't mean that they didn't care about him the way it did mean that with Maya's parents. Marie and Bob were confident that their son would make his way in the world, and leave his mark. He had, in their opinion, already done that with every decision and choice he made.
Greg was bright, Greg was talented. But if he had been unintelligent and untalented, Marie and Bob would have loved him just as much Maya believed. They supported Greg's choices, whatever they might be and Greg was a better man because of it. Maya thought that Greg could have been a bum and his parents would still love him every bit as much as they did now, with Greg being the owner of his own successful contracting business. Greg had been running his own business since he graduated college. While most of his peers were starting with entry level jobs, Greg was meeting with bankers and investors. His ability to win over the hearts and minds of said bankers and investors was stunning. He had money coming in hand over fist to start his new business. He had a way of showing them how he could do the jobs the construction industry needed better and faster and under budget.
He also knew how to stroke egos too. Greg often told Maya that half of running a good business was getting what you wanted; the other half of the business was making others feel good about giving it to you. Greg was patient. He knew how to wait for what he wanted. He also had an uncanny sense about knowing when a deal was dead and it being time to move on.
And he was coming. They were coming. To sit by her bedside. To talk to the doctors and make sure she got the best care possible. To be sure the nurses treated her with dignity and respected what they believed her wishes would be. They would make sure they did what they needed to in order to make sure that she received the medications and therapies she needed to not only survive, but to thrive.
Maya didn't deserve their concern. She had acted like an adolescent. There had been blood shed. There were going to be tears. Charges might be filed because of her actions. This would bring bad publicity to Greg's business. It may even affect Molly in school. Kids could be cruel, and if the wrong information got out, Molly might have to bear up under some heavy criticism and cruelty.
Maya felt a warm hand slide over hers. She knew these hands. Warm, soft. Manicured. She was very familiar with the feel of the ring. It was the only piece of jewelry he wore. He never took it off. She had to concentrate very hard not to tense up and pull away.
"Mr. Davis, could you just give me one more minute to take her vital signs? Thank you."
The warm hand was withdrawn and in its place was a hard, cold and bird-like set of fingers pressing her wrist. She felt the squeeze of the blood pressure cuff on her left arm, and the high-pitched beep of the ear thermometer as her temperature was taken.
She became aware of something else presently. The oxygen that they were forcing into her lungs was annoying. It dried out her nasal passages and was doing exactly the opposite of what she wanted. It was keeping her alive. At that moment, more than any other she had endured, Maya truly wanted to die.
She prayed silently, "Please don't let them be here. Don't let them be here. I can't bear it. Don't let them be here."
God never listened to her. Why should now be any different than any other time? They were here. She could smell Marie's perfume.
Marie wore a lovely scent. She thought it was called "Beautiful," or something similar. Marie was one of the few women that understood the concept of less is more with perfume. She put her perfume on in a rather interesting fashion. She would spray the air in front of her a few times and then walk through it. That was it. Marie once told Maya that often as a woman aged she lost her sense of smell and would consequently apply more and more perfume as she aged. The result would be an overpowering smell that was more than unpleasant. Marie felt that if she sprayed the air in front of her and walked through the space, just the right amount of scent was deposited on a person and the effect was more alluring than overpowering.
She knew her father-in-law's presence only by the fact that Marie would never travel very far without Bob. Bob was a quiet soul. He was quiet by nature. He wasn't unfriendly or antisocial. He just was more of a listener than a talker. When he did talk, he usually had something valuable to say. Maya had learned over the years to pay attention to Bob when he spoke. Not that she wouldn't have payed attention to anyone else, but that when Bob spoke it was something you really wanted to hear.
"Maybe we should leave Greg. She's asleep. Her therapies are probably wearing her out," Marie said.
"Mom, please stay. She can sleep if she needs to, but I'm sure she would love to see you when she wakes up, " Greg responded.
"Where are Kevin and Molly?" Marie asked.
"Kevin is over Scott's house and Molly is with Meaghan. I'll bring them to visit later, I need to speak with the doctors first," Greg's troubled voice added.
Maya just could not bear hearing about her children. Were they okay? She couldn't believe that she had stupidly allowed this evil to creep into their lives. It was all her fault that they may never be safe again. She didn't want to be reminded of what she was doing to them, so she opened her eyes. "Hey sleepy. Where have you been all my life?" Greg smiled.
Maya just reached out for Greg and returned his smile. She could think of nothing to say in response. She was scared. She couldn't hurt him. And she couldn't think of any jokes.
They said that despite the trauma to her body, she was almost fully recovered and she could go home soon. Back to her life. Wouldn't that be great? She could be in her own warm and comfortable surroundings. With her family. With her friends. With her children. With her pets. Near her neighbors. Those things should comfort her. Taking a shower in her own bathroom, sleeping in her own bed, next to her loving husband. Those things did comfort her at times, but she had no right to their comfort. Since she was trying to throw that all away. It was only coincidence that prevented her from doing that. Tempting as it was to let the people and places she loved and was familiar with give her solace, she denied herself these things.
The thing was, when she tried to enjoy her life, she found herself thrown further and further into tragedy, depression and despair. Something always stole away her joy. It was as if there were some sneaky evil imp assigned to watch her particular life and whenever she failed to be vigilant, this imp would jump out of the woodwork and destroy something that was dear to her.
It started as a child. Her baby brother was taken from her. She had loved Dennis more than anything else in her life. He was her playmate and closest friend. He looked up to her, but he always had fun things to do and could make her smile, no matter how drunk her mother got or how absent her father was. They once found an old bag of felt scraps. It was Dennis' idea to take the scraps and cut out figures from them. They made superheroes and villains out of them. It was fun making them, adding the glue and picking the colors for the superhero costumes, but once they were made, she and Dennis would make them float down the stairs after each other. Doc Oc would float after Spiderman and this would be their "fight." Whomever landed on the top after the float down the stairwell "won" the fight. They would float several of the felt heroes and villains down the stairwell, and once they ran out, they would run to the bottom of the stairs to see who had won each fight. If several villains landed on one hero, they were ganging up on the hero. Oftentimes the next round would have the set upon hero calling on their Superfriends and the villains would be outnumbered. Maya and Dennis could spend hours playing games like this together.
But her baby brother was always fascinated with fire. She caught him playing with matches when he was four. Fear and raged mixed as she begged him to leave all matches, lighters and the like alone. "Dennis you dummy, what will happen if you set the house on fire or something?" was all she could think of to verbalize her rage and fear. "Mom and Dad will absolutely kill you if you were to do something stupid like that."
She should have told on him. But she didn't. He was her brother and her friend. Sure brothers and sisters sometimes had a way of turning tattle-tale on each other, but you don't rat out your friend. So she tried to take care of things herself. She would always make a point of knowing where Dennis was, and if she hadn't seen him in a while, she would go check on him. When she found him lighting fires in trashcans just so he could watch, she would stick around to make sure all the fire was out before they left. She would do everything she could think of to make sure Dennis didn't get hurt and that the fire didn't spread.
One day she didn't find Dennis in time. By the time she reached him, his coat was ablaze and they did not have anything to put it out with. She was young. She couldn't remember what they said in school that you were supposed to do when your clothes caught fire. She knew now. It was stop, drop and roll. But now was too late to save Dennis. He died because she couldn't keep him from burning in those flames. The memory of his screams was awful. His eyes expressed more of the pain he was feeling than Maya had thought was possible. She still had nightmares about him.
Her parents barely noticed Dennis' absence when he was buried. She never saw them shed a tear. They never spoke of Dennis again. It was as if he had never existed. Dennis' room had been cleaned out, his belongings given to the Salvation Army, and his room was made into an office.
She had tried once to talk about him with her mother. She mentioned how Dennis used to love the cookies that they sometimes made. Her mother had said, "So what?" When Maya had asked to see his baby book, her mother had said, "Yeah, right. Go away," and had just laid her head down on the table next to her bottle of beer.
Her father didn't respond at all. When Maya asked her dad if he missed Dennis, her dad had not said one word. He left the house and went to the store to buy a lottery ticket. When he came back later, he went down in the basement and began working on the table saw. He was planning to refinish the basement. Kept saying that it was going to be beautiful. It would be better than any sports bar. Maybe he would even have his buddies over from work. They could watch the Patriots or the Sox, or even the Celtics or the Bruins. Always a New England game though. Her dad was a rabid New England sports team fan.
Maya had gone to her room, silent and alone. She cried. For hours. Deep wracking sobs that seem to tear something vital loose inside of her. The next day she actually felt like she had sprained or torn something. It hurt to yawn, sneeze or breathe deeply. But she hadn't noticed while she cried. While she was crying there were only tears, sadness, guilt, regret and that deep and enduring loneliness. Maya's life outside of the circle of light had begun.
Chapter Two
The money order was in his hand, so he could do the job. He thought it was the craziest damn job he had ever been hired to perform. This freak had made themselves the target. What a convoluted way to commit suicide. Why not save yourself the money? Whatever this person had to do to earn the money was probably what was driving them to commit suicide. Most careers were annoying, soul-draining experiences in Ed's opinion. But this should be easy money. Ed dealt with all kinds in his business. It didn't really matter to him what the reason he was hired for was, or who the target was, as long as he had cash in hand, he would do it. But this was just pathetic. Ed thought this woman must be totally gone. He shook his head again. Oh well.
Ed began to clean his guns. He had quite an arsenal that he kept at the local gun club. At least, that is where he kept some of them. The traceable ones. He had a gym bag full of guns at the Y too. Boy would the management at the Y get worked up if they knew that they were an active location for a stash of weapons that could outfit a small cell of Al-Quaida. Ed snickered to himself. The guns at the Y had all the serial numbers filed off of them. He only went to get those guns when he was doing a job. The guns at the gun club were kept for legal purposes. He used them mostly for target practice. Today he was cleaning the .57 Magnum. He had a matching .57 at the Y. The mate at the Y would be used for the job. It looked exactly like the one he was now holding, but if a ballistics test was ever done, the bullet would never match. Plus this gun would be cleaned and it would appear that it hadn't been fired recently. And there were no records of the guns at the Y. So long as no one found them, no one would ever know that those guns existed.
A young blonde guy was in the next stall over, trying to show his son (presumably) how to hold a .22 . His eyes caught Ed's and he smiled a friendly strangers' smile. Ed did not return the smile but did nod his head. He didn't want to be remembered. So he tried not to make any impression. Either friendly or unfriendly. That's how you were able to fade after the job was done. You came to town, you made enough of an impression to seem like a regular part of the scenery. Had a couple cups of coffee here, a hamburger there. Quietly did your job and then seeped back into the woodwork like a stain. There...unremoveable...undeniable...but immobile. A stain may be ugly, but it certainly didn't bear remembering. Unless it was a bright stain. A loud stain. But loud stains could usually be removed. A squirt of this, a rub of that, and presto, no ugly stain (or at least a faded stain).
Oh well. Ed finished cleaning the gun. He assembled it. Popped a clip in the butt of the gun. Aimed it at the target with a very steady hand. A casual onloooker would not have been able to tell just how deeply Ed was concentrating. He looked like he was observing a sunset, he could have had a beer in the other hand. But Ed was focused. He was breathing deeply but calmly. His hands were dry and steady. His heart rate was a mere 80 beats per minute. Ed put firm, steady pressure on the trigger. He extended his arm, held his breath briefly, and finished squeezing.
The report was loud. There was very little kick however. Ed just wouldn't allow it. His years of military training had roped his body with muscle. Especially his arms, hands and fingers. He had hoped to be a sniper in the Navy Seals. But for Ed, that would never happen. He drew too much attention for insubordination. He had tried to stay out of trouble. But there was something about Ed that had seemed to provoke the drill sergeants. He had more extra laps on the obstacle course, more kp duty, and more time in the stockades than he thought was possible. He had spent most of his time in the military in reality, living out the punishments that had been mete out to him by various drill sergeants.
But his time in the military had taught him something else. Patience. He learned how to hold his tongue. He learned that life was not going to be fair. He learned to accept his place in society. His place was not to be in the light. He was to live in the shadows. Under the radar. Not to be noticed or detected. So Ed learned to be stealthy. He learned to be quiet. And he learned that he would not make it as a military man. He had to get out.
Not making it in the military did not mean that his military training was worthless though. For a while Ed was dispirited that he would not be able to rise through the ranks and receive his alcolades for his committment to his country. So when his committment was up this last time, Ed had left. He took the training with him. He took the insults. He took the scars. And he took the guns.
Ed looked down at the letter. The letter containing his instructions. The information describing his target. Middle aged mother of two. His eyes flicked to the picture his employer had enclosed. She was a pretty thing. Long, liquid black hair that she usually wore up in either a bun when she was working or a pony tail when she was around her home. Dark brown, almost black eyes. The eyes were soft, but sad. This lady had seen some kind of trouble. The sad look stamped in her eyes belied the sweet Mona Lisa-like smile that rested on her lips. This was a stay at home mom. The picture looked like it had been cropped from a family portrait. No trace of what the other members of the family looked like were there however. They were not to be part of this. The job had to be done, but equally if not more important to his client was that the rest of the family was not to be touched.
His first job had come to him ten years ago. He was at a bar with his buddy Danny. They had been chasing shots of whiskey with Corona beers. They were shooting darts. Danny was very drunk. He started to tell Ed about his wife. His soon to be ex-wife. Danny worked as a project manager and his soon-to-be-ex-wife was taking him to the cleaners at court. She had said in court that the apartment Danny had built into their garage was actually his living quarters and that he was renting out the home they had once shared to make more money than he was declaring on his income tax statement. She was right, but that was beside the point. Danny was so angry he had asked Ed if he would consider "doing" her. He offered to pay Ed, but Ed wouldn't do anything Danny asked while he was drunk. That could buy a whole world of trouble. Ed said that if Danny was serious he would have to ask him some other time while he was sober. "Shut the hell up ya jerk, we're in a public place for cryin' out loud. Anyone could hear this conversation and report it," Ed had smacked Danny upside the head and laughed like the request had to be a joke.
Danny called him the next day. "I'm sober Ed. Can we meet?" Ed was shocked, and Danny asked again to meet with him. Danny was sober this time. Ed agreed to meet with Danny at the beach. Just a couple of guys listening to the radio and watching some first class ass walk the sand. Danny asked Ed to help him out again. He took a pull from his Corona and swallowed it. "I need a real friend to take this job and get rid of Phoebe. She's costing me too much money," Danny argued. When Ed shot Danny a skeptical look, Danny bit out, "She has already broken my heart by leaving me for that loser," he choked. "She can't cost me my livelihood too and expect to get away with it."
Ed said that he would think about it. Danny gave Ed a $20,000 money order to think about it. "I don't care if you do the job Ed...you can run with this for all I care," Danny had said. Phoebe was dead two weeks later. She was dead and no one could trace anything back to Ed. Danny had a solid alibi and no one knew about Ed, so Ed's career had been born. After he took care of Danny that was. He couldn't have Danny around anymore. Danny knew the truth. Ed couldn't allow there to be any chance that the truth would come out. Besides, Danny was capable of ordering a hit on his ex-wife. That meant he could pretty much order a hit on anyone. Even Ed. Ed couldn't allow himself to be vulnerable to that. That meant that Danny had to go.
Danny had had an accident at work three days later. He slipped off the high steel to the hard pavement of Longwood Avenue in Boston, Massachusetts while working on the new Cancer Treatment Center at Children's Hospital of Boston. Danny's lack of a hard-hat was not noted as anything unduly suspicious. Danny had been stupid about that kind of stuff on a regular basis.
After Danny was gone, Ed decided that his business would from then on out be anonymous. He placed a few discreet ads a year in Soldier of Fortune magazine, and some years there were a few bites, and some years there were none. The busy years had so far carried Ed through the lean years and for that Ed was grateful. At first, Ed was positive that he would be caught by the FBI or the local police. He was surprised to find that he was not really upset about the prospect. He wouldn't allow it, but it didn't disturb Ed to think about the possibility of being caught.
Ed didn't see himself in any other terms than what he was. Ed was a killer. He didn't know why he was a killer. Life had just turned out that way. It was a doggone shame too, Ed thought, as he had started out life wanting to protect and serve, just like the fellas that he needed to avoid in his current line of employment. As a child Ed had not tortured dogs and cats. He had not harmed anyone. He had come from a good family. True, they were a little prone to their drink, but they were a happy and loving family. But somehow Ed had never been able to build a life in the light. He was suspended several times during the course of his young academic life. Mostly for "scrappin in the yard," as his dad would have put it. That was why the military had seemed like such a dashing idea to Ed and his famly. Perhaps Ed would learn whatever discipline was necessary to live a life in the light. He would also develop a career and some skills.
Ed chuckled. Well, he had developed a career and some skills as a direct result of his military training. It hadn't been what was initially planned on, but it was a career. His dad would not have been exactly proud of his son, but Ed wasn't going to let his training go unused. After his experience in the military Ed knew that he would never be able to make any kind of life in the light. He had been cast permanently to the shadows.
So Ed accepted his place in society. Eventually he would be killed or jailed as well (and then executed he was sure). But for now the police were too swamped with day-to-day robberies, murders and rapes to have time for the highly planned, expertly timed executions that Ed was capable of. Ed didn't know if the people whose lives he snuffed out deserved what was coming to them or not. He couldn't be judge or jury. His function was only as executioner. He couldn't allow himself to think about the other parts. It caused too much confusion for Ed. Those functions were for those who were allowed to live a life in the light. Spending too much time contemplating this stuff would cause Ed the kind of stress that would make him sloppy.
But Ed would not get sloppy. He would not let his guard down. He would not allow rookie mistakes.
He varied his methods as well. Ed used guns yes, but he was not above using a knife or a poison. He would use them if doing so made more sense for the situation. His crimes were virtually untraceable that way. He knew that the police and the FBI liked patterns. Ed made a point of making sure that there were no patterns to pick up on. This wasn't the movies. Ed didn't feel the need for a "calling card." He didn't care if anyone recognized "his work." His only concern was that he got paid up front and that there were no witnesses to tie him to the job.
Chapter Three
She trembled as she wrote the request. It was decided. She was going ahead with this latest idea. It was sure to work this time. How could she fail? It wouldn't be her hesitancy this time. There would be no affect from her stupid indecision. Once this letter and the money order were mailed, there would be no turning back. Did she cover her tracks well enough? She thought so. She paused, licking the stamp and fixing it to the envelope. What if he took the money and ran? Didn't do the job? That would put her back to square one again. Would she try to find another hitman? Or would she decide she would just have to come up with something else? She didn't know what else she could come up with though. Hadn't she tried everything? She thought she had. This was going to work she told herself.
She had thought of this idea out of the blue. Somewhere in her past she remembered talking with a friend. David had been a supporter of the idea that militias were necessary to keep the government from trying to control everything. He had mentioned something about Soldier of Fortune magazine. Somehow the topic of hitmen had come up and she had learned from him that this magazine often had ads in the back offering these services. You just had to know how to read them and how to respond properly. He had warned her off of these services of course. David was a tad strange, but he was not a violent man. Just against too much government intervention in the private sector. She had forgotten about this discussion until a few months ago. When she thought of it, she was just thinking in hypotheticals. She kept thinking about it while she drove to work at the art studio. She stopped one day to buy a newspaper and casually noticed that the newstand carried copies of Soldier of Fortune. She bought a copy much to the vendor's mild surprise. The magazine had stayed in her briefcase for another month. Greg was away on business when she took the magazine out of her leather briefcase. She had tried to convince herself that she was just mildly interested in how one would pursue this avenue of thought. Would it really be possible to do? Surely the FBI took note of these ads? How would contact be established without it being compromised? In the end, there was no way to answer these questions definitively, so Maya had put the magazine back into her briefcase for another month. When she took it out again, she decided to take a peek at the ads in the back. Surely David was mistaken. You couldn't just answer an ad in the back of a magazine and hire someone to kill someone for you.
But there it was in black and white. Maya wanted to believe it was a prank. She saw the ads. Worded very carefully. "Handyman available for odd jobs," the first one said. "Send description of work to be done to P.O. Box...will respond with terms and fees. No job too small."
Maya put the magazine back in her briefcase again where it stayed for three months this time. When she pulled it out again, she sat down to write. What she wrote was on plain paper, no lines, and she wore latex gloves while she wrote it. She spent three hours writing drafts of notes, and wound up burning all but one of them. Hopefully she had understood the particular ad she responded to. She had written her "inquiry" and sent it to the post office box listed. She had only offered her cell phone number in her request. She hadn't offered her last name, address, or any other contact information. What if this was a bluff by the police to flush out those who were trying to harm their wives or husbands? What if she had misunderstood the ad and had horrified some poor harmless individual? What worried her even more than either of these alternatives was this question: What if she brought someone into her family's lives that would harm them? What kind of ethical code could a person have if they were okay with murdering for money? What set of values? They couldn't possibly value a life that included family and friends could they?
So she didn't put her last name. Only her first name, a cell phone number from a disposable cell phone (prepaid, so untraceable), and a respectable monetary offer. The amount had been difficult to come up with. I mean, how much is one human life worth she wondered. Finally she settled on $10,000. She thought that it was enough to show she was serious about the job, but not so much that she would draw undue attention from the wrong element (Part of her wondered who she thought she was kidding). Too much money in the offer might bring those who thought the well was deeper than it really was. And that would mean endangering her family unnecessarily.
Her next thought had been, "How does one interview for this position?" She laughed a crazy laugh, and found it hard to stifle it. It isn't like you can place an ad in the Globe or use Salary.com to figure out benefits. Could you find out their previous job experience? How did she know she wasn't getting a novice? She had to be sure that the job would get done and get done right. She also had to be sure that her children would not see it happen and that there was no possibility that they would be harmed in any way. No ransom demands. No perverts being drawn to them. So she insisted on a meeting with anyone who would do the job. She met with her "handyman" at a diner in another town. She had told her family that she was meeting with an art dealer to negotiate terms for displaying an artist's work. She often did this so it did not raise any eyebrows.
Meeting "Ed" (had that truly been his real name?) had been an odd experience. Ed was a small, muscular, quiet man that had dead eyes. There seemed to be no soul behind them. He rarely blinked, so it was unnerving to have him look at you. If Maya had not needed him to do this job, she would have insisted that he leave. She did not enjoy being in his presence. She was glad that she would only have that experience once in her lifetime. To meet the person who would be the cause of ending you. The person who would put out your light. Who would murder you. How many people would ever calmly sit down and have a cup of coffee with the very person who would end their lives?
She swallowed a nervous laugh and pondered how to proceed. After smoothing out her hair, she cleared her throat, which seemed unbelieveably dry, took a drink of water, and asked Ed,"Why have you chosen this as your profession?" Ed was a man of few words. Without skipping a beat he said, "I am good at it. I provide a service people need for various reasons, and I am exceptional at providing that service." Ed took a swallow of hot coffee. His hands were steady. He didn't appear nervous. Good. A novice would probably be nervous, like she was.
"Have you ever failed to accomplish your, er...objective?" her hands were sweating. She didn't like referring to herself as an "objective." It was a bit embarrassing she found. Like standing naked in front of a group.
"No. Never," Ed replied.
"If I hire you, when would you start?" Maya almost laughed at how normal a question this sounded. She could have been hiring an intern to be a tourguide at the art gallery.
"I start the moment the fee is paid," Ed responded. "I could start now if you had the money order in your purse," Ed offered.
"Er, ahem, no, I don't...ah...have the..ahh...money order here." Maya had actually thought about the possibility of this response. She didn't want the job to be completed in this fashion. She needed to be sure that she wouldn't see it coming. She wanted there to be no opportunity for her to back out.
"For reasons that I suppose are unimportant to you, I need to be sure that this job is completed. There will be no postponements, no delays allowed," Maya took a deep breath and continued, " but I can't have my children seeing this either. I don't want it to be a headline or something that they come home to," her voice became more steady as she discussed this aspect of the job with Ed."I want to be sure that in all possible ways they are protected and shielded from this. There are to be no mistakes, no opportunities for their classmates to pity or punish them." Her voice become very steady and firm. "There is to be absolutely NO suspicion of what actually happened. No one can ever know. My children need to be able to find happiness after this. I do not want any aspersions to be cast upon my husband or other family members either. Find a way to get the job done without affecting them."
Greg would think she was absolutely crazy if he knew. Which was why she couldn't let him know. One of the reasons anyway. There were so may reasons. She just couldn't name them all. The list was long...financial, emotional, practical...but also it was short.
Greg had been good for Maya for awhile, but ultimately, he couldn't understand what Maya needed and why she felt so unfulfilled. Greg lived his life in the light. He had never been an outsider. He had never been a wannabe. A lurker. He had been who you wanted to be when you were a wannabe. He was so comfortable in his own skin that he just couldn't grasp why others weren't comfortable in theirs. He saw Maya as a beautiful, generous, vivacious woman. He couldn't see that others didn't view her that way. He didn't see that she was an outsider. That she was someone who was supposed to be living their lives out in quiet desperation in the shadows. The facts of Greg's reality were that he loved Maya and his children and had no idea that anyone else might not love them as much as he did.
