Eviscerating the Snake - The Complete Trilogy

by Ashley Fontainne

  Oh, Mrs. Milligan: just thinking about that sweet, strong lady made me immediately feel guilty for worrying about my own trivial thoughts and emotions. God only knows the emotional twister that she had ridden for over 30 years now. Her words “Let it go” always reverberated through my mind when I thought about her. I couldn’t bear the thought of letting her down, so I knew, for her sake, I must try harder to stay strong.

  In the past few months, Mrs. Milligan and I had gone from being strangers that were united under the shadow of sadness to being extremely close. I had never been the type of individual that would randomly pick up the phone and call my mother to share my day or just to hear her soothing voice (since actually, she possessed a very irritating nasally pitch that I could only stand for a few minutes before my ears bled). However, I found myself doing just that with Mrs. Milligan. At first, I told myself that my conversations with her were just to check on her well-being—politeness to an elderly woman that seemed to need checking up on—but if I were to be completely honest with myself, I was drawn to her maternal kindness. Her strength and compassion were foreign emotions to me and things I had never experienced with my own mother. She was such an enigma. When I looked beyond the frail appearance and witnessed the stoicism and bravery she possessed, I also sensed the grace and sadness that she balanced inside her. To still be able to truly smile and enjoy life after the tragedy that no mother should ever suffer was far beyond my ability to comprehend. I still yearned for my son and I never saw his face or held him in my arms, whereas Mrs. Milligan had spent years with her daughter. The staggering sadness of that loss would have driven me over the brink into utter madness. The one thing that puzzled me the most about her was her unyielding faith in God and her absolutely unshakeable belief in not only the existence of a Heaven but that Gina was there waiting for her along with her deceased husband. Although she didn’t speak of these things often, when she did, her face would become calm and serene, aglow with a youthful vigor that would, for a brief moment, wash away the ravages of time that had tromped unmercifully across her face. Listening to her speak about these things would leave me with a strange sense that I was missing something from my own life. Some intangible ideal that my black and white brain found utterly ridiculous, yet my heart whispered I desperately needed.

  Fully awake now, I let out my breath slowly. I gave up trying to lie still and gently crept out of bed so I wouldn’t wake Purr Baby and went to the bathroom to rinse my sticky forehead and guzzle some cold water. The water cooled my skin and calmed my nerves. I briefly wondered if the stress was brought on from becoming “the boss” and all the responsibilities that came with being the new managing partner and how I had obtained that coveted title. I realized now that all my years of strategizing the downfall of everyone was as far as my late night obsessive planning sessions had gone. I never really gave much thought to or made preparations for how my life would change after those plans finally came to fruition.

  The first few weeks after my takeover and the rippling after effects of Olin’s arrest were almost a blur now. The publicity nightmare of the fraudulent audit and bankruptcy that Sprigg Oil & Gas eventually entered into kept all of us hopping from one disaster to the next. The loss of numerous clients over the whole sordid affair kept my mind constantly shifting from one fire to another. Then, two months after I took over, Eric abruptly announced his early retirement and left the firm, which really crippled the already hobbled horse. Most of his clients that hadn’t already sought accounting services elsewhere left soon after he did, and the loss of his clientele had a huge impact on our bottom line each month. To my surprise, Nicole stepped up to the plate and truly attempted to convince some of Eric’s larger clients to stay. But even with her staunch efforts, she could only procure a successful retention rate of about ten percent, which of course, wasn’t much help.

  Tensions on the tax floor did not help matters out any either. After the flames died down from the volcanic eruption in the conference room, the rumors continued to spread like molten lava. The gossip grapevine trailed all the way to Kevin’s house and crept right into the ears of his wife. Divorce proceedings immediately began, and Kevin didn’t stand a chance in hell since not only was his soon-to-be-ex a lawyer, but a scorned woman as well. Hell hath no fury. There seemed to be a very distinct line drawn in the sand in terms of supporters of Kevin versus supporters of Miranda on the floor, and working conditions were strained, to say the least. Then the lawsuits began—fifteen of them so far. This was not too surprising, considering the monster that Olin was, but the shocker was that Kevin was involved. Apparently, these women, after experiencing Olin’s behavior, had sought solace and help from the quiet partner, Kevin. According to their affidavits, Kevin would comfort them and promise his help, bed them, and then afterwards, act like nothing ever happened. Good God, if only the cash flow was available, I would consider asking him to resign. It would be worth the cost of his buyout just to remove his smarmy presence from Winscott.

  Our biggest bleeder, naturally, was the tremendous loss of all of our oil and gas clients. They literally scattered like ashes in the wind after the news broke about the Sprigg situation and Olin’s arrest. The media coverage spread like a summer wildfire, and soon, Winscott’s name was in the trenches of accounting hell. I realized, a bit too late, that I failed to work out the intricate details of the domino effect that taking Olin down would have on the firm in terms of the financial backlash. Out of Olin’s 600-plus client base, less than a hundred opted to stay with the firm. That revenue stream loss was pumping out of our doors faster than a spewing severed jugular vein releasing its crimson fluid.

