by Rik Johnston
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I
AN ADJUSTMENT PERIOD
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1995
The next day at school was one heartbreaking scenario after another. Tuesday desperately wanted to talk to Serina and find out what exactly had happened, but she was understandably absent until further notice. It was probably best that she steered clear of Serina until everything calmed down. Everywhere in the school, students were visibly shaken by the murder of Jessica Jackson, and it seemed that there was no remedy to their sadness.
There was no information that Tuesday could glean from the talk in the hallways that was reliable enough for her to determine what had truly happened beyond what she had heard on the news. The students all had their own version of what was going on, some of their theories seemed plausible while others were outlandish and ridiculous. Strangely, Tuesday had not been a suspect of this fatal tragedy, and if she was, nobody was saying it. It all seemed like an open and shut case of a robbery gone wrong. It also helped that Tuesday had not come to school raving about the incident days before it happened like some sort of madwoman as she had done so often in the past.
Jason was particularly comforting to Tuesday between classes, snuggling up to her in the halls and walking around with his hand clasped firmly in hers. The two of them were officially a couple, but nobody in school seemed to notice or care as they were all too stricken with grief to pay attention to anything else. Maybe it was for the better, Tuesday was certain that this would have drawn extreme criticism from her detractors. But eventually they would all see it, and on that day, she knew that the price would have to be paid. But it would be a small price that would not affect her happiness.
After school, Tuesday and Jason walked home together, and it seemed as if the word on the street was talk of the death of Jessica Jackson. Many of the folk in the town talked about it, and it seemed they were happy that the gunman turned his weapon on himself, and that the “filthy dog” got what he deserved. But somehow, many felt that the man would never serve justice for his crime, and that was not satisfying to the rest of the people.
“It is a horrible thing to have a classmate murdered, even if it’s somebody you aren’t friends with.” Tuesday thought to herself. She knew that she would never be able to settle the score with Jessica and bury the hatchet. She had now felt guilty for wishing death on her only a couple of weeks ago, and knew that she could never take that comment back, no matter how hard she apologized for it. A bus full of kids heard her say it, and now she had gotten her wish, and now she had wished she hadn’t. The walk home was kind of quiet between the two of them, with little to no conversation. What could be said about the event that hadn’t already been said? Apart from the outlandish conspiracy theories, what was there to even say? Tuesday knew that she was connected to the event in some way, but still couldn’t piece the whole thing together, even though she had heard what she had thought was the whole story. She knew that she had seen it happen in real-time, but could only see flashes of it. Even if she could tell somebody that she had been a part of it, who would believe her? She didn’t quite believe it herself.
As Jason and Tuesday reached her house, Jason said goodbye for the day, and kissed her on the forehead. It wasn’t the kiss she was hoping for, but knowing Jason, he wanted to save that moment for a very special occasion, being the gentleman that he was. Tuesday’s stomach tied itself in a knot as she watched him walk down that driveway, as he had so many times before, but was also excited, because she couldn’t wait to see him again.
Tuesday turned and walked into the front door of the house into the living room, and her mother was waiting for her with a homemade dinner prepared.
Megan Moxley had somehow sensed that her daughter had had a rough day. She had heard the discussion amongst the town folk about the death of Jessica Jackson and just known that the school kids were going to blame Tuesday for it in one way or another. She had taken her duty to love and care for her daughter to heart much more seriously since making a conscious decision to live clean and sober. The extravagant meal of consisting of various comfort foods was a sign of that.
“Hey baby, how was your day?” Megan asked, concerned that she might have been bullied during the events of the day.
“It was pretty good, actually.” Tuesday replied as she set her backpack down and began to remove her hoody. “All things considering.”
“So, I see Jason dropped you off.” Megan said in a way that was half teasing and half probing for information. “Has he asked you out yet?”
Tuesday’s level of embarrassment went from zero to a hundred in about one second, grabbing her hoody back off the couch and hiding her crimson face behind it. Megan immediately knew what the answer was, but had to ask anyway. “He did, didn’t he?”
