Fighting for Anna

by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  There were a couple of thousand pictures, and I scrolled as fast as I could. Nighttime photos. An owl. A cat I hadn’t known lived here. Pictures of me and my bazillion visitors yesterday. Pictures from today. A coyote with a rooster in his mouth, the reason for my quiet morning. Poor thing. Photo after photo after photo of Gertrude. Chasing butterflies, digging for moles, sunbathing, watering the plants, barking at squirrels. I reached down and rubbed her behind both ears with my thumb and middle finger. Then I held the arrow button down. The frames flew past me, a day in the life of a farmhouse on hyper-speed. The Jetta jumped into an image. I jerked my finger off the key, then arrowed more slowly. Way too many frames of Michele melting down. Then a picture of Tank and Junior. The two of them taking me away. It made me nauseous.

  I scrolled carefully now. Birds, waving grass, a rabbit, more Gertrude. I paused. Exhaustion hit me, sudden and hard, like a head butt from the goat Papa used to keep as the clinic’s mascot. I wouldn’t give in to it. I couldn’t.

  With two hundred pictures to go, I saw something. Homo-erectus, hunched over and running fast, like a shadow. Gertrude barreled into view, barking, in the next frame. I gasped and arrowed back to the human picture. It was a blur, a figure in full flight, leaving the house. The image wasn’t clear enough for gender or race. I scrolled back a few. Nothing. Forward, slowly. About an hour after the picture of the intruder was taken, the camera took photos of the Cayenne, then me. I kept scanning until I came to the end: my own image, reaching for the camera cover.

  For the next ten minutes I mutilated my cuticles as I studied the pictures from earlier in the day, trying to get a fix on when the intruder had entered the house, a better shot of him, an accomplice, a car. Anything.

  I got nothing.

  I tried not to think about him hiding in the house with me there. It was more likely he’d run out when the camera was between shots. Maybe it had been busy shooting one of the many mole-digging photos of Gertrude. Maybe he’d entered away from the camera. Angled from the front. On the opposite side. The camera didn’t have eyes everywhere.

  I returned to my one-image capture and blew it up to maximum resolution. It pixelated immediately. “Come on, come on.”

  Gertrude braced her paws on my calves.

  “Not you.” I reached around and patted the top of her head. I started dialing down on the size. The image came back into focus enough that I could work with it. But I couldn’t overcome the blurring effect of the rapid movement. All I could tell was that it was a person, Caucasian or at least not dark skinned, medium height, dark hair, short or up, jeans, light boxy shirt, and boots. Maybe glasses. Probably a guy.

  I clicked to share the photo and sent it to Greyhound. “Caught this on wildlife cam today. Someone tried to get into Gidget’s safe again.”

  My phone rang, and I squeaked, startled. Gertrude cocked her head. It was Rashidi. Part of me wanted to ignore the call, to pull my aloneness around me like a hair shirt. Another part of me wanted to hear another voice, to banish the aloneness. That part didn’t mind that it was him at all. I pressed Accept.

  “Hi, Rashidi.”

  “I starting to worry.” His lilting voice sounded serious.

  “With good reason.”

  “Wah?” His accent grew thicker.

  “Long story.”

  “I got time.”

  I snapped the laptop shut and walked back into the house with it and Gertrude. I locked the door behind me.

  His voice was curt this time. “Spit it out, Michele.”

  I dropped onto the couch and let my head loll back. “I don’t even know where to start. I was in Houston today, for work, and to do research for the book. I got great information.”

  “That good,” Rashidi interjected.

  “Yes, but I think someone may have followed me home.”

  “Why somebody do that?”

  “I don’t know, and it gets worse. When I got home the deputies from the sheriff’s department showed up and arrested me. They accused me of murdering Gidget.” I left out my mini-breakdown.

  Rashidi drew in a breath. A harsh sound. Then I heard clattering. “I packin’ up. On my way.”

  “No,” I protested. “No, it’s okay.”

  The sounds in the background stilled for a moment. “But you home?”

  “Yes. Greyhound got me out. He accused the sheriff of doing this as a publicity stunt.”

  “Good.” Rashidi snorted. “I like to kick he ass, that sheriff.” I could barely understand his Calypso accent now.