Maya had tried to talk to Greg about her feelings a few times. Had tried to express the deep loneliness and the desire to be rid of the pain. But Greg hadn't heard her. He was not capable of hearing her. He needed things to be on track. He just couldn't accept that even though he did all the right things that sometimes things just jumped the track. Things were sometimes derailed and you were left to sort through the wreckage. Sometimes help did not come, the calvary didn't arrive. Sometimes the sun did not shine on you and yours. Sometimes you needed to live out your existence in darkness.
Greg didn't believe life existed outside of the lines. Rules were rules in Greg's mind. If the written rules said, "All are welcome to attend," Greg believed that. He never seemed to notice the subtext that said "All are welcome to attend if you are like us...wannabes need not show."
The basic fact was that she loved Greg and didn't want to hurt him any more than necessary. Trying to explain to Greg about life in the shadows would hurt him. It would remove him from the circle of light and somehow dim his lifeforce. Maya didn't want that. She wanted Greg to be able to be happy. To not have that empty space inside, that whistling hole that seemed to never end. So she stopped trying to talk to Greg about her inner life. He wasn't a particularly philosophical guy anyway. He lived in the here and now. He had little use for the ever after. When they spoke about what might come next after life here on Earth, Greg often responded that he had no idea and wouldn't even hazard a guess.
She hoped her death would be like ripping off a band aid. Sure Greg would cry at first. There would be tears from both him and her children. But if she was very careful to make sure they didn't know the truth, they would cry for a short time and then they would move on, unencumbered by her presence. They would get comfort from Marie and Bob. Maya knew this like she knew the sun rose in the East and set in the West. That was how dependable Marie and Bob were. They would be there for Greg. And they would be there for their grandchildren.
Greg would probably bury himself in his work for a time. But Marie wouldn't let that go on forever as she would advocate for her grandchildren to get time with their father. Being the good man that he was, Marie wouldn't have to advocate very hard before Greg saw how much his children needed him. He lived for his children. When he was at work, his mantra was, "Stability is nice." He had taken the jobs he had in the beginning to insure that Maya and the children had the stability they needed despite the distaste he had for working with the clients he had to work with on a daily basis for months. When he was at home he was the most fun playmate. He was always making the children laugh, always teasing, joking and trying to be silly. He wasn't afraid to be a fool for his family. Maya was going to miss that.
Maya was going to miss a lot of things. She sighed. This was usually the beginning of a series of mental discussions. Maya had learned through time to ignore some of the self-talk that happened during these sessions as most things said were baloney. But she wished they were true. She wished that things were going to get better. She wished that she would pick herself up, dust herself off, and face life again with a brave smile. But Maya felt she just didn't have it in herself to do that again. She was just too worn out.
Was there ever a time that she was not worn out? Maya thought so, but it was just so hard to remember when that was. Trying to remember would take more energy than she had left. She was happy in college. When she was in college there was still a future for her. Still hope. Still the possibility of rest, peace and joy. In college she had faith that she could achieve those things. No one had pointed out her limitations yet. No one had told her she was incapable of succeeding. Sure, her parents were apathetic about whether or not she would achieve her goals. They neither supported nor disapproved of her aims. They just didn't care, and she was tired of trying to get them to care. They had refused outright to help her pay for school, wanted nothing to do with driving out to help her move in to her dorm, and made excuses whenever she tried to talk about Homecoming with them. She had given up.
The pain of giving up on them was balanced by meeting Greg and his parents. Maya had met Greg while she was floundering around trying to figure out what she wanted from her education. She was an undeclared sophmore at the University of Chicago and he was a Civil Engineering major in his senior year. They met at the campus bar. She was acting like a jerk, doing shots with her friend Amanda, and she had spilled her drink on Greg. He was shooting pool next to her listening to the band (a Steely Dan cover band) with a couple of buddies and eating popcorn, when she tripped and practically threw her drink in his face. She was horrified and he was gracious. She gave a clumsy apology and he accepted. She got up to leave with Amanda and he had said, "Don't go." Just like that. Something about the way he had said it had made her hesitate. Amanda waved her goodbye and made a quick exit. She had always wanted Maya to "score" with one of the older college men. Amanda thought that was happening and wanted to pull a quick fade.
The courtship had progressed quickly from there. Greg was attentive, intelligent, driven and sensitive. She loved his sense of humor and thought that he somehow got her. They got to know each other over time and they studied together. They had some classes together - most notably Spanish. Maya was fairly fluent, languages had always come easy to her. Greg struggled with learning Spanish. He admitted to her that in high school he had taken Latin because it was a dead language. Since it was a dead language, no one spoke it and that meant that he would not be required to in order to pass. Once he decided on his major though, he decided that knowing a second language, especially Spanish, would be very helpful. There's no telling what projects he would be working on and who he would be interacting with. Spanish was spoken in many of the local communities around the Chicago area and Greg reasoned that he would do much better in his chosen profession if he could understand Spanish. So they studied together. Which led to lunches, dinners, late night snacks and early morning coffees together.
When Greg graduated in the Spring of 1995, he had proposed to her. Maya accepted, but Greg insisted that they wait until Maya graduated to actually marry. He wanted her to have the career she wanted. He didn't want her to feel pressured into having a family to please him. So they lived together until Maya graduated in the Spring of 1997 with her degree in Journalism. Maya had hopes of securing a career as a hard news journalist at that point. She submitted resumes, went on interviews, and hired headhunters. Unfortunately, for reasons Maya was unable to sort out, she never received a call back on one interview. She tried calling back a few times to a few of them, but as anyone who is job hunting knows, this process is a soul-stealing, grueling, and draining process. Maya began to despair.
Greg tried to cheer her up. He brought her flowers. He called her at home during the day. He tried talking with anyone he knew about any leads. He left little encouraging notes for her in the kitchen, the bathroom, and the livingroom. He even hired a singing telegram service to appear at their home and sing songs to her at random times. Maya should have appreciated all the effort Greg was exerting to encourage her. She did. But she was also aggravated with him. She felt like dead weight in their relationship. Like the stone Sysyphus had to roll up the hill each day, only to watch it roll down again. Greg was just too perfect. He never got angry. He never got impatient. He never suggested that perhaps she should take any job, even one that she thought of as a "paper hat wearing" job.
Eventually Maya did take the "paper hat wearing" job. The bills were rolling in...rent, utilities, student loans, credit card bills, car loans...and the money was NOT rolling in. So Maya went to work in Wendy's. She took a full time shift at the register. The "paper hat wearing" job began to knock down the principal on the student loans, the credit cards and the auto loans. Maya felt a grim sense of accomplishment in this, knowing that she was contributing to their financial stability. But there was no real joy. When she married Greg she should have been elated, but she wasn't. She was worried. Worried because she had found out right before they married that she was pregnant with Kevin. After a brief internal struggle she shared her news with Greg. Greg was, of course, thrilled. He brought home flowers from work. He made dinner for the two ("No, three," Greg claimed that night) of them. He called his parents to let them know that they would soon be grandparents.
"This is wonderful Maya," Marie had said on the phone, "Thank you so very much. You will be an excellent mother. Please call and ask if you need anything." Bob told her that by carrying his grandchild she was doing one of the most valuable things a human being could do...caring for another person. She didn't feel that she was doing anything of any real value however. She loved the idea of being a mother, but felt that this was one of the worst possible times to become one. How could they provide for another human being? They could barely provide for themselves. She couldn't give a child what they needed. Wishing you could did not make it so.
But Maya would do what she could. She loved Kevin from the very start. Before she could feel movement or even see any outward evidence of the life growing within her, Maya was reading books, going to classes, and watching anything on television that addressed delivering a perfectly healthy baby. Maya kept a journal for Kevin of every day she was pregnant. She wanted her child to know what she had been thinking and feeling every day of her pregnancy. She wanted her child to know what was going on in the world while he was developing. She promised herself that Kevin would know he was wanted. He would not have apathetic parents. Greg had to have been the most attentive father-to-be that Maya had ever heard of. He read the books too. He watched videos, attended child-birthing classes, suggested lullaby tapes, Brought Maya catalogues of toys, clothing and other baby items. Greg had baby-proofed the house before Maya was four months pregnant.
She was tired of failing. Tired of spending energy on things that just weren't going to work. She wanted rest, peace and a small amount of joy. She didn't think she would get all those things so she would settle for rest. To not have to care. To not have to try. To not have to have her heart ripped out of her chest again.
She had no idea what to do from there. Her husband had recovered fully thank God. As a result of the events of last summer, Maya had sunk deeper into her depression. She could not believe how selfish and stupid she had been to think that a hitman would have the scruples to just stick to the job he was hired for.
Now what would she do? Maya had no idea if the bounty she had paid for her own head would be used for its intended purpose, or if she should start planning on her own to take care of the situation? There was no real way for her to make contact with him. She didn't really know who he was. She had wanted it that way. So she couldn't back out. He had been more than happy to oblige her desire not to have any more revealing information about him.
"Most of the time, I do not allow those who hire me to ever see me. It saves me from more complicated problems later. Since your target is, shall we say, a bit unusual, I am allowing this one meeting. But only one meeting. The next time you see me, if you see me again at all, it will be right before I finish the job," Maya had shivered when this last comment had been made by the man with the dead-fish eyes.
This man's eyes said that he was soulless."Doesn't it bother you to kill another human being?" Maya asked. She was both fascinated and repulsed by this man's ability to be so removed from what he was doing. "You speak as if you were killing bugs," Maya suggested.
"In a way, I am. Most of the people I am hired to, shall we say, exterminate, act like vermin." Ed took a measured and calm sip of his black coffee. "They do things to those they claim to love that I wouldn't choose to do to a dog," Ed studied Maya's face. "They have no respect for themselves or those around them. They only care about supplying themselves with whatever it is they hunger for. You don't become involved with these people so much as infested with them." Ed sat back on his side of the booth and waited for Maya to respond.
"They're still human beings though, aren't they?" Maya demanded. "They still have a mother and a father, they have people in their lives who love them and need them, and you have no right to take them away. Doesn't it bother you to be causing others this kind of pain?" Maya was offended by this man. The idea that he was not bothered in the slightest by either her or her chosen topic of discussion infuriated her.
"Doesn't it bother you?" Ed shot back at Maya. "You are the one hiring me. I am a tool only. I do no killing until someone asks, no, pays me too. In fact, I would never have chosen this line of work. It chose me. But you chose to do this. So doesn't it bother you?"
Maya wanted to get up and leave this man. She wanted to never be involved with him again. "Perhaps this was a mistake Ed," Maya blurted. "Maybe I shouldn't have asked you to come here. Maybe I should find another method of taking care of this matter," Maya said.
"Too late Maya. I can't let you back out now. I would have before. Before you saw me, but now that you have seen me and could turn me in, I have to complete the job, with your consent or without." Ed sat forward and said, flicking the ash from his cigarette into the ashtray on the table.
Maya felt a little bloom of panic in her belly. She was scared, sure, but she was finally going to follow through on something. She was going to own up to all she had done wrong in her life. Even if this man was telling her there was no backing out, it ultimately hadn't been him to decide that. She knew that would be the case when she insisted on meeting up with him. It was her little insurance to assure that she wouldn't back out this time. There would be no one who could talk her out of this now. It was out of her hands. She had pushed this to the limit and was going to see it through.
The other question that had occurred to Maya during the course of the summer, was this man up to the job? He had screwed up things royally. Maya could not even believe that he had missed his intended target. It would be months before she could rectify the situation. She would need to nurse Greg back to health. Greg had a business to run. He couldn't do it now unless he had a lot of support from Maya. She couldn't turn her back on him, especially since it was her fault that this bumbling fool was in their lives anyway. The other reason it would take months is that her children were traumatized. She couldn't cause more trauma to them right now. Molly was still having nightmares. Kevin's grades were slipping and Mina had confided to Maya that Kevin had seemed distant lately.
God, she couldn't even do this right! She should have offered more money in her ad. That would have drawn someone with more experience perhaps. Now she had to worry about lining things up properly again. At least she wouldn't have to worry about tying up loose ends again. She had already prepared her will, checked on her parents one last tiime and made arrangements to be buried next to Dennis.
Maybe she was jumping to conclusions. This guy was ex-military. He was a marine he had said. He did say that, right? Maya was beginning to doubt her memory of what exactly had been said. It all seemed like it had happened a lifetime ago. She laughed again at the irony in her choice of words. She never thought it would take this long to end her own life. Especially this way. She had hoped it would have been over within a couple of weeks of paying the fee, but here she was approximately one year later. That was one year of closing her eyes, rubbing her temples and pretending not to know what was coming. It was one year of thinking that every drink was her last, every walk across the parking lot after work was a walk to a coffin. Every meal she ate could be poisoned. Each time she was anywhere alone she thought a fire could break out, she could be attacked or she might just be grabbed, never to be seen or heard from again. This was the worst case scenario in Maya's opinion as she felt it was the scenario that caused the most pain for her family in the long run. If they didn't have a body, they would never be able to properly grieve and move on. Maya desperately wanted her family to move on. She did not want them to linger over her memory and worry that she might be alive somewhere out there. The idea was a clean break that was indeed painful, but surviveable. She wanted to be less of a burden on her family, not more. But if she disappeared and were never found they would look for her. That was the way they were. They would set aside as much time as they could manage in their day to day lives to look for her. Their day-to-day lives would probably become looking for her for a very long time.
Why couldn't this man just shoot her in the back of the head and get it over with? This business of waiting for it to happen was frustrating, exhausting and it was fraying her nerves something terrible. She had already committed to the idea that she was going to die, so why couldn't he keep up his end and just do the job?
Chapter Four
I'm not stupid. They think I am, but I know more than they think. I hear their conversations. I see the looks they think I don't see. They think I don't hear them when I am in my room, but I do. I hear their conversations through the heating vent. The discussions over my education, Molly's education and whether or not I am on drugs. I have heard surprise vacation plans, thoughts of selling our home, and financial discussions. I hear other things too. I hear their sex. I am not trying to...I know they want privacy. Believe me, I want them to have their privacy. Do you know what it does to hear your parents doing things that you're not even sure anyone should do? Although I'm not completely sure what they are doing. I don't hear conversation when they are having their sex. They don't talk much. I hear kissing. I hear sighs, moans and murmurs.
At least I know they love each other. They aren't faking that. They fake a lot of things, but they aren't faking that they love each other. I should feel good about that, and under other circumstances, I might. But I got in the way. That's not a problem though. At least it isn't one I can't take care of.
I found the note. I know I shouldn't have read it. But I really didn't know what it was. It was not even the note itself. It was just evidence of the note. My mom is a smart lady, but she didn't think this through. When she wrote her note it transferred through to the paper in the notebook below. I didn't even find it on purpose. I'm one of those artsy-fartsy kids. I wear black and draw a lot. I was just trying to find out what it would look like if I rubbed the charcoal across the graph paper. Would I like it as a background for my latest idea for a drawing. When I rubbed the charcoal, it revealed my mom's writing. I know it was my mom's because she is the only one who writes much long-hand. She has pretty handwriting too. My dad only uses his handwriting to sign permission slips, write notes to the teacher, or sign for a package for the UPS guy.
A better person would have thrown the note out. But I didn't. I want to know more about who my mom is and what makes her tick. She doesn't seem like a particularly happy person and I have always wanted to know why. She does her best to hide it, but she doesn't want a family. So she's trying to kill herself and make it look like an accident. I have no idea why she cares if it looks like an accident or not, but she does. She has spent the last two years trying to work it out so she will be dead and no one will really know why.
Last year she tried to get hit by a car. She faked breaking down by the side of the road. Instead of winding up dead she earned herself a broken leg. It was broken in two places. How do I know she wanted to be dead? I was being driven home by my grandfather at the time, in another part of town. I shouldn't know any of this. I had been receiving extra help after school for math. So I should have no idea. But I do. Mom said that her tire went flat. The truth is that she punctured it somehow. I looked at her tires later on. If a nail or something in the road had done the damage it would have been pierced from underneath. But the damage was to the sides of the tire.
I know what you're going to ask. Why do I think it was her? Why not someone else? Why a suicide and not a murder? Well I will tell you. It may sound harsh to you, but my logic is sound. My first reason? Who would want her dead? My father? I already told you, he loves her. He's not faking that. I know. I can't completely explain all my reasons for knowing that, but you will just have to believe me when I say he loves her and would never do that. The other reason is that he couldn't have done it. He was away on business. Yes, I did check if he really was away. I called him for help on my physics homework. I'm a kid, not an idiot. Who else could have tried to kill her? My grandparents? I doubt it. My grandfather is a kindly old guy who frets over hurting a spider. My grandmother is like the mother mom never had. Mom's own mother had lots of drinking problems and disappeared from her life somewhere between college and marrying my dad. Her dad doesn't like Dad and refused to come to their wedding. So Mom has had Dad's parents to rely on. The only other regular person in Mom's life besides Molly and I is Auntie Amanda. She's not our real aunt, but Mom has been friends with her since college. No matter what you may think of Auntie Amanda's moral standards, she would never harm Mom. She's too positive an energy. So that leaves Mom. It's the only logical explanation. She gave up being happy for us. This made her sad. She doesn't want to live. I saw it in the letter, so don't try to talk me out of this.
Molly is so clueless. But she should be. She's only seven. I don't want her to know about this. A kid her age should be enjoying being a kid her age. Having friends, riding her bike, talking and thinking about horses, not liking boys. You know, all the normal kid stuff. And Molly IS enjoying all the normal kid stuff. She has a friend named Amy. Amy is her "partner in crime" as Dad and Mom like to say. Amy is the one who talks Molly into trying things, doing things, and saying things. She has helped Molly to be more Molly. To speak her mind. Amy has also taught Molly to jump rope, to ride her bike, and to play baseball. They trade Pokeman cards, watch Hannah Montana videos and play Trouble and Sorry together all the time.
So Mom has managed to fool Molly. But not me. Never me. I wish she had fooled me. I don't want to know this. That my Mom is so unhappy being a mom that she would rather kill herself than live life as my Mom. Eventually she will succeed you know. It may take her a while, but she will find the combination of events that she needs to converge upon her to commit suicide. Give her time. She has been trying for a while now. There have been several attempts over the last couple of years, but she has done all she could possibly think of to make them look like accidents. She's pretty good too. How do I know this? You may ask. I know that she's pretty good because she fooled me for a long time. Until I found this "evidence," I mentioned earlier. Once I did, I started thinking about all the accidents Mom has been having lately. I began to put together the scenarios that seemed to be necessary in order for things to happen the way she has explained they did.
First, she tried asphixyating herself. She closed up the garage, went up in the unfinished loft, and tried to let things happen by starting the car. If Dad hadn't tried to surprise Mom by coming home early, she would have succeeded then. But he did. He came home with roses, and an invitation to dinner. He was planning to "sweep her off her feet" as he tried to every few months. He had made arrangements for Grandma and Grandpa to watch us, and he was planning to take Mom away for the weekend.
Well, Mom was away for the weekend alright. It just wasn't what he had planned. He came home, found the garage closed up, the Suburban running, and no sign of Mom. He ran all through the house calling her name while he left the doors to the garage wide open to air out. When he came back from the house he flew up the stairs of the loft over the garage and found her. She was unconscious. He called an ambulance. The ambulance arrived, its sirens warbling its troubled music, and by then she was coughing and awake. Her face looked pale and her lips were a bluish tinge, but she was awake.
Mom spent the weekend at the hospital undergoing tests. Grandma and Grandpa took care of us, and Dad spent his time flying between us and her. To the worried questions and looks Dad answered that Mom had been upstairs looking for the Christmas decorations she told Mrs. Desjardins she would donate to the nursing home in town. They were in one of the boxes above the garage, and Mom had been looking to grab them and throw them in the truck. She was hoping to bring them by the nursing home that afternoon. She said that she had her remote car starter with her and that perhaps she had bumped it while moving boxes. Since there was soundproofing between the garage ceiling and the loft floor, she hadn't heard the car start. When she began to feel tired she thought it had been just because she had been shifting so many boxes around, not because she was carbon monoxide poisoned. She had just lay down amongst the bags and boxes of clothing, thinking she could just take a quick cat-nap. That was all. If you believed her. I swallowed her explanation without question at the time. But once I found her note, everything changed. I began to think of that day frequently. It was like having a sore spot in your mouth. Your tongue just couldn't leave it alone. It kept poking at it. That's what my mind was doing to this situation. Poking. Prodding. Testing. I began to think of just how very unlikely her explanation really was.
Mrs. Desjardin had asked for those decorations last year. Why did she all of a sudden feel such a driving need to get them to her now? It was May. May was hardly a time when people were thinking about the holidays. I doubt Mrs. Desjardin even remembered that conversation with my mother about the nursing home receiving them. If she did remember, I'm sure she would have put my mom off, as this is the time of year that the staff at the nursing home tried to get the residents to go outside and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine. I know that the staff would not be looking for the decorations, because that would mean they had to sort and store them. They wouldn't want to do that. I knew that because my girlfriend, Mina, was a candy striper there and she told me the staff often complained about these kinds of tasks. They tried to get the residents outside as much as possible as there would be less stress that way. The residents seemed to be more cooperative when they were outside in the fresh air. There was less arguing over medications, less stress over what was served for meals, and less loneliness due to families who didn't visit. When the residents were brought outside they seemed more at peace. So I doubt that the staff, including Mrs. Desjardin, would want any task that kept them inside when they could be outside enjoying the weather and NOT fighting.
She got rid of the dog too. That should have been another clue. Murphy was her dog. She bought him, she groomed him, she walked him and she loved him. Passionately. So when she announced last year that she was finding another family to adopt Murphy, that should have alerted us all that something was wrong. Giving Murphy away was like giving away a family member. Mom said that she just didn't have time to care for a dog these days and that Murphy would be happier with another family who could give him the attention that he needed. If any of us had really thought about it, that should have seemed out of character for Mom. She didn't just give members of the family away. She was fiercely loyal and when she committed to something, she never gave up. Giving Murphy away just didn't feel right even then. But we were all busy with our own lives at the time. We didn't take the time to really think about it. Answers were given. Even if they were half-hearted, lame answers, they were answers. We had something to file away in the backs of our minds to answer the superficial "Why?" question that we should all have looked more closely at.
I don't want my mom to be unhappy. She doesn't want to be a mom. I love her. So I am going to get rid of her problem. Me. You might be thinking that isn't going to get rid of her problem. You'd be right. But I would never be able to hurt Molly. Even though Molly can be a brat, she's my kid sister. I couldn't do anything to her. Molly will have to decide on her own what she will do as she gets older. But I can at least get rid of half of her problem. The half that is me. Maybe she won't stress out over being a mom when I'm gone. It's easier to parent one child than it is to parent two. You can act all horrified as I know some would if I made the suggestion to anyone, but raising one child is way easier than raising more than one. Everyone says so. Everyone who has more than one child that is. You spend less money. You can focus on the needs of one child, you have more time to yourself and your hobbies. You can put more energy into your relationships. There is less worry about where everyone is and what they are doing and with who. When you have one child you have fewer illnesses to worry about, fewer parent/teacher conferences, and fewer demands on your time, energy and patience.
There may be some who would try to talk me out of it by arguing that my mom loves me. Don't you think that your death will devastate her? That would be the argument. I thought about this question for months. I watched her. I listened. I watched other moms. I listened. I watched Dad. I listened. I listened to the way Grandma talks about Dad. My conclusion: I think Mom loves me as much as she is capable, which unfortunately isn't much. She isn't capable of loving that much. She is missing something. Don't get me wrong, she is kind. She is generous. She is affectionate. But she is missing something. I can't quite put my finger on exactly what it is, but its wrapped up with loss somehow.
I asked her once about a picture I found in the attic. She told me it was her brother Dennis. When I asked her about Dennis, she wouldn't say any more other than that he had died when they were kids. She wasn't harsh, didn't tell me never to ask again, but something in her panicked when I asked her about him. I never asked about him again. The picture disappeared. I don't know if she destroyed it or hid it, but it wasn't where I found it the next time I looked.
You might try to argue me out of believing she doesn't love me by pointing to my father. You would say that I said myself that she is capable of loving him. A lot. That is true, but the difference between that love and the love of a child is this: loving a lover, spouse, friend or partner is easier than loving a child in my opinion. Why? Because when you love a child, they oftentimes don't love you back. They are growing. They are changing. They often don't understand what you, as parents are trying to do for them and instead feel you are trying to do something to them. So they rebel against what you want. They say mean things. They resist you. A spouse, lover, or friend does not do that. They don't buck you, force you to repeat yourself, prove yourself or follow through. There are so many very tiring ways a child forces you to prove that you love them. If you are capable of really loving them, you jump through these proverbial hoops so your progeny can believe that they are loveable individuals. That they deserve to be loved. A spouse, lover or friend loves you without requiring the acrobatics. At least in a mature relationship.
Chapter Five
Mina was worried. Kevin was up to something and she couldn't quite figure out what. He had become distant lately. He wasn't getting his work done. That wasn't like Kevin. He was religious about meeting deadlines. Lately, he seemed to forget that he had a deadline for the comics he was working on. She had been up to his room with him lately and had casually joked that it seemed he would never finish his latest project. He made some lame excuses about having a creative block and needing to let it sit for a bit, but Mina knew better. Kevin usually had his creative blocks after Christmas. Not before. She had been with him since she was twelve, and she knew the flow of his creative juices for longer than that. The only thing that ever really distracted Kevin from his comic art was the new stuff he got for his comic art for Christmas. He would get a new set of inking pens or an airbrush set and he would be preoccuppied for a few weeks.
