by Lacey Silks
A scream tore through the crowd from the west end of the market, and we both froze with fear. I recognized the danger instantly. The heavy thumps and cries of terror that reached us nearly stopped my heart, yet I didn’t move. We remained in the same spot, my body slowly sliding down his to the ground. And while we should have run, we didn’t. Our heads turned in slow motion. Watching the dust rise in the distance, getting closer and closer, was like watching a tsunami. I’d never seen one in my life, but that’s the way I imagined it would seem. It would be impossible to stop and just as difficult to outrun.
A table five stations further flipped, acting like a catapult for the stacked tomatoes. The fruit flew in all directions, splattering on the walls and ground as well as people’s heads and bodies. There was red everywhere. I dropped the sunflowers I was holding.
Mikey! I screamed, then realized that I’d done so in my mind. That’s when instinct finally kicked in and I screamed for our son.
“Mikey!” We both rushed toward him, reaching for him. I saw Mikey staring at us as a bull headed straight for our little boy like he was a target. John let go of my hand. I watched him leap for Mikey, ahead of me, diving for our boy, flying across a table until he grabbed him, tucked him into his body, and rolled on the ground to underneath Mrs. Gonzalez’s table. I let out a relieved breath only to realize that the bull was heading straight for me. Someone else slammed into me and pushed me to the side before the bull made me part of his path.
The eggs flew out of my basket. I saw one strike John in the head, splattering down his face. He fell back, closing his eyes. I wanted to run to him, but someone held me in my spot. I turned around to see Mr. Garcia.
“Stay down. It’s not over!” he yelled into my ear. It was a good thing that he did, because I could barely make anything else out.
Mikey’s safe. He’s with John.
It felt like hours passed before the commotion settled. I pushed through the dust toward John and Mikey. The bulls had finally passed the market, leaving a trail of destruction behind.
“Mikey! Baby, where are you?”
John came into view first. He was shaking, looking down at his body in disbelief.
“Where’s Mikey?”
John looked down to his lap, as shocked as I was, “I had him… I… I had him. The bull stomped on my leg, and Mikey slipped out.”
What?
“Mikey!” I screamed.
“Mikey!” John repeated. “He can’t be far. He was in my arms a minute ago.”
I ran into the two-story building, up and down the staircase, knocking on every door, asking for my son. No one had seen him.
“Mikey!”
Soon enough I was hearing our son’s name from one end of the town to the other, as everyone looked for our little boy. I walked into every house and every building. I went into ditches and nooks I knew children played in. No one had seen him. No one had found him.
By sundown, it felt like I’d looked into every small hole and turned every rock in Pace. My feet were swollen, my eyes bloodshot, and my hands covered with soot. I was sitting in a lawn chair someone had brought out in front of the church, my knees awkwardly twisted inward to take the pressure off my ankles, taking a moment to compose my thoughts, racking my brain where Mikey could have hid, when I saw Ben walking down the middle of main street carrying my child’s limp body in his arms. My knees locked back into place and I rushed toward him, my throat constricting with each step.
No, no, no!
The look on Ben’s face made my heart stop.
“Give me my baby!” I reached for Mikey and Ben passed him to me. “Mikey, baby, open your eyes.” I smoothed my hand over his pale face and purple lips. His cheeks were dirty, and I thought that Mikey would like a bubble bath tonight to clean him up.
“Honey, open your eyes. Mama’s got you.” I sat down in the middle of the road, holding him in my arms just as John reached me and stopped. The smile on his face fell flat as he looked down. He exchanged a look with Ben and I heard him ask a few questions, but I couldn’t make out what they were.
Mikey felt cold; far colder than he should have. I rubbed my hand over his bare arm. There was a tear in his red shirt, from the ribs all the way down to the hem.
“What is this? Why is he not waking up?” I asked, feeling a touch of nausea fill me.
“We found him lying on the road near the south side of town, Anna. I think one of the bulls dragged him there. I’m sorry.” Ben’s words sounded like the most hateful thing he could have said to me, yet they were sincere.