  “Yes, me, too.”

  More clattering and slamming sounded from Rashidi’s end. “That all?”

  “Well, no.” I tried to out-silence him and lost. “Somebody tried to break into the safe again, while I was . . . detained.”

  Keys jangled, footsteps sounded, a door slammed. I listened, not speaking.

  “Go on,” said Rashidi, acting like an army general.

  “That’s it, except I got an image of him on my wildlife cam.”

  The roar of an engine starting was unmistakable.

  “Rashidi, I’m okay. You don’t need to—”

  “You not talk me out of this.” His voice was gentle but determined.

  “I have my shotgun and a tire iron. Plus, I’ve got Gertrude. She’ll let me know if anybody comes and—”

  “I make your place in an hour. Turn on you lights.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I wasn’t born under a potato truck.”

  “It make me feel better.”

  “Who knew you were so bossy?” I said, but I realized I was smiling.

  “It okay when someone care about you.”

  I nodded even though he couldn’t see me. “Thank you.” I would feel better with someone here. With him here. I walked into the bedroom for Gidget’s shotgun. “Hey, Rashidi?”

  “Yah, mon?”

  I walked out the back door and pointed the barrel up at the sky. “Listen to this.” I cocked the shotgun, sending a shell into the chamber, flicked off the safety, and fired it into the air. “It’s all good.”

  He laughed. “I forget you a badass.”

  We hung up. I made a pallet for him in the spare bedroom then sat on the front porch with Gertrude, scrolling through missed messages and watching for his headlights.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Rashidi unloaded his suitcase and a bag of oranges. He held them up. “Dinner.” I couldn’t help but notice another toothpick. The man had a serious toothpick habit.

  I opened the door for him, feeling awkward about whether to hug him. “Great. Come on in.”

  He turned off the accent. “What are the flashes of light?”

  That was a puzzler. “Where? What do you mean?”

  “Out there. I saw them when I parked.”

  I strained to see in the darkness. A flash went off. Aha. “Lightning bugs, aka fireflies.”

  “Ah yes. I’ve read about them. It’s a bioluminescence. They’re actually some kind of beetle.” He didn’t seem to want to come in.

  “I can give you a bottle later if you want to catch some. Kids around here do it all the time. Poke holes in the top so they can breathe.”

  “Nah. They’re wild.”

  He finally came in. I led him to the spare bedroom. Gertrude was ecstatic to see him. He crouched, arranging his bags beside his pallet, and she catapulted herself into him. He fell back on the makeshift bed, humoring her.

  “She’s friendly.” He was laughing and fending off her tongue.

  Tlazol dog. “She likes you.”

  When he’d extricated himself from Gertrude’s love, he adjusted his knit shirt. It hugged his pecs and exposed a smattering of chest hair in a V neckline. A medallion hung in the V. Adrian had always said V necks were metrosexual. I suddenly realized I didn’t agree with him. Like dog, like owner.

  “What’s that?” I pointed at his medallion.

  He reached up, touching it. “Just something my mother gave me.” He blinked and shuttered to a
flatter look.

  “Can I see it?”

  He lifted it and nodded.

  I took it in my hand. Cold engraved metal, warm on the side where it had rested against his skin. It grated against the gold rope chain, which was long enough that the medallion nestled into the V, but not long for me to read it without getting really, really close. I leaned farther in. He breathed into my hair. Heat radiated from his skin onto my face. The dual sources of warmth sent fireworks through my brain. I was close enough to see the pores in his skin, the black, wiry hairs springing from his chest, the contour of his collarbone and muscles beneath his shirt. Normally I breathed deeply to center myself. Now I was scared to. I decided to focus on something disgusting to break the spell Rashidi had over me. Frog guts. Pickled pigs’ feet. Baby poop. It worked enough that I was able to read the inscriptions on the medallion. The front was etched with a magnificent lion and the words JAH RULE. I flipped it over. IRIE. These weren’t words I knew.

  I finally took a breath and musky sandalwood overpowered my senses. I dropped the medallion like it had burned me. Rashidi cocked an eyebrow.

