Getting up and making herself some tea, Maggie watched the girl sit in a chair and stare at the TV. She came and left without a word of where she went. Maggie knew that she had fallen deep into the girl’s net. She was sure there was no way that she just happened to be friends with her; she knew this white girl was here for her and Maggie, such a fool, was now trapped by her.
Maggie sat like a prisoner watching her captor. She drank her tea in small sips and wondered when this girl would make her move. Would she kill Maggie? Cut her up for organs? What did this girl want with Maggie? She wanted to ask her, but her pride and determination to join her shadow demon didn’t allow it. She held back the questions. She held back the want to slap this girl in the face for saving her from the police, but it was also catching her for her own need.
What was killing Maggie the most was being locked up here day-after-day just waiting, but waiting for what? “Chingado, mata mi ya.” Her mind started to come back from the fog of the accident. The accident, of course, was no accident. Maggie remembered how she stood on that street corner, watching the cars go speeding by, and wanting to get wherever they were going quickly. Maggie watched car after car after car, and with each car she wanted to do it. She wanted to step off that curb. She told herself to just toss herself in front of them. Maggie could picture the car hitting her, tossing her onto the street, and then other cars running over her. The tires ran over her again and again, until there was nothing left but blood and skin. This little scene in her head excited her, thrilled her, and was almost sexual.
Maggie’s thoughts were nothing more than how to kill herself. She had made her choice, she was done, and she needed to find a way to end it all. Cars zoomed by and she stood there. She stood there breathing and readying herself, but there was no ready—her pinchi feet wouldn’t budge. Her pinchi patas didn’t move. Then, Maggie remembered so clearly now, standing there wishing for death—zoom, zoom, zoom—there was suddenly a hand on her back, between her shoulder blades. She felt a strong empujon, then her memory when blank—until the hospital and the little witches that wouldn’t let her go.
There were blank parts at the hospital too, where she couldn’t remember anything. Maggie remembered trying to talk to hospital staff, but they wouldn’t listen. With that, came the memory of the lady in the elevator. She remembered the feel of her head hitting the floor. The pounding of this little lady’s head like a hammer and nail. Maggie finished her tea. She knew she had murder in her spirit. She was a killer trapped in the body of a fat old dog and this curled her tripas. She was her father’s daughter; he was a bad man that did bad things to many people. Maggie was a bad woman that wanted to do bad things to many people.
But, when it came time to do bad things to herself, she was a chicken. This Maggie knew was la toda verdad. Maggie was a coward; she was going to sit in this apartment day after day waiting for this gringa to kill her because she was too gallina to do it herself.
Lisa
Lisa knew Maggie was watching her, but she didn’t care. She was too wrapped up in wondering how to get Rafael to her house. Lisa knew she’d have to take the boy. There was no other way. She would have to take the boy—take something that didn’t belong to her. The child wasn’t Lisa’s to take, but she would take him. She had to. She had to, and Lisa couldn’t stomach it. Lisa did not care about taking an adult, but to take a child was something she did not want to do—especially since she did not know what she would have to do to that child.
She didn’t know and she didn’t want to hurt the boy. How could Superior Mother ask that of her, how? The Mothers in The Grey protected the girls of The Grey. No one would ever lay hands on them, so how can they ask her to hurt Rafael? He was just a child. Lisa shook her head and put her shoes on. There was no other way. She got up and went out her door. The plan needed to be built in Lisa’s head and she needed to start today.
Superior Mother
Mother 10 smiled a wicked smile of satisfaction and contempt at Superior Mother. Superior Mother nodded back and returned to writing notes and watching the monitors. She had always hated Mother 10, and she believed the feeling was mutual. All the same and none different probably only meant physically, thought Superior Mother, but she wouldn’t say that out loud to anyone.
Physically, nobody could distinguish one girl of The Grey from another; a woman of The Grey looked exactly like the other. Their way of life was meant to mold them into believing and thinking like each other. Every second of their day was focused on having them think for the group and not for themselves. Yet, Superior Mother noticed that thinking for the group rarely happened.