Usually, after he figured out how the new stuff could be integrated into what he was doing he was back at work. But not this year. His new stuff sat, unopened. The comic art he had been working on sat on his light table with the Galley proofs of the previous months.
Should she ask Kevin's parents if they had noticed anyting wrong? Mina thought about this. Kevin's parents were cool. Busy people, but really cool. Both his mom and dad did whatever they could to help Kevin accomplish whatever he wanted to. They really cared. But this caring sometimes meant that they worried too much. They became to distraught over Kevin (and Molly) too quickly. Mina thought that perhaps until she had a bit more to hang her hat on, a few more details from Kevin perhaps, she should probably wait to raise concerns.
Would Molly know anything? Maybe Mina should ask her. She thought about this. Molly was only seven. Even if she did know anything, she was fairly likely to forget it unless it pertained to her directly. That's just how Molly's seven-year-old mind worked. Sweet kid, but if it didn't affect her directly, she didn't really pay attention.
Who else might know? Grandma Marie? Grandpa Bob? Not likely. Kevin loved his grandparents, but he didn't confide in them.
The only other person Mina could think of was Scott, Kevin's best friend. If something had been going on, Kevin might confide in Scott. Mina thought that perhaps she would pay Scott a visit.
Feeling better now that she had a direction to pursue, Mina headed for the door. She felt sure that Scott would know something about what was going on with Kevin. He had to.
They were hanging out at Scott's house. Drinking sodas and shooting pool. Mina was beating Scott. Normally she would be rubbing that fact in, but today, neither of them seemed to even notice when a ball went into the pocket or not.
"Yeah, I've thought Kevin was acting weird too," Scott lined up a shot. "He barely even responded in Art class to Herman's comments on his oil painting." Herman was the art teacher, as in Mr. Herman. Kevin had turned in an oil painting and Mr. Herman had said it was rubbish of the worst kind. Kevin normally would have argued with the teacher and pointed out the techniques he had used, but lately he had just accepted the critique and moved on to the next topic.
Chapter Six
She has no idea that I know. I want to tell her but I just don't know how to without humiliating her. My wife is an intensely proud woman. She needs control of things. You wouldn't know it, but her sense that she is in control is one of the things that centers her. I guess its a way for her to endure the chaos she feels. I have no idea why she feels such chaos. She has never trusted me enough to open up about that. Given time she will though. I just need to be patient with her, and believe that she will eventually come to understand that she can trust me. Before I and my family were a part of her life, she didn't have anyone that she could trust. Living life without trusting someone must be hard.
Me, I've been fortunate. I'm one of the few individuals who has grown into adulthood and has lived to see two people love each other and stay together. My parents have been married 45 years and they still love and respect each other. I think that is the secret. Respect. When you respect each other you both know that even if mistakes are made, they aren't intentional. You both know that the other person means only the best for you. So you can overlook their foibles, and they can overlook yours. At least that is what I am fervently hoping it means.
I love Maya more than anyone I have ever loved. She is kind, she is beautiful and she is good. There aren't too many in life who successfully combine those things, but she has managed to do that without artifice. She makes it look effortless and desireable.
But she isn't happy. I don't really know why, but there is a deep pain in Maya's past. She has never spoken of it while awake, but she often moans about Dennis in her sleep. I have asked her in the past who Dennis is. She just changes the subject. Dennis, whoever he is, is off limits for now. I will find out eventually, but for now, I am content to wait until she is ready to share.
Greg shifted in his seat uncomfortably. He sometimes worried that Dennis was someone she was involved with on the side. She was so secretive about Dennis, but an affair would be so out of character for Maya...wouldn't it? Besides, Greg reasoned, when would she have time to have an affair? He laughed at his own insecurity. With the schedule of meetings and lunchdates and such, when exactly would Maya have time to cheat on him? He didn't really believe that she wanted to, but sometimes, in an academic way Greg would play the "What if?" game with himself. Maya was, after all, a beautiful, desirable woman. Who wouldn't want someone as beautiful and accomplished as she was? So, what if Maya was having an affair? When would she be meeting this person? In the morning? Not likely. She drove the children to school every day after making them a hot breakfast. She made sure that both Kevin and Molly had a tasty and nutritious lunch to bring with them to school. After she brought them to school with their lunches, Maya would head to work at the gallery. She usually had a meeting scheduled with her staff to review any receptions, dinners or auctions that the gallery might be hosting that week. After the staff meetings she filled her day with drilling down the details. Maya was a stickler for the details, and wouldn't rest until everything was perfectly in place. She would make phone calls, meet with caterers and go over guest lists. She would talk with the artists that she was currently trying to promote and work with them to come up with the displays to feature their artworks. After these meetings and planning sessions in the mornings, the afternoons were often filled with meeting with philanthropists, socialites and entreupeneurs. Greg supposed that one of these people were the most likely to have a tryst with Maya. But Greg didn't really believe that Maya would do that. He trusted her loyalty and faithfulness. Her wedding vows had been made serioulsly.
How long do I wait? Should I try to find out on my own? I don't know. I've thought about checking up on her, but I just can't bring myself to do it. I love her. I trust her. I respect her. Checking up on her would feel like I didn't feel any of those things.
Greg thought about these things. He contemplated them most when driving to and from work. The relationship with Maya was a complicated and confusing area of his life. He loved her. He respected her. He thought the work she did was amazing and to have the uncanny ability that she did to identify who a specific artist needed to be in contact with was a huge asset to her line of work. Not only could Maya identify who her current artist needed to be in contact with, but she somehow always managed to have a connection to that person. She could confidently arrange a meeting with almost anyone. Maya had dinner with the social elite. She smoozed. She rubbed elbows with the top eschelons of society and held her own.
When she was working, she was a warm, vivacious individual who drew onlookers like moths drew to a flame. Greg had attended several of these "smoozing" opportunities, and it had even resulted in a few jobs for his company. Greg preferred however, not to attend. He knew Maya was working the room, but oftentimes it appeared she was flirting with some of the high rollers at the party and he was a jealous man. He managed to control himself most times, but he did not like to see his wife being oogled over. None of the interactions so far were anything to worry about, but Maya allowed an arm to rest on her waist a bit too long, she might allow a longer "social" kiss than Greg would like, and he would become angry. They never fought about this because Greg never brought it up. He knew that Maya was faithful and that these flirtations really had more to do with making the clientele comfortable and happy than they did with any real suggestion of affair.
Some might say that Greg was unsupportive of Maya's career. If that were true, it was only in the most subtle of ways. It was in the way that Greg just could not ever seem to extricate himself from a meeting to pick up the kids. It always had to be Maya who made excuses at the office. Greg would take time off when necessary, but he would mention how much of a crimp it had put into his day endlessly. Greg never knew his children's schedules, what medicines they were on or which children were going to birthday parties. That was considered a "Maya" thing. Greg things included mowing the lawn, fixing the shower, and helping Kevin with his algebra.
There was something odd about Greg's relationship with Maya too. He found that over the years, Maya had cooled in her affection for him. It wasn't something that Greg thought that Maya even noticed. If she had been directly asked, she would tell you how much she truly loved Greg. She would tell you what a wonderful father and good man Greg was. Those things were all true. But for some reason that Greg had been unable to fathom, a gulf had widened between the two of them. She seemed to want to cuddle less and less. She rarely would sit and chat with him over a glass of wine like they used to. Rarely did either of them have the time for any kind of sex life. That seemed like a distant memory to Greg. Greg was unsure if this was due to some undercurrent of trouble in their relationship or just exhaustion due to the demands on a husband and wife who both had careers and had two children.
Greg would be surprised to hear that Maya thought about this same issue frequently. Maya loved Greg deeply. She did, however, find herself increasingly aggravated with him. She would find her temper running short and snap at him. The oddest thing for her was that she didn't know why. She couldn't tell you what specifically rubbed her the wrong way, but lately, there seemed to be many things that rubbed her the wrong way. She usually chalked up her irritation to being over tired, stressed about work, or otherwise maxed out. Maya rarely gave credence to the complaints she had about her husband. I mean, what right did she have to complain about such an amazing man? He gave so much of himself to his family. He had given so much in the past to take care of her.
When Greg had graduated college, he had immediately found a place for them to move in together so Maya wouldn't have to struggle to pay her rent all alone. While other guys Greg's age were backpacking through Europe or skiing in the Alps, Greg was creating a home for Maya. He would work with contractors and negotiate deals late into every night so Maya and he could afford the things that they needed. Maya had struggled to find work, but that had been okay with Greg. He always smiled, he was always positive. Whenever Maya was feeling low because she had failed yet again to secure a position, Greg would always be there with an assuring word or a kindness to lift her up.
When Maya's interests in art began to develop into more of a career possibility, Greg would discuss artists with her even though Maya knew that Greg really wasn't all that interested in art. He knew what he liked, and he liked what he liked and had no idea why people liked some of the other stuff that Maya was interested in. Even though he didn't understand it, Greg would still discuss various pieces of art with Maya. That had been the beginning of her life as an art dealer. Maya had been working part time as a journalist for the Chicago Times. She covered things like the conservation commission, school board, and health board meetings for the area. She also covered the police and fire station beat for some of the suburbs. This meant that Maya met many key players in the socio-political scene. She often found herself discussing art with these same people, often while at lunch or dinner to discuss a hot political issue. Instead of coming out of her meetings with these people with a meaty story or two about the political hot potato of the moment, Maya oftentimes found that she had talked whomever she was with into purchasing a reproduction of whatever artist they had been discussing.
When this had been happening off and on for a couple years, Amanda had joked that perhaps Maya should draw a commission from these artists for her advocacy efforts. Maya found herself thinking about this comment often, and soon enough she was developing a business plan for her art gallery.
Chapter Seven
Kevin hurriedly copied down numbers from the back of another phone. The numbers he was copying down were the numbers that the phone company used to allot the correct number of minutes to each prepaid handset. He had learned this when he was going through his brief orientation before being allowed to work the kiosk at the mall.
It had been sheer luck that Kevin noticed Ed. He didn't know his name of course, but he had noticed him. At first, this guy seemed like any other regular to the kiosk. He poked around looking at all the accessories one could purchase for use with a phone. He asked Kevin a few questions about the phones. Which ones were on family plans, what the family plans included. Did this or that phone come blue-tooth enabled? Were GPS devices standard as part of the phone, or did you need to purchase that separately?
While this guy had been asking all these questions, Kevin had noticed a few things. First, the guy had no wedding ring. He supposed that he could still be married and have kids, but for some reason he didn't think so. The few items that this guy carried were expensive. Not the kind of thing a family man could typically afford. So what was this guy's story?
Kevin had seen this guy somewhere too, he was sure of it. He almost made the connection a couple of times earlier in the day, as this man's face kept popping into his head. While Kevin was jotting down an order for one of the local businesses for a large number of disposable phones in black ink on a notepad it came to him. His eyes popped wide open. The school! Last summer! When Dad had been shot. He had quietly slipped out the back of the cafeteria while the police officers had been taking statements. Kevin had tried to alert the police to this guy's disappearing act, but they had been too busy to pay attention to him. He had let it go, thinking that it was probably nothing. Probably some guy that just didn't want to have to hang around for hours for something that he couldn't help with.
This guy looked slightly different. But it was the same guy Kevin was sure. That guy had been bald and had a moustache. Dark hair on the 'stache, greying five o'clock shadow on his head. This guy had long, thick, black hair. No moustache. But he was greying at the temples. Could this be the same guy? Kevin bit his lip in concentration. Then he saw his eyes. Dead fish eyes. No real emotion there. Kevin remembered that guy from the cafeteria. He had eyes that said he would kill you just as soon as look at you. And serious biceps. This guy works out for sure Kevin thought.
So this guy had been at the back of Kevin's mind for months. He'd resurface every now and then, usually to buy a cell phone or two. The prepaid ones. He might buy a couple of other items he claimed were gifts for nephews, but he always bought prepaid cell phones. He was not the type of uncle Kevin thought most people would probably like to have around small children. So Kevin found himself hoping that if this guy really did have nephews they were of the grown up variety. Never an issue if left alone with Uncle Cell phone.
"You DO take cash, right?" Uncle Cell Phone said in a rather irritated tone of voice. He was holding out a roll of bills to cover the four cell phones that he had just purchased. "C'mon c'mon kid!" Kevin started. He didn't know how long he had been thinking and not noticing his customer. Hopefully not too long. He didn't want to catch any crap from his boss Mario. Mario was a real class-A jerk. He took every opportunity to come down on Kevin and to dock him for his pay. Kevin could have filed a complaint as Mario had done a number of things that qualified as "over the line," but Kevin felt it was a challenge to him personally to put up with Mario's brand of nonsense without letting it outwardly ruffle him. He was on a mission to let Mario how very little what he did mattered to Kevin.
"I'm sorry for the wait sir. Would you like a gift receipt for these?" Kevin said, brushing his hair out of his eyes and flicking a quick thumb towards the phones.
"No thanks. That won't be necessary," was the reply."Just bag them."
Kevin put the phones in a bag with the usual wad of registration cards, instructions for use and phone numbers to call (ah, the irony never ended Kevin thought) in case the phone(s) did not work."Have a nice day sir," he said.
The customer just grabbed his purchase, bobbed his head in response and left the building. Kevin noticed that he was wearing almost entirely black clothing. He noticed something else too. A tatoo on his arm. Siemper Fie wasn't it? Wasn't that the Marine saying? Was this guy a Marine? Maybe he could get some information about this guy if he was a Marine. Mina's dad was a police officer. He had access to databases that might be helpful if he could be convinced it was necessary to access them.
Kevin took the bills that Uncle Cell phone had given him and dusted them with baby powder. He covered the powder with scotch tape and lifted the finger prints off the bills. Then he put the scotch tape swatches with the finger prints on them in an envelope and slipped that envelope into his backpack. He would deal with those later. He shook the baby powder that remained off the billfold and put it in the cash register. The last thing he needed was Mario's curiosity. Or suspicion. If Mario saw baby powder on the bills he would probably think Kevin was trying to steal from him somehow. Kevin snorted laughter to himself.
For now, he had to call Mina and talk to her.
Mina showed up at the kiosk twenty minutes later. She shifted from foot to foot as she spoke with Kevin, occassionally swiping her long bangs out of her eyes. She reminded Kevin of Chrissy Hines of the Pretenders. She was beautful and he thought that he might love her. He might love her not because of her physical beauty, although that was certainly a help. Kevin thought that he loved Mina because Mina didn't try to be anything other than what she was. There was no pretense about Mina. If you didn't like what you saw, she didn't care. She was self-assured and could be in-your-face at times.
"Why do you need my Dad to run these fingerprints?" Mina asked.
"This guy might be causing trouble Mina. Real trouble. But I don't really know anything for sure yet. I need to check him out. Can you help me out?" Kevin was worried. Mina was mature for her age. If she thought this was some melodramatic nonsense, she would say so. Kevin had not explained what he had found to Mina. Although he trusted Mina, he found that he was embarrassed to share this knowledge with her. The knowledge that he was the reason his mother was so unhappy. That he was the cause. He also knew that Mina would never be a part of the solution willingly.
"Of course I'll help you, you big doofus," Mina punched Kevin's arm. "What kind of trouble do you think he may be causing?" Mina asked.
"I can't really say right now Mina," Kevin countered. "If I'm wrong, I would have created a big scene over nothing and I don't want to do that." Kevin paused to see if Mina would accept that. He hated lying, but felt that if he could minimize how much he was lying, Mina could forgive him later. Maybe.
"I'll let this go for now Kevin," Mina looked at him directly. "I think you are holding something back, but for now I will let it go. I expect you to tell me everything as soon as you can," Mina's eyes were piercing. "No kidding around."
Kevin agreed to this feeling like the world's biggest liar. He knew that over the next few days he would probably die, but he didn't want to worry Mina with this information. She wouldn't let him out of her sight if she thought he was up to something that could bring him harm. He wanted her nowhere near him when all hell broke loose. He would leave her a note to explain things. To explain that he wasn't trying to commit suicide, that it was just his death was a necessary evil. To protect his mother.
Mina was walking down the hall, away from the phone kiosk. She had the lifted fingerprints in her bag. She was thinking about how she could get her dad to let her use the database or how she could convince him to look up this dude and give her the information. Mina's dad was a bit protective and the minute he knew that she wanted this information he would want to know why. Mina didn't really know why. In a way, that was a good thing. Since Kevin didn't tell her there was no way she would spill it to her dad. She sensed that Kevin wanted this kept close to the vest until he had the information he needed. Once he had a chance to absorb the information and decide what to do, Mina was sure that she would bring the proper authorities in to help. Besides, she reasoned, Kevin said himself that it could really be nothing. I mean, what could possibly happen to Kevin in this boring town? Mina felt that far too many adults stuck their noses into their business as it was. So instead of asking her dad, Mina decided that she would just get the infomation herself. It wouldn't be a problem, so long as no one got too interested.
Mina's dad Carl went to lunch around the same time every day. If he was in the office he would seek to go out. Mina would take this as her opportunity to use the database. She knew his passwords and access codes to get into the database. It would only take her a couple minutes with a modem to break into the databases she needed. There were a couple of empty offices at the end of the precinct, so Mina would just set up shop in there for a few minutes. If anyone saw her in there she could just claim she was looking for a quiet space to do her homework. No big deal.
So it was settled. Mina would bypass asking for her dad's help and just collect the information herself. It would cause less problems this way anyway. If Mina asked her dad and he agreed to do this for her it could be a problem for him if he got caught. It was unlikely that he would get caught, but nevertheless if he didn't know that Mina was accessing this information, no one could claim that he was misusing city property. He could claim ignorance and there would be no ethical dilemna. He really would be ignorant of any wrongdoing.
The other issue that this solved for Mina was that she wanted to know what was going on. Kevin seemed so distant lately. He was trying to protect Mina from something she feared. What she didn't know, but she didn't want Kevin to endure whatever it was alone. If she accessed the information herself she would know what Kevin knew. He couldn't hide it from her. There was less chance of him being so silent that way.
She'd have to act quickly though. Mina was direct, but so was her dad. He was a detective and he would know immediately if she was hiding something from him. If he saw her at dinner he would know that she was trying to keep something from him. He would want to know what she had done with her day and with whom. He would want to know if her homework was done. He would want to go over it with her. And if she delayed with any of her answers she would have the third degree to endure before she could get back to Kevin. So she decided that since she couldn't run that particular gauntlet successfully that she would have to make plans to avoid him until she was prepared to answer his questions.
Mina dialed Cissy. Cissy and Mina had been friends since kindegarten. Lately they had been hanging out with a different crowd, but Mina still felt that Cissy was as close as a sister. She hoped Cissy felt the same and that she would cover for her. She waited for Cissy to answer her phone. It rang once. It rang twice. Then Cissy picked up. Cissy and Mina talked. Kevin's fate was sealed unintentionally by two young girls trying to trick one police detective into thinking they were together.
Cissy's boyfriend was hanging all over her. He kept trying to get her to hang up on Mina. "C'mon babe, you can talk to her later. I'm here now," Jacob crooned in her ear. He kissed her neck and ran his hand down her jeans clad leg. They were lying on the couch in Cissy's house. Her dad was out working and her mom was visiting friends. Cissy and Jacob had lately taken to making out at her house. It was private. It was convenient. The only problem for Cissy had been that lately Jacob wasn't satisfied with just kissing and touching. His hungry eyes begged for more, and he was getting restless with Cissy. He kept telling her, "I can't wait forever babe. I'm a human being with needs. I love you, but I'm only human. How long do you expect me to wait?" Cissy didn't feel ready to go any further with Jacob. Sure he was cute, but what did she really know about love? She was fifteen. She was still trying to figure out the rest of her life, nevermind who she would spend the rest of it with. Jacob said he could live with that, but that he was an affectionate man and wouldn't be able to supress himself forever.
Cissy had been very worried about this. She didn't want to go any further with Jacob yet, but didn't know how to put him off. He did have needs, right? She could understand him being impatient with her. But she still didn't want to do something now that she would regret later. She hadn't spoken of her troubles with anyone. She didn't know how to discuss this. Who would she discuss this with anyway? Her father? Hah. That was a laugh. If she even hinted that this type of conversation was going on Jacob would be up on charges of statutory rape. Her mother? There was no way that she would discuss this with her. Her mother, oddly enough, would probably side with Jacob. She would be of the opinion that Cissy was being a tease. That she should either fish or cut bait. "Men don't like to be toyed with darling," her mother had said once. "If you want to keep them happy, you need to give them what they want, even if you don't want to sometimes."
That left Scott or Mina. Cissy just couldn't bring this up with Scott. He was a guy. He would never understand her position. Mina was a possibility, but Mina was so cut and dry. Cissy thought that perhaps Mina would understand even less. She would ask what Cissy wanted, and then say, "So what's the problem? Tell this creep to keep his hands off."
The problem with that was that Cissy loved this creep. At least she thought she did. She knew that she didn't want him to break up with her. She wanted to be affectionate with him too. Cissy was an affectionate person. She just didn't feel ready for the "big" time yet.
So while conflicted, Cissy welcomed this call. She sat up, answered her phone and smiled when she heard Mina's voice on the other end."Hi Mina! How are you?" Cissy gushed.
Jacob groaned and sat up, buttoning his jeans. Now he would never get any.
"Sure Mina, you're welcome here any time. Yeah I can meet you at the mall. Let me just tell Jacob. Yeah, Jacob's here. No. You're not interrupting anything," Cissy bit her lower lip and spun on her heel and headed for her closet. She needed her jacket (and something to distract her from the disappointed look on Jacob's face.)"Give me about twenty minutes to get down there, okay? Okay. Bye." Cissy closed the clamshell-style phone and slipped it into the front pocket of her painted on jeans.
"Jacob, Mina said she needs me to help her with something. You want to come? Or do you want to meet up later?" Cissy said this last kind of tentatively. "You want to get dinner together later?"
"Yeah. Sure. Dinner." Jacob grabbed his sweatshirt and sneakers. "I get the hint. We're done." He angrily laced up his sneakers. "No problem." He grabbed his keys out of the pocket of his sweatshirt. "Some day you're going to grow up Cissy. I just hope you aren't all alone when you do." Jacob stomped out of the house and slammed the door.
I guess a ride to the mall is out of the question Cissy thought to herself sheepishly. She took out her phone and called Amanda. Amanda would give her a ride Cissy was sure. Mina needed her and Cissy would take a taxi if she needed to in order to meet up with her, but Amanda picked up her phone on the first ring.
"Hi Cissy. You need a ride to the mall? Sure. Give me ten minutes. I'll be there." Good. Cissy didn't want this to be any more complicated than necessary. Amanda was a real lifesaver. She was always there when you needed her.
Chapter Eight
It was really too bad. He had meant only to do the job and then leave town. But the boy had seen him. The boy was connecting the dots. He had most of the picture Ed was fairly certain. Whether he knew the details of the plan didn't matter. The kid had noticed him too often. He recognized that he had seen Ed more than a time or two. It was beginning to be a problem. Ed didn't like problems. He was only comfortable with solutions. Really only one solution. It was the answer to most anything Ed couldn't figure out.
It was a good thing there weren't too many things in Ed's life that he couldn't figure out. He lived a pretty spartan life. He didn't own any more than about 5 shirts, 3 pair of underwear, 3 pair of socks and a jacket. The most expensive items Ed owned were his weapons. He spent a fair amount of cash cleaning, caring for and supplying his weapons. Ed didn't own or drive a car. He could drive if he needed to, but if he needed to, he rented a car. When you used fake ids and such, it was much harder to trace someone who rented a car. Ed kept his cash handy (except what he was banking for retirement in an offshore account). Anything that Ed needed could be bought and discarded when the job was done or he had otherwise decided he had no use for it.
That was how he treated most relationships as well. They were easily discarded. Prostitutes were easier to manage than girlfriends. Ed had only had one girlfriend. Janice. Janice had latched herself onto Ed about five years ago. It had been about four and a half since he had thought about her. He had tried to avoid her, but she always seemed to find him. The last time Ed had seen her, he was in a museum observing his next hit. The target had been a sonofabitch who had been cheating on his wife for years. He thought she didn't know. He had a little honey stashed away in Queens, New York. Wifey knew and was furious. So was the little honey, as she had thought the target was single. Ed was watching this balding, unattractive but rich individual eat canapes while trying to appear knowledgeable about Pablo Picasso (at least enough to get some from his honey later). Ed was trying to blend into the scenery and Janice plunked herself down next to him and said, "Whatcha doin?"
Ed responded with a terse, "Screw."
Janice, not one to be treated this way for anyone, said, "Who the HELL do you think you are? Answer me!"
Things would have been fine if Janice had not drawn unnecessary attention. But that was just not her way. "I asked you a question Eds!" Eds was how Janice referred to Ed when she was angry. She thought it was irritating to Ed. She was right.
"Will you just go home? We can hang out later," Ed had tried to calmly insist that Janice join him later. "I'm working."
"Oh, it's like that? You think you can treat me like THIS and I will come over later?" her voice was becoming shrill."I don't think so. Oh no. Not on your life!" she laughed.
