by W. Winters
I stop here every time I visit. And I’ve always thought the pay phone was only there for criminals and cheaters. As I park and release a breath I didn’t know I was holding, telling my mother to just stay in the car for a moment, I realize this time I’m the criminal.
Fleeing the scene of a crime.
Aiding and abetting a criminal.
The charges whisper in the back of my mind as I dial one of the only numbers I know by heart.
The images flash through my mind as it rings and my hand slams against the booth as I brace myself.
She didn’t do it. I lie to myself until my sister’s voice is heard. “Hello?”
“Is anyone around you?” I ask her without telling her it’s me. She’ll know. She’ll know it’s me.
“What are you—”
“Answer me,” I say and my tone is deathly low and I’m aware it must make my sister nervous.
“Of course,” she answers and her breathing is heavier on the line now. “Yes,” she says, strengthening her tone as she continues, “there is.” There’s someone around her. Someone who could watch her take this call and testify. Evidence. It’s all about evidence right now.
“You’re not talking to me, you’re talking to a patient and everything is fine.”
“What’s going on?” Her voice is barely even but she makes an effort to hide her fear. My own creeps up my arm like tiny spiders racing across my flesh. I can’t believe I’m doing this. My expression crumples and pain runs through me as the memory of my mother on the floor flashes before my eyes. The blood. My father.
I struggle to speak, but heave in a breath, knowing I need to do this. “You’re going to go to Mom’s,” I tell her and my voice gets tight. “And you’re going to call the cops when you get there.”
“Why … why would I do that?” She corrects her tone, keeping it sounding light, but if someone’s paying attention, this call is going to be suspicious.
“Remember,” I say then swallow and brush under my eyes as I breathe out. “Someone could be watching you. You need to make it appear that this call is normal.”
It takes a handful of breaths before my sister says, “Right, right. I know that. It’s fine.” I can just picture her standing there with her arms crossed and leaning casually against the wall. I hate that I have to tell her this way. Forgive me. Lord, forgive me.
“I cleaned up the evidence.” My throat is tight and I find myself gripping the pay phone handset harder, both hands clinging to it as I stare at my car. I can’t see her, but I know my mother lays in the back seat. When I parked, she was silently crying.
“Of what?” My sister’s swallow is more audible than her question.
“I’ll explain it all to you after. But when you get home, we won’t be there. You’re going to call the cops and the last you heard from me were the texts we had earlier.”
“Is it Mom?” my sister practically cries and I hush her, reminding her that she’s talking to a patient.
“They’re gone. They just left,” my sister says in a breathy voice on the other end of the line, and it takes me a moment to realize she’s referring to whoever was in the room with her. She heaves in a shuddering breath as if she’s strangling on her words. “Did Mom kill herself?”
“What?” I ask and my heart races.
“I confronted her.”
With a pounding in my pulse, I watch as a cop car rolls up to the red light outside the convenience store. I’m quick to turn my back so he can’t see me. But that also means turning away from my car and my mother. Who’s obviously in shock among every other reeling emotion that’s taken her over.
“You confronted her about what?”
My sister begins to answer but I cut her off, not having the time. “Mom’s okay.” Dad isn’t… The words are right there waiting to be spoken aloud but they don’t come.
“And Dad?” she blurts out and I can’t answer. “No, no …” My sister’s tone is wretched. “I should’ve kept my mouth shut,” she says weakly. Even over the phone I can feel her breaking down.
“When you get home … I need you to tell them I was supposed to be there with Mom and that we’re missing. I’m going to try to clean it up.”
“Dad?” my sister cries, and the back of my eyes prick. “They were fighting. I heard them.”
“No!” I’m quick to shut her down and breathe out slowly. “No, you didn’t. You didn’t confront Mom about anything. Dad was supposed to be at a conference and we were having a girls’ weekend. That is all you know,” I say and I’m firm with her.
“You need to act normal but I wanted you to be prepared. I’m going to protect her. I promise,” I tell my sister although the pieces of how exactly I’m going to do just that still haven’t come together in my mind. The sound of traffic moving along allows me to peek over my shoulder, finding the cop car gone and my own sitting there, waiting for me. “I’m going to protect her from this.”
“She killed him, didn’t she?” My sister guesses the truth and all I can tell her is that I love her and to take care of what I asked her to do.
It’s a sickening feeling as I get back to my car. Like the world is crumbling around me and there’s nothing I can do to hold it up.
Delilah
“You’re my baby girl,” my father tells me in that singsong way that lets me know he’s in a good mood. “No one’s ever going to hurt you.”
“I’ll protect you too, Daddy,” I’m happy to tell him back. “That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to protect people.”
“Oh yeah?”
“I’m going to grow up and be just like you.”
“You think so?” he asks me and I nod my head in response to his raised brow.
“That’s what we decided last night.”
“We?” he asks. As we walk down Main Street to the post office, I hold his hand and he swings it to and fro. When we get to the block before the post office, I skip over all the dark lines of the cracked pavement.
“Cady is going to be like Mom and I’m going to be like you.”