Instead of building a strong system of women that could challenge anything that got in their path, they were doomed to breed individuals. Superior Mother looked at Mother 10 and blinked several times before she could get her thoughts straight, “Lisa is at week 4 correct?”
Mother 10 nodded and offered up the same contemptuous smile that would not leave her face. “Yes, week 4…days are ticking by and she doesn’t seem to really be doing anything. Poor dear, she just doesn’t seem to have any ambition. Mother 55 at week 4 had all her marks in place and ready along with an alibi to where they had gone with their families.”
Superior Mother remembered that at week 4, Mother 55 had all of her Marks drugged and tied to bed posts in her apartment. She had never bothered to build a relationship with them, she had just attained them and waited like a viper. “Mother 55 was very efficient in all her missions,” Superior Mothers agreed.
Mother 10 replied, “Yes, very efficient…” With that she left the room. Then, it occurred to Superior Mother that Mother 10 had left quickly and with a huff. With Mother 10 gone, Helen strolled in, not allowing Superior Mother a moment of solitude.
“Mmmm, just thought I’d drop in to visit. I saw Mother 10 leave in a hurry…didn’t know if maybe you—”
Superior Mother gave Helen a pat on the arm. It was a move to calm her and also a move to get a feel for what she really wanted. The second Superior Mother touched Helen’s arm, she was bitten by the icy cold itch. Superior Mother turned to Helen calmly and without a fuss. She looked at Helen from her feet to her face, then slapped her and held her down in the chair.
“I have felt you coming. I knew you were near. The time for you to rise is at my doorstep, but I will not go without a fight. I will not happily and stupidly allow you to tuck me in as if a babe. I am not ready to be dismissed.” Superior Mother let go of Helen then stood up.
“Sleep with those eyes open, sweet pea. I am very much still in control of everything you do.”
With that, Superior Mother left to her bedroom where she could rage in private. She knew her time was coming to an end, but to have her predecessor in front of her, forcing her to face her truth, was more than she could stomach at the moment. There was no denying the icy itch and Helen would soon take her place as Superior Mother. Helen would know every tick and tock of the ladies of The Grey and this Superior Mother would be no more.
Rafael
Rafael’s mom knew the demons were gone, but didn’t understand why they came or why they left. She thought maybe it was her brothers who scared them away, but then again maybe not. Drinking coffee at her desk, she felt an itch in her heart that wouldn’t stop. It itched her heart so badly that she wanted to rip herself open and light her heart on fire.
Instead, she sat at her desk watching the cars zoom past Feline Street and allowed the itch to distract her from the truth that was pounding her skull. Her brother, Augustine, had asked to raise Rafael. He wanted to take Rafael away from Feline Street and away from her. Rafael’s mom looked at her coffee, then spit in her cup and put it back down. She was the spit. She sighed…she wasn’t spit. Spit was warm, slippery, and covered every inch of a mouth. She wanted to be as good as spit, but wasn’t and that was the worst part of it all.
Rafael’s mom thought that maybe she was a heartbeat—something that was very important for a second, then gone. But, that was also giv
ing her too much importance. She knew she must give up the boy. He was empty and she could never fill him up. She could never give him any love; she couldn’t understand how, and what was worse, she didn’t want to learn.
Augustine had a warm house with a kind wife and a daughter who wanted nothing more than to be helpful. Rafael would be held and talked to. They would teach him what a human is, because she didn’t understand it herself.
Rafael’s mom didn’t understand warmth or cuddling. She couldn’t understand how to hug her little boy. She wanted to grab Rafael and feel his skin, stick her nose in his hair while rubbing his neck. She had seen this so many times on TV. She would be determined to do it, then she’d come home and her limbs wouldn’t listen. Rafael would start to spin, her brain would shut down, and she couldn’t get her body to do what her brain wanted. At the end of the night, she felt too exhausted to fight with herself anymore, and the little boy never got loved on even if every inch of her brain wanted her to do it.