  Surprisingly, most of Robert’s clients had decided to stay and were now in the capable hands of Carl. I could only assume that they took Robert’s plight into consideration and maybe even had some twisted sense of respect for him. He finally stood up and admitted his personal wrongdoing in not only his part of Gina’s death but the whole Sprigg mess. All of these issues weighed heavily on me each day. When you added in the fact that the air at work was thick with the underlying current of distrust from most of the partners and employees, each day was hell. This distrust in the firm and each other caused our turnover ratio to spike dramatically. My stress level had been at its peak for the first three months after taking over. My inability to sleep was kept on the back burner, for it just seemed a natural response to all the pressing issues that were swirling around me on a daily basis.

  However, about five months after my ascension, the roller coaster slowed down to a more reasonable teacup ride. The blood-thirsty media sniffed out fresher wounds from other bleeding corpses to swoop down and feed upon. As they dissipated, it allowed us to begin patching up our wounds. After the frenzied departure of over half of our clients and countless employees, the media attention began to slow down to a steady drip rather than the gushing geyser it had been.

  Surprisingly, Nicole’s business valuation niche was booming, which helped not only with our profit and loss each month, but also with her attitude at work. After Eric left, it seemed that her plan to bury herself even deeper than normal under mounds and mounds of paperwork was keeping her occupied. It was also keeping her bank account and her sanity afloat since she possessed nothing else now to occupy her time. The loss of Eric from her life, pathetic as it seemed, was devastating to her. Nicole never had children, and what few family members were still living all resided in eastern Georgia. I could not recall her ever mentioning any female friends, so she was pretty much alone now. Eric had been her life. They had been together for years, and for him to just suddenly announce his retirement plans to travel around the world with his wife and grandkids almost destroyed Nicole. In some aspects, I did feel sorry for her, and I viewed her now in a different light than I had previously. It finally dawned on me that day in the conference room, that behind the makeup, high fashion couture, and foul-mouthed exterior, Nicole was just like any other woman. Under her carefully placed veneer was a woman that act
ually possessed emotions other than the greed and anger I uncovered. I watched her struggle to control her face from crumbling into a pile of sorrowful tears upon her realization that she was not the apple of Eric’s eye like she had assumed she was. When confronted with the fact that he was just like the majority of other men—he followed his penis in whatever direction it pointed—she changed, almost overnight. She had shocked me even more when she had come to my office a few months ago, in what I can only surmise was her version of an apology, and offered to help in any way possible. She had some ideas to help stem the flow of money that was leaking out of every conceivable crack and laid out her marketing plans. When I agreed, she then went out and executed them as only she could. She hadn’t retained many of Eric and Olin’s clients, but the ones that she did paid well, and she actually began to soften up at work. I was getting reports back that she was seen every now and then smiling at other employees, which was a first. I found it fascinating to observe her stages of transformation into a real human being and marveled at how when her reality check hit her hard, she stood up, brushed herself off, and proceeded to pay the bill as only a strong, southern-bred woman could.

  My nemesis was still in jail, which finally allowed my mind to begin to relax a bit and afforded me, at least for a glorious few months, to sleep uninterrupted for about four hours at a time.

  Until three weeks ago.

  I couldn’t quite grasp why I was suffering from such overwhelmingly crushing dreams. Every time I awoke from one, like tonight, the sensation of my chest being squeezed by some unseen vise was beginning to take its toll on me. I knew Steve was right: I needed to visit with, at the very least, a rape crisis counselor. Better yet, a therapist who could help me to work through all of the traumatic events that I had endured alone in repressed silence. But I was such a private person that I just couldn’t bring myself to plop down on some cold leather couch and spill out the most horrid details of my life to a complete stranger as I stared at his or her ceiling. Hell, I hadn’t even been able to express my emotions to James during our marriage after the loss of our son, and we had been married for eight years. Of course, James never had been the type that could sit still for more than a few minutes and listen to people talk about their feelings, much less comprehend the emotions of another person, so I never even tried.

  James: he was a powder keg of adrenaline that raced through life at only one speed—supersonic. We met during a party at Harvard as he was finishing up his last semester of law school, and I was immediately drawn to his reckless pursuit of life, money, and excitement. His exuberance left me breathless at times while I tried to keep up with his breakneck speed. For the first few years, I rode that high. But once my own career took off and my schedule put me far away from home almost three-quarters of the year, James’s enthusiasm for money began to wane. Suddenly, he decided he wanted to start a family with a wife that stayed home while the husband went out and earned all the bacon. Of course, that attitude and thought pattern won my parents over immediately, and sometimes I felt like the only reason they continued to have any type of a relationship with me was just so they could see James.

  After the first six years, our relationship suddenly became flipped flopped, as now I was the one running full bore and he wanted to slow things down and spend more time together. This sudden shift in priorities made me wonder what happened to the man I married. It was almost like he wanted to recreate the Cleavers.

  And I was no June.