Then she began to hit Ed. It was a bit embarrassing. No, it was humiliating to be treated like some dumb fool by her. And she had drawn attention. People were staring. That just would not do.
He got up from the bench where he had been working. He jotted a couple of hasty notes in his notebook before focusing his attention back on Janice. "Fine." One word. That was all Ed said. Bit through his clenched teeth, Ed gently placed his hand on Janice's waist and guided her through the crowd. He forced a smile while under the watchful eyes of "them." Curious onlookers, rubberneckers, you know the type. Ed was very aware of the type. You know, they were usually the ones who had to stop to see the damage in a highway accident, selfishly unaware of how far they were backing up traffic to sneak a peek at the carnage or lack thereof.
Because Janice had drawn the scrutiny of the crowd, Ed decided that she must go. But Ed was patient. He was methodical. Ed did not put a bullet in her pretty head. He didn't give her a "hot shot," or even stab her, although while at the gallery all of these options rapid-fired through his mind. Appealing as these options were, Ed never made a decision about this while feeling emotional. Feeling emotional was rare for Ed, but on the few occasions that he did feel some kind of emotion, Ed rode the emotional river out to the very end and waited for the calm to come before doing anything.
"Sorry babe, what was I thinking?" Ed smiled at Janice. It was easy to smile since he had already decided how to deal with this problem. The calm had returned once they had exited the building and all those prying eyes had returned to whatever they had been looking at before. Janice smiled in return. She put her arm around Ed's waist. Ed put his arm around her shoulder and played with her bleach-blonde hair, wrapping a couple curls around his index and middle fingers.
Janice was dead three weeks later. Arsenic poisoning. It had been gradual, so unless someone had reason to suspect, it was undetected. No one suspected. Janice died at her waitressing job while on break. She just stopped breathing. Janice had ongoing battles with asthma and she smoked, so her death certificate read "death due to complications from asthma."
His phone rang. Ed did a double-take. How did that happen? There was no one that Ed gave his number to, so this phone call was from someone who had done some serious detective work. Ed thought about not answering. It couldn't be a call from anyone he cared about. Ed cared about no one. He took great pains to keep it that way. When he was discharged from the military ten years ago he had melted into the shadows, never to reemerge.
The phone rang again. Did he need to worry that one of his old jobs had finally caught up with him? How? He bought a prepaid phone each time he finished a job and discarded the old one. He never kept the same phone number, never had an address. If he used the mail, the packages were always sent to a P.O. Box.
The high-pitched ring pierced Ed's consciousness one more time. Ed decided he would pick it up. He needed to know who it was and what they wanted. In order to deal with whomever this was he would of course need to know who they were. Then whomever this was would probably realize they had made a huge mistake dialing the ten numbers that they had. Ed would make sure of it. Then he would take care of the problem. Like he always took care of it.
Chapter Nine
Kevin waited. It rang. Once. What if he didn't pick up? What if he had thrown the phone away? Twice. What if he couldn't convince this guy that he was not only completely serious, but completely capable of doing exactly what he said he was going to do? Three times...
"Yeah?" The voice on the other end of the line sounded dry. Like it hadn't been used in a very long time. Kevin wanted to tell this person he would wait while he got a drink (was that why it took three rings? He needed a drink?), but he had to seem remote, impersonal, and above all, committed to what he was about to say.
"I know who you are. And I know what you are trying to do. You better not. Believe it is in your best interests to leave town. Now. And never look back," Kevin felt like he was going to throw up he was so scared.
"Yeah? And why is that?" Eddie asked. This should be real interesting. Eddie was already making lists of possibilities. Lists of traits. Eliminating possibilities.
This was a kid. Young. He could tell by the unsteady, androgenous voice. This one was barely started through puberty. No adult would sound like this. How would a kid find Ed? Ed couldn't be that careless, could he? It would be a shame if Ed had to grease a kid, but he would do it to preserve his anonnymity.
"Because you are not going to finish your current job, okay? Understand that I have your name Ed, and I have more information on you than you'd like the authorities to get their hands on. That information can stay between you and I Ed, if you leave town now without finishing the job. Forget your target ever existed. Lose her number, her name, and lose contact with whomever hired you. Got it?"
Interesting. This kid had balls, Ed had to give him that. It's going to cause him to die young, but he had to respect that this kid was no child. He just threatened the life and livelihood of a professional hitman. He must think that he was pretty safe. Or he was just plain stupid. How could he not know that he would wind up dead? Did he think this was some stupid movie where the kids in the flick get in a jam and some friendly police officer or family member rescues them in the end? No. This was real. He thought perhaps the kid had some sense of that. There was something in his voice. Something adult. Something mature. Ed thought for a minute. That something was resignation. The kid on the other end was resigned to this course.
"Why do you want to end your life kid? What's it matter to you about this target of mine? How will you even know if I am permanently gone? If I will ever truly honor your request? Maybe I'll leave. But maybe I will come back. Maybe I will wait. It might be days. It might be weeks. It could be hours. Or it could be years. Whatever it is, I could show up any time, and finish the job. After I finish you that is. Or maybe before I finish you. Maybe I already know who you are, and I plan to make you watch me finish my job."
There was a very brief, but sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line. Ed thought that he may have just scared the tough out of this kid, but he was wrong. What came next was a total shock to Ed.
"You do what you feel you need to me," there was a long silence, " I don't really care. But I'm telling you Ed, upon your target's untimely death, whether I am alive or not the authorities are going to receive a very interesting package containing some very revealing information about you."
"You're full of shit kid. Yeah, that's right. I know who you are," Ed said in an oily, eerily calm voice. It was a complete lie, but he knew that whoever this was he may be able to scare him into revealing something about himself. "You've watched too many movies on Lifetime or something. You haven't said any more than a name that might be mine. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. You could be guessing. I'm betting that you are. Do you think you can scare me into a corner kid? Oh no, I'm here. I have a job to do, and I am going to do it. And now I have another job to do too..." he waited a moment to let the kid have time to think, and then said, "You. You're the other job I have in town. And I never leave town until all my work is done."
Ed hung up the phone and threw it in the trash. Then he put on a pair of gloves, picked up the phone, wiped it down with alcohol, threw it on the floor and stomped it to pieces. Then all the pieces went into the trash, and Ed brought the trash to the incinerator in the basement.
When he returned from the incinerator, he went to the small, square refrigerator that he had in his motel room. He grabbed a beer. He turned on the television and watched whatever was on. It was Nickelodeon. Rugrats or something. Didn't care. It was noise. It would help him sleep.
He woke to the sound of the phone. He was so unused to the sound that he flipped over in bed, reached for the gun he kept under the pillow and almost pulled the trigger before he realized what the noise was. The phone rang again. Ed shot a look at the travel clock that he kept on the night stand. It's greenish blue face claimed it was two in the morning. Three hours after his first conversation.
How was this possible? How was it that this phone was ringing? This was not the phone he had the conversation with earlier with the kid. The kid with a death wish. That particular phone was nothing but ash. So why was this phone ringing?
Ed grabbed the new phone with a touch of amusement on his face. No one in his ten years as a hit man had ever called and threatened him. He never thought that would happen. Definitely not from a kid. He was going to make the kid sing before he finished him off. Amusing though Ed thought this was, he just could not have anyone out there possibly knowing who he was, and definitely couldn't know what he was up to. That just would not work. What if the kid had found his information from someone else? How many knew who he was already?
"Uh-huh?" Ed answered this call with an odd mix of surprise and expectation. He hadn't expected that the kid could reach him once he had burned up his old phone, but then again he hadn't expected that he could find him at all in the first place.
"You're not gone from town yet Ed," the voice on the other end informed him. "I thought I made things pretty clear. Do I need to start mailing stuff?" the kid inquired.
"You won't even make it to the post office before you are done. You'll barely have time to ask for a stamp before you'll be in hell kid," Ed was starting to be irritated with this kids' demanding tone. It was measured. It was insistent. It was constant. And it assurred Ed that follow-through would be forthcoming.
Ed dropped this phone on the ground and stomped it to pieces as he had done the night before. He got the dust pan and swept up the remenants of this last phone. As he was journeying to the incinerator to dump the carcass of this last piece of equipment, another phone in his room began to ring.
How the hell could the kid do this? These were prepaid phones. Disposable. Untraceable. Ed thought. He had to figure out who this was. Quickly.
Chapter Ten
Kevin hung up the phone. He dropped it on the ground, unaware he was about to do the same thing that his enemy had done, and ground it to pieces. He stomped on the phone several times before he was satisfied that it was destroyed. Stomped so many times in fact, that he thought he might have injured his ankle. Turned it or something. It ached. He hoped it hadn't been too badly injured. He had been a bit more than empahatic about crushing the remains of the phone than he had initially realized.
Kevin looked at the envelope in his hands. Hands that were shaking. Kevin was scared. He knew he was going to die, that wasn't the issue. He was coming to terms with that, at least as much as anyone could come to terms with the idea of dying at the hands of another. He was scared that what Ed had said was true. That Ed was going to wait him out for a while and then kill both he and his mom. Kevin wasn't sure he had the stomach for that. He didn't think he could handle looking over his shoulder forever. What was he going to do? He had set out to save his mother, and now he had just doomed her even more than she had doomed herself.
Why did things have to be this way? Why couldn't he have been oblivious to the ways of the world, like most fourteen year olds who were drinking, playing on varsity teams, or working at your friendly neighborhood fast food joint?
Kevin spread the contents of the envelope out on the table in his room. The table served as a surface to set up his easel on. Kevin was an artist. He was only fourteen but already working for various places doing commercial art. He had hopes of one day being a comic book illustrator. There was a pencil sketch of his latest project on his easel. It was a character that Kevin had been working on for years, extolling the virtues of the new Sprint Rumor.
That sketch had earned him the money for his light table setup. Now he was supposed to ink it out for Sprint before November. He was right on track before this situation with his mother. Now it would probably never get finished. He would most likely be dead before November. Too bad too. He had liked how this was coming out. So had his bosses.
Chapter Eleven
Do we belong to ourselves? Do we have the right to end any life, even if it is our own? None of us have a say about whether or not we are created. We just are. We come into being either because two people deeply love each other and the time is right, or because two people just thought it was time right now. There is no active decision from us to exist. No one asks us our permission before they go ahead and create us. We come into the world and we have no say as to the circumstances we are born into. Some are born healthy. Some are born lucky, priveledged, and blessed. We grow up belonging to the right families. They have the right surnames. you know, the ones that allow us access to the right places and the right people. This access allows us to have the opportunities to develop into exceptional human beings. We can become whatever we choose to be when the right pathways are cleared out for us.
Other people are born poor. Or unhealthy. Some struggle for each breath they get. Or they are born unwanted. Perhaps they live a life of neglect, abuse, or desperate existence. These people will never experience the wealth, priveledge or opportunity that those previously described will. Now, Maya would never argue that anyone else would have the right to take a life. Even a life that was destined to struggle. A life destined to be fraught with stress, malnutrition, and deformity. Murder was wrong. But what about suicide? What if the life created had not wanted to exist? People always question a woman's right to end a life not her own, but what if the life she was choosing to end was her own? What if she was choosing not to struggle? What if she did not want to fight the tide of exhaustion, the tide of resistance? Perhaps the best thing was to go with the flow so to speak and to let nature take its course. Maybe fighting was wasted energy. Maybe it was more noble, more true, to give up. To give in. To let the tide come in and wash over you.
Some might argue from a potential standpoint. What right did anyone have to end the potential for what any specific human being may be capable of? You could be snuffing out the light of the next president, the next Nobel Peace Prize winner, or the person who would solve world hunger and end war.
Maya felt that this argument, while it held some merit, at its center did not hold. The reason? What if the person in question did not want to be any of those things? The creator of the atomic bomb, for instance, did not really want to create weapons of destruction. Maya understood that this was one of the real burdens in his life. That his invention had been used for such widespread destruction. What if the person henceforth referred to as "potential A" did not want that potential realized? Didn't their free will and/or choice play a big role in any decision about what they would do with their lives? If we said that their existence was an imperative, we are really saying that "potential A" has no choice but to exist. This person becomes a hostage to their potential.
This was a discussion she had had with herself many times. It started when she lost Dennis. When he died, the joy went straight out of her life. At eight, she felt that she could never truly get over that. Seeing Dennis' lifeless form on the gurney at the hospital as it was being wheeled away from the room he had been treated in murdered her soul. She had wanted to die right on the spot. She had, in fact hurtled herself at the windows of Dennis' room. At her tender age she was unaware of the precautions that many hospitals take, having deep experience of the feelings that the newly grieved will express. A nurse had sat with Maya while she cried for Dennis. Her mother and father did not want to be in the room with Dennis. When Maya had finished crying (for the moment), the nurse had gently suggested that Maya say goodbye to Dennis. Maya had walked over to her four-year old brother and had kissed him and tucked the blanket up under his chin as if he were just going to sleep. "Goodbye Dennis. Don't forget about all the fun we had. I'm sorry we can't have more," she had said this with the threat of more tears in the back of her throat.
At twenty three she still felt joyless. She was single, newly graduated from college and free to live as she wanted to. She had built a life she could manage. There weren't many close friends. She had drinking buddies. She had study partners. She had roommates, and there were colleagues at work. But never did any of these relationships get beyond the very superficial stage. Even when she landed the journalism internship that was coveted by many in her class, she didn't feel any real joy. She accepted the internship and did a wonderful job. Her supervisors liked her even if she didn't seem that personable. Her work was first-rate. But Maya didn't extend herself socially, and rarely even recognized when invitations had been extended to do something outside of work that wasn't directly related to getting the job done. She missed serveral chances to secure a full time career because of this social blindness.
It was just as well because even if she had been capable of reaching a point where she could experience joy, she could not allow that. After causing the death of her little brother she just could not allow herself to feel any real joy. There was always an empty space inside her that could never be touched. She felt that ultimately, she was alone in the world, and that was what she deserved.
The only exceptions to that fact of life had been her marriage to Greg and the births of her two children, Kevin and Molly. Maya felt guilty for even allowing that measure of happiness. When she had met Greg at that bar, she wasn't even looking for anyone. Maya had dated Greg because she felt guilty for dumping her drink on him. He insisted she give him at least one date. His laughing eyes and stunning good looks were a pleasant perk, but she really felt obligated to give such a good sport at least one date. So she had relented to his numerous requests and had never looked back. In retrospect she felt almost selfish for allowing him to pursuade her to date him. She could have been strong for a brief encounter, but a date was just too much to expect her to resist his sensitivity, his respect for her, his intelligence and humor.
The birth of her firstborn, Kevin, had made her insides overflow with happiness. Maya thought that perhaps Kevin's birth would be the beginning of a real connection with someone. She had kept a journal during her pregnancy and planned to share it with Kevin when she thought he was old enough to appreciate it. She made videos with Greg of life before and after Kevin. In these videos she and Greg laughed, wrestled and shared themselves with their unborn child. They introduced Marie and Bob, told him how much he was loved, and talked about all sorts of things. Some things were to inform him of what was going on in the world during his time inside his mama. Who was President (Clinton), who was popular in music (Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins), and what shows that she and Greg liked (Saturday Night Live, San Antonio Spurs basketball, and Law & Order). Some things were to tell him about his family - his absent grandparents, the G version, his present grandparents (Marie and Bob), and all the luck little Kevin had to be part of this family.
When Kevin was finally born, Maya cried. Greg cried. Marie and Bob cried. With joy. Long and hard. Maya really threw herself into being a mother. She joined mothers' support groups so Kevin could make friends, she took him to the park. They bought a dog.
She and Greg were so thrilled with Kevin, they decided to have another child right away. As soon as Maya felt her body was ready, (15 months after the birth of Kevin), they began to try again. But no matter what they tried, they just could not get pregnant. They both ate healthy, they exercised, they didn't drink or smoke. They tracked ovulation, they went to preconception planning, they read books, they spoke with doctors and tried several different positions to conceive. There were many days that Greg had to interrupt what he was doing at work for a conception meeting as he so fondly joked about them. Still they were unable to conceive.
There was no open heartbreak. No tears. No drifting apart. Greg continued to be the lovable man he had always been. He gradually stopped making conception a priority. He seemed to accept that Kevin would be their only child. He half-heartedly discussed adoption with Maya, but there was no real enthusiasm behind it.
For her part, Maya was disappointed, but beyond that she didn't know how to think or feel. She felt disconnected. She felt cast out of the light again. She began to sink into a black depression. But no one noticed. She was sure of it. Life continued on as usual. She went to playgroups, she did the grocery shopping, and she took her yoga classes. Maya gave up on having another child.
Then one day, Maya was pregnant. Maya woke up one day and just knew. She couldn't describe exactly why she knew. She just knew. She had no morning sickness. She didn't have strange cravings. She wasn't faint. She didn't even feel bloated. She even had her period. But she knew she was pregnant. She took a home pregnancy test just to confirm it, but she just knew how it would come up. She called Greg with the results. He left work early and brought Maya a dozen roses and took her out to her favorite restaraunt to celebrate.
When they were seated at their favorite table, Maya told Greg, "It's a girl. Don't ask me how I know, just trust that I DO know" Greg had trusted her instincts. They picked the name Molly the next day and that had been how they referred to the coming baby. They waited until they were in their second trimester before sharing their news with Kevin. By then Kevin was seven and was mostly into Star Wars and Indiana Jones. He just nodded his head at dinner and said, "Great Mom and Dad! Can I sleep over Scott's house tonight? There's a really cool movie on and his mom said if it was okay with you I could sleep over and Scott and I want to play his new video game."
Molly arrived in the Spring. She was a petite baby. She weighed exactly seven pounds. She was healthy. She was happy. And she slept through the night. Molly was an angel from the first. She seemed to know how to be a content baby from the beginning and Maya was so relieved that she wouldn't be reliving the colic that Kevin had experienced. What a nice and welcome surprise. Kevin had been a relatively easy baby except for the first three months of his life. He was very colicky. Maya just hadn't known what she would have done without Marie and Bob. Marie had this way of showing her how to care for Kevin while he was colicky. It didn't make her feel inadequate. Marie never said anything to indicate that she thought Maya was anything other than the perfect mother for her grandchild. She also normalized things for Maya. She taught her a few good holding techniques to relieve colic, she would show up at various times of the day to help, without being asked. Marie and Bob both insisted on watching Kevin every Saturday night so Maya and Greg could have some time together. Another of the many benefits to Marie and Bob living close and popping by was that they reassured Maya that Kevin was normal and that nothing was wrong. They showed her how Kevin COULD be made happy and gushed over him frequently.
How had she wound up with this wonderful family? How was it that she went from her alcoholic mother and absent father to this supportive and loving environment? How had she suddenly been drawn into the light? It was fate stepping in she had thought. She was just hanging out with Amanda, the only true friend she had ever really had. Amanda had her own issues, so she didn't focus an undue amount of attention on Maya's. Amanda had a penchant for abusive relationships. She frequently surfaced at Maya's home with black eyes, bruised arms, and once she had even needed stitches. Every time, Maya tried to talk her out of her current lummox, Amanda told her to mind her own business. Amanda cared deeply about Maya, but she wasn't prying. She knew there was a circle drawn around Maya's inner life and never tried to step over that circle unless invited. Maya had never invited her. Consequently Amanda would not allow Maya into her inner circle.
Amanda had wanted her friend to find even a brief amount of happiness. So she had pulled a quick fade when she had seen opportunity rearing its head as Greg. She disappeared for her friend. She hoped that she was able to enjoy even one evening with this cute, older college guy. Maybe Maya could forget for a short time that she was so sad and felt so alone.
It was a lonely place inside her own circle. Maya often wished that someone would care enough to force their way into her inner life, but no one ever had. She was going through her inner life alone. Whoever said that no man was an island had not met Maya. And she was tired. She just wanted rest. She didn't want to have to pretend that she could pull herself up by her bootstraps anymore. Putting on the false face of happiness and pretending to be a part of life in the light was exhausting. She just didn't want to do it anymore. Every time she met up with the secretary at Molly's school to pick up the envelopes she needed to stuff for the current fundraising project the school was doing she wanted to scream. She wanted to let that secretary know how truly unimportant she was. How she was NOT intimidated or impressed by this woman's knowledge of the proper way to stuff envelopes. How she did NOT care if she did not dress properly as a mother in THIS town. Often she felt if she got one more condescending look, one more snotty comment about how poorly she dressed she was, she would knock the speaker flat.
The other mothers were not much better in Maya's studied opinion. They all dressed the same, they drove the same gas guzzling, oversized SUVs, they all carted their children to the same activities in the same carpools and had no room for anyone like Maya. Maya was a free spirit. She didn't want to be contained. But life seemed to be about containers, labels and boxes. Maya was tired of the boxes. She felt weighed down by them. They were a millstone around her neck. One that she had no idea how to shed. She went through the motions, attended the fundraisers, bake sales and parent-teacher association meetings. She signed forms, made telephone-tree calls and volunteered in Molly's classroom. During all of this Maya never experienced once what she truly wanted to - connection. How could people live this way? How could they go through the motions of this kind of life and not want to be run over by a bus? The answer, at least for Maya, was that she couldn't.
Maya had tried to become involved in her children's lives. She tried to get them involved in things that felt like they would teach true values to her children. But Maya had yet to find an organization public or private, that seemed to value anything aside from the most superfluous things. Money being the most prevalent. She made suggestions, tried to lead the charge on, and organized efforts. The only thing that seemed to result from these efforts was exhaustion and drama. Maya hated drama. She didn't really understand drama. People who felt everything was such a big deal. People who needed to control all aspects of whatever they were involved in. People who were upset about small things that in the end didn't matter. Last year Maya had tried to be part of a Girl Scout troop. She volunteered to be one of the troop leaders. Somehow, she wound up handling the finances of the troop. She took on this part of the troop because it needed doing and no one else seemed willing to do it. Maya wasn't particularly good with money, but she found herself collecting dues, handling the money from fundraising, and making deposits on trips for the troop. It wasn't very long before some mother of one of the Girl Scouts in Molly's troop got her nose out of joint over the way the finances were being handled. Maya had pointed out how the troop had more money than last year so something must be going right. Well this mom took that as a personal insult since SHE had been the one to handle the finances last year. Maya had no idea that this woman was involved in the troop in the slightest way other than to have her daughter in it this year. It was a big scandal in the troop. Phone calls were made, ultimatums were issued. The other leader felt it necessary to pull Maya aside and scold her for how she handled things with the other mom. Maya, frustrated with this turn of events resigned from handling troop finances. Molly was welcome to remain in Girl Scouts, but Maya had no interest in continuing to handle the finances, or any other aspect of being a troop leader. She knew she was an outsider and would never fit in. So she resigned.
Fortunately Molly had not noticed how cold the other moms had become. She had begun to develop an interest in dancing and drama. Molly had said that she wanted to be involved in these other things, and there just wasn't time in Molly's schedule for all of this anyway. She needed to decide between dancing, drama and Girl Scouts. Maya had asked her to decide which two things she wanted to hang on to, and what she wanted to drop. She needed to have time to do her homework, and time to just be around the house like a normal kid. So Molly chose to leave her Girl Scout troop. While Maya was disgusted with the troop, Molly happily moved on to dancing. Maya couldn't believe that no one had tried to keep Molly in the troop. No one had been interested in working things out. But that was how it was in general in Maya's life. When push came to shove no one cared enough to really go the extra distance. The drama of the minutia was more important apparently than retaining Molly in the troop or Maya as a leader. Maya just didn't fit the mold of what these mothers thought a proper troop leader was. Whatever that mold was, it was scandolous in their eyes to not fit the mold. Maya felt cast out of the light again. Into the shadows. To contemplate if there was something that she could have done differently, or should she just move on to the next drama?
There would be another drama too. That was for certain. Human nature seemed to demand that. The current drama was whether the school should be a nut free school or a nut aware school. On one side you had a group of parents who felt that since their precious babies were allergic to nuts, they should not be allowed in the school at all. Ever. Since even a bit of residue from a peanut butter sandwich could bring on anaphalaxsis, they would not feel comfortable until their children were protected from this insidious evil. When another group of parents suggested that there be a nut-free table in the lunchroom, and perhaps nut free choices offered for snacks, but that being nut free throughout the school was just too difficult to manage, the first group of parents would not hear of it. Their children would not be treated like lepers and forced to sit segregated from the group. Their children would not be subjected to the possibility of a shared snack that would land them in the hospital.
When a parents' group meeting exploded because of one parent's claim that her child would not eat anything except peanut butter sandwiches, Maya tried to act as a mediator. Maya felt that there were valid points on both sides. While peanut allergies were not to be taken lightly, neither was the picky appetite of a kindegartener who ate peanut butter every day for lunch. One could not just abruptly expect said kindegartener to suddenly stop eating her favorite lunch. When Maya tried to express her thoughts that a solution could be worked out that satisfied everyone for the most part, both sides treated her as a traitor. Dirty looks were given and Maya was dismissed summarily. Cast from the light again. She dared to break from the crowd, she dared refuse to be a lemming, rushing blindly over the cliff. Banished to the social shadows again.