Tuesday visibly shook her head indicating the affirmative from behind her hoody, lowering it slowly. She then realized that there was nothing to be embarrassed about, that she was very proud to have a boyfriend like Jason, who was kind to her and treated her with respect. “Yeah.” Tuesday admitted. “He asked me out last night.”
Megan squealed with excitement. Her little girl now had her first boyfriend! The was now just as much of a celebratory meal as it was a comfort meal. “Oh honey!” Megan said, softening her tone to be genuinely joyful for the experience her daughter was going through. “I’m so happy that you could find such a good guy!”
“Me too, Mom.” Tuesday replied, trying to brush off the subject a little bit. Her mother wasn’t having it though.
Megan was so excited about the fact that Tuesday now had a boyfriend that she wanted to know more, and began penetrating for further details. “So, tell me about him!” She queried, hoping to know more.
“What’s there to tell?” Tuesday reacted dismissively, sitting down to enjoy some of the food her mother had prepared. “He’s a boy, he moved here from Phoenix, and he’s very nice to me.”
“Yeah, I know.” Megan said, getting a little defensive for her daughter. “But is he polite? Does he know his boundaries? Does he know what no means?”
Tuesday rolled her eyes at what her mother was asking, “Yes, Mom.”
“Look, I just don’t want some boy to interfere with the progress you’re making.” Megan asserted, sounding like she might actually be on the same page with Doctor Frederiksen. “I just want what’s best for you, that’s all.”
Tuesday picked up her fork, and began to eat, talking with her mouth full, “He won’t.” She said, with a spoonful of mashed potatoes in her cheeks. “He wants to help me get through this too.”
“Honey, this is a big adjustment period for you.” Megan continued, not letting up on the concern she was showing for her daughter. “There’s just so much on your plate right now, and I’m not just talking about your dinner.’
Tuesday was beginning to become visibly upset by her mother’s continued probing into her private life and felt that the topic of Jason was beginning to become an argument, and if that was the case, it would be an argument that she would not win. Tuesday put her fork down and looked her mother right in the face. “Why can’t you just be happy for me?” She asked, her voice raised, and directed right at her mother. “I finally have the one thing I wanted the most, and that’s a friend.”
“I am happy for you!” Megan stated, defending her position. “I just don’t want you getting burned out on too much at once. These sessions are a lot and I don’t think you should cloud the issue with emotion.”
“My sessions are already emotional, Mom!” Tuesday snapped back. “And I don’t even want to talk to Doctor Frederiksen about Jason. He is the one perfect thing in my life, and I don’t even want to try and change or fix that, so it’s better if he didn’t know about Jason.”
Megan slowed herself down, listening to the words of her daughter and tried to understand her point of view. “Look, I didn’t mean to upset you.” Megan admitted, trying to regain peace and comp
osure at the dinner table. “And I’m not saying that you can’t see Jason. I’m just asking you to please, please be careful.”
Tuesday looks again at her mother and realizes that she is speaking volumes of truth based upon her own experiences. She realizes that she isn’t quite yet accustomed to her mother looking out for her the way she is, and that she currently has not one, not two, but three people who are all looking out for her. A few weeks ago, she could not have imagined that even one person would care about her, much less three. First Jason came along and stood up for her, and then Doctor Frederiksen cared enough about her to help her solve her problems, and now her mother was gaining more clarity and perspective every day, and seemed to genuinely care about her for the first time in her life. They say that good things come in threes, and this was clearly true for Tuesday. She realized she was wrong to be defensive and combative with her mother on this subject, as her Mom was just looking to protect her.
“I’ll be careful, Mom.” Tuesday assured her mother. “I promise I will.”
The two of them sat and ate dinner together, talking, laughing and joking about the events of the last couple of weeks. Neither of the two of them could ever remember having shared a better and more enjoyable meal with one another.