Don’t step on a crack or you’ll break your mother’s back. The children’s rhyme plays in my head.
“All right then. That sounds like your mother and I are doing a good job then, huh?” Daddy’s smile is bright and the sky behind him the prettiest shades of blue. There’s not a cloud in sight. “I’d say so,” I answer him. My father. My hero.
I must’ve been around five in my earliest memories of my father. His handsome face barely resembles the man on the floor of my parents’ living room, the man with the face lined with worry and aged from the passage of time.
With sweaty palms, I have to grip the wheel tighter before wiping off the moisture on my pants and getting a grip.
He’s dead. My father’s dead. The prickly harshness in the back of my throat is a precursor to crying but I hold it back. Not yet. I can’t lose both my parents. I can’t lose them both.
“Where are we going?” My mother’s voice wavers as she rises up, her reddened eyes peering into mine in the rearview mirror. The hand over her mouth quivers slightly. Maybe the reality is sinking in.
“Somewhere for us to hide for a moment, get you cleaned up—”
“You need to turn back.” She’s firmer than when she voiced her initial question, but altogether her tone lacks strength. I imagine doing what she did took it all away from her.
“No, Mom.” I swallow thickly and speak to her as if what I’m saying is fact; there’s not an ounce of negotiation in my tone. “We’re twenty minutes from the hotel.”
I’ve got cash in my purse, cash that’s meant for my sister to pay her back for the last salon visit.
“Turn back now.” Her hardened voice used to scare me when I was a child. Even into my teen years. My mother hardly ever yelled. That’s what our father was there for. All the discipline. Hearing it now, though … she just sounds desperate.
The tick, tick, tick of the turn signal follows us down Asher Lane. I recogn
ize the street and know the hotel is only one block down. It’s in a quiet area, small and close to the off-ramp to the highway. It’s an old building and used to be some kind of chain. Everything about it screams dated but I guess the owner sold the place rather than updating it.
“Gunshot residue doesn’t lie and you need somewhere to wash it all off, plus a change of clothes.”
“I shouldn’t have done this,” she says and my mother’s statement is a plea. As if she wishes she could go back. I’ve heard that cadence so many times. “Just take me back.”
“I’m not taking you back until I make sure you’re all right.”
“Did you see what I did?” she says and her voice cracks. With a shuddering breath she croaks out, “You shouldn’t have to deal with me. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, my baby girl.”
“No talking now. Please, just wait.” It’s always a struggle when a child watches their parent break down. But right now? It feels like that bullet went straight through my heart.
“Let me get you inside.”
“Don’t help me. I don’t deserve it.” She begs me as I pull into the parking lot.
“I don’t know, but …” I trail off as I struggle to justify anything I’ve done.
“You don’t know what he did.” Pain lingers in each of her words. “I couldn’t … I didn’t know it all. I just thought … Oh God …” My mother’s sobs wrack through her and she rocks back and forth. A shivering chill flows over me as I slam the car into park.
Something’s been broken for a very long time. More broken than the cracks I skipped over as my father held my hand down Main Street.
How did I ignore it? Waves of heat and anxiety crash within me. Suddenly I need the cold air outside just to breathe.
The lot is mostly vacant. Which is expected. It’s not like this town gets a lot of tourism.
There are a few cars, all of which are much older models than my own.
I turn back to look at my mother, wanting to calm her down or at least make sure she knows to stay here for just a moment. The seat groans loud and heavy as my mother sways with a hand over her heart, her face tilted up to the roof of the car. Like she’s praying.
“I want you to tell me everything.”
“Don’t risk—”
I smack the passenger seat to get her attention. Her eyes whip up at me.
“I’ve already abandoned the scene of a crime. I’m going in that office right there, getting a room and then I need you to tell me everything.” I spoke it all too quickly. But I got it out at least. Licking my cracked bottom lip, I wait for her to say something, anything.
The nod of my mother’s head is subtle, but she agrees. “I’ll stay here.”
I’m firmer this time, like I am with the defendants. “I’m going to need you to tell me everything.”
My mother hesitates but again, she gives me that small nod of agreement. Not wasting another second, I get out of the car and the cold air is nothing but brutal and refreshing at once.
Sniffing and wiping under my eyes, I brace myself to face the first person I have to encounter, a potential witness.
The check-in area isn’t any larger than six by six feet. A counter spans the length of the room and behind it there’s a plain white door that I imagine leads to a back hall or closet.
As I place my hand on the sign-in sheet, wanting to tap it instead of the bell, attempting to get the attention of the man laying back in the chair, his feet up on the counter and a hat over his face, I see under my sleeve of the cream sweater.
There’s just a spot of blood on it.
My father’s blood. My own runs cold as I pull my arm back just in time for the old man to lift the hat from his head.
“Didn’t hear you come in.” He speaks while rubbing his eyes with just one hand and then pinching the bridge of his nose. “Allergies always get me this time of year. Excuse me,” he says and then blinks away whatever sleep he was attempting to get.