Maya was tired of being dismissed. Tired of being told to go wait outside in the hall like a naughty child. She was tired of rolled eyes, deep sighs and snorts of derision. Deep down, down where she didn't really want to look, she also saw that she was hurt by these behaviours. She was hurt because she didn't understand what scarlett letter was emblazoned upon her breast to earn her treatment of this kind. She was also hurt because she felt that deep down, she deserved this kind of treatment. No one here knew what she had done as a child, but if they did she would be lucky if being ostracized was all they did to her.
This kind of ridiculous melodrama was Maya's life. She went from one parent meeting to the softball field, to swimming practice, to school bake sales. She shopped for groceries and ran into mothers of children in her children's classes, she read about town politics in the newspaper and went to town meetings and tried not to be cynical. She arranged playdates, she packed lunches, chaperoned field trips and all of these activities were fraught with the silly melodramas that Maya hated. Greg hated them as well, but he didn't have to face this every waking moment. He had issues of his own at work. Clients that were silly. Investors that needed to be appeased. Office politics that would make Maya gag, but Greg seemed to let all of this roll off him like water off a duck's back.
Maya understood that Greg didn't specifically enjoy these aspects of his job. It wasn't that these things weren't aggravating, annoying nonsense that were every bit as frustrating as Maya's daily encounters. It was just that Greg seemed more able somehow to handle these annoyances. He was an energetic, smiling, happy and vivacious man. Nothing seemed to get him down. Maya felt absolutely weighed down by the silly details of her life. She held her tongue for her children's sakes, but inside she felt each of these experiences that she endured were soul draining, exhausting exercises in futility.
And Maya just didn't get it. She spent a lot of time pondering. Thinking. Why are we here? What is the purpose of all this petty arguing, this silly melodrama of the moment? Did you just come here to put in eighty or so years vomitting out pointless garbage in response to these melodramas? Was that humanity's sole purpose? From the moment we are born, are we only here to make sure we get this appointment to that committee and not that one? Was it about whether you had the right job, the right friends, the right social clubs? It seemed like that should be an obvious no. That couldn't be the reason we are here. Many religions claimed it wasn't. Maya had at one time or another studied them in her quest for meaning. She had thought at one point in her life that she would be a minister. She had even started attending a theological seminary. But in her heart, Maya could never be comfortable with what the religious texts had said about a woman's place in the hierarchy of man. It made no sense to her that authority and intelligence was decided by anatomy. There were plenty of feminists out there, but my goodness, Maya thought, was it equally arguable that intelligence and authority could be decided by how angry and offended one could act? Every philosophy or religious practice Maya had investigated had resulted in the same conclusion for Maya - this could not be the absolute truth. Maybe there were parts that resonated with Maya as truth, but there was always a big enough portion of untruth as well. Maya couldn't quite call it lies or baloney, as she felt that would be conceited. It would be acting as if she were the divine keeper of truth. Maya absolutely resisted that idea. She would never presume to have the answers. But someone had to have them. She was sure of it. Sometimes. So sure of it that she could almost sense herself brushing up against the threads of truth when she encountered it at times. Never enough to shout out, "Hey, here it is!" No never that much. Just enough to tease you into believing that there had to be more out there somehow...and that it would always be just out of reach.
The image Maya was left with often was that of one of the characters of greek mythology. It was one she could not remember the name to. The character she was thinking of was doomed to stand in water yet never taste a drop of it. It would recede from their hands or lips. She couldn't remember the full story. But the idea was that the character in the myth knew that the water was there, was thirstier than one could imagine, yet could never slake that thirst.
Maya was tired of trying to slake her thirst for purpose and passion. She didn't want to keep looking. She didn't want to keep enduring failure and rejection. She was so tired. She felt tired to her very soul. Her frustration at not finding her purpose or reason for existence was draining. And she could see the fallout from that exhaustion in her children's faces every time she lost her temper at the wrong time. Every time she put Kevin off when he wanted to talk, every time she told Molly she didn't have time to make cookies or play Barbies. Every time she should be paying attention and enjoying her children and wasn't. And every time she failed to be there for Greg (and there were lots of times she knew). She just could not face up to the fact that she was a disappointment as a mother and a wife. Hell, she was a disappointment as a human being. She could not maintain a friendship, could not participate in social activies her children's school put out there. She just plain could not cope.
Maya woke up every day feeling exhausted. She felt like she had no way to get that energy back. She had tried changing her diet and exercising more. It helped a little, but not enough. She had tried meditation, yoga. Nothing. She had tried attending church. That only made things worse. She couldn't deal with the guilt and failure she felt now...she certainly didn't respond well to feeling pressed to "pick up her cross." She tried volunteering her time and resources. That only made her feel more inadequate. There was so much need out there. How could you ever hope to make even the tiniest dent in the tidal wave of physical, emotional, intellectual and psychic need there was. Sure, as her friend Amanda had said, "have you ever heard about the Starfish Story?" Yeah. Maya had heard it before. A lilttle girl is throwing starfish into the ocean in an attempt to save them from the low tide ebb that has left them high and dry. An old man walking by says, "Little girl, you will never make a difference that way. There are so many starfish." The little girl picks up another one, smiles and replies, "I'm making a difference to this one." After this response, she hurls the starfish in the water and the old man smiles and continues on his way, pondering the depth of this little girl's wisdom. The problem Maya saw with this is that the little girl will get tired eventually and there will still be a large pile of starfish drying out on the proverbial beach.
She guessed she was just a "glass is half empty" kind of gal. Another of the many flaws she had. And she just couldn't change that way of thinking. She was tired of trying to improve herself. Tired of trying to live in the light. Tired of being forced into the shadows. She longed for the darkness of death. If death would just swallow her, she could stop feeling the terrible loneliness, she could stop trying to make up for all her shortcomings. She could just be gone. She may not even exist anymore. Then she could stop thinking, feeling and knowing. Knowing that she would never become what she wanted to be...free...happy...creative...nurturing.
Sometimes Maya thought that perhaps what she was feeling was the longing that the Christian Bible describes for completion with her Creator. The desire to no longer be in this world, as she was not of it. She would forever be an outsider here because what her soul really needed was to be with its Creator. This made sense to Maya. It was the only real explanation that made sense to her. That her feeling like an outsider her whole life was because she was an outsider. Perhaps what she was feeling was her Creator's call to be grafted on to his/her being. Maybe this was how an arm or leg felt when it was amputated. Maybe that is why amputees often continued to have sensations in the limbs that were no longer attached. Their limbs were feeling, if you will, the absense of their creator. By no longer being a part of the body, the limbs were shouting out for that connection.
Reconnecting was almost like going home. It was an imperative Maya thought. Some individuals may never feel this call as they have somehow been disconnected so brutally that they are unable to feel this sensation. Perhaps Maya was somehow acutely aware of this connection or lack of it. By ending our lives on the earlthly plane of existence, perhaps we are meeting the needs of our soul.
If this were true, Maya reasoned, then not only was it okay to commit suicide, it was an imperative for some. Some whose lives were one long, endless ache. Perhaps this aching would end when earthly existence ended. Death was not the end some reasoned. If that is true, then death is not to be viewed as a sad thing. It isn't a tragedy. It is a step closer...perhaps THE step the soul needs to reconnect with the creator. A positive thing to be seen as a valiant attempt to do as nature commands the soul. Trying to avoid this with therapies, medications, lifestyle changes, or the myriad of things that are "out there" to deal with this issue is just one long futile attempt to prevent the soul from becoming fully realized.
The time, resources and energy that were wasted to try to lift an individual out of such a "negative" space was staggering. These were time, resources and energy that would be better spent on others. Better spent helping others realize the lessons that their creator needed them to understand. And what kind of example does it set for others (Maya was thinking of her children here) to always be resentful, tired, exhausted, angry and sad? What good does it do to lash out at the world for being what it is...not the creator.
This was how Maya had been thinking in the last few months. She always ran into one roadblock: what if she was wrong? What if she was completely off base? This had staved off Maya's desire to leave this life so far. But it's charm was waning. She was tired. She was feeling devoid of meaning. She was feeling like the outsider in her own life too much. She felt alone. She felt lonely. She felt sad and tired. She tried praying. She never received a response. She never felt the Creator's comfort. She never felt any response of any kind.
This absence on the Creator's part had been felt by Maya since she had lost Dennis. Since she had caused his death. Perhaps her creator, if there was a creator, did not want to commune with her. Perhaps he did not want to forget what she had done to her little brother. Perhaps his reticence was his way of being apathetic...of saying "I don't care what you do...keep me out of it." If that were the case, then suicide might mean that Maya was headed for eternity without her creator, without completion. Without rest. If so, then that was deserved. It would at the very least be a final demonstration of what was in store for her soul. Damnation. That would be it. She would finally receive her just punishment for her lifetime of failure.
The way Maya saw it, suicide was the answer to the question either way. If she ended her life now she was either headed for final damnation or reconnection with her creator. She could finally know if she would ever get rest from the exhaustion and sadness that welled up from deep inside herself, or if she would be forever separated from what she longed for.
The only thing that had kept Maya from taking whatever steps she needed to in order to get the answers she longed for were two things. First, she didn't want to cause her children pain. Maya was afraid that if she was successful with her plan to commit suicide then her children might misunderstand her reasons. She knew what her reasons were, and she knew that they weren't exactly simple reasons. She hardly thought that a seven year old (Molly) would be capable of following the logic of some of those reasons. And her 14 year old (Kevin)? He was in such a dramatic space in his life. Being a young teen, his emotions and thoughts were already on overdrive. He would surely find a way to make this his fault. Or he would feel that Maya had killed herself because she didn't want him or some such nonsense.
Maya decided that for these reasons, the sake of her children's psyches, she could not allow them to ever know that their mother committed suicide. That meant that NO ONE could ever know. If even one person knew then eventually it would get out. There would be investigations, guilty feelings, grief and pain for many people that was totally unnecessary.
It would be far better to make it appear an accident. If she were the victim of an accident, her death was nothing but a horrible mishap to her children. Sure they would experience temporary pain at the loss of her. She knew that. But wasn't the temporary pain of losing someone you loved preferable to the slow death of the soul that was currently present in her life? When she said temporary, she didn't miss the fact that some would point out that her pain over the loss of her brother Dennis had hardly been temporary. But Dennis' death was different. If anything, it proved Maya's point. The fact that she had carried the hidden guilt of her culpability for Dennis' death assured her that she did not want her children to be able to make anything out of her death other than that it was a horrible accident. She did not want her children to EVER experience the pain of feeling responsible for another's death. That's why it had to appear an accident.
This need for her death to appear as an accident led to Maya's second reason for not having ended her life. How exactly would she accomplish this death? Maya was not exactly familiar with the means and methods for killing oneself. Sure, there were the standard methods. She thought about taking a handful of pills. Tylenol seemed to be the most likely choice. These pills would damage her liver beyond repair. Maya had heard that there was no saving someone who had overdosed. There was just nothing that the doctors could do once they had been absorbed into a person's bloodstream. A friend of Maya's had lost her grandmother to this death. The unfortunate woman had NOT been trying to commit suicide, she had just been aging and had poor memory. She had taken some of these pain relievers, then forgotten that she had taken them. When the pain had not receded (it takes about 20 min for Tylenol to take affect), this elderly woman had forgotten she had already taken them and took another dose. This went on for several rounds apparently. When this woman's pain had begun to increase instead of decrease, she had called for an ambulance. By then it was too late. There was nothing the doctors and nurses could do for her, besides make her as comfortable as possible while she died.
Maya had thought about this method for a long time. There were nights that Maya lay awake next to Greg thinking about this possibility. Once it had been absorbed into the bloodstream there was no turning back. They wouldn't be able to stop her. The emptiness would end. She grew excited when she thought that this method may be able to assist her in her journey, but in the end, she didn't think her children would ever really believe this was an accident if she tried this method of suicide. She had no memory problems. In fact, Maya and Kevin often argued over prior conversations they had had related to how late Kevin was allowed to stay out or who he was allowed to be with. Maya always won those arguments because Kevin could never trip her up where her memory was concerned. So Maya didn't believe that she could sell this suicide as an accidental overdose. The children (and because of the children everyone else) HAD to believe it was an accident. She had to be sure that there would be no doubt in their minds as to what happened to her.
The other reasons for not using pills included the degree of difficulty in arranging this mishap. Maya would have to find a way to make sure that no one would interrupt. If she was found too early with the pills, even if she had already taken them, there might be a way to pump her stomach. Then the gig was up. Everyone, including her children, would know it was a suicide attempt. Then the blaming would begin. The hurt voices, the hurt looks, the damaged self-esteems. The questions. And she just couldn't have that. That would be awful. She did not want to be responsible for causing that kind of pain.
There was no real way to insure that no one walked in on her either. She and Greg had so many people coming and going in their home at any one time it was difficult to find solitude most times. Molly and Kevin were almost always around with one of their friends. She would never want them to walk in on her trying this. They were always hunting her down for snacks, for permission to go over friends' homes, for help with homework, for the current locations of various objects in the house. She could just not be sure that they wouldn't walk in on her at the wrong time.
She also did not want them to find her dead. That was a horror she wanted to spare them. When Maya finally did find a way to exit this world, she did not want the memory of her corpse and what state it was in to be imprinted on her children's minds and hearts forever. Amanda had found her uncle dead when she was fifteen. He had committed suicide. He hung himself and she had come home to find his corpse dangling from one of the support beams in her living room. Amanda had lived with her Uncle Joe because her parents had been killed in a plane crash. Uncle Joe had been less than prepared for a grieving teenager. He had cancer. He struggled to provide Amanda with what she needed emotionally and financially. He and Amanda had fought intensely about school that afternoon. He insisted that she complete high school and Amanda had said that she wanted to quit so she could help out with the finances. She could pick up a job and it wouldn't be so hard on Joe. When Uncle Joe said he would hear none of it, Amanda had pulled a teenage stunt. She had said she was running away. She left. But after she left she realized that she had nowhere to go and had gone home to apologize. She was prepared for "a serious talking to," as Uncle Joe had referred to their discussions, but Amanda was not prepared to see Uncle Joe's lifeless body, tongue lolling out of the mouth and eyes bulging. She carried that image with her and it tortured her dreams.
So pills were out. The next possibility was death by drowning. Maya had never learned to swim. She was terrified of the water, so this method held real possibility. Maya thought about how she could make it look like an accident. The only way she could figure was that she had to make it look like her car had spun out of control and gone off the bridge. This was problematic for Maya for many reasons. First, she wasn't sure she could force herself off the bridge. She was so terrified of water that she was not sure she wouldn't pull her punch at the last moment. The other issue with this method Maya felt was that there was too much potential for others' to be harmed. First, when she "lost control" she could accidentally hit someone else. What if they died? What if they were maimed or otherwise incapacitated? That would not do. What if THEY had children and Maya caused them grief by the loss of their loved one or they were God forbid, in the car? What if someone tried to jump in the water to save her? What then? Then she was not just committing suicide, but murder. So death by drowning was out. She couldn't try death by drowning any other way either (without the car for example) because there was too high a risk in Maya's opinion of someone playing the hero and saving her.
Maya had been frustrated for a couple months after discarding this idea. She thought she might never come up with a workable solution. She thought on many nights about an accidental fall off the roof of a building. This she might actually be able to sell, as Greg worked in construction and she often went on site to have lunch with him. She often brought sandwiches or salads and they shared them in some forgotten corner of some building that was coming down or being built. It wouldn't be all that unusual for her to show up on site somewhere and slip and fall. If she fell from a great enough height she would probably accomplish her goal. But that was the problem for Maya. That word,"probably." What if she didn't die? What if she was badly injured and had to live the rest of her life a sad, disconnected individual who ALSO required constant medical attention? Maya couldn't have that. She didn't want to be a burden on anyone. She already felt that most of her life she had been a burden. Forcing someone (probably Greg, Marie or Bob) to care for her needs for the rest of her life would be humiliating. It would put more of a weight on Maya's heart. She just could not create that situation for them. And she couldn't stand any more pain.
There was another part of Maya though. This part of her fought with any dirty trick it could think of for life. Even one more breath. This part of her said that she had no right to question what she was enduring. It was her lot in life to just accept her life for what it was and make do. It called her sadness whining and her questioning immature. This part of her was severely derisive. It often expressed disgust at Maya's inability to accept the facts of life. This part ofen told her, "Grow up Maya! Life is not fair. Sometimes the bigger and stronger animals single out the weaker ones from the heard and sacrifice them to predators to spare the herd."
During these times, the part of Maya that seemed to have primary control of things said that going on in spite of the pain is the ONLY right thing to do. Life was not for the fainthearted. Stop whining and go after what it was that you wanted. Grab it with both hands and hold on tight.
Maya questioned this though. Why was this the only right thing to do? Why was it noble to suffer? According to whom? And whomever may have decided this certainly had never consulted her when deciding that fact. If this was to be her lot, was Maya destined to just be like a clay pigeon to her Creator? Was she merely to be thrown out into the universe only to be burst apart by the shots life took at her? Why? Was Pablo Picasso noble for cutting off his ear for the object of his affections, or was he merely a mentally unstable guy who knew how to paint?
At these times, Maya sometimes thought about just running away. Changing her name, dying her hair and driving 3,000 miles away from her home and starting over again. Reinventing herself. Who said that she had to continue to be Maya Forlany-Davis? What if there was a better life for her somewhere else? What if she had missed her golden opportunity to be her fully realized self by picking the life she had?
Maya started out of her reverie. Maybe she should just run now. Maybe she could leave this very moment. If she disappeared altogether then there was no mess for the children to find. It would leave questions and maybe that would be okay. If they never found any trace of her, maybe the questions would be okay as there would be no proof of any foul play. No one would get arrested. No tender psyches would be damaged beyond repair.
It couldn't be this easy, could it? Maya put her keys on the table. She took out her wallet and looked to see what she had inside. Two hundred dollars. How far could someone get on two hundred dollars? Hmmmm. She wasn't sure. She knew that she couldn't really buy an airline ticket for that. A bus ticket wasn't out of the question though. She could probably get a decent distance from Chicago on two hundred dollars.
Then what? What would she do then? Maya wasn't sure. That was why this train of thought always stalled. She could never get passed what would happen when she stepped off the bus. Where would she work? Where would she live?
Maybe that is the problem - she needed to stop trying to think this through. There was just no thinking something like this through. If you stopped to think, you were dead and the life you could have lived, a life that was fulfilling, creative and free, was forever out of reach. Maya put her wallet in her back pocket. She breathed a deep sigh. When she exhaled, her breath came out shaky and she felt a bit wobbly and unsure on her feet. She was going to do this. She was suffocating in this life. She didn't know if there was any life that would allow her to feel free. But she just couldn't bear feeling this sadness anymore. Sadness over knowing that she was not what she could have been. Sadness for Dennis. Sadness that she could not manage EVER to be the person she so desperately wanted to be.
The tears started rolling down Maya's face. Slow at first. Big crystal-like snails cutting their tracks through her makeup. Maya bowed her head onto the table and her whole body shook. She cried because she knew on some level that she was thinking selfishly. She just knew that this would hurt her children. She couldn't leave, could she? Molly and Kevin needed her. Although Greg loved his kids, he wasn't around enough to know that Molly liked peanut butter but not peanut butter and jelly. He didn't know that Kevin needed to go to a tutor twice a week for math. Maya had told him these things before, but she was positive that his lack of short-term memory had not allowed him to remember these things. They did not apply to his daily life of meetings with clients, labor unions and suppliers.
She sat down in front of the computer. She googled the weather. The forecast called for rain over the next seventy-two hours. It looked like it was going to be a wild night. Her finger hesitated over the mouse. She clicked her mouse over the box for city and typed. What was the weather supposed to be like there she wanted to know? Maya was ashamed of herself for even looking. She quickly snapped off the computer. Snapped it off so brutally that she was sure she had damaged both the computer and her index finger.
Greg was a good guy. He was the guy who was always willing to help. If Greg was your neighbor, he'd lend you anything that was his to lend. Lawn mower? No problem. Hedge trimmers? In a second. Even if you broke his last pair or didn't return his lawn mower until he asked you for it. Greg was the kind of guy who accommodated. That was what he did.
It sounds nice, right? Right. He took care. He did without. He allowed for people's differences. Everyone liked Greg. No one ever had a bad thing to say about this gregarious, philanthropic, easy going individual. He knew right from wrong. He did what he was supposed to, even when no one was looking. One time, Greg found a wallet with $1,000.00 cash in it on the job site. There was no identification. There were no witnesses. What did Greg do? He brought the wallet to the police, described where he found it and helped them to locate the owner. The owner turned out to be a student intern who had converted the paycheck he had earned on site to cash and was planning to send it Western Union to his parents who lived down south. They were facing some heavy medical bills due to chemotherapy that they needed and this $1,000 was going to pay their rent.
Greg was written up in the paper about this. There was a "heroes among us" segment in the local paper that had featured Greg. It was the best kind of publicity his firm could have hoped for, not that Greg had thought of this as a publicity stunt. The student had called the papers when his money was returned to sing the praises of his boss. The paper had eaten this up with a spoon.
There was only one person who did not like this personality trait of Greg's. It was Maya. She didn't know that she didn't like it, but she despised this part of Greg. This part of Greg was the part of Greg that left Maya feeling shortchanged. The impromptu meetings Greg often had to accommodate someone else's schedule often meant that she was stood up. There were cold dinners, movies that were missed and interests that they shared but never discussed because of Greg's magnamimousity. Maya never felt she got a piece of Greg's time. But you would never know from her behaviour that this burned her inside like acid. She would never be able to admit that her desire to commit suicide had a lot to do with the fact that her soulmate, the one person who understood her had in some ways deserted her. Left her alone to deal with her loneliness and confusion. To struggle to figure out how to be a good parent despite having a deep void inside. Without decent examples of what a good parent should do, and Maya desperately wanted these examples to follow, Maya felt a failure. She could'nt bear this feeling of failure alone. It made her tired. It made her sad. It underscored all the flaws and put blinders on her to anything that she might have been good at.
Maya didn't feel she was good at anything. This did not mix well with her inability to commit. She often failed to commit herself to anything because she just didn't see any possiblity of it turning out well.
"Oh Maya, you have everything so together," her colleagues often said while she was at lunch with them. Maya would be picking at the remains of her lunch when someone said this. "We just don't know how you do it. Mother, wife, and successful art dealer. How do you do it?" her friends gushed.
Chapter Twelve
Maya had no idea how she did what she did. She ALWAYS felt overwhelmed. She felt like her memory was swiss cheese. She just could not figure how her family and her career didn't come caving in on her. There will come a time when that exact thing would happen Maya believed. She was not capable of keeping all the proverbial balls in the air. She hadn't yet dropped one, but she knew that was only a matter of time. Soon enough everything would fall apart. Maya was sure of it. She didn't know how she would prevent it either. She felt that she had an endless stream of things that needed doing, and she most definitely did NOT have an endless stream of energy. She felt that most areas of her life were in a state of disarray.
Her home was a cluttered mess. She had various projects in different stages of incompletion. The home decorating was piecemeal at best. Maya started projects with her children and never finished them. They would ask her when they could get back to them, but Maya could never quite figure out how that could happen. Fitness? That was a joke. Maya started and failed to complete at least twenty different health programs.
She felt that Greg was a liar. Not someone who was conscious of his lies however. She understood Greg's kind of lying. They were in many ways cut from the same cloth. They both knew how to accommodate. They made allowances. They explained situations, they made excuses. The term that came to Maya's mind was "euphemism." Greg himself would never tell someone he thought that they were lying. He would say instead that perhaps what they were saying was not entirely accurate. He would not be pinned down to whether or not this "innaccuracy" was intentional or not.
Maya was guilty of "accommodating" too often. If someone was late, she would allow that circumstances sometimes prevented people from being on time. If someone did not follow through on something that had been promised, Maya was sure that they had tried their very best. Even if she had seen them on prior occasions in situations that proved otherwise. When someone was pushy with their opinion, Maya would call that "spirited."
Without realizing what she had done, Maya had allowed others, including Greg, to disempower her. She had given a little piece of herself away to every person she interacted with and had never insisted upon any return. Some would call this unselfish, but it wasn't really. It was just another form of the martyr complex that she shared with her husband.
This unselfish (or martyr-like depending on your perspective) streak made for rather boring interludes during the limited chances Maya and Greg had alone together. Neither wanted to be overly pushy. Neither wanted to be controllling. Neither wanted to bully the other. Opinions were kept under wraps as a result. So were emotions.
Maya longed for passion. She longed for someone to be demanding of something from her. Deep down Maya felt that it didn't matter if she were in existence or not. In his desperation to avoid making Maya feel uncomfortable, Greg usually avoided expressing any strong emotions. This suggested to Maya that Greg felt that she could not handle his emotions. While not phony, Greg just could not be real either. Raised to accept differences, to try to understand others' perspectives, Greg had managed to spend most of his formative years trying to please others. He rarely thought about what he wanted.
And Maya could not point the finger. While in her clearer moments she could see Greg's problems and accept them, she also saw that to point them out to her spouse would be the pot calling the kettle black. She was guilty of the very same shortcomings. She had no idea how to overcome these shortcomings either. Expressing her discontent with her spouse would feel like a betrayal to Maya. No one was perfect. "Before removing the mote from another's eye, remove the beam from thine own," was a quote that often came to mind when she thought about her relationship with Greg.
