Damaged Love

by Sarah J. Brooks

  My heart raced just thinking of what the night was going to be like. The metal shutters on the house could be warmed to melt the snow around the house, but in order to open and close the front door properly, I’d have to shovel away the layers that piled on the porch. I did have a snow blower, but I hated lugging it around.

  These storms were dark and miserable and often brought the demons in my psyche to the forefront. I hated grief, it robbed my soul, but on dark stormy nights, grief was often my only companion.

  “Charlie, Charlie,” the CB radio cracked.

  “Charlie, over,” A jovial man’s deep and rasping voice responded.

  “What’s your ETA? Over?” The first man, maybe a younger man, asked.

  “Gonna be in before that black cloud is, over,” he said offering assurance to the younger man.

  “Ma’s cooking a goose, she wants everyone home tonight, she’s tellin’ me to tell you to get home now. You won’t answer your cell, over,” the younger man scolded.

  “Lost reception. Tell Mom I’m fine. If I don’t make it home, I’m at the Rusty Spoon. Over and out.” He sounded like he had no intention of making it home for Ma’s goose, that made me laugh, wonder who was at the Rusty Spoon?

  “Ma’s gonna kill you if she doesn’t see your face, over!” the younger man shouted.

  “So will Lucy. Over and out again, lil’ bro. Tell Mom not to worry,” the older man was getting what he needed tonight, and it wasn’t going to be Ma’s goose.

  Strangely the line went to static, either the brothers were out of range or that storm was gonna blow the roof off the place. I had my own satellite tower which was private and encrypted so I would probably still have internet and cell reception. It rarely went out, but a big storm could damage the tower and that’d be a problem. I looked out the window, crystal blue skies to the west and menacing blackness to the east. We had maybe a few hours left before everything would go dark. I made sure to make the most of it and took my laptop outside. Despite the cold, it was probably going to be the last daylight I’d see for a while.

  Chapter 4

  Jeni

  I said goodbye to my last client, a cute little six-year-old girl who always drew me a picture during our sessions. Clutching the lovely crayon drawing of a rainbow in one hand and my cell phone in the other, I slung my well-worn Coach backpack over my shoulder and headed for my car.

  The Coach bag had been a gift from my mom. It was an expensive gift to give an eleven-year-old, but it was meant to be my “adventure bag” and it was supposed to last a lifetime of adventure. Well, thirteen years later, it was still going strong.

  I texted Lydia to let her know I was on my way, for which I got a foreboding text with warnings of imminent danger in return. A storm was on the horizon. I could see it, but I assured her I’d make it up the mountain in time and we’d all have some hot cocoa when I got there.

  Storms didn’t scare me, I’d been up and down that mountain a hundred times, besides nothing really frightened me anymore. I dared life to throw me something I couldn’t handle. After losing my mom, I lost my fear of anything. Even the boogie man wearing a clown suit and carrying an ax wouldn’t phase me. A little snow wasn’t scary.

  I’d made it to the base of the mountain pretty quickly since I was leaving in the middle of the day. I could see the dark storm clouds gathering in the distance, so I made sure to gas up my car.

  Usually, I liked to go the bakery at the base of the mountain and pick up fresh baked goodies, but I had contraband. I was already winning, no need to risk being caught on the mountain in the storm.

  The drive was tedious but familiar. The cabin had always been in our family. We’d fly out to from California to Minnesota and make this trek every Christmas until Mom was killed; then we didn’t go back. If our grandparents wanted to see us, they’d have to come to California, which never happened. When I was fourteen my father’s parents weren’t doing so well. They lived in Minneapolis where my mom and dad met and both of them got sick around the same time with different ailments. My father had to move home to care for them so that’s when we made Minnesota our home.

  As soon as they died, he found someone new on Match.com and they moved to Florida, but I stayed in Minnesota to be near my mom’s family. My mom was a third-grade school teacher. She loved teaching, it was her passion. She always told me to believe in something greater than myself and for her, that was teaching.