II
SECRETS REVEALED
When dinner had finished up, the two cleaned up the kitchen and dining area together, still discussing stories and events with one another. Many of the things Megan talked about were things that had happened to her when she was using, so some of them didn’t make a lot of sense to Tuesday, but she got the gist of them. Many of the things that Megan mentioned, she told to Tuesday as cautionary tales, so she would know what to look for when people came to her with certain intentions, and how she could avoid being taken advantage of. It came off as a little preachy to Tuesday, but she listened and nodded, taking advantage of the wisdom that her mother was attempting to impart upon her.
“I wouldn’t say anything if I didn’t know this from experience.” Megan kept saying repeatedly, as if to drive the point home. “I just don’t want you to end up like I did.”
Tuesday had felt as if she had had enough lecturing by that point and decided it was time to turn the conversation back to the present day for just a moment. “Speaking of you, how’s the rehabilitation going?” Tuesday asked, pointedly and directly.
Megan was somewhat apprehensive and shocked, taken aback by the question, “Well. . .” She began, stumbling around for the right words like a blind man in a darkened room looking for a light switch. “It’s easier some days than it is on other days.”
“You haven’t had another relapse, have you?” Tuesday inquired, trying to sound more concerned and less invasive about the question.
“No.” Megan replied, some doubt and hesitation in her speech. “No, nothing like that. The other night when I got off work, Marie wanted me to go out and get messed up with her and meet this guy to score a bag.”
Tuesday’s eyes went wide as if she was getting ready to hear something that she didn’t want to hear, and found herself interrupting her mother. “You didn’t do it, did you?” Tuesday said in an interrogative fashion.
“No, I didn’t.” Megan confessed, a little bit of sadness in her voice. “But part of me really wanted to. My mind and body both screamed for it, but I couldn’t bear the thought of disappointing you again. I’ve been such a disappointment for so long.”
“You’re doing fine, Mom, and I couldn’t be prouder.” Tuesday said, trying to console her mother, who had tears forming in her eyes.
“I didn’t do it.” Megan said, attempting to place an exclamation mark on the end of her story. “So now Marie is a little mad at me.”
“She’ll just have to get over it, won’t she?” Tuesday shot back, trying to make light of the situation.
Megan laughed just a little bit, “Yeah, I guess she will.”
The two of them shared a moment of silence which got Tuesday thinking about their conversation from the other day. It seemed as if Megan’s defenses were down, so Tuesday pressed her advantage, hoping to gain the answers she was looking for.
“Mom, would this be a good time to continue our discussion from the other day?” Tuesday asked quietly, hoping to push her mother to talk about it some more. “I really want to know about your past, about how I was born.”
Megan looked away, trying to avoid the topic, but Tuesday wasn’t about to let her slide on this. Megan knew it too, she knew that she would have to talk to her daughter about this stuff sooner or later. Tuesday reached out, and put her hand on her mother’s shoulder, trying to console her regarding the situation. “I don’t know, honey.” Megan began. “Once I tell you these things, it isn’t something that I can take back. It’s not something that can be undone, and you might not forgive me for what I will end up telling you.”
Megan’s level of anxiety began to rise, and Tuesday was empathetic to it, knowing that she needed to console her in any way she could. But she knew that she needed to press on, she needed these answers so she could find the answers to her own problems. It was time for her to know and to understand who she was, and to grow from the information that her mother would give her.
“Mom, whatever happened, it’s in the past.” Tuesday whispered softly and empathetically to her mother. “And I promise that I will forgive you for it.”
“You have to understand that this was a very turbulent time in my life.” Megan admitted, not believing that the word she was speaking were essentially coming out of her mouth. “I don’t people knowing these things about me.”
“Your secret is safe with me, Mom.” Tuesday promised, hoping that she would take a leap of faith and tell her the rest of the story. “What happened after the guy broke up with you?”