“Is this a joke?” I asked. “Because if it is, it’s sick. Mikey? Baby, please open your eyes.”
The scrapes on his knees were deep, but nothing that time couldn’t heal. A small open gash on his forehead was beginning to scab, and he wasn’t bleeding. “John, I… I don’t think he’s breathing.”
My voice shook as I held Mikey tightly in my arms.
“Anna, honey. Pass Mikey to me.”
“I’m not letting him go. Not again.” I smoothed my hand over his cheek.
“Mikey! Mikey! Wake up, baby! Wake up, sweetheart.” I squeezed his cold hand, harder than I usually would. I just wanted to feel him move a little. I waited for one small twitch of his finger or even a sign of his eyes moving underneath his eyelids, but he remained still. I wanted to feel his breath and hear his heartbeat, but I couldn’t find either.
“He’s just exhausted, right?” I was crying now, so hard that I couldn’t stop, but I couldn’t lose hope either. I never would. “Wake him up, John. Please wake him up.”
John knelt in front of me. He checked Mikey for a pulse and kissed his forehead. “Anna, I’m so sorry. Mikey’s gone.”
My heart stopped.
Reality didn’t hit me until I saw John’s face and the pain there that was also coursing through me. The unimaginable twisting pain that would never end.
“No, no, no!” I cried. “Please, God! No!” I rocked my body back and forth, sobbing. I couldn’t let him go. For a while, a small crowd formed around us, but to me the time was beginning to feel warped. I couldn’t tell how long I’d been sitting there. It could have been minutes, and it could have been hours. One by one, people left. I felt like I was living in a never-ending nightmare. I cried until I could no longer shed a tear. I cried until all my strength was gone. John’s father was the one to take Mikey from my arms, and I felt empty. I slowly lifted my gaze at Ben, who had never left.
“You did this,” I said, underneath my breath.
John helped me stand up. There were a few townsfolk left nearby, including a doctor and the sheriff.
“You did this.” I pushed at Ben’s chest. He barely moved.
“I wouldn’t kill my son, Anna.”
“He’s not yours! He will never be yours. He’s mine. Do you hear me? He’s mine and…. Oh, my God!”
I didn’t realize when I started sobbing again, because in the back of my mind I had known the truth for a while now, but it was difficult to say it out loud. It was difficult to admit that my son was gone.
Where was he? I looked around, wanting to hold Mikey some more.
“He’s at the church, baby,” John whispered from my side. “Come on, let’s go to the church.”
I whipped my body around. Ben stood a few feet away. His brother was leaning back against the wall of the Bistro, and his cousin was sitting on the small porch step. When I looked at Ben once more, I saw a soft smirk lift his lip, and I lost it.
“I’m going to kill you. I’m going to kill all of you! You hear me!” I yelled. John took me under my arm and led me back to the church. Somewhere, while looking for Mikey, I must have lost my shoes. My feet ached as I crossed the dirt road barefoot, but I didn’t notice they were bleeding until I stepped inside the church. My little boy was lying on a few pillows near the altar, where Father Francis was praying.
I collapsed into John’s arms.
There was nothing worse than a scorned mother’s fury. Nothing
except for the fury and injustice a mother felt when she’d just found out that her child was dead. I couldn’t remember much of that evening. The pain was too strong.
When I came to, I was in my bed, and John was sitting beside me.
“I lost my engagement ring, too.” I let out a low cry. I could barely hear it.
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll get you a new one.”
I shook my head instead. I didn’t want a new ring. I wanted my son back. I wanted my baby, whose body was lying in the morgue by the church, alive again. And since I couldn’t have him, the only thing that remained on my list was revenge.
I woke up at two in the morning. The room was dark, and John was sleeping beside me. My body ached in every spot. Feeling like a zombie, I left the bed and looked out the window where the full moon illuminated the night. I put on my sunflower dress and button up sweater, then went outside.
Despite the lunar brightness, the night felt dark.