“A room for tonight. Maybe the weekend?” I ask and even to my own ears I sound out of breath.
My tone gets the man’s attention. He glances away from me to look past me.
“Just you?” he asks and I nod. It’s a lie, but better that than the truth. Why the hell would I get a motel room for me and my mother when she lives in town?
“How much?” I ask, already prying out my wallet and counting the bills.
I’ve stayed here plenty of times. It’s only sixty-five dollars for the night. He tells me one hundred and I hand it over in a single bill. He eyes it for a second too long before taking it.
It’s only then I can breathe. “Thank you.”
“You all right?” he asks, his lips in a thin line.
I let out a sigh and close my eyes before telling him, “It’s been one hell of a drive and it’s way too cold for September.”
The clerk huffs a laugh while the register clangs open. “It’s only going to get colder this weekend.”
With everything that happened, I didn’t realize my mother was wearing a dress. The top part is a solid navy blue, which complements the bottom portion that’s a dark blue paisley. I also didn’t realize she wasn’t wearing shoes. She ran out in her slippers and I didn’t pay attention to that either.
I’m sure there’s plenty I missed. I got the part where she shot my father and laid there for hours sobbing next to him, though. Hours. She sat there next to him for hours. The prosecutor in me would have a field day with that fact alone.
Unbuttoning the top button of her dress, I wonder if she planned on a girls’ night out to a nice restaurant downtown when she put it on. I bet she thought today was going to be a good day. It was one worth dressing up for.
She didn’t get to her hair or makeup, though. Or else it all came undone when the altercation happened. I can’t ask the first question that’s begging to be brought to life. Did he hit you, Mom? Did he threaten you? I don’t want to bring it up, just as much as she doesn’t want to talk about it.
The navy cotton fabric slips down her arms easily as I help her out of it. She hasn’t said a word, but her eyes are drenched in worry and tragedy and unspoken questions.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen my mother scared. Not like this.
“There you go,” I barely get out as the fabric falls to the floor and I wonder if my father saw her like this. Is that wretched look what she wore when she pulled the trigger?
The steam in the shower builds, fogging the top of the mirror’s edge and the warmth is positively suffocating. I busy myself rubbing my sore shoulder and barely watch her from my periphery in the foggy mirror as she slips down the rest of her dress and climbs into the tub.
The clothes will have gunshot residue on them too.
The hot water splashes and with it is the sound of my luggage unzipping as I pull out the toiletries I packed.
The goal is simple enough: get rid of the residue, calm my mother down, and come up with a plausible defense.
A nagging voice in the back of my mind whispers to ask her why. Swallowing thickly, I ignore it. But when I close my eyes, every little moment I ignored before flashes before me.
I pray this hot water can cleanse away these sins.
“You ran to find the killer.” I speak as I set a bottle on the edge of the tub. With the curtain pulled back, I can’t see her and she can’t see me.
“You were distraught at your husband’s death and how it happened so fast, there was nothing you could do.”
My body sways, my breath stolen for a moment as I envision a different reality. “But you saw the man.” With a heavy exhale I place a second bottle next to the first and tell her to wash her hair. My mother hasn’t moved, hasn’t spoken.
“I went into the foyer but no one was there and then I saw you running out the back. I saw something or someone else first but I didn’t get a good look, but I saw you and ran out, wondering what the hell you were doing. I chased after you and when I finally got to you, you were trying to hurt yourself, so
bbing uncontrollably.”
“Trying to hurt myself?”
“It lays a claim that you weren’t in your right mind.”
“Though in your version,” she starts and my mother’s words are spoken both slowly and lowly, “I was after the real killer?” I glance up at her as tears streak down her face.
“You were, you were running after him after you found Daddy dead, but he got away and you couldn’t take it.”
“As if they’d believe I could run faster than you.” My mom offers her doubt. “I could just tell them the truth.”
Ignoring her comments, I continue. “You were too scared to go back inside. I thought you were having an episode. I was going to take you to the hospital, not having seen anything inside, until you begged me not to. You just wanted to leave, to get away so I did that. I made that happen, not understanding what had happened.”
“That’s what you’ve got, baby girl?” My mother’s question is nothing but melancholy.
“You fell asleep, then in the morning you told me everything.”
“I don’t want you to lie for me,” my mother says and it’s then I see she still hasn’t touched the shampoo.
When I don’t respond and instead grab the shampoo and force it into her hands, she speaks. “I thought he cheated on me,” my mother says, her voice tight with the confession. “I swear, back then I thought he was cheating and I didn’t know.”
“Didn’t know what, Mom?” I’m too scared to ask and when I do, she looks down at me, the steam flowing around her.
With a wobbly smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, she shakes her head and says, “Nothing, baby.”
“Mom, what happened?” I ask and tears stream from my eyes just as they do from hers.
“He did it for the last time. I had to.”
“He hit you?” I say my guess in a whisper and my mother’s weak smile broadens with sympathy. “Yeah, baby, he hit me.”
“I’m sorry.” I barely get out the words, bracing myself against the cheap cabinet of the sink.