Megan stops for a moment, closes her eyes and tries to relive the situation, trying to recall details and faces that had been long forgotten. “I’m not proud of these things I’ve done, especially this.” Megan began, choosing her words carefully, allowing them to spill from her mouth in a slow and deliberate pattern of broken sentences. “I try not to remember because this was the most painful time of my life. It was the time of my life that set me on this dark path.”
Tuesday could see that Megan was getting emotionally worked up as she was speaking, building up to something that she wasn’t sure she could even talk about after all these years. “The day he left me. . .” Megan sustained, her speech breaking up as the pain of the memories flooded back into her head. “I was so. . .angry. . .upset, and hurt. I went out and scored some dope, as much as I could buy with the money I had. Various things, some coke, some acid, smoked some pot, and had a big bottle of liquor. I used it all, because I just wanted to kill that thing inside of me that was always messing up. I downed the rest of what I had of the experimental drug too. I just wanted to die.”
Megan began weeping, and the further she got into her tale, the emotional response escalated even further. “When I ran out of what I had, and it didn’t kill me, I recalled some talk of a party that was going to happen that night down the street. I stumbled down the street for what seemed like hours and met these guys who were going to the same party I was, at least that’s what they said. And I liked the attention from these guys at first, because I had just gotten my heart broken, and the four of them were so nice.”
Tuesday interjected, trying to keep all the facts straight in her mind. “So, you met these guys and went to a party with them?” She asked, trying to gain clarification.
Megan’s breathing became quicker, and she was clearly anxious reliving this, but somehow found the bravery to continue “Yeah. It was so nice to be noticed, you know? And so, I went to the party, and there were a lot of people there, most were just drinking, but there were some drugs involved. This was the first time I rammed something into my arm, and I wasn’t prepared for how strong that was. I lost control of everything.
A brief
and awkward silence ensued between the two of them.
Megan’s weeping had escalated into blown sobbing by this point, and Tuesday grabbed a tissue, wiping the tears from her eyes and consoled her the best she could. A moment later, Megan went on with the story. “They seemed nice enough when I first met them, they were flirting with me, but I didn’t think too much of it at the time because boys used to do that a lot. One of them was particularly charming, and I kind of liked him, you know? We were dancing and having fun, and for a moment, I had forgotten about how awful like was. He seemed so wonderful that it made it seem that moving on was going to be easy, that I could go on with my life. He said he wanted to be alone with me, so we went out back to the guest house, away from the party. When we got back there, his friends were waiting and they. . . they. . .”
Megan’s voice trailed off into a faint whisper as the tears began to stream down her face. Tuesday puts her arms around her mother, trying to comfort her, guessing in her mind what had happened next, but she wanted to hear her mother say it. “What Mom, what happened?”
“They raped me.” Megan whispered quietly, so only her and Tuesday could hear the words.
Tuesday’s eyes went wide in disbelief as she was having difficulty wrapping her mind around this concept. Tuesday had experienced rape through some of the nightmares she had over the years, and knew what it did to the victim. She knew the pain well, the helplessness of one’s power being stripped from them and abused and then discarded. She had only dreamed of rape a few times, but those nightmares had left a much deeper scar on her than many of the deaths she had witnessed, and she wholly did not wish that pain on any living being. Except now, to learn that her mother had been a victim of that very abuse, that suffering, it was more than Tuesday could bear. She just couldn’t have imagined that this would have ever happened to her mother.
“Oh my gosh, Mom!” Tuesday said, squeezing her arms tighter around her mother, trying her best to console her. “I’m so sorry. . .”
“They raped me!” Her voice returned from the whisper, peppered with rage, gaining in intensity like a hurricane that had blown into warmer waters. “All four of them, they raped me. They raped me and they beat me. They broke both of my legs and I could barely move, and they continued to rape me, repeatedly, over the next couple of days! They violated me in every way that they could think of!”
The hurricane in Megan’s mind intensified as her the words continued to spill from her mouth, the volume of her voice rising and with venom in her words. Though Tuesday had witnessed rape in her nightmares, it was nothing like what her mother was describing. She had no words, but simply kept holding her mother tightly.