I felt dark.
Dark and empty.
I buttoned up my sweater and walked down the middle of Main Street. The deceivingly peaceful night led me straight to the Bistro. When I reached it, I realized that I’d known since the moment I opened my eyes that I’d end up here.
The lights were still on. I stood there for what felt like hours, though it was probably minutes, watching through the window as Mateo and his cousin drank shot after shot of tequila. Ben was already passed out at the bar. I wished I had a gun. I would have pulled the trigger on all three of them.
End of a barrel, right to the temple.
Ben had done this. He’d killed Mikey. I didn’t know how or why, but I knew that he had.
Bastardo!
A soft noise drew my attention to the side of the building. It must have been a cat. They populated the town as much as the new wave of babies being born. Poor little things, to be brought into this awful world. I walked around to the back and saw that Fate had left the door there open, and so I strolled in.
The Cortez family seemed to be in good spirits, to be drinking that late, but then again, they were always drunk. A guard sat by the door where I’d seen the men count their money earlier in the day, but he was passed out.
And that’s when the idea for the first part of my plan formed. I gently twisted the doorknob. It was locked. I pulled a pin out of my bun and stuck it in the keyhole. It turned over a few times. At the sound of the low click of the lock giving in, I felt a spark of invincibility light in my chest. The Cortez family wasn’t the only danger in town — not anymore.
One by one, I carried the heavy bags out of that room to the back of the Bistro, and no one was the wiser. Twenty minutes later, under the moon’s watchful glow, I was staring at twelve duffle bags, all filled with cash: around fifty million, I presumed. I then waited for Fate to guide me further. When a light switched off in my parents’ chapel just outside of town, I knew what to do. A bulb must have gone out.
It took three hours, back and forth, to carry all the bags. No one saw me, and no one was the wiser as minute by minute, the satisfaction of my first ounce of revenge soothed my broken heart. When I was done, I picked one small tomato on the way back and left it in the middle of the robbed room.
Next was Ben’s house, about a five-minute stroll away. The lights were out, and of course I knew he wasn’t there because he was passed out at the Bistro. His parents lived a hundred feet or so to the back and his cousins even further than that, each one in a mansion grander than the next.
I gently pushed the door open. As expected, it wasn’t locked. Nobody would dare to enter his house. Well, I was done being a nobody.
I grabbed the first bottle of liquor I could find and emptied it on the couch. Another bottle found its way to the curtains and the carpet before I flicked a match and watched its light spread across the house. Then I walked outside.
When I was a safe distance away, I turned around for one last time. The sight of the blaze was beautiful. It was exactly the kind of celebration I needed to venerate my son’s short life.
I hurried home, undressed, showered, put on one of my nicer dresses and sat in the corner of the darkened kitchen, looking at the glow in the distance out the window. The sun was beginning to rise as well. Mikey’s monkey rested against my chest. My thumb was stained with ink from the fountain pen I had used upstairs. I wanted to say goodbye, and I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to get the words out of my throat when I said goodbye to John, so I wrote them down. I took a sip from the glass of water I was holding when John walked in.
“Anna, I’ve been looking for you. Where were you?”
“I went to the garden in the back. It feels peaceful now, doesn’t it? I feel a little better too.”
“Are you sure?” He looked me over, skepticism lurking in his voice.
I nodded.
“Why are you wearing a sweater? It’s hot outside.”
Yet since letting go of my son’s body earlier in the day, all I felt were chills.
“I… I was cold. John, I have a small problem.” I saw my hand shake, the water in the half-empty glass vibrating back and forth, and so I set it aside.
“There was a fire, Anna.”
John was wrong. There was way more than a fire. There was also a matter of fifty million dollars that had been stolen. Ben could rebuild, but he’d never get that money back, and if someone came looking for him because of it, all the better. Maybe he’d leave Pace once and for all.
“I know, John, I did it. I burned down that house.”