  She used to say, “Imogen,” which always made me cringe because I hated my full name, “Being your mommy is the best thing I’ve ever done with my life and being a teacher, is my superpower. I want to be the best I can at the thing I love almost as much as I love you and your father.”

  This was how she started her explanation of why we lived in one of the roughest neighborhoods in Los Angeles when we still lived in California. She believed that in order to really serve the community as a teacher, she had to be where she was most needed, which was apparently right in the hood.

  She was right though, people in the community knew her and appreciated what she was doing for their children and it was actually a pretty nice place to grow up. Poor people bonded together and took care of one other. I was happy when our family was included in things that were going on around us. We’d be invited to barbecues and birthday parties; people were always making stuff and bringing it over. If I think back on it, most of my memories of living in Los Angeles were fond ones.

  My dad hated it but loved my mom enough to tolerate where she wanted us to live. Neither of them had to commute very far for work and I got to go to the school where my mom taught, so we’d walk together every morning. I enjoyed our morning talks, we would banter about the state of the world, or voice our hopes and dreams. I loved my mother, she was the best person on the planet. I cared for my dad too, but my mom was inarguably the better human on all fronts.

  I hate to admit it, but I was terribly spoiled. I think my parents wanted to make up for the fact that I didn’t have a sibling to play with. I had lots of friends in the neighborhood, but I think some of the other kids were jealous of the attention my parents gave me.

  It didn’t help that I was also a beautiful child. I didn’t care that I was beautiful, I wasn’t conceited, but I had my mom’s good looks and my father’s strong, sculpted profile. Being a mix of both of them, I was lucky enough to get all the good genes. Dad used to say he didn’t need another kiddo because I turned out perfect. The fact was they couldn’t have another child for a reason they never discussed with me.

  Because I was so loved and adored, I was also smothered. They never really allowed me to do anything or go anywhere. I used to get bored all the time. I wanted excitement and adventure in my life but my parents were strict and didn’t want anything happening to their precious little girl. My friends talked about failing grades and family dramas, but I just didn’t have any of that, so I took to climbing walls and trees for excitement.

  I liked dangling from things and testing my strength. I started rock climbing when I was about eight-years-old scrambling around small rock clusters with my dad when we’d visit the cabin. I was surprised he let me climb with him, but it was an excuse to get us out of the house as Gramps had been unpleasant even then. I took a few courses in rock climbing and became a pretty good mountaineer. I found it relaxing, which most people thought was insane.

  But unlike other, perhaps more sane people, climbing rocks and being on the verge of a possible plunge into oblivion, was very exciting for me. I felt alive when I climbed.

  Later, when my mom died, I vowed nothing would ever scare me. However, that was a lie. There was something that haunted me, even in my sleep. I remembered it so vividly, I felt like I was there, again and again, every time I had the same nightmare. I was an eleven-year-old girl on the way to school with her mother when the monsters came.

  On the day my mom died, I was walking along the brick wall that separated my elementary school from the sidewalk and ran the perimeter of the campus. I
was absolutely not heeding any of my mother’s cautioning.

  “Imogen, get down from there, honey. It’s too high, you’re gonna fall and crack your head,” she’d caution me with only a tinge of worry lacing her voice.

  I’d tight-roped the campus wall so many times without incident that I think she only cautioned me because she had to. I liked to mess with her, it was mostly just joking around, and she knew it. Truthfully, the absolute worst thing that could’ve happened was I’d fall and break something. We both just silently prayed it wouldn’t be my skull.

  I teased my mom, teetering back and forth on the wall, testing her patience every once in a while, throwing in a ‘whoa, whoa’ to get a rise out of her. I loved watching her pretty face turn playfully cross. “Imogen,” she’d say in a disdainful tone, “you are gonna be the death of me one day.”

  Suddenly the sound of shots and screeching tires could be heard in the distance. They came from somewhere over on the other street. I think she was trying to comfort me, but the look in her eyes was sheer terror.