“When they were done with me, when they decided that I couldn’t do anything else for them, they took me out of town and threw my naked body down into a ravine where nobody would ever find me, so that I would die and nobody would ever know of their crimes. The fall into the ravine broke my left arm, and impaled my right leg on a large stick. I heard the four of them laughing as they departed, one of them throwing an empty beer can at me as a final insult.”
Megan was so upset at the memory of those days that she was visibly shaking in fear. Fear that at any moment, those men might bust through that door and do it all over again. Fear that they would well and truly finish what they had begun. Fear that she would have to experience the suffering all over again. In her mind, she was reliving that experience, and it was something that she was clearly not going to come to terms with, probably at any point in her life. Tuesday felt remorse for having pushed her mother to tell this story, and hoped that this wouldn’t cause a relapse.
“I laid in that ravine for three days, waiting to die.” Megan cried, trying her best to spit the words from her mouth. “I remember trying to scream out for someone to hear me, but I couldn’t be heard over the roar of the traffic from that far below.”
“What did you do?” Tuesday asked, timidly, hoping not to stir up her mother any more than she already had by setting her on the course to telling this tale.
“It was very hot that week, triple digit heat.” Megan explained crying, tears streaming down her face. “I laid there, baking in the sun for three days. Fortunately, I had fallen next to a creek where I could get water, otherwise I would have been dead. That discarded beer can turned out to be a good thing, as it allowed me to get water from the creek with my one good arm.”
Megan paused for a moment, looking to the heavens for an answer, perhaps trying to consult a higher power. She took a deep breath and continued. “I waited and waited for somebody to hear me, to rescue me. And when it didn’t happen, I simply gave up and had resigned myself to the fact that I would die in that gully. I prayed to God to save me. I prayed more earnestly and honestly than I had ever prayed before. I promised Him that if I could be saved, that I would live my life for Him, all I needed was a miracle from Him. And I waited and waited for that miracle. And when I had given up waiting for a miracle, the first of many had happened.”
“What was it, Mom? Tuesday asked inquisitively, holding her breath for the answer. “What happened?”
“A man had to pull over on the road at the top of the ravine because he had a flat tire. I was very weak at the time, and I had just given up and decided that I would die there, when I heard him up there, having a fit about a flat tire, but I called out to him, and I guess he heard me. The last thing I wanted at the time was to be touched by a man, but he hauled up that sheer rock wall. He was very patient with me, even though I was screaming in pain and taking cheap shots at him. I passed out before he got me to the top of that rocky face and onto the side of the road.”
Tuesday couldn’t have imagined that her mother had gone through this kind of agony and had lived with this for as long as she had. She had no idea that her mother had been through such an ordeal, and had felt bad for her. She had witnessed and experienced much in her premonitions, but nothing like her mother had described. To be as horrendously abused as her mother had been, she couldn’t have imagined it in her worst nightmares.
Megan seemed to calm down, as the shock in her story winded down. “I awoke several weeks later in a hospital in Seattle. I couldn’t speak right away after I had woken up, and the doctors were convinced that the level of trauma that I had suffered might not make speaking ever possible for me again.”
At this point, Tuesday had forgotten that she was looking for answers to her own history, fully engrossed in the story her mother was telling her. She continued to hold her mother as the tale began to wrap itself up. “It was a couple of weeks after I had awakened, that my speech began to return to me, and soon I received a visit by the police, who wanted to know how I had ended up in the state that I was in. They asked me all kinds of questions about the suspects, what I knew about them, if I had seen them before. I told them that I was under the influence of various substances, and couldn’t properly identify them. To this day, I wouldn’t know any of them if they walked up to me and asked me out on a date. There was nothing the police could really do about it.”
Tuesday felt some anger welling up inside of her. “So, they got away with it then?”
“Yeah baby, they got away with it.” Megan admitted.