“Oh, my God, Anna! Honey, I know you’re hurt and in pain, but… Anna… if they ever find out… We have to make sure they don’t.”
“You’ll cover for me, won’t you?” I asked, already knowing the answer to that.
“Of course I will. I love you. No one was hurt, which is good.”
“It’s not good, John. I wanted to hurt him. I wished he were in that house, burning alive.”
“Anna, don’t say that. You can’t wish anyone dead.”
“But I do wish him dead. I wish all of them dead. They took my boy from me.”
“And if they did, God will punish them.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong, and God punished me. So you see, we can’t always rely on God.”
“Anna, that’s blasphemy.” For the first time since taking me into his arms, John pulled back. “I should have known this would happen. Maybe we shouldn’t have kept the paternity a secret?”
My heart stopped for the second time in the past day.
“What are you saying, John? That this is my fault. That God punished me for not telling the man who raped me that we had offspring?”
“No, Anna, that’s not what I’m saying. But maybe he wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with us. We both know that a kid to Ben would have been a chore.”
“You have regrets.” I gasped and felt my heart break into pieces all over again.
“I don’t, baby. Please believe me. This is all just so wrong.”
I turned back to the window. Satisfaction returned to my chest as soon as I saw the glow. “My punishment will come soon enough because Ben saw me do it. I think he saw me running away,” I lied. John would have no choice but to let me go now. I couldn’t tell John that I was the one who stole the money and left a small fruit as evidence. He would find out anyway, but the less he knew, the better he could deny the truth.
“Shit!” John never swore, which meant that this was worse than bad. This was something I would pay for with my life, and I hadn’t even told John the full story, except my life seemed to be more precious now by a heartbeat. Had I made the right decision? Was this revenge really for the best?
“Why did you do that, Anna?”
“They took my baby!”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do! I know they did it. I know that Ben arranged for the bulls to break through the barrier, and he made sure that they found us.”
John sighed, then took me back into his ar
ms. He held me against his body. I felt a tear fall down my cheek when I realized that this could be one of our last moments together. It had to be – for a while, at least.
“I believe you, Anna. I believe you,” he said.
“I have to leave. It’s the only way.”
I brought my hand to my stomach, smoothing over it as if Mikey were still in there and comforting the new life growing inside me at the same time. John didn’t let go, as if my suggestion had just hit him and he had to hold on for a little while longer.
“I’m sorry, John. I… actually, I’m not sorry. The only thing I’m sorry about is that Ben wasn’t at his house when it burned down. That way he’d be dead, and I could stay here. He’ll be looking for me the rest of my life now.”
John froze. He knew that I was right. He knew that I had to go, although he didn’t know that I’d be taking a new life along with me. But if he asked me, I would stay with him. I’d stay with John and fight.
“Anna, you have to run.”
My chest deflated. “Come with me, then.” I begged.
We loved each other enough to get through this. We could do this together, couldn’t we?
“I need to stay here to steer them away from you. I need to stall Ben, and I need to fight for Pace. I can’t leave the parish and the people. If I leave with you, they’ll know exactly whom it was. At least this way, I can blame your departure on your grief. Anna, I need to bury our son.”
Mikey.
A prickly feeling filled my throat. If I ran, I wouldn’t be able to visit Mikey. But if I stayed, I would be risking our new baby’s life.
“They’ll know it was me. If you stay, they’ll kill you. Come with me, John. Run with me. I need you.”
We need you.
“You have no chance if we both leave. They’ll know. If I stay, I can convince them that you went mad and talked about walking out to the desert or something. I know they won’t believe it, but it might buy you just enough time to escape,” John repeated.
“If I go, I’m not coming back, John.”
I wouldn’t risk Ben taking away another one of my babies. I stood up and walked toward the front door. When I opened it, the chaos in town was getting louder. The sun began to filter more and more through the low clouds. I looked at the remaining dirt underneath my nails. Thank goodness John hadn’t noticed. Out of the window, by his house past the field, I saw Mr. Garcia loading the last contents of scrap into his truck.