  “Sometimes, I wish we lived in a better neighborhood. Now please get down. It’s probably just a car backfiring, but I don’t want you to be an easy target,” she smiled when she saw my horrified expression. “I’m sure it’s just a car, silly,” she added with a twinkle of disbelief in her eyes.

  I was about to jump off the wall, but I was too freaked out to move. A late model car, something dull and loud with jamming deep base music rounded the street shooting at two men running on foot. One of the men, tearing down the opposite side of the street, shot back at the car before he went down. I was so shocked, I saw a man GET SHOT! I was in so much disbelief at the time, I think I must have gone a little catatonic.

  “Mom, they just shot that guy!” I screamed as I finally came to and jumped off the wall to see my mother sink to the ground in a pool of blood of her own blood.

  The guy who had shot at the car missed and hit my mom instead.

  She stared at me, her beautiful blue eyes sparkling in the sunlight as she died in my arms. The bullet went right through her lungs, she couldn’t speak, but her eyes said all she needed to say. They said, ‘I love you and I’m sorry I’m leaving you.” I’m glad I told her I loved her over and over again. I’m glad I was still saying it when cops pried her body out of my arms, and in my heart, I was still saying it, thirteen years later.

  Later, I found out they were shooting at each other because one of the guys was in a rival gang and they’d killed someone the night before. It was all so senseless, so much death for nothing. The neighborhood tried to console us with dinners and memorials for my mom, but in the end, we had to leave. Without her, we didn’t belong there, so we went home to a place I’d never been. I watched the snow-covered trees get taller and denser as I made my way up the mountain and reassured myself that nothing would ever scare me again as much as that day. Nothing in this world would ever compare to the day my mother died in my arms, killed by stupid monsters who didn’t know they’d just destroyed the best person in the world.

  When I pulled up the driveway of the cabin, Lydia came out into the deep snow with just her house dress and a shawl wrapped around her shoulders. “I am so glad you got here in time, dear,” she said with her big arms spread wide, scooping me up into a robust hug. “Let’s get you inside where it’s warm.” She rubbed her hands up and down my arms as she shuffled me into the cabin. “Do you have any other luggage?”

  “Nope, just what’s on my back,” I told her as I walked into the toasty warm cabin that smelled like burning logs and cinnamon.

  “Where’s my candy?” was all I got outta Gramps.

  Chapter 5

  Dash

  The storm was howling, and the sun had just started to set. It was getting dark and windy quickly. I was relieved to see the two men who made my delivery each month had finished unloading the boxes onto the cement slab and were about to go on their way back down the mountain. I was sure they’d make it to the bottom before the worst of the storm hit.

  I had a delivery platform on the side of the road at the base of my small mountain. If you didn’t know there was a house at the top of the hill, you wouldn’t have any reason to think anyone lived there. I had a camera mounted on the trees, so I could see them come and go. My fortress was secluded and well hidden from view. The slab was just a weird thing you’d pass if you found yourself on the road, which most likely would’ve been because of a wrong turn at the fork or you were a forest ranger and there was a fire, otherwise, no one other than the delivery service used the road.

  The delivery guys always placed the large moving sized boxes on the platform, then backed down the mountain to the crossroads about a half a mile away. I wouldn’t see any other humans for another month. I was happy to see them leave as I hated to think anyone was putting their lives at risk just so I could have toilet paper and fancy coffee.

  As soon as I saw their lights fade away I made my way down the narrow path to the cement slab. I knew the truckers talked about me and wondered who I was. They probably assumed I was a reclusive writer or a hermit. Nobody suspected I was Dashell Frye, the dead/not dead almost Nobel Prize winner.

  I grabbed one of the heavy boxes, hoisted it onto my shoulders and made the trek back up the mountain. The exercise from living in the mountains climbing every day, chopping wood, and maintaining the house had made me quite buff and strong. I looked very different than I did when I first arrived at the cabin, I was no longer a lean scientist, but was a sturdy, strong mountain man. I went back for the second box, then locked myself inside my safe little sanctuary, my almost brush with humanity over for the month. I was ready to shutter the windows and become a recluse once again.