Tuesday knew first hand that life did not possess a sense of fairness or justice, and that sometimes people were allowed to get away with far more than they would be allowed to, but this was in excess of what life should have allowed. There was no justice here, there was not even a shot at vengeance, and that made Tuesday somehow angrier than she had ever been in her entire life. “If I could use this power to avenge my mother, I would do it in a heartbeat.” Tuesday thought to herself, hatred swelling within her heart. “These men need to pay for their crimes.”
Megan released herself from her daughter’s grasp and turned to face Tuesday. “While I was in the hospital recovering, I found out that I was pregnant.” She admitted, a look of sadness on her face. “For
weeks, I had been on a morphine drip for the pain, but as soon as they had found out I was carrying a child, all of that had stopped. By that time, I had become heavily dependent on the drug, and the pain was too unmanageable to live without it. I have an entire medical transcript on the experimental drug therapy, the injuries I sustained, and treatment in my cedar chest. I never look at it, but kept it if I needed evidence for a legal recourse. I gave the hospital a fake name and have used it ever since, hoping that the animals who did that to me would never find me. Marie was the only person who knew where I was, and so she began to bring heroin injections to ease the pain, but in small doses. I confided in a nurse at the hospital, and she did a little digging for me and was able to get the information about the experimental drug from the pharmaceutical company, but I’ve never even looked at it because it brings back too many unpleasant memories.”
“You were using drugs while you were pregnant with me?!” Tuesday questioned, somewhat irritated at the response she knew she was inevitably going to get.
“Baby, you have to understand the amount of pain I was in.” Megan said, trying to reassure her daughter the best way she knew how to. “I couldn’t cope with my injuries. I certainly couldn’t cope with my paranoia. I was very suspicious of everyone around me, particularly men, and looked at them as being by attackers. I wouldn’t be hurt by them again, and if they knew I was alive, I was certain that they would come and finish me off. Marie had an aunt here in Cadence Falls, so when I was released from the hospital, we came to live with her, far away from the northern part of the State where everything had happened. I moved away to protect us.”
“This is how I was conceived?” Tuesday queried, putting it out there plain and simple.
“Yeah, baby. That’s how you were brought into the world.” Megan replied, releasing a sigh of relief and getting herself back into some sense of order after having told that part of her tale. “It’s not like I never wanted to have you, I just wasn’t ready for you at the time. And I don’t look at you and think of my rapists, I look at you and think that throughout that, you were my miracle.”
Tuesday smiles a little bit at the remark. Most of her life she never felt like a blessing or a miracle to her mother. She always seemed like an inconvenience, like a part of her mother’s life that, until recently, she tried hard to avoid. It was no wonder that she had better skills than other kids of her age, she practically had raised herself with her mother having been too busy for her.
“After you were born,” Megan continued, finding the words coming easier. “I got fixed so I couldn’t have any more kids. I know that you’ve always wanted a sibling, and I’m sorry for that. My reasons were purely selfish.”
“I didn’t know that you couldn’t have any more kids.” Tuesday confessed, somewhat surprised at that revelation.
“I was able to take what little money I had saved and made a down payment on this house.” Megan said, motioning to their home around them. “What I didn’t realize is that they payments and bills would be much more than I could afford from a part time salary at Tuck’s Diner. At that point I had to do what I had to do to make ends meet.”
“Even if it meant doing illegal things?” Tuesday grilled her, a serious look on her face.
“I had already been through the worst sexual ordeal imaginable, so I figured nothing worse could possibly happen to me, and I flipped a switch in my mind to make everything consensual, so long as I wasn’t sober. I got high, so I could entertain my clients, so I could make money to pay the bills, only the higher I got, the more I needed, so I needed to entertain more clients to make more money. The entire thing became an excessive vicious cycle. But there was one other thing about my pregnancy you need to know, and I don’t think you’re going to like what I’m going to tell you about it.”