He was a good man. She loved that about him. She truly did. There were not many men who would really try to take care of you. There were not many men who cared so deeply as Greg. When things were at their best, Greg understood Maya. They laughed at a lot of the same things. They both loved their children. Family was important to both of them.
At their worst, Greg and Maya were both immobilized by their fear of offense. Neither relished conflict and so would not venture out of their own respective shells to contradict the other. The result was an almost complete isolation from each other and what they both REALLY felt. It was so ironic. In their desire to make each other's needs more important than their own, they both managed to make the other feel totally alone.
Neither knew how to bridge this divide either. They both knew it was there, like a relative that neither liked but neither would turn out. So unsure and insecure were they both that they would not risk upsetting the other person in the relationship.
Chapter Thirteen
Look at her, he thought. Who would know looking at her that she was deeply crazy? Every hair was in place, the make up was perfect and she had the right designers. These were not off the rack designes either. His target had a very tailored look to her. Very professional. Very sleek. Very assertive. Look at the jewlery hanging on this freak too! On a daily basis this idiot decorated herself with diamonds, pearls, and gold. She every once in a while wore emeralds or sapphires as well. All were designer pieces. Pieces that were insured probably. Pieces that could get her throat cut on the wrong side of town.
It wasn't just the rocks she wore or the designer labels she preferred. This lady had issues with shopping. Forget that. She had a flipping subscription. It was obscene. During the three months that Ed had been watching, this woman had bought thousands of dollars of clothing that she never even wore. In fact, they still had tags on them. She bought clothes that could have been for herself, but she also bought clothing that would fit children. It was very strange. Of course she would need to buy clothes for her own kids, but she often donated the clothes she bought after a couple of weeks. Her own children were well outfitted in Ed's opinion, but many of the clothes she bought never made it home. This lady was very generous. She had probably outfitted half of the families in the local area shelters.
If Ed had been in a different line of work you would think that perhaps he was "casing" the situation. Watching this lonely, confused excuse of a human being flounder through her life made Ed wish he was in another line of work. Most of the time when Ed did a job he felt that whomever was the target deserved what was coming. Usually it was some spoiled, selfish rotten jerk that was making life miserable for everyone around them. With this woman, even though it seemed that everyone around her loved her, she moved through her day like a whipped dog when she thought no one was watching. She put on a good front while she conducted the business of her day, but when the phones stopped ringing, the meetings were over and her children were otherwise occupied, she just sagged. There was no other way to describe her.
How was he supposed to kill someone like that? It was definitely kicking someone while they were down. The only saving grace was that he was killing someone who was pretty much already dead. They wanted to be anyway. If he didn't do the job, she would find someone who would, right? Or she would work up the nerve to do it herself. What right did he have to keep someone from what they wanted? Besides, he was being paid a decent sum to do the job. He was NOT giving the fee back. A sudden attack of conscience would only make the job more complicated for Ed. Complications were not what Ed was about. He liked his life simple. So he would do the job. It wasn't as if she meant anything to him.
Maya sagged in her chair. The chair, a black upholstered thing, seemed to swallow her slight figure. Eyes cast down towards the floor, she reached a bejeweled wrist up and massaged her temples with her left hand. Her head was killing her. It had been like this for two days. Nothing seemed to touch the headache either. Pound, recede. Pound, recede. Pound, recede. She tried Tylenol (careful there, only two), tried drinking extra water, tried meditation. Nothing seemed to help. Maybe this was a migraine her mind suggested. Maybe she should see a doctor. She allowed herself a bitter chuckle. Why should she care if she had a headache? She wanted to be dead. At some point in the real near future, a headache would not be a worry. Seeing a doctor would be a waste of money and would unnecessarily worry Greg. She supposed she could endure until she had the relief of oblivion. Pound, recede. Pound, recede. Pound, recede.
Her hands, manicured to perfection, were shaking slightly. Ed wondered idly to himself how much the two carat diamond on her finger was worth. He was sure it was worth a lot.(God those-sized rings were ugly in his opinion) Once the temple massage was over, Maya reached down into her bag. The bag was a black Armani bag. She pulled out a long slender bottle, unscrewed the cap and began to draw in mouthful after mouthful of water.
As she slaked her thirst, Ed became a bit aroused. He gazed at her long, creamy white neck and watched as she took swallow after swallow of water from the bottle. His eyes travelled languidly further down her neckline, noticing the rise and fall of her breasts as she breathed in between gulps. Not a bad shape. He wondered why she was so lonely. Why in such pain? She seemed to have a life that anyone would envy. She had a nice husband, although a little vanilla in his opinion. Some kind of Project Manager or something. Ran his own business. Very successful. He seemed outgoing and laid back. Her in-laws didn't seem outwardly hostile to her. He didn't really bother learning much about them as it really was information that he didn't need. Bob and Marie Davis were polished but not snobby. They were very involved in the lives of their son and daughter-in-law. They doted on their grandchildren from what Ed could tell. They were always under freakin foot! Her children seemed to be okay. Ed didn't really know too many children, but neither of them appeared to have many problems with either school or friends or the law. They certainly loved her deeply. Heck, they lit up whenever she entered the room. Neither of them had any physical limitations either. She had a thriving art business. Her services were highly in demand in the art world. Ed had checked around. Maya was well-known and respected for her work. She even had a friend she saw regularly. That woman was more typical of the kind of person who sought him out. Usually after women had been used for a punching bag for a while, they were a bit more willing to ignore their moral code. Especially if they had children, and those children had been used for punching bags as well. They would send him the money order with a picture of the target paper-clipped to it. Most times there was a note to the effect that they wanted the job completed as soon as possible. Ed usually obliged.
True, the target's own family seemed to not be a part of her life. Her father lived in New England and had no contact with her for reasons that were unclear to Ed. He was a retired mason. That alone should give him reason to be interested in his son-in-law, but apparently Mike Forlany had no interest in his son-in-law's work, or anything else that involved his daughter. Maya's mother was a drunk who hung out with whomever would support her habit, and that was not Maya. Maya had no siblings that Ed was aware of. But everyone had some kind of bizzarro family story to tell, didn't they? Not a reason to want to die Ed didn't think. He would think that this particular target would be glad to have no contact with at least her mother. She was a real bar bag.
Ed thought that Maya would be calling it a night after her drink. He was wrong. Maya began to sob long, deep sobs. Sobs that sounded like they were being torn out of her body. Ugly tortured sounds. Ed had never heard anything so piteous. He shifted in the shadow of the room to get a better look at her. Her eyes seemed to bleed tears. While wiping her nose, Maya looked around to make sure no one was observing her cry the way she was. She must have felt satisfied that no one was watching as she put her water bottle down and cried long and deep for a very long time. While she was crying Ed wondered what it would feel like to put his hands in that silky black hair. He thought about undoing that severe style and letting the waves of thick and feather-like mane brush his shoulders.
Shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot, Ed was becoming slightly irritated with himself. Whether she was crying or not should have no effect on him. He was here to perform his job. He had acquired his target and he was now in the third phase of the job...watching...observing. Becoming attracted to the target was a mistake. Most times Ed did a job he refused to allow himself to interact at all with his target, and never allowed himself to think of them as anything other than "the target," or "the mission objective." It was easier to stay detached that way. Not that detachment was a big problem for him. Ed had no friends or family. It made his profession easier. No one could have any kind of emotional hold on him that way. Without people to care about, blackmail was not a realistic way to get to Ed. He wanted to complete the mission and then pull a quick fade. That was the story to Ed's success. But this time it was not going to be that easy. He had to learn about his target's habits, rhythms, and patterns. That way he could complete the job with a minimum of mess and loose ends. He didn't want any surprises that would provide leads to him for the cops.
Phase three was usually a happy time for Ed. During this phase of a job Ed tended to visit museums, go to concerts (it was surprising how easy it was to acquire tickets to sold out events if you knew where to look and had the cash) and become a voyeur to secret trysts. But Maya appeared to be a decent person, crazy though she was. She had no secret lovers that Ed had found. She was faithful, which was, in Ed's wide experience with people, rare. It was not a common occurrence for him to run across a person who had some dignity and some integrity. Maya had both. She was faithful to her husband. He doubted that Mr. Perfect, as he referred to him, noticed. He was too busy being the kind, sacrificial lamb. Giving his all to everyone but her. Ed didn't doubt that Mr Perfect loved his wife, but he didn't do anything creative to demonstrate that love. His love was expressed in the plodding, nose to the grindstone way that Mr. Perfect approached things. He took on the tough jobs to provide stability. He gave up passions. He sacrificed spontaneity. Mr. Perfect thought he was doing these things for his family, but Ed thought that perhaps he was doing it because it was safer that way. In any case, Mr. Perfect failed to notice that the target was a fairly passionate person. But that was not Ed's problem. The target wouldn't have any problems if Ed did his job.
Another thing Ed had observed about the target was that she also did not have it in her to intentionally hurt anyone. She hardly ever raised her voice at her children. She was firm yet not controlling. She set boundaries for her children and expected her children to live by those boundaries. If her children failed to meet those expectations there were reprocussions, but Ed never observed her doing anything abusive. When she was driving anywhere, Maya would stop if there were squirrels in the road for crying out loud. She couldn't bear the thought of the pain these animals must endure when they died in the road after being hit by a car. When she saw an animal that had suffered so, she often would put it in a shoebox, and bury it somewhere in her yard.
Ed was watching her at her art gallery today. She owned one uptown. It was nice. She had a good eye for lighting. She knew how she should best feature each piece. All the art in her gallery was art from relatively unknown artists. These artists seemed to somehow find Maya and she took them under her wing. Soon enough you were seeing articles in the newspaper, there would be a buzz at all the top social functions and everyone who was anyone was claiming that they owned a piece of artwork by said artist.
Maya took a picture out of her wallet. It was dog-eared and creased in many places. If Ed had been able to get close enough he would notice that the photo was faded and obviously taken during another era. Digital cameras had not existed when this photograph had been taken. Neither had iPods, cell phones or laptop computers. Ed wondered if this picture was the cause of the heartwrenching sobs. He didn't have to wonder long. Maya began to cry inconsoleably again. She cried so hard that Ed was not sure that she was going to be able to stop. Maybe his job was about to become harder. If she had a nervous breakdown, she might wind up in a hospital for weeks, or even months. He just could not wait that long. He was going to have to move up his timetable based upon the way she was acting. Ed didn't think she was going to be able to keep herself together much longer.
A small wirebound notebook appeared in Ed's hand. He jotted a few unintelligible notes and put the notebook back in his shirt pocket. Ed had developed a code of sorts, so even if this notebook were to be misplaced, no one would be able to decipher what he had written, about whom or when it had been written. When the job was done, Ed would burn this notebook, page by page. This notebook was important, it held the information that he needed to complete his assignment. But it was equally important to Ed that no one who may find this notebook understand the contents.
Her breath caught and held. He was in the room, she was sure of it. Wasn't there a hint of some kind of men's cologne? There was. Maya breathed it in, trying to figure out the scent. It smelled cheap, but good all the same.
Would he show himself before finishing the job? Maya wasn't sure, but she didn't think so. She took slow, deliberate steps into her gallery, expecting every minute to feel his hand brush hers. There it was! He was grabbing at her as she reached for the light switches! Maya's heart jumped into her mouth and pulsed furiously. There was a minute or two where she was stifling a scream (this was after all, planned, why scream and draw attention?) before she realized that it was only the curtain being stirred by the air conditioning. It had brushed her arm. She was disgusted with herself for being so wound up, but she was also mildly irritated with Ed for drawing the job out so long. Why couldn't he just finish this thing so everyone involved could just move on? Why the dramatic pause, so to speak? Did he want something from her? More money perhaps? Wasn't this an ironic thought, a hitman that wouldn't do the hit because his target hadn't paid him enough? Especially since Maya had no intention of spending another cent on this guy. She had paid him what she thought was a decent sum to perform the job, he had agreed. He had also agreed to her terms. HE had screwed up. Shooting her husband, besides devastating her had caused pain to all those around him. He was a much loved, respected and needed man. His children needed him. They would need him even more when their mother was gone.
Here she went again, walking down a mental path she had no right to ponder at this point in the game. Whether her children needed her or not was irrelevant in Maya's opinion. Her life was coming to a close. She didn't know if it would be next week or next year at this rate (God, hopefully not another year!), but she was not to be counted on in the long run. That's just the way it was. She wouldn't allow herself to consider the amount of damage she was doing her children by stepping out so early in their lives.
The lights came on and cast their warm ambiance throughout the gallery. Maya liked her gallery. There were some wonderful paintings hung throughout. She had an eye for design too. She knew innately the best way to feature each work of art. She picked lighting and surroundings that allowed the best aspects of the artwork she displayed to shine through. As she walked, she absorbed the colors of Monet's Water Lilies, the sensuality of Degas' Four Dancers and the appreciation for living forms that was reflected in Georgia O'Keefe's Petunias.
Maya came to the stairs. She noted their curved elegance. She listened as her heels clicked on each stair riser and she took in the warmth of the polished red oak flooring used to face them with. Maya sighed and placed her hand lightly on the bannister. Her office, which was on the first floor, was not where she was currently headed. She wanted to wander the rooms in her museum and just rest in being surrounded by beauty. Being among such beautiful things calmed Maya's soul. It was one of the few things that helped ease her spirit and made her forget about her troubles for a while. There was something almost religious about it for Maya. She felt a deep reverence for the effort these painters exerted to share their masterpieces with the world around them. The step of faith it took to share a part of themselves, to open it to criticism really, was awe-inspiring.
The next gallery space featured a new artist that Maya had discovered. She had found this young woman picking among the trash in back of her gallery and at first Maya had thought she was a homeless person. Maya had offered her a place to stay and a meal, and Tanya had laughed. She let Maya know that she did NOT need a handout. She was interested in the gallery trash because she herself was an artist and was currently working on a piece that featured the discards of a gallery. At first, Maya had been a bit put off because Tanya had laughed at her generosity and had waved off any offer of help that Maya had procured.
Eventually though, the two women had become friends. They went to lunch together and discussed the artists' process. Maya was fascinated that Tanya could put herself and her work out there for all to see and judge and it didn't seem to worry her. Tanya responded to Maya, "Oh, but it DOES affect me, I just don't allow it to define me."
Maya found herself thinking about this conversation for months after they had had it. Maya thought that Tanya was a very talented artist, but she didn't think she had what it took to become famous in the art world. She would never say this to Tanya, she didn't want to take Tanya's dream away from her, but she didn't think Tanya had that killer instinct that was needed. She had boatloads of artistic talent, but absolutely no business sense. That combination would not fly in the current industry climate.
So Maya took Tanya under her wing and did absolutely everything she could think of to get Tanya's name out there. But that only went so far. Tanya would attend receptions, she would be interviewed for papers in the area, but she would not change her artistic vision even one iota because of something that Maya showed her in the reviews. Tanya's comment was, "People either get my art or they don't. I know it resonates with someone because it resonates with ME."
No matter what Maya suggested, Tanya refused to show anything other than who she was through her art. Ultimately Maya admired this in Tanya, but she was wondering if Tanya was biting off her nose to spite her face. Whether she was or not, that was Tanya. Maya was standing in front of Tanya's painting. The mini-spotlights that Maya had trained on it highlighted the crumpled newspaper. The newspaper clipping that showed was a Chicago Times review of another artist that Maya's gallery had featured last year. The title of the piece was "The Artist's Review." The paper in the painting had obviously been torn and thrown away. It was crumpled and only revealed a portion of the review.
It was this Maya was studying when she felt him come up behind her. He put his fingers on the small of her back and said, "A very interesting piece, don't you think?" Maya froze. She had dismissed her earlier apprehension as foolish, and had completely forgotten it. So she had been right. Was this to be the end of the line for her? Would she die in front of this painting? Maya smiled a rueful smile. She thought to herself about how much publicity that would draw for Tanya. Perhaps some more good could come from her death. This was the kind of thing that would be discussed at all the most important cocktail hours and the season's fundraisers. Her death at the hands of a mysterious hitman would be exactly the thing that would get Tanya's art (as well as any other art she was currently championing) purchased for serious money. There was something in the human psyche that wanted to be connected to violence. Maya knew that some of her most affluent customers would pay almost anything for something from the gallery of a murdered art dealer.
The two stood apart, hitman and intended victim, looking at the painting for ten minutes. Had there been anyone to paint it, it would have made an interesting piece of art itself. The small, scruffy hitman wearing black and carrying a gun casually standing next to the elegant and polished victim. Maya wanted to move on, but she wasn't sure what to expect of this man. What would he do if she moved? Was he planning on killing her now? Or was this just another tease? If he was planning to kill her now, tonight in this gallery, how was he planning to do it? Maya found that she was not as fearful as she had thought she would be. Granted, she was afraid. Mostly afraid that whatever he would do would hurt. She had no fear of being dead. She was only afraid that he would draw the process out longer and make it more painful.
"Can I kiss you?" Ed asked. Maya was stunned. It was a schoolboy question. The sort of thing a boy would ask if he were on a first date. She didn't know what to think. It was the last thing that she had expected to come from him. She had hired him to kill her...what did that question have to do with the job? Was he falling in love with her? Was this why he had taken so long to complete the hit? She had never even considered this possibility. Who would? If this had been a scene in a movie Maya would have laughed out loud. But as this was not a scene in a movie, laughing would be the least prudent thing she could do.
He kissed her long and hard, running his hands through her hair as he did. Her hair felt soft, supple, and smooth. Just the feel of it on his cheek aroused him even further and he pressed Maya against the wall with his body and searched her mouth with his tongue. She accepted the kiss, not because she welcomed it, but because she had been surprised by it. This was supposed to be the killing stroke, not a lovers' meeting. What was this man doing?
Maya began to shake. At first, Ed thought it was an eager shaking and he murmured, "Yes babe. Yes babe." He couldn't think of anything else to say, so he said it again, "Yes babe. Yes babe." When her body sagged and then stiffened, Ed didn't know what to think. This wasn't what he pictured the scene to be. She wasn't coming alive like he thought she would. She wasn't returning the kiss!
Maya's head was spinning. She had absolutely no idea how to respond to this. This man was supposed to be murdering her, yet here he was kissing her...no... french kissing her! This was not what she had planned. Now she felt dirty. She felt unfaithful. And she felt vulnerable. This man probably had a weapon of some sort on him. He also possessed a willingness to use whatever weapon he had she imagined. His line of work spoke to that. Was he intending to rape her? Who would know? Why should anyone care? Is this the punishment that God had in store for Maya? To be defiled and then brutalized. It wasn't the death that Maya had imagined for herself, and she had imagined many deaths over the course of many years. She had hoped that Ed was swift when he finally completed the job. A tear slid down Maya's cheek. It was a tear of resignation. Of coming to the end and realizing that you were indeed NEVER going to get what you wanted out of life.
Greg saw them kissing and became enraged! He couldn't believe that after all these years, Maya was unfaithful! If anyone had ever even suggested it before, Greg would have staunchly defended Maya and insisted that anyone that would hint to such a thing was a liar and no longer welcome in his life. Yet here Greg was watching Maya with that man. He had no idea how she had met such a person. He looked scruffy, unkempt. Not at all the kind of person that Maya typically hung out with. Greg had worried to himself occasionally about Maya being lonely enough to do something like this. But never had Greg thought that she would demonstrate such a lack of judgement. What did this man know about their family? Had he been in bed with Maya at their home? With the children in the house? What kind of scruples did a man have if he was willing to engage in a relationship with a married mother of two?
Kevin saw the man kiss his mother. He was pinning her to the wall, and his mother was not moving, not resisting. Did she want this man? Was this someone she was seeing behind his father's back? Kevin swallowed hard over a lump in his throat. The idea that his mother might be leaving them for this man really hurt. But when he took a second look, he noticed that although she was not precisely resisting, she had not thrown her arms around this man's neck. Wouldn't that be the natural thing to do when you were kissiing someone back? Everything Kevin was witnessing looked to him to be anything but natural. His mom looked like she wanted to refuse him his kiss, but was afraid to maybe. Then Kevin noticed the greying at the temples, noticed the severely muscled arms, and made note of the way he had to lean up in order to reach his mother. He was a bit short. Kevin remembered this man! He was the hitman. This was the vile human being who had agreed to murder his mother. Then what the hell was he doing kissing her? Kevin's fists clenched violently at his sides.
Maya had no idea what she should do. She felt ashamed. She had never been unfaithful to Greg in all the years that they had been together, and did not want to end her life with him this way. She wanted to push Ed away from her, but was afraid of what he would do to her if she did that. She wanted her life to end, but not painfully. If she insulted Ed by not responding warmly to his advances, would he become violent? Would he torture her? She had no idea. The dead fish look in his eyes when she had last tried to gain some insight into who this person was had done nothing to inform or reassure her.
What to do? What to do? Maya thought quickly. She didn't want her life to end this way. She began to get angry. This man had no right to defile her! Maya had paid him a good sum to murder her, sure, but victimizing her had never been part of the bargain. She thought about what she could do.
She could tell that he was strong. This man had no fat on him. There was no space wasted on this man. His body was thickly corded with muscle. His movements were swift and sure. Any physical resistance she offered could be reversed with little or no effort she was sure. So physical resistance was out. He was bound to hurt her if she tried to refuse him.
She thought about going along with him and slipping away at an opportune moment. She could let him have his way with her if that was where he was heading with this (and she thought that was indeed where he was heading). Sure, she might live. She might even get away temporarily. But she had hired this man to track her down and kill her. He was a professional. She was sure that he would find her.
Even if by some freak chance he didn't find her again, she would have to live with what she had done. If she let Ed do as he seemed to want to, Maya would have another dirty little secret to live with. She already had more than she could bear to live with. She didn't think that she could bear living with that secret much longer, never mind adding another shameful thing to the list.
No, she had to get away. She couldn't allow Ed to do this. Should she knee him in the groin to make her point? It might temporarily disable him, so if what she wanted was an opportunity to run, this would buy her the necessary time. Oh, but that smacked of the helpless, dumb broad running in the woods while the evil predator lumbered after her. That was the stuff of cheesy horror flicks, and even in said cheesy horror flicks it never ended well.
Maya decided that waiting was what she had to do. She would have to wait and see how stable Ed was. She needed more time to figure this man out. Could he be outsmarted? Maya knew very little about Ed. She had a prejudice against him she found. She assumed that because he was a criminal that he was not very intelligent. His line of work repulsed her ironically enough, and because of that she figured that Ed didn't think much. How could he be much of a thinker when he could kill so indescriminately? She realized that she was making a very big mistake with that assumption. She was seriously underestimating Ed by assuming that he was less intelligent than her.
Marie was worried. Maya wasn't home yet. She was always home for dinner. She liked to cook and insisted on cooking the children's meals even though she and Greg could more than afford a cook. Maya was an accomplished cook, and she did a terrific job of making nutritious meals that the children loved to eat. But Marie had often thought that if Maya would hire a chef it would take some of the stress out of her schedule. Marie thought that Maya was under a lot of strain trying to do everything. She was a mother (an excellent one in Marie's opinion), a wife (no complaints from Greg so she assumed she was attentive), a business owner and philanthropist. Marie felt that Maya must be successful in business as she was in high demand in the art world, and she was certainly one of the most generous people Marie had ever encountered.
Chapter Fourteen
Six o'clock. Marie usually heard from Maya if she wasn't going to be home before now. Maya was very considerate about that type of thing. Not wanting to impose or complicate Marie's plans on any given night, Maya would often call at 4:30pm to find out whether or not there was anything special going on for Marie and Bob in the evening before asking them to stay late with the children if she had to work late or stay out for any other reason. So when Marie saw Greg's white pick-up truck pull in, she became a bit more nervous. Maya and Greg usually coordinated their schedules before calling home if changes were needed to be sure the children ate dinner with at least one parent as much as possible. That way they could touch base with the kids, go over the events of the day, find out if help was needed with homework and tuck them in after. Later Maya and Greg would connect and communicate about what was going on in Molly and Kevin's lives.
If Maya was going to be late, Greg would often call Bob or Marie and they would plan to have dinner together. Marie drummed her fingers restlessly on the kitchen table. Greg hadn't called. Marie was guessing that Greg's pick up in the driveway meant that he was unaware that Maya was not home yet. He was assuming that he was joining the clan. Marie bit her lip and hoped that nothing was wrong.
Greg came up the stairs and into the living room, "Maya? What's for dinner?" He had a smile on his face and was putting his brief case in the office on the first floor. Marie heard him leave the office and go into the bedroom to change. After a few minutes of quiet rustling behind the closed door to their room, Greg emerged in jeans and a University of Chicago sweatshirt. "Maya? Where are you babe?" Greg kissed Marie on the cheek briefly, "Hi mom. Where's Maya? What's for dinner?"
"I don't know Greg. Maya isn't home yet. She didn't call. I hope she's alright. Maybe you should give her a call," Marie suggested. "Did she have a staff meeting today? Maybe she forgot to tell us about something going on at the gallery."
"Did you talk to her at all today?" Greg asked.
"No honey, I was just suggesting that perhaps something was going on, not that I had any actual information," Marie said, trying not to reveal the disquiet that was seeping into her. "She must have had a busy day at the office."