She picked up the phone and dialed her brother. What she was doing was a betrayal to Rafael that he’d never understand. He would think his mom didn’t want to be his mom; he would never understand that his mom couldn’t be a mom.
A couple hours away, Augustine picked up his cell phone, spoke to his sister, and felt glad. Rafael would be with his family. Augustine’s family was always lonely for Rafael even though they never had him, and Augustine felt that now they would be whole. When he put the phone back in his pocket, his mind spun with all the things he needed to do to get ready for Rafael to come home. There was never, not once, not for a single second a question in his mind on why? Why did he feel such a need to protect this child that he hardly knew? It was a question he never bothered to ask himself because it was a question that simply didn’t exist to him.
Craig
Craig laid on the couch, wanting to look out the window, but his paranoia was so deep that it stuck to him. It was a goo that covered him from head to toe. What if he looked out and a neighbor saw him and called the cops? What if he looked out and a person on the street saw him, then called the cops? What if he looked out and the cops saw him? The “what if’s” kept shaking Craig’s nerves until he felt that he’d never stand straight again.
Craig felt nothing. Nothing for the loss of his house; it was like a cold sore, visibly miserable. He felt nothing for the loss of his self in the rape. When he raped his co-worker, he took everything from her and in that moment he lost all of himself. After the rape, there was no redeeming what little there was of his character. Craig would feel nothing for the loss of Lisa, the only woman friend he’d ever have. What Craig missed most was his old truck. That truck was his only true friend. When Craig wept, he wept not for the fire, the job, or the murder; he wept for the truck that he left abandoned in the streets. No one would love that truck as he did.
Lisa
Staring at the boy’s house wasn’t helping anything, and Lisa knew it. She just hoped that maybe something would happen at his house, some movement, that could get her thinking on a way to get the boy out. She saw nothing, and she felt nothing. It was all for nothing, and this was driving her insane. She should focus on the task at hand: this boy and how she needed him for End Point.
Her focus instead kept drifting to the why. Why was all this necessary? What means to an end did this all have? Sending her away from The Grey, giving her a mission and marks, why? She didn’t want to complete the mission. What she really wanted was answers.
Walking along Feline Street, Lisa kicked whatever she could—the mailbox, a bag, whatever was in front of her. She kicked because she knew that, for answers, she’d have to complete her mission. If she didn’t, there was a nagging feeling in Lisa’s gut that she’d get no answers at all.
It was when Lisa kicked an old piece of wood that looked burned that she realized she was at Craig’s house. The house stood there charred, ruined, and full of rage. Craig’s porch was gone and the living room was visible from the street. Lisa couldn’t help herself, she had to go peek. There wasn’t anything left; what hadn’t burned was stolen. The air smelled like a camp fire and the house felt like death.
“It was an angry death,” Lisa told the burned walls and touched them. The spirit of the house was gone, murdered by Craig, but it’s ghost was full of rage and hung on to every splinter that was left. Lisa thought the house was a woman; she knew this couldn’t be so and that she was over-romanticizing her notions about the place. It seemed like a scorned lover. It felt like a bad breakup and lover’s revenge was coming.
Going through the bones of the house, Lisa couldn’t get a feel for Craig. He had lived here, he grew up here, but there was nothing here that was Craig. This caused Lisa to pause and think—there was nothing to her that stood out as Craig, except for his voice. He sounded so distinctive, like every wave on a Hawaiian beach. Lisa felt tears coming, but fought against them and instead decided to snoop. Maybe she could find some of Craig in the rubble.
Buried in a drawer was a picture of Craig on the beach as a teenage boy with a skinny blonde girl who, on any day at any hour, could be mistaken for Lisa. With that picture in hand, Lisa had no doubt that she was a lady of The Grey and Lisa had no doubt that her marks were not random. “Of course!” Lisa yelled at the wall, “Nothing is random in The Grey; that would be very inefficient.”
Iggy
His sister had fed them dinner and sat them down. She talked about the demons and safety. Where demons wander, there is no safety. She was positive that they wandered wherever she was. Iggy and Rafael listened, neither of them really understanding why she was saying what she said, and both surprised she said anything at all.