  Making sure that protection was a top priority for the short stretches I was actually home, I held off as long as I could without getting pregnant. I soon found out that nothing is one hundred percent effective except abstinence when I found myself with child. My under-enthusiastic emotional response to this was soon boosted to happiness as James’s thrilled demeanor began to rub off on me. Unfortunately, our relationship was held together strictly by the thin cord of expectant parents. His resentment of my devotion to work and refusal to cut back on hours went from being a small curb we could step over to a large brick wall that separated us. That wall eventually became a prison that neither of us could escape, especially after I locked myself in “mental solitary” after my miscarriage.

  Thinking about James now only left me with a small sense of melancholy for our eight years of marriage, for if I broke our relationship down to the barest essentials, our connection with each other never passed the superficial stage. We were too young and both of us lacked the insight and ability to share ourselves with each other on a truly emotional level. Of course, when you each are traveling at the speed of light in different directions, opportunities for the linking of two souls tend to pass by in a blurred frenzy. Soul searching conversations never materialized, leaving our connection tenuous and easily broken.

  Steve, on the other hand, possessed the uncanny ability to listen and really hear the undertones of what was being said, as well as the almost freaky sense of perceiving what was behind the words. Those attributes, most likely, were what made him such a great detective. At dinner earlier tonight, the subject of my inability to sleep came up again, and he lightly suggested, once again, that I needed to see someone about it. When I reiterated how I wasn’t comfortable doing so with someone I didn’t know, he seemed a bit puzzled. His gorgeous face was overshadowed by concern as he questioned why I had been able to tell him when he had been a complete stranger at the time but couldn’t talk to a professional better trained to handle the delicate nature of my issues.

  Right now, I wished more than anything as I stared at my pathetically tired reflection in the mirror, that I could answer that question as well. Of course, then the rest of our conversation burst into my head as Steve reminded me that I was going to have to split open my life, splayed out for the world to see, during Olin’s upcoming trial. The judge in the case had already determined that cameras would be allowed in the courtroom, and if I couldn’t handle a one on one couch session with a shrink, how would I handle the national exposure?

  I honestly had no idea.

  I peeled off my damp gown and padded quietly over to my dresser to retrieve a dry one, and then I headed to the kitchen. As I rounded the corner, I glanced at the microwave. It was 3:45 in the morning. I chuckled softly as I thought about the crazed father in The Amityville Horror that always woke up at 3:15, so at least I needn’t worry about my house being haunted or me slipping into murderous insanity since it was past that time. It seemed that my brain just seemed pre-programmed to wake up about this time as it overflowed with too many thoughts. I decided I would at least put it to good use and get some work done.

  Coffee started and computer booting up, I sat down at the kitchen table and briefly yearned for Steve’s strong arms around me. I kicked myself mentally for not letting him spend the night after dinner earlier. I felt the warm sensation of desire weave through my body just at the mere mention of his name, yet I was still unable to succumb to my longing for him. In the past two months since we officially began dating, Steve had been so kind, patient, and tender with me, letting me be the one that reached out for his hand first and the one who initiated our first tender kiss, but I was unable to allow things to move any further. Each time Steve got too close, I would feel my stomach knot up so tight that the sensation of being punched would overwhelm me, and I had closed the valve tightly on any amorous intentions.

  God, I really did need therapy if I was ever going to be able to work through my angst and fear and allow myself have any semblance of a normal relationship with a man again. The look in Steve’s eyes as he left me standing in my doorway this evening was a mixture of sadness and disappointment. I knew I wasn’t being fair to this wonderful man, and that knowledge caused me to feel even more anxiety which then just compounded my issues further. It was a vicious cycle that I knew only I could end. A heavy sigh left me as I filled my coffee cup up with the steamy, robust liquid, and I decided right then that I wasn’t going to let Steve’s glorious presence slip through my grasp. My marriage to Jam
es crumbled due to our inability to cope with feelings, and I was determined not to let that happen again.

  I walked over to my purse and dug through it until I found the card Steve had given me months ago of a rape crisis counselor/therapist, and then I sat back down in front of the computer. I quickly typed out and sent the counselor an email and requested a call back to discuss my situation and available appointment times. I smiled a bit as I acknowledged to myself that I had just taken another first step down my long road to rebuilding a new life that would be full of possibilities and excitement rather than fear, anger, and remorse. That idyllic vision was going to be a difficult one for me to attain. I had spent so many years focusing on nothing but my revenge that my tunnel vision became black and clouded, almost as if I had been locked in a dark cave for years and then was released into the blinding sun for the first time in ages. I knew that it was going to take time for the eyes of my soul to be become accustomed to the light of day once again.

  As I sat and contemplated all these rambling thoughts about redemption, recovery, reconciliation, and my potential romantic interludes with Steve in the pre-dawn hours of the morning, the sound of an incoming Skype message pulled my attention back to the computer screen. The message was from Steve and simply said, “Go back to sleep.” I laughed out loud as I began typing a message back to him, relishing his online presence and obvious watchful eye over me, smiling as I thought I can do this.

  ONE WEEK PRIOR - MONDAY