"Yeah, she did have a couple of clients that needed a little ego massaging. That young girl, what's her name, Anne Dubay, boy what a head case that kid is, " he smiled while pulling out the milk and pouring himself a glass. Maya was having real trouble getting this girl to trust her with her work," he paused. "That must be it," Greg said.
"I'll start dinner while we wait," Marie offered. She hoped that Maya was making something simple for dinner tonight. She didn't feel much like cooking. "What was Maya planning to make?"
"Um, I think she was going to make pasta alfredo, but I'm not entirely sure," Greg responded.
Marie went into Greg and Maya's kitchen and began taking out pots and pans. Maya had professional cookware as she liked to do quite a bit of gourmet cooking in her spare time. Once she located the pots and pans, found the pasta in the refrigerator (fresh of course, Maya refused to buy any premade pasta, as she had her own recipe and often made her own), and started the water boiling, she turned her gaze back to Greg.
"Huh. Her cell phone is off," Greg said, wrinkling his brow. "I wonder why she shut it off?"
"I bet she just let the battery go dead again, "Marie offered. "She always forgets to put that thing on the charger when she gets home. I find myself plugging it in for her several times a week." Marie added the pasta to the bubbling water and opened the refrigerator. "Where does she keep her veggies?"
"Bottom drawer Mom. You know, the one labeled produce?" Greg teased.
"Smart alec," Marie smiled, "Go get the kids and tell them to wash up for dinner," she swatted her son's bottom.
Chapter Fifteen
Molly was playing with her American Girl doll in her room. She had Kit Kitridge and Kit's puppy, Fluffy. She was pretending that Kit was getting ready to bring Fluffy to the veterinarian's office for an injured paw. Fluffy's right paw was wrapped up in an ace bandage and her teddy bear Jameison was wearing the scrubs and pretend stethoscope that she had received for Christmas. Molly felt that having a teddy bear for a veterinarian was a less threatening choice than her stuffed tiger Murphy.
"Dinner Molls," her Daddy's handsome face poked into her room. "Think that Dr. Jameison will be all right without his best assistant?" he smiled.
"Sure Daddy. Murphy can take over as nurse," she smiled in return. Greg noted how much her smile looked like Maya's. She had the same almond shaped brown eyes. "What's Mommy making for dinner?"
"Pasta sweetie, but it's pasta Grandma style," he said. "Mommy got held up at the office. She'll be home later." Molly ran to Greg and allowed herself to be scooped up in his arms. As he lifted her, she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and kissed his cheek.
When Greg and Molly entered the kitchen, there were wonderful smells, and Marie had almost completed setting the table. She handed Molly the forks, knives and spoons. "Would you please finish setting the table honey so Grandma can drain the pasta and get the sauce? Daddy will get the bread and salad. Kevin!" Marie called, "Would you please pour the milk for everyone?" There was no response from Kevin's room.
"Kevin? Did you hear your grandma?" Greg turned to Marie, "He listens to his music so loud these days. He probably didn't hear you with his headphones on. Hold on a sec," Greg bounded up the stairs and knocked on Kevin's door. "Kevin? Are you in there?" Doorknob in his hand, Greg knocked again. "Kevin?" He turned the knob and slowly opened the door. Kevin was not there. He was not reading with the headphones on. Greg looked over at Kevin's light table. Not there either. Only a comic, unfinished, leaning against the wall sat on the light table, waiting for Kevin.
"Mom, Kevin isn't here. Did he say anything about where he might be going this afternoon? Was Mina here today?" Greg was becoming a bit concerned. It wasn't like Kevin to just disappear. He was going through a moody phase these days, but there hadn't been anything too alarming in Greg's estimation. Kevin always let someone know where he was. So why not now?
"Mom, Kevin isn't in his room," Greg said, "I have no idea where he went. I'm going to have to go looking for him." Greg turned to Molly, "Honey, did you see Kevin today?" Molly nodded her head. "Did he seem okay to you?"
Molly nodded again, "Oh yes Daddy. He said he was going to find out why that guy was hanging around Mom so much," Molly said. "Do you know the guy Daddy? The guy that is always outside Mommy's work?"
"No sweetie. What guy?" Greg was beginning to get alarmed. "Kevin said that there was a man that kept showing up at Mommy's work. Kevin didn't know why the man was there every day. He wanted to find out why, so he left today to try to catch up with him."
Greg said, "Thanks Molls. You're the best. Now go eat dinner."
"Aren't you coming Daddy?" Molly tugged on Greg's hand.
"Not right now Molls. I will come back as soon as I can, but I want to go find Kevin, 'kay?" Greg kissed Molly on the cheek and said, "Go eat now before it gets cold. Ask Grandma to save some for Mommy, Kevin and I, will you?"
"Okay!" Molly was already running down the stairs towards the kitchen.
Greg backed the truck out of the driveway. Why hadn't Maya said anything to him about this person? Was it a client of hers? Was he causing her trouble? Greg was worried that maybe this person was dissatisfied for some reason and was harassing Maya. She hadn't said anything lately, so this was probably not the case. But Greg was still worried all the same. And how did Kevin know about him? Why was he taking matters into his own hands this way? Did Kevin know something that Greg did not? This worried Greg deeply. Kevin was a sensitive soul and very protective of Maya. He and Maya shared a connection that Greg did not fully understand. He was respectful of that connection whether he understood it or not, and he knew that if Kevin was worried about something, there was legitimate cause to worry. Greg shifted the truck into drive and tried to forget about the gnawing sensation in the pit of his stomach telling him Kevin was right to worry. Maya was in trouble. So was Kevin maybe.
Chapter Sixteen
Kevin put his backpack down. He leaned it against the building and covered it with leaves. He didn't want his mom to think that he had put much effort into coming to her office. If she did, she would be wary. She would become too concerned with how much he knew. Kevin didn't want to lie to his mother. Not only did he not want to, he didn't think he could. He had never been very good at lying. He was especially poor at lying to his parents, a skill that many of his peers could pull off without compunction. Kevin could not. He wanted his family to trust him. He wanted to deserve that trust. He did not want to do anything to threaten it. He felt guilty about even considering lying. Hiding his backpack was, he hoped, as far down that path as he would have to travel. If she saw that he was unencumbered so to speak, she would hopefully draw her own conclusions and figure he had been visiting the kiosk at the mall for something work related, or perhaps that he had gone to discuss the comic with the marketing department.
Was that creep here? The one she had hired to end her life? Kevin choked back hard on the tears that wanted to come. He still couldn't believe that she wanted to die. She was his mom. He was vaguely aware of her as a human being separate from himself and Molly. He knew in an academic way that she was a person, a woman, who had a life outside of being a parent. She had fears, passions and shortcomings. But to him she was only his mother. She was the one who had kissed scraped knees and taken his temperature. She knew how to get him to take medicine that tasted bad and how to focus on his homework when all he really had wanted to do was draw. She knew what his favorite dinner was and what kind of music he liked. She had met all his friends and drove him to school. She was the beginning thought he had each day and the last person he saw each night. This creep wanted to take that away from him. Was he here to finish his job? To earn his money? Was Kevin able to stop him?
Kevin didn't know the answer to any of these questions. He only knew that he couldn't lose his mother. He couldn't let her die. It hurt so bad inside that she wanted to leave him. What had he done wrong? Why did she want to leave him? Part of him hated her. Hated her for making him make the choices that he was making. She had forced him into sacrificing his own life. Of giving up Mina. Of losing his friends. He would never be able to see his artwork published. Kevin was very bitter about that. He had worked so hard to get noticed for his art and not just because he was a kid whose mom happened to be an art dealer.
Maybe he should have told someone else. Someone else might be able to help him out somehow. Who could he tell? Who could he share this awful secret with? He didn't want to tell his dad. His dad loved his mom. That love could make his dad careless. His dad was a passionate man and Kevin didn't want to think about the possibility that he could lose both parents because his dad did something rash.
She didn't know what to do. That was the story of her life. She failed the people most important to her during crunch time. Greg thought she was this wonderful person. He didn't know. He didn't know that really she was a selfish, cowardly individual who managed to look good only because of circumstances. She had tried to show Greg that time and again, but he refused to see. He was incapable of seeing. He only saw the good in people. She gritted her teeth. It made her angry that Greg was so willfully blind.
When they had first met, Maya had been out drinking with Amanda. They hadn't been doing anything special, just screwing around, shooting darts and drinks. Chasing the hard stuff with a beer every now and then. Blowing off steam. Her drunken clumsiness was the reason they had met. Greg refused to accept that. He insisted that fate was the reason. He claimed that they were destined to meet and fall in love. While Maya was definitely in love with Greg, she didn't believe in destiny or fate. She believed that she had been drinking and spilled her drink on Greg. That was it. No romance. No mystery. She felt bad that it had happened and had tried to make up for it. They fell in love and here they were, sixteen years later.
Maya wanted, no needed Greg to understand that she was bad. She was selfish and weak. You might be wondering why she would want anyone to know this about her. Most people would want to hide this kind of fact from others. Many people would try to camouflage their weaknesses and distract others from noticing them. Maya was slowly falling apart precisely because she could not get anyone to see how deep her cowardice was. How devoid of strength her character was. She seemed to be the only one who could see it, and it weighed her down. It was because she wanted someone who saw the truth, and understood it. She wanted to be seen for what she really was, not for what someone wished she was. For years she had been carrying around the weight of just how bad she really was alone. She had always wished for someone to help her carry that weight. She needed relief. But she was sure it would never come. Relief was out of reach probably because she didn't deserve it.
Greg parked his truck in the back of the building. He didn't want Maya to see him coming. He didn't want to give her time to prepare herself. He was hoping that he could catch her off guard and that by doing so she would come clean with him about what was going on. What if she was meeting a lover here? What then? Greg didn't want to think about that. It hurt his heart. He loved Maya with all his heart and soul. He was willing to do anything for his wife. If he found out that she was in love with another man, it would kill him. Maya was his best friend and he didn't want to think about life without her. As he coasted to a stop and killed the headlights, Greg thought, "I will do whatever is necessary to make things right. If she has someone with her, I will control my urge to pound him into mincemeat. I will try not to judge her. I will try to listen." He had heard that when someone cheated there was usually a reason. Something was wrong with the marriage if your spouse felt a need to turn to someone outside.
What if it was something more ominous? What if this was a stalker? What if someone was threatening to harm Maya? If so, Greg would hopefully catch him off guard and disarm him. Greg knew that he was a big man, intimidating to many people who didn't really know him. If this man was doing anything to threaten Maya, Greg was sure he could handle it. What if this guy had some kind of weapon? What if he had a gun or something? Greg had thought about this on his way to the art gallery. At first he thought that perhaps he should involve the police. He even had begun to head in the direction of the police office. While he had been driving in that direction, he had begun to spin the scenario out in his head, "Yes, officer? Yeah, my name is Greg Davis and my wife Maya might be in trouble." A pause. "Yes, might be in trouble. See, she didn't show up for dinner and my seven year old daughter Molly said that there was a man with her Mommy." Another pause. "How did she know that? Her older brother told her that he was going to find them. He didn't show up for dinner either." Another longer pause. "Yeah. He's fourteen. No, no trouble at home," Greg sighed. He could see where this would go. So he turned the truck around, headed back up the interstate and pointed his Ford in the direction of Maya's art gallery. He needed more information before going to the police or he would be ignored, told to file some report, and shooed off the property. For some reason Greg felt an almost overwhelming sense of urgency to see Maya at the art gallery. If he missed her there he was sure that there would be some kind of catastrophe. So it was off to get more information.
As Greg was walking towards the building, the wind kicked up and threw leaves all over the parking lot. Greg turned his head to the side and began to rub his eyes to remove the dirt that the wind had blown there. As he was dropping his hand to his side, something caught his eye. Just a glint of reflective tape. Greg looked harder. It was up against the building. Was that Kevin's back pack? He crept a bit closer to see. Yes. That was Kevin's back pack. Now why was he hiding it outside? Why not bring it with him inside?
Greg walked across the parking lot and picked up Kevin's bag. He unzipped it and looked inside. What fell out onto the pavement made a cold and dark horror rise in the back of Greg's throat like a snake. Boxes tumbled out onto the pavement. Orange and white ammunition boxes. Greg recognized these. These boxes belonged to his father. They occasionally went shooting at the gun club together, and this was the very box that Greg and his dad had opened recently. Was Kevin planning to shoot someone? Greg had to stop him if that were what Kevin was planning to do. Greg began to run.
Slow tears rolled down Maya's cheek as she allowed Ed to kiss her. She was horrified that he was kissing her, was not enjoying it at all, and did not welcome it. Unfortunately, Maya had no idea what she should do in this situation. It felt dangerous. It felt awkward. She felt dirty and unfaithful. If she pushed him away, what would he do? Would he hurt her? It was, after all, what she had paid him to do. She had brought this on herself as she had invited this stranger into her life and asked him to end it.
Yes, she had asked this man to kill her. Her only specifications had been that he not involve her children or family and that no one must know that the job was done at her request. No one must know that ever. She wanted him to fade into the woodwork and never be heard from again. She had never specified how the job was to be done. She hadn't told him to use a gun. Had never specifically requested a knife be used or poison. Perhaps he figured since no one would know what happened to her for real he could have his fun with her and no one would be the wiser. So perhaps she should just endure this as part of what she had visited upon herself.
His kiss was devoid of warmth. It felt predatory. She felt his arm wrap around her waist and his hand plunged into her hair. Her sharp intake of breath startled him. He drew back from her and looked into her face.
"You're crying," he whispered, moving the hair out from in front of her eyes. "Why are you crying?" he asked.
Maya could not answer. She could only stand there, shaking and feeling like a deer caught in the headlights.
"What is wrong, cara mia?" he stepped back for a minute, looked at her with those dead fish eyes. "Everything is going to be okay. I promise. I am going to take you away from here. You can start over fresh with me, somewhere else, away from all of this." He stepped closer to her again, trying to enfold her in his embrace.
Maya flinched. She began to shake even more. "Please don't hurt me," she sobbed. "I know how dumb that sounds given what I have paid you to do, but I was hoping it would be over quickly, painlessly."
"What are you talking about cara mia? I could never hurt you," Ed responded incredulously. "Why would you think I wanted to hurt you?" he paused and considered. "Ah, I understand. But you do not. Death is the job of the hitman. Not torture. Believe it or not, that is another line of work. Sometimes, the two professions cross paths, sure. For sure I have mixed death and torture where appropriate. Makes sense from a certain perspective I guess. To those who are poorly informed about my profession, death and torture can seem to go hand in hand. But they don't have to."
Ed stepped back and studied Maya's face. What was he seeing there? Could she truly relax, knowing that he would not torture her? Rape her? Or was she sensing a hint of threat behind those dead fish eyes?
Greg was confused by what he saw. At first, when he had heard that man speak to her he thought this was her lover. But Maya had started crying. She cringed from this man like she thought she was about to be hurt. What hold did this stranger have over his wife? If they were not lovers, then what was their involvement? Did he know something about Maya that she didn't want others to know? That seemed unlikely to Greg. Maya's life was an open book, wasn't it?
Kevin crept up the back stairs. He was terrified, but the time was coming for him to make his move. Could he do it? Soon he would know. He saw his mother down below him, in the gallery. She was crying and shaking. He had never seen his mother so afraid of anything. But she was definitely afraid of this man. The man leaned in and kissed her, his scrawny arm around her back. Kevin saw his mother's body stiffen and flinch and his breath caught in his throat. Was this man hurting her? The man, dressed in a black turtleneck and black khaki pants, stepped back from Maya and said something. Kevin could not hear the conversation through the glass, but as he crept closer to the door he could see his mother's face. She looked confused, unsure. She was listening to something that this man was saying, but her body language suggested that she was hoping for an opportunity to escape. It was tensed and poised to run.
The man's back was to Kevin. Kevin needed to get just a bit closer. He crept along the marble floor, army style until he reached a potted plant with big leaves. The leaves served to hide his body quite well. Kevin reached into the back of his jeans for the gun. It was there. The hard cold metal had warmed somewhat on the bus ride across town. Kevin looked at the gun's surface. It was a .9 millimeter that he had taken from his grandfather's gun collection. He had taken it when he visited this afternoon. Grandpa Bob thought that Kevin had come only to watch the Celtics game with him. They often watched games together, so this wasn't a difficult ruse to pull off. Kevin felt terrible tricking his grandfather, but he couldn't let his mother die, and Grandpa would insist on calling the police if Kevin had shared what he knew. Grandpa had too much faith in the system in Kevin's estimation. Kevin had considered calling the police, but felt that as soon as the police were to become involved this hitman would fade into the shadows. He would disappear and Kevin would spend the rest of his life, however long that would be, worrying about when this mystery man would resurface to get his job done. Kevin felt that this was true in his bones. After all, he was not even fifteen yet and that is what he would do if he were a hit man. The real hit man has had a lot more experience and time in his profession and would know how to disappear and reappear when he needed to.
Kevin had spent many wakeful nights thinking about what he needed to do, what he could do. He had tossed and turned, had paced the floor and on several occasions had almost brought the problem to his dad. In the end, Kevin felt that the only solution to this problem was the gun currently in his hands. If he shot the hitman, and ended his life, no one else, especially not his mother, would have to die. Only he would have blood on his hands. If he could do it, Kevin felt that he could live with that. After all, the man he was about to shoot had probably murdered many people. These murders had been committed by this man for the sole purpose of fattening his own wallet. Kevin would be ending one life to save several others.
Chapter Seventeen
Ed was angry with himself. He had allowed himself to become emotionally involved with his target. In all the time he had been working, he had never allowed himself to do something so foolish. He knew that this would cloud his judgement. He might make rookie mistakes if he wasn't really careful. He was trying to decide what he should do. Should he be telling the truth, that really and truly he would not hurt her? Maya was a beautiful woman, and kind. Ed had never seen her equal. Her kind of statuesque beauty usually meant one thing in Ed's experience: bitch. Most women who looked as good as Maya did knew it and used their beauty to get what they wanted. Ed had not seen Maya do that. Not yet at least.
He tried to forget the things that he loved about her. He made himself think about how selfish a person she had to be to take her children's mother from them. He tried to think of how blind she was to all the good in her life. Ed thought about her materialism. How she had to have the very best clothes, the very best shoes, and was very techno-savvy. Try as he might though, he could not force himself to see her as a superficial and selfish woman. Childish maybe. Her failure to see her own value was very adolescent. But that only added to Ed's passion for his target.
Ed's hand stole out and slapped Maya across the face. Hard. Her head rocked backwards and hit the wall. Maya screamed, and then cowered. She feared Ed. Good. Ed thought that fear was a good thing. Maybe he could get her to listen. To see.
"How can you do this?" Ed said coldly. "How can you be so beautiful, yet so blind?" Ed slapped her across the other cheek. A red splotch that would probably become a bruise later was forming on Maya's cheek.
"Do WHAT?" Maya asked. "What am I doing?" she asked. "I'll stop, whatever it is, I'll stop. Now." Maya's hip was pressed against the wall. When Ed had slapped her, Maya had lost hold on her purse. She was searching for something. Ed could see her shooting glances on the floor near Ed. Ed looked down. The contents of Maya's purse was splayed there, for both of them to review. What could she be looking for in her purse? Ed thought. Keys. Wallet. lipstick. Subway pass. Ticket stubs. Ahhhhh. There it was. The thing Ed thought she was searching for. A can of mace. She was thinking of macing him.
He reached down on the floor and scooped the can of mace and dangled it on it's lanyard in front of her. "Is this what you are searching for? Were you going to mace me?" Ed's breathing became measured, his eyes changed from the cold dead fish to something hot, wild and threatening. He was enraged. "You were going to mace me? ME? I was doing nothing but MY JOB and you were going to mace me?" Ed grabbed Maya by the hair and forced her to her knees. "You bitch."
Maya screamed. She dropped to her knees and thought, "This is it. I'm going to die here. In my art gallery." Outwardly she was screaming, but inwardly she was relieved. Her pain would end. She would find rest, and no one would have to be hurt. Her children could go on knowing that she loved them. They would believe she was murdered, and that would hurt, but they wouldn't feel abandoned. They would attach no blame to themselves. They could be happy and healthy after this.
What was that she saw out of the corner of her eye? She couldn't quite make it out, but the potted plant in the foyer didn't look quite right.
"You're going to die now you sorry bitch. But before you do, I wanted you to know that when I finish you I will be heading for your son Kevin," Ed's eyes were bulging out of his head like golf balls. Maya heard what he said, but she couldn't register it. Kevin? What did Kevin have to do with this Maya thought.
Kevin heard his mother scream. He got up off the floor and switched off the safety on the gun. While Ed and Maya had been otherwise engaged, Kevin had managed to slip open the door and work his way into the room. He was pretty close to them now. That was good. He wanted a clean shot. He stood, planted his sneakers on the floor about shoulder width apart and aimed. Ed appeared to have no cognition of the fact that Kevin was aiming a gun directly at his head. Kevin's mouth went dry. His hands were shaking and Kevin steadied them by digging his elbows into his sides and using both hands to hold the gun. He had learned to hold his camera this way when he wanted to take a shot and didn't want his own movement to blur the picture. He thought that he might hurt himself a bit by doing that, but if it meant he got a steady and clear shot he could live with a few bruised ribs.
Greg entered the building and saw Kevin aiming the gun. Could he stop Kevin in time? Who was Kevin aiming at? Greg's gaze shifted and focused on something that was a bit closer to him. Maya. Was Kevin aiming at Maya? That didn't make any sense. Kevin loved Maya. Then Greg noticed that Maya's back was to him and that he could see the pinched and angry face of a man. His eyes were as big as dinner plates and he was straining to do something. He was yelling at someone. Greg didn't think he was yelling at him, he thought that he was hidden in the shadows. Was this man yelling at Maya? He couldn't be yelling at Kevin. Greg doubted that this man could see Kevin. His back was to Kevin he thought. So he had to be yelling at Maya.
Maya was going to die any second if Greg didn't move fast. Greg could see this little angry man swinging his arm back, but he couldn't tell what he had in his hand. Was he planning to cut his wife's throat? Greg didn't let himself think any further. He didn't have any weapons with him. He hoped that the element of surprise and his considerable size would be weapon enough. Greg opened his mouth and roared. He threw himself across the room, planning to tackle the man who was attacking his wife. The roar that Greg released was so primal and so full of rage that Ed at first thought that some wild animal had escaped and found its way to this gallery. Ed's survival instinct forced him to the ground. He released Maya's hair and the can of mace he had been planning to spray into her face. He caught himself on all fours and then saw the boy. He still didn't know where the roar was coming from. It was not the boy. The boy's lips were clamped in a thin white line. They matched his furrowed brow. He was concentrating deeply on something. Following something with his eyes.
What was it that the boy was holding? Ed couldn't tell because the lights were not on and the moonlight was hitting the curtains and making funny patterns across everything. He was holding something, Ed was sure of that, but he couldn't tell for sure what it was. Then it came to him. It was a gun. The boy was preparing to shoot. Ed dropped to the floor again just as the boy squeezed the trigger. Ed had to hand it to him. The boy, young and inexperienced as he was, had enough knowledge to prepare to absorb the kick of the gun. As Ed rolled to avoid being shot, he saw a man, the source of the roar, lumbering towards him. If Ed hadn't dropped to avoid the shot he would have been tackled by this enormous man. He had to be easily six feet seven inches. Built like a football player Ed wouldn't even hazard a guess to weight. He just knew that if he had been tackled by the oncoming freight that was this man, Ed would have been down in an instant.
Maya saw in one terrible instant that Kevin was in the gallery. Why was he here? How could he know that she was here? How much had Kevin seen? What had he heard? What was he holding in his hand? Was that a gun? Kevin was pointing the gun in her direction. Before she had a moment to consider why, she felt the hot bloom of blood on the front of her blouse. He had shot her. Her son. Shot her. Before she dropped to the floor Maya had a moment to absorb the look of shock and horror on Kevin's face. "It's okay Kevin. Don't worry," Maya said as she began to fade from consciousness. Boy this hurt. Her chest felt like it was on fire. She was whining deep in the back of her throat. The pain was unbearable. She felt like someone was pushing their thumb in an open wound.
Ed went down, hard. He had miscalculated his roll. Or Greg had caught him calculating. Either way, Greg landed on top of Ed like a ton of bricks. Ed's face slammed into the floor. He saw stars briefly and then went limp. Greg couldn't believe the luck. He was sure that he was going to come out of this injured somehow. Except for a serious bruise on his knee though, Greg didn't think things could have gone better. He took this guy out instantly, with a minimum of fuss.
Then Greg saw Maya lying on the floor. Kevin was screaming, "Oh my God! Mom! No! I'm sorry! Oh my God!" Kevin was tearing off his shirt and trying to stop his mother from bleeding. Greg raced over to Kevin. "Son! Call an ambulance! I'll help her while you do that," Greg tore off his own shirt and used it to staunch the flow from the bullet wound.
Kevin dashed off to Maya's office. His fingers fumbled over the buttons. When the Emergency Operator answered, Kevin sobbed into the phone, "Oh my God come quick! I've shot my mom! Send an ambulance!" Kevin sobbed. "Please come to the Davis Art Gallery in downtown Chicago. She's bleeding," Kevin hung up the phone in a daze. He sat down in the chair and began to cry.