Tuesday stepped back, surprised to hear that her mother was still interested in discussing this further. Megan was not one to own up to the events of her life, but on that day, she was laying it all out onto the table for her daughter’s consumption, to take what she wanted and leave the rest. “There’s more?” Tuesday asked, astonished. “What do you mean?”
“I went to the doctor while I was pregnant with you.” Megan explained, once again looking for the right words to articulate what had occurred. “I was having some complications with you, so I got an ultrasound done. You were trashing around in the womb as a fetus, sometimes very violently. It was suggested by one of the doctors that you were having nightmares before you were even born. Another doctor suggested that was virtually impossible because an unborn fetus would have to context or understanding of the world to have a dream that made any sense to them.
Megan felt a huge sense of remorse in relaying this part of the story, as Tuesday’s eyes widen, beginning to gain an understanding of what might be wrong with her. Seeing the look on her daughter’s face, Megan’s guilt intensified itself, as she began to get tears in her eyes again. She went on with her explanation, choosing her words carefully. “After you were born, you were still dreaming. The doctors ran some tests and discovered that you were using almost twice as much of your brain than an adult human being would use. They were questioning me about how you came into the world and sent me to a shrink. They had also determined that you had a birth defect that caused you to think faster and learn things more quickly than other children. Your motor skills developed more rapidly than the other kids. You were literally running circles around them while they were still crawling.”
“How come I don’t feel any smarter than the rest of them?” Tuesday inquired. “Why do I feel like they’re more in control than I am?”
“I don’t know.” Megan sustained, trying her best to explain the past to her inquisitive daughter. “After a lot of therapy, I finally felt comfortable enough to tell them about my drug and rape experiences.” Megan’s words began to come more sluggishly, with more resistance. “These are the reasons I’ve never stopped doing drugs. I just don’t want to face the reality of the things I’ve done. I have so much guilt over the things that have happened that I can’t stop blaming myself, even after all these years. None of the sex, none of the drugs could cover up the pain of what I was really feeling, even all these years later.”
Tuesday wasn’t about to sit back and let her mother be so hard on herself. She certainly couldn’t control the things that happened to her all those years ago, and she shouldn’t be blaming herself for it now. Tuesday was miserable to see that this was what was the cause of her mother’s downfall, and was impressed that she could finally find the strength to rise above it now. “But Mom, none of this is your fault.” Tuesday justified it to her mother. “You were the victim, you didn’t ask to be raped, beaten and left for dead.”
In an instant, Megan’s countenance transformed, and her voice raised, fueled by years of pain and internalized rage. “That’s not what I blame myself for!” She roared at her daughter. “I blame myself for having taken my life so nonchalantly that nothing really mattered to me! I blame myself for not thinking of the consequences of my actions! I blame myself for having a lifestyle obsession! I blame myself most of all because the doctors say you’re some kind of fluke, that you are the way you are because I had the perfect mixture of various chemicals in my system at the time you were conceived! But most of all, I blame myself for not having lived a normal lifestyle and causing my daughter to have a birth defect that makes her life anything but normal! It’s all in the file, you can read it whenever you want to! It’s my fault, and mine alone!”
For the first time, everything is crystal clear to Tuesday. She had dug deep into the heart of her mother’s self-destructive behavior and had been forced to face a darkness as equally terrifying as her own nightmares. Knowing the truth of her origins, it was up to her whether she would take these harsh realities with her to her next appointment with Doctor Frederiksen or not. But for that moment, she needed time alone, time to process all t
his new information. Time to think and reflect upon her existence and what her world is all about. She looked at her mother, calm again, who was clearly remorseful of the actions of her past, tears falling gently from her cheeks.
“I love you baby girl.” Megan pleaded for forgiveness. “I’m so sorry!”
Tuesday didn’t say a word as she looked at her mother, her lip quivering ever so slightly. When she can no longer contain her composure, she took off up the stairs like a shot, running to her room and slamming her door behind her, leaving Megan on the slumped upon the couch crying, curled up into as tiny of a ball as she could get.