At the end of the talk, she told Rafael that he would go live with his Tio Augustine, just for a while, until she could get the demons away—until she could understand the demons and understand why they wanted her. She had to fix it, so Rafael could be safe.
Iggy watched the little boy and not a tear, not a cry, not even a hint of jerky tantrum emerged. He looked at his mother, he ate his food and he went to bed knowing that soon he would live elsewhere, with somebody else, and nothing…it was like nothing.
Rafael
Rafael crawled into his bed happily. He felt happy, really happy, but didn’t want to show it. He didn’t want to hurt his mom’s heart, but he really liked the idea of being with his Tio. His Tio holding him, grabbing his hand, and looking at him was the only time that Rafael felt that maybe, just maybe, his body would finally listen to his brain. Maybe with his Tio, he’d have a chance to stop spinning long enough to read stories like other kids. Maybe he’d do stuff like other kids. Rafael had always fantasized about going to the movies.
He fell asleep smiling and hoping his Tio would take him to the movies, any movie he didn’t care. He was glad to be free from his mother and the dull nothing in his heart was filled with excitement. Maybe tomorrow, the man or his mother, would notice there was finally a little sparkle in his eyes.
Rafael’s mom had said her peace. Her heart wasn’t heavy with grief, she accepted that her life wasn’t a good one or a fair one, it just was one. Cleaning the kitchen after dinner, she snuck glances at Iggy. He was broken also—no good either. She just didn’t want to tell him, “estamos quebrados.” There was no need to waste anymore hope on them. Hope went to Augustine—maybe he could give some to Rafael, who she also considered hopeless.
Putting the dishes away, she reminded herself that Rafael having no soul, no light, was her fault and she must save the child from her. She had nothing.
In a living room drawer, Iggy found pictures of Rafael as a baby. In one, was his sister at the hospital and a nurse was handing her the baby. The nurse looked exactly like Lisa. It was Lisa. It was Lisa…Iggy stood up and walked to the kitchen giving the picture to his sister and pointing to Lisa. His sister interrupted with a shrug and said, “Ni me acuerdo de estar embarazada…” She left the room, and Iggy knew that this was something. This was something bigger than him,
bigger than the street, the town, and bigger than any cloud in the sky. No more chicken shit, Iggy knew he’d have to go find her and ask questions.
Lisa
Handing Maggie a glass of water, Lisa touched the picture in her pocket. She felt the urge to show it to Maggie, but since Craig was sitting on the couch, it seemed impossible to do it in secret. Lisa knew she would show Craig at any minute. She needed to, she wanted to, it had to be done, but her mouth wouldn’t open and her feet wouldn’t move. Looking down at Maggie, she noticed the older woman studying her. She was watching her like a concerned mother and Lisa almost felt some warmth for the woman.
Almost… then she remembered why she was there and Lisa remembered who she was. She had no time for warmth or attachments. All of this would be over soon enough.
She was doing nothing to prepare for next week and this was her decided upon doom. Lisa couldn’t help but wonder if it was too soon to ask Craig. What if he became angry and decided to leave before week 5? Week 5 was only a couple days away and she had no idea when Superior Mother would have End Point come. At the beginning of the week, middle, or end? There was no telling. There was no information.
She risked a lot asking him now, but she couldn’t help thinking that everything for her was lost already. Almost lost, Lisa told herself. There might still be time to save herself.
Helen was busy learning every corner and path Superior Mother took in The Grey. She learned that her days, like all in The Grey, were scheduled and her routine mostly predictable. Except for the times she disappeared behind doors Helen could not enter. When she went behind those doors, there was no telling what she did, but the time she spent behind those doors was almost always the same. Helen worked hard to memorize all this in her head, never wanting to chance a scrap of paper that could be discovered. Week 5 was coming for her daughter and she needed to make her move to become Superior Mother quickly, and before Superior Mother made a move on her.
Women of the Grey- The Complete Trilogy Page 19