He had probably killed his mother. He was so stupid. How did he ever think that he could protect her? He had hardly any real experience with a gun. What had he been thinking? His stupidity had killed his mother. He hadn't told his family what was going on either. So for all his Dad knew, Kevin may have intended to shoot Maya. It could have looked like that. He was a murderer. As the sirens warbled in the distance, Kevin came to the realization that he was a cold blooded killer. He had taken his mother's life. There was only one thing to do.
There was a lot of blood. Greg was putting pressure on the wound like he had always heard you were supposed to in order to slow the flow. He thought it might be clotting, but he didn't think he should take the rag away to look. As Greg applied pressure, he looked at Maya's face. She had bruises on her cheeks where that crazy man had hit her. Aside from those bruises though, she looked very pale. She wasn't moving either. Greg leaned in to see if she was breathing. He couldn't tell. He leaned in harder, but still couldn't hear whether or not she was breathing. Just as he was giving up hope, he felt the feathery plume of her exhalations and inhalations on his cheek. She was breathing shallowly. He hoped that Kevin had called the ambulance. He hadn't returned yet so Greg couldn't ask. Were the sirens that he heard in the distance for her? They did sound a bit closer.
Consciousness was returning, but memory had not yet appraised Ed of the situation. He felt the cold hard marble floor pressing his face. Good. That meant that he was alive. For the time being. He knew who he was. Good. The reasons he was sprawled across the floor were slowly coming back. The pulse in his head Ed was sure was a concussion. He remembered Maya, his goddess, his employer, his subject, screaming on her knees. Ed was going to mace her. There had been a roar. The boy. A dark shape lumbering into him and then darkness. Someone else must be here then, but who? Who had that lethal shape been? Ed wasn't sure as he had not been able to get a good look at him before the chaos had ensued.
He considered his options. He couldn't see exactly where his assailant was. That put him at a disadvantage. Maybe he was standing over him, ready to shoot the minute Ed showed signs of waking. Maybe, if Ed moved or showed any signs of consciousness, his attacker would knock him out again. Ed needed to know where this rather large and powerful individual was before he himself made any movements. His best advantage at the moment was that he was the only one who knew he was conscious. How to build upon his advantage?
Ed listened. He heard the boy frantically telling 911 what had happened. That was bad. That meant more people soon. Ed would have to find a way to disappear before they arrived. He hoped he could. He had to see more. He'd never get out of here if he didn't get a chance to assess the situation fully. Moving meant risking discovery, but he had to take the risk to better his position. He shifted his weight and opened his eyes. Nothing but a window in the direction he was looking. He could feel the cold air that pressed on the outside of the glass, wanting to get in. He could see the lights of the cars that were zooming by, unaware of the scene unfolding in the art gallery that they passed.
He needed to urinate. Ed randomly thought about the last time that he had used the restroom. It had been much earlier in the day. He had used the stall on the second floor and then hid there until closing. That was a minor problem. One dealt with after he could effectively get off the floor. Ed began to turn his head to the other side to try to get a peek at the situation. He had to bite down hard to prevent himself from groaning and alerting the others to his presence.
He could see Maya's shoe. It was a red stiletto heel. Maya always wore stilettos at work. It fit her image. What a mess! Ed had never botched a job in his entire career. This botch certainly made up for all the others he had never had. The job had been fairly simple really. Take out one middle-aged mother of two without alerting anyone to the idea that she was the one who had put the hit out on herself. What had complicated things? Ed thought. The fact that he had begun to care about this woman as he had studied her movements. Studied her patterns. Learned about what she did and how she operated. That's what had complicated things. He should never have allowed himself to feel anything for her. She was, after all, just another job. There would be more. Maybe not the same, but more nevertheless.
Greg cradled Maya's head in his lap. He thought about how they had met. How he had thought that she would never agree to a date with him. She was too guarded. Too city-tough for him. But he had been so sure she was the one. Greg rocked back and forth, stroking Maya's hair and telling her she was going to be okay. "The ambulance is on the way honey, just hang on. You'll be okay, just you wait and see. The doctors will sew you up and you'll be fine," Greg said these words but was just not so sure that things would ever be okay. Where was Kevin?
Kevin looked at the chrome-plated gun with awe. He turned it around in his hands. The grip was pebbled. It fit in his hand simply. He had plenty of bullets. He had only fired off one shot. Into his mother. It had only taken one quick report to drop his mother like a stone. He only needed one more. He sighed. It was a deep, shaky and tired sound. He was resigned to what needed to happen. He knew he could never face Molly again. He couldn't tell Grandma Marie or Grandpa Bob what he had done. They would hate him. Why shouldn't they? He had been sneaky and arrogant to think he could handle this situation on his own. Forget Mina. She would hate him. Mina the vegetarian. Mina the consciencious objector. He'd probably do jail time. No more art. No more comics. He would never be able to face his dad, who by the way, was out in the foyer, waiting for him to return from making the phone call. He had to take care of things before his dad came looking for him. He had to be brave. He had to pay for what he had done to his mother.
Kevin put the gun in his mouth. He tasted the gun oil and tried not to grimace at the taste. He closed his eyes. He pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. Kevin opened his eyes. Why had nothing happened? Oh yeah. He forgot that he had put the safety on again while he was running to the phone. Hadn't wanted to hurt himself while running to tell the operator that he had just shot his own mother. What a joke. He fingered the safety off, put the gun in his mouth again and aimed the gun towards the top back of his head. He had read somewhere that pointing toward the upper back of the head was the most effective way to commit suicide by gun. If you did it any other way you risked just injuring yourself and failing in your suicide attempt. Just another soft squeeze and it would be over. Go ahead! his mind screamed. You friggin coward! Do it! What are you waiting for?
So here we are. Ed is dead. Eventually, in the line of work that he was in, Ed was bound to either die or be apprehended. For Ed, death was probably the kinder choice. Not prone to conformity, Ed would never have been able to survive prison. But his blood is still on our hands. Should we feel guilty? Some might think not, as he was nothing more than a killer. Having stepped outside of the lighted circle of acceptance, Ed had chosen a violent, solitary existence.
Maya accepted that she was responsible for and that she should indeed feel guilty for his death. While it was true that Ed was a killer, he was still a human being who had once had dreams and aspirations of being more. The choices that he had made meant that Ed withered in the dark, mutated and became something that ultimately had to be weeded out. But he was still a human being and Maya was directly responsible for his death.
Chapter Eighteen
She held the divorce papers in her hand. Her tears flowed freely as she signed them. Greg had asked that they be delivered to him by the end of the week and she had agreed. This was part of the price for what she had visited upon them as well. She accepted that too. She wouldn't call what she felt peace, but it was truth. She doubted that she would ever truly find peace, but she could live with knowing that her life was finally about truth. She was free of the lie.
Maya took the papers, folded them and put them in an envelope that was addressed to Greg. She had also included a letter for Molly. She hoped that Greg would let Molly see the letter. The last thing that Maya put in was the check. She wanted Molly to have a portion of her art gallery. She knew it wouldn't fix things, but thought that perhaps Molly would one day have ideas about how to make the money do some good.
After stopping at the post office and sending the letter certified mail, Maya thought about her last stop. It was funny how things came full circle eventually. As she listened to the gravel crunching under her tires, she thought about Kevin and Dennis. She thought about how much she had loved both of them. Still did. She also thought about how painful losing them was and how narcissistic she had been to do what she had done over the course of her life. Failing to share her grief with others had cast her out of the light, just like Ed had been cast out. She had lived in the shadows for years. The sad part was, she had lived in those shadows because of choices she had made. She was going to have to learn how to live with the consequences of those choices. The road ahead was long and bittersweet.
Maya got out of the car, and walked over to the grave. She knelt down and layed the roses on her son's grave. Tears, hot and slippery raced down Maya's cheeks. She thought about what a talented artist her son was. His cartoons were becoming popular in the press. Greg had released them as a way to remember his son. He was hoping their popularity would immortalize Kevin and that they would help him to continue on.
"I am so sorry son. Mommy never wanted this to happen to you. I wish I could take the last year back and live it all over again so you would still be here with us. I love you so very much." Maya sighed a shaky, broken sigh, full of regret. "I won't ask you to forgive me, but I hope you understand what I did and how very sick I was when I did it." Maya kissed her fingers and placed them on the picture of Kevin that was part of the gravestone. She stood up, dusted her skirt off and began to head back to the car. As she reached out for the handle to the driver's side door she hesitated. Turning back to her son's grave, she knelt down and whispered, "Look out for Daddy. He's hurt and lost. He needs someone to look after him now." Maya got up and slipped into her car and left.
When Maya arrived at her office, she saw Marie's brown Cadillac. Steeling herself for this encounter, Maya parked the car. She gathered her travel mug, her briefcase and her purse. Putting her purse inside her briefcase Molly noticed that Marie had stepped out of her car. She worried that there was going to be a confrontation. She knew that she deserved whatever was coming, but she just didn't have the energy to cope with it. Maya worried about what she might say in response to Marie.
It was needless worry though. Marie got out of her car, and then she brought out Molly. Maya's heart contracted. It was Molly! Her little girl. She hadn't seen Molly or heard her voice in weeks. Molly stood with Marie, wearing a pink dress and black pattent leather mary jane shoes. She had her hair in a pink bow and was carrying her matching black pattent leather purse. She looked so grown up. Molly stood still, expressionless for a moment, looking unsure. When Maya began to run toward her, Molly smiled and headed straight for Maya's arms.
"Hey Baby! Mommy has missed you so much!" Maya enveloped Molly in her arms. "Thank you Marie, thank you so very much." Maya smiled at Marie.
Marie managed guarded smile. "You don't have long. Greg expects us for dinner. I told him we had to stop for milk and salad ingredients. If we aren't back soon I will have to answer a lot of questions," Marie offered.
"I'll make it quick Marie, I promise," Maya stammered. Marie got back in the Cadillac and closed the door. Maya turned to Molly.
"How are you honey? I have missed you so much. Tell me all about how you are doing. Are you okay?" Maya was worried about how Molly was doing since Kevin was gone.
"I'm okay Mom. I wish you would come home. But I know you can't right now. Dad said so," Molly's eyes challenged Maya. She looked like she was hurt and needed something or someone to hang on to. Maya let her have Greg. For now.
"I have some things that I need to work on before I can have you visit me," Maya offered cautiously. She didn't want Molly to think she was unwelcome, but she and Greg had agreed that for the time being they were not going to involve Molly in the details of what had happened. What she spoke to Molly was the truth anyway. Maya had to learn about living a life in the light of day. Without hiding and cowering in the shadows. "When Daddy and I feel that things are ready you will be able to visit me sweetheart" Maya stroked Molly's hair and took in its clean scent.
"Why did Kevin die Mommy? Nobody will tell me. I'm so sad about him." Molly's wet, dark eyes met Maya's.
Maya took a moment to think. She thought about her sadness all those years ago. The sadness that she had endured alone. She did not want Molly to go through that. "Kevin died because of mistakes that Mommy made. I can't explain further right now honey, it's just too hard. Just know that Kevin died trying to protect me and that mistakes were made. It's okay for you to be sad about Kevin dying. You are his sister. You will miss him. You love him. It's okay to cry when you miss him," Maya wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. "Daddy is very sad right now too. Tell Daddy when you are sad. That way you won't be alone when you are sad. "
She took a fresh tissue out of her purse and wiped Molly's eyes with it. "When you feel sad and miss Kevin, think about the good times you had with him and the good things Kevin brought into our lives," Maya looked directly into Molly's eyes. "I wish you didn't have to go through this Molly, but you do. Let it hurt while it hurts, but then let yourself heal too. Eventually you will find yourself thinking about the comics that Kevin made you for your birthday last year and you will laugh. It will be a good laugh and you should enjoy it too. Think about the coal Daddy snuck into his stocking a couple of Christmases ago and how Kevin got even," Maya paused. "Do you remember?" Molly nodded and smiled. "Those are good memories of Kevin to hang onto Molly. Keep them close to your heart," Maya hugged Molly.
Marie had stepped out of the car and was walking towards them. "I'm sorry Maya, but Greg just called and wants to know why we're taking so long," Marie sounded stressed. "We have to go."
"Bye Mommy. I love you," Molly said while she stepped into the back seat of Marie's car.
"Bye sweetheart. I love you too. Don't ever forget that." Maya watched Molly sit in Marie's car and buckle her seatbelt.
Maya turned to Marie to say thank you, but when she saw the look on Marie's face she stopped. Marie looked angry and sad and pained. "How could you do this Maya? We loved you like our own. Why would you do this?" Marie asked this last question and gave a resigned sigh.
"Mom? All I can say is that I will never stop being sorry for this. I was childish and narcissitic. I was sick. I was in pain. But none of that is an excuse. I just want you all to know that I never wanted to hurt Kevin, never imagined he could become involved like he did."
"That's the trouble Maya. You just never allowed yourself to think this through, did you? How could you convince yourself that we could ever get over losing you? " Marie's hurt expression was stamped on Maya's heart.
Marie held up a hand. "I don't want to hear that you're sorry Maya. We are all sorry. Sorry that we couldn't turn to each other when we most needed to. That almost hurts as much as losing Kevin, but not quite."
Marie walked back toward her car. Then she paused and her shoulders slumped. She seemed to consider for a couple of minutes. "Maya, do you remember when you and Greg first told us that you were pregnant with Kevin? Do you remember what we said to you then?" Marie's hands clasped together.
"Sure Mom, you said that I was doing something very important, carrying your grandchild, "Maya ventured.
Greg was stunned. He could hardly absorb the information. This was Maya's doing? She brought this on? He was incredulous. Was it possible? Maya, the love of his life, the woman who had given birth to their children, she was responsible for the death of his son? Could things get any worse? He wondered to himself.
He had thought that he had only lost one person he had loved. But this new information. Could this be true?
"Yes Greg. It is true. I am so sorry. I know that I could never make up for this. I know that you probably can't understand or forgive. I'm not asking your understanding or forgiveness. I don't deserve it. If I hadn't brought Ed into our lives, Kevin would still be alive," Maya sighed. More tears. There had been so many tears over these last few weeks. Greg thought that he couldn't possibly cry any more than he had. He hung his head.
"How long has this been going on? When did you first contact Ed?" Greg wanted to know.
"I contacted him last year," Maya offered. "I found his ad in Soldier of Fortune magazine and I responded to it." Maya was silent for a long time. She cried while waiting for Greg to respond, but she didn't try to reach Greg. She knew that he was off limits now. "I just couldn't live the lie anymore honey," Maya said.
"What lie? Didn't we have a good life? Didn't you love me? Didn't you love our children? Weren't we good for each other?" Greg's confused, tearstained face begged for answers.
"I felt like a fraud sweetheart. It wasn't anything you did wrong. Or maybe some of it was. But I won't go down that path now. I made bad choices about the emptiness I felt. The deep whistling space that was left when Dennis died. I failed Dennis and could never forgive myself for that. There was no filling that void no matter how many years I put between me and him, no matter how many good things I did to make up for it or how many truly wonderful people I filled my life with," Maya paused here. "I just could never face what I did to Dennis."
"What you did? What did you do? You were a child Maya. The adults that were around him didn't supervise him enough. He was bound to get into something," Greg said. "He's lucky to have lived as long as he did."
Maya smiled a tired smile. She waited. "You won't accept that, will you?" Greg asked Maya.
"He was my brother. I knew what he was into and didn't stop him," Maya said simply.
Hi. My name is Amanda Sanchez. You probably don't really care who I am. But you should. I help connect Maya to her past. She doesn't remember me from her childhood, but I was there. She was a lonely, sad child. She rarely smiled. She tried not to be noticed. I sat next to her in third grade. I should have been her friend then. But I wasn't. I had my own issues, but I found ways to smile and be happy. The fact that she never smiled bugged me. You know how kids are when they are young. They don't have any awareness of the world around them being anything other than what they experience. Her failure to smile felt to me like she was a snob.
Well, my experience was rough, but happy. My dad used to beat the crap out of me. He usually beat the crap out of my mother first, but eventually he would tire of her (or I would distract him from her on purpose), and I would be the punching bag. He usually would do this after a serious round of drinking after work. He often went out with his buddies after work, and when he came home most nights he could barely walk.
He would come through the door around midnight and would flip on the television. All in the Family or the Jeffersons reruns would be on and he never had the presence of mind to turn the volume down. He would sit in his chair laughing like Robert DeNiro in Cape Fear (you know, the scene where he's at the movies?). He sit there and laugh like a loon for the first half hour, and of course that would wake my mother up. She usually went to bed around 10 pm most nights. My mother would come out of the bedroom wearing her lounging pajamas and my father usually had some mean comment to make. He would say something like, "What the hell're you looking at you pathetic bitch?"
Mom would usually respond with, "Screw you, you ignorant moron!" After this comment she would head into the bathroom and spend a few minutes in there. When she came out of the bathroom, usually my dad was waiting for her.
"What did you say to me? Did you call me a moron? You better watch your mouth. It has a way of running too much. Maybe it's broken. Don't worry, I'll fix it for you," my dad would finish while he cocked his fist back.
"I called you an ignorant moron, get it right," my mom would always respond. Or at least she would respond with something like it. My mom never cowered at my father's threats. I'll give her that. She refused to show him any fear. She told me once that she didn't get beat more because she refused to let him see her afraid. He beat her most times until she was unconscious or I stepped in.
When I was home early enough to step in, I would usually take the first swing. I found it more effective a diversion if I did that. "You think you tough sister?" He would say and backhand me. That was usually the beginning of a long night of punches, slaps, pinches and kicks. I think I had more of my mother in me than I realized at the time because the physical abuse usually did not back me down. I would continue to swing at him until I was unconscious or he was. There were many nights that I wound up with broken cheekbones, a broken nose, or loose teeth, but I thought, "Fuck you. I won't give you the satisfaction of knowing you scared me. I won't back down."
On the nights that he beat her unconscious, he would step over her and head to bed, leaving me to clean her up. I used to cry when I picked her up like this. I would clean the blood of her face and cry while I was doing it. She would usually come back to consciousness while I was cleaning up her lip or putting ice on her eye. "Why do you let him do this to you?" I would demand of her. She would never say. She would only look at me and say, "It's alright honey. I'm okay." I learned in later years that she accepted the beatings because she could never make ends meet if she left him. She allowed the punches, the insults and the humiliation to be sure that she could take care of her children. My mom worked as a cleaning lady. She worked hard, but she knew that she would never work in a situation that would allow her to support us on her own. She also would not allow us to tell anyone about these beatings. It was a humiliation that she felt she could be spared. She had control over who knew about these beatings, so she would not allow us to tell anyone. Even if those anyones could have helped the beatings stop. She insisted that we keep silent about these beatings and so, over the years it became a regular thing to see her beaten to a pulp. She would never cry or scream during these beatings either. She was tough.
As I got older, I became angry at her for taking the beatings. I think I became so angry because I felt guilty that she was taking these beatings so she could take care of me. It made me sick to think that in order for her to be sure I ate and was clothed she had to sacrifice her safety, her dignity and her happiness. But that was my mom. She would have died for us kids. Eventually she did. One day my father decided that his fists weren't enough pain for my mother. He decided to stab her. He stabbed her fifty times. He went to prison for the rest of his life. That much I could do for my mother. I would have loved to have seen the bastard fry for what he did to her, but the state would only give him life without parole.
You might think that my life would have improved without my bastard of a father in it. It would make sense. To not be beaten practically every day, or to not come home to see your mother beaten senseless. That should be a good thing. Many would assume that no matter what my situation was from then on, it had to be better. Your assumption would be wrong. I was put into the foster system after my mom died and my dad went to prison. The first family that took me in was nice, but they didn't really have room for me to stay long term.
I was moved on fairly quickly. That first family was what they call an "emergency placement." After the initial hubbub, this family spoke up and asked that I be moved on. It was nothing personal. They just didn't have room for someone like me in their lives. So I was moved on. To another family.
This other family was the opposite. There were many nights that I couldn't decide which was worse, my biological family or the family I had been placed with. Sure, I had been beaten in my original home, but I had never had to worry about "The Look." What was "the Look?" The father figure got "the Look" many nights after I arrived. He had apparently had "the Look" for his own daughters, but the wife felt that my purpose in the household was to deflect "the Look" from the biological children. Perversions had been performed. I was asked to accommodate needs that no child should ever be asked to accommodate.
Eventually I decided to run away. Running away made more sense than enduring more of this abuse. If I ran away things would be on my own terms more or less. Yes, eventually I wound up in prostitution. But it was on my own terms. I was actually a call girl. That's a step or two above prostituting on the streets. I hated every minute of it, but I did it until I saved up enough money to get out and start the life Iwanted.
What life was that you asked? The life that I wanted was that of a travel writer. I travel to different locations, write about the food, culture, terrain and offerings of the area, and move on. I have a personal trainer that travels with me. I write for several magazines. I have made a name for myself. My only regret is that I developed AIDS while I was a call girl. That was really what forced me into retirement. I just couldn't conscience working any more while sick. I had wanted to get out anyway, and here was the perfect opportunity.
I remet Maya while I was in the hospital being treated with AIDS. She recognized me as I was sitting with an IV in my arm. She came over, hugged me and asked what I had been up to lately. I was bitter and laughed at her inquiry. But Maya eventually healed my bitter heart. She has an uncanny ability to do that. She was the reason I went to college. I got my journalism degree and began my new life.
In the beginning, Maya and I lived together. She kept the home fires burning while I went to exotic locations and wrote about food and wine. When I got sick of travelling, living out of sutcases, I would go back to Maya. We would have some good times together and then another assignment would come up and I would be off again.
She and Greg still maintain a room for me at their home. It touches my heart that they do this. Such a vivacious, warm and kind couple has made such a space for me in their family. I feel redeemed because of them. They never had any expectations in return, they just keep my room ready for me. So I play the part of the big sister to their children. I am their Auntie Amanda. I take them for ice cream. I bring them cool stuff from faraway lands and I act as taxi on a moment's notice. Molly and I have such great times at her teaparties. She sets up her teddy bears, always with the cutest hats and gloves, and we have a grand time. Kevin will occassionally shoot pool with me, but he is at that age where it isn't cool to hang out with his mom's friends. I respect that.
Mina unpacked her laptop. She carefully laid out the contents of her backpack. When she was sure she had all the parts she connected all the wires and cables. Once this was done she plugged her laptop into the wall. She attempted to access the precinct's main computer. What had her dad said the name of it was? Oh yeah, Cerebus.
Her fingers flew over the keyboard as she accessed Cerebus. She tried and retried various passwords and combinations. Normally, she would wear headphones while hacking into something like this, but she wanted to be aware if someone entered the room. If she was absorbed in Steely Dan they might surprise her. Even worse than being surprised, if it was the wrong person they might see what she was up to. Then there would be trouble. She would have to answer a lot of questions. Questions she wasn't sure she should be answering. At least not without talking with Kevin first.
As her fingers tapped various keys, she began to relax. She was getting to what she needed quickly. This would hopefully be over one way or the other in fifteen minutes or so. She just hoped that her dad didn't stop into the office for a meeting or something. He thought she was at Cissy's.
Okay, it was time to scan the fingerprints. Mina took the envelope out of her homework folder. She carefully slit the envelope open with a swiss army knife. The tape, with its unique sworls on it, fluttered down onto the desk blotter. She picked them up and looked at them for a couple of minutes. Finally she shrugged her shoulders, as if to say, "Oh well," and lay them flat on the scanner attached to the laptop. The scanner crept along the edge of the tape and made its whirring sounds, demonstrating to Mina that it was working properly. Once the fingerprints had been scanned, the laptop screen read, "Now searching Cerebus...please wait..." Mina sat back and popped a piece of gum into her mouth. As its juicy flavor reached the ends of her tongue, a face appeared on the screen. It was the face of a man with eyes that looked dead. There was no smile on him. This man appeared to have no soul. The face staring out at Mina knew neither compassion nor mercy. It made Mina shiver. Good God, she was glad that she hadn't seen this person in real life!
Mina wrote down the information that was presented on the screen. Name, date of birth. Rank. Serial number. She began to worry about Kevin as she wrote these things down. She worried that there was no way to help Kevin. She worried about what Kevin had got himself into, and whether he was capable of getting himself out. She thought briefly about telling Cissy what was going on, but dismissed it. Cissy was like a sister to her, but she was incapable of keeping a secret. She would blab whatever Mina shared with her with Jacob (or whoever was the latest love of her life), and that person was sure to blab to everyone else eventually.
A bit more discretion was in order in Mina's opinion. There may come a time when she needed to let her dad in on what was going on, but Mina felt that she needed to give Kevin the respect he deserved. He deserved to have the chance to explain and to take care of things himself if he could. What business could Kevin possibly have with this man? Mina really worried. She felt that Kevin might be getting in over his head. Mina packed up her backpack and laptop, and headed out to find Kevin. Alone.
Kevin looked at his watch. Mina was a bit late. He would give her a few more minutes before starting to get antsy. He needed this information, and he needed it soon. Calm down, Kevin told himself, she's never let you down before. Why would she now? If she couldn't do what you requested, I'm sure she would have told you by now, his mind reasoned with him.