  In order to make sure I didn’t drive myself nuts with tedium, I kept my orders varied and exciting. It was the only thing I looked forward to, apart from my sister’s nightly Facetime calls. I had to stock mostly non-perishable foods, but I’d also order some things that were special, so I had at least a few fresh foods to look forward to. I’d throw in some frozen fish, frozen vegetables, goose liver pate, and things that could keep for a little while in addition to the essentials: toilet paper, shampoo, laundry liquid, dish soap, rice, beans etc. I’d become a survivalist with a dash of white truffles, European chocolates, smoked meats, a case of single malt scotch, and some fine red wine thrown in.

  It felt a bit like Christmas by the time everything was put away and it was getting late. I was ready for a simple meal and a glass of wine. As I sat down to eat, I got my usual call from my sister Gloria. As per our routine, she was checking in on me and I was ignoring her.

  I was only obligated to answer the Facetime once a week, that was our agreement. I felt it was too dangerous for her to call me. I craved her company and wanted to talk to her desperately, but I didn’t want to put her life in further jeopardy.

  She was already in danger because she ran my company and was a surviving member of my family. She and the kids had armed security around them twenty-four/seven. Although, my own satellite was encrypted and as cyber-safe, as I could make it, both on her side and mine, I still took precautions.

  After the ringing stopped, she sent me a message telling me the kids were good. Ally auditioned for the school play and got the role of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz and DJ had a good report card. Rainseed stocks were through the roof. She sent a lot of funny looking emoticons, then asked where she should send the one billion and five dollars I’d just made.

  I texted her back ‘Great job Ally and DJ. I wish I could tell them in person, I miss you all so much. Put the money in the Swiss bank account as always, make sure you take your share, sixty percent and not a penny less.’ I pressed send and left it at that. She sent me an angry face emoticon and scrawled a scolding text berating me for being a difficult brother. It was a joke, but I knew it wasn’t that funny; neither of us found any of this amusing.

  I was a difficult brother and I had left her in a difficult position. Saturdays were often
the day I’d actually speak to her after the kids were in bed. I knew fewer people would be on the airwaves. Most of the thugs I needed to worry about were partying and doing other things on Saturday nights, thus it tended to be the least popular night for criminals to be looking for me, so Gloria and I would spend about an hour or so catching up on Saturdays. Usually, I just listened to her. My days were very routine and there wasn’t anything of interest to tell her. Conversely, speaking to her always reminded me that I was still alive, and I often needed that affirmation.

  As the storm started to whip up more fiercely, I turned on the CB just to see if I could catch up on the excitement. Storms made people over-dramatic and fun to eavesdrop on. Oddly, the only people on the airwaves were the two delivery guys who’d just dropped off my stuff and another trucker.

  “Whew…that storm is comin’ in fast, glad we’re off the mountain. Wonder what the ol’ hermit freak does in the storm.” I heard one of the truckers say.

  “Beats me, probably just whacking at his dick till it falls off. What else would you do up there all by yourself? Must be a total fucking psychopath to live by himself up there all alone, probably got clothes made out of hiker skins,” the driver mused.

  “Has anyone ever seen the freak show in person?” the trucker asked.

  “People got all kinds of theories, but mostly sayin’ he’s a psycho killer. I hate doin’ the run to his place, ‘fraid I’m gonna get axed in the back, fucking nutso could come outta nowhere,” the driver added with a note of hysteria in his voice.

  He was right, I was fucking nutso, I just couldn’t admit it. Losing my mind was a constant worry. I could have already lost it; I had no accurate barometer to judge, I just hoped I hadn’t. My sanity was precious. The cartel may have taken my life and the woman who I loved most on this earth away from me, but they couldn’t have my mind, the one thing they wanted most. I was winning as long as I had my sanity.