III
A CONSCIOUS RIPPLE
Tuesday sat in her room, trying to recall everything that her mother had told her about her past. It was a lot of information, most of it was unpleasant to say the least. She couldn’t believe what her mother had been through, and was in awe of the revelations that were laid before her. She didn’t blame her mother for anything, in fact, she needed to let her know that at the earliest possible convenience, but for now she really needed the time to process everything.
It’s not every day that you find out you are a product of a vicious rape, it’s not every day that you discover the reason you are the way you are is because of a perfect storm. And so, Tuesday spent the remainder of the evening in her room, wondering if this is the way life was supposed to be. She couldn’t even completely imagine the emotional roller coaster she had been on as of late, such happiness with Jason, such joy that her mother was cleaning up her life, and such satisfaction that she was working with a therapist who truly understood her problems and had solutions for dealing with them. All of this was juxtaposed against her anxiety at being back in school and earning the best grades she could, her anguish over the death of Jessica Jackson, and how her confusion about her origins.
One thing she took away from her discussion with her mother was that she would never know who her father was, and while she was saddened by this, she could put the notion of having a relationship with her father to bed now that she knew there was no definitive answer to his identity, nor would there ever be. In her mind, she reconciled her father to be her mother’s lost love instead of one of her mother’s attackers. This gave her much more peace than the thought that her father was somebody who nearly destroyed her mother. And that’s the story she wanted to tell herself was the truth, after all, from the information that her mother gave her, there was a twenty percent chance, and those odds were as good as any of the others.
It wasn’t long before she found herself getting ready for bed, changing into her nightgown and grabbing Winston to settle in for the night. Covering herself up, and laying her head down on her pillow, she suddenly felt as if something was not right. A cold feeling crawled down her spine, as she sat back up. She could not shake the sensation that something was coming, and it would be coming soon. Tuesday had never felt this before, not outside one of her dreams anyway. The sense was so strong that it drained her energy, and soon found herself drifting off, despite the uneasiness she was feeling.
It wasn’t long before she was dreaming. She needed to examine what it was she was sensing, and why it came as such a threat. Suddenly, everything flooded back to her, the entire incident at the Jackson House, The Nightmare, and its insidious control over her, and how she had been forced to summon a gunman to kill Jessica. She realized that whatever she was going to do, she needed to proceed carefully so that she would not attract the attention of The Nightmare.
Tuesday found herself taking flight, through the darkened streets of The Devil’s City, looking for the thing that made the hair on the back of her neck raise. During her flight, she felt compelled to visit a warehouse out on the docks of the river, where the longshoremen would load and unload goods for shipping or receiving. As Tuesday skimmed above the waters of the Columbia River, she began to investigate the activity on the wharf.
While flying over the river, Tuesday suddenly snapped into Osprey Vision, and saw exactly what she was looking for on the docks. There were several men guns, about twenty by Tuesday’s reckoning, and they were loading into three sinister looking GMC Suburban vehicles leaving for destination unknown. She needed to find out where they were going, and since her Osprey Vision had alerted her to their location, she flew over to the wharf with great speed.
There was some unintelligible conversation happening amongst the men, all who appeared to be armed with what appeared to be automatic rifles, as near as Tuesday could ascertain. She kept listening and then honed in on a voice in what was to be the lead vehicle, who appeared to be in charge.
“Are you guys ready?” The gruff voice of Dimitris Corelle sounded off, trying to get his men organized. “Nobody screws The Blackbirds outta that much money! Moxley’s gotta pay for this. With her life. And get the kid too.”
Tuesday understood immediately what was happening, it was as Douglas Downe had predicted. “The people who Mom used to work for are coming for her!” Tuesday thought to herself in desperation. She took off like a shot into the sky and back to her house, seeing the last of the goons get into the last Suburban out of the corner of her eye, and watching them take to the streets. She would beat them there by a several minutes, and when they got there, they would have surprises waiting for them.