  “What does it mean?” I touched the locket on my own chest. It was warm. More than warm. It was hot, hot, hot. Too hot. Adrian? I backed away from Rashidi until I bumped into the wall.

  “Jah means God in Rastafari. So Jah Rule means God Rules.”

  “And the back?”

  “My mommy”—which he pronounced Mah-MEE, his voice lilting again—“always say ‘irie’ whenever I lettin’ things get to me. It mean, ‘it all good, mon.’” He flashed white teeth at me around his toothpick.

  I’d never heard a grown man say mommy quite like he did. His voice was warm, emotional. Reverent. I fled to the kitchen. I turned on the hot water tap, pumped soap into my hands, and scrubbed them.

  Rashidi followed me. “Show me your necklace?”

  I wiped my hands on a dish towel. The old rag predated my move-in. I lifted it and sniffed it. Sour. I washed my hands again and then wiped them on my pants.

  “I said,” Rashidi repeated, “show me yours?”

  When I didn’t answer, he reached out and lifted the butterfly from my chest. I grabbed it and pulled it from his hand. I took three quick, giant steps past him to separate us.

  “I’m sorry.” He bowed his head.

  My cheeks burned. “Oh no. I’m sorry.” I’d made everything uncomfortable. I wanted to fix it. I unclasped the necklace and handed it to him. “Remember how Papa calls me Itzpa?”

  Rashidi nodded, turning the monarch to and fro, letting the meager ceiling light reflect from it. “For Itzpapalotl.”

  “Adrian wasn’t great with Spanish or Aztec words. So he called me his butterfly. He gave that to me.”

  Rashidi looked up and smiled. “Your bicycle.”

  “Yes.” I smiled and felt the tears. I cursed the tears. I scrubbed them away with my palms.

  “Hey,” Rashidi said. He moved closer again.

  “No, don’t.”

  He held up both hands. “Irie.”

  That made me smile through the wetness, then something in me broke. “Itzpa,” I said, my words shaky, “is young and beautiful. A goddess. A butt-kicker.” I chuckled, but the tears still flowed, damn them. “Isn’t that funny? They both had me believing it for so long.” My tears turned to sobs. Rashidi stared at me, stricken. I had forbidden him to comfort me, and here I was, a total mess. “I’m a dried-up old woman, and all I have is this stupid necklace, and memories to pull from. Like digging them from the dirt. There’s a name for that, too.”

  His gaze on me was strong, intense, laser-like.

  I whispered, “Tlazolteotl. The eater of filth. The goddess of the cycle.” My voice fell. “From girl to woman to used-to-be.”

  “No.”

  “What?”

  He spoke in his accent again, and goose bumps rose on my arms. “Tlazolteotl more. She purity, purification.”

  I froze, transfixed.

  “She beautiful like the moon, she the goddess of fertility.”

  I squirmed. His words, his knowledge was seductive. I had to resist it. “How do you know these things?”

  “You forget I teach Aztec mythology?”

  “Oh . . .” It came out a squeak. I wished he wouldn’t talk in that accent. It did funny things to me.

  He went on, his eyes like onyx. “She give life energy to the jaguar, and she inspire protecting the flame of the Old Ones. She wise and brave and powerful—”

  I had to . . . “I can’t talk about this anymore. Excuse me.”

  I fled and barricaded myself in the bathroom. Well, that didn’t go so well. I was an absolute freak. I turned on the water. For the second time that day I let the sobs come. I welcomed them. I used them. I channeled out my grief to the universe. I emptied my bruised and battered innards.

  Sometime later, when the sobs had stopped, I splashed my face then turned off the water. I peered into the mirror, afraid of seeing Tlazol again, but all I saw was swollen eyes, red-streaked whites, and dilated pupils. I scrubbed my face hard to dry it. It pinked my nose and cheeks.

  “No more crying,” I told the woman in the mirror. “I mean it. No more.”

  With the water off, I heard voices from the living room. Rashidi talking to Gertrude? But no, there was a woman’s voice, too. Great. More company when I wasn’t at my best. I hustled into the living room, trying to make it look like I was peachy.

  Maggie was sitting on the couch going through Gidget’s mail and the envelope of pictures I’d found under the mattress. My handbag was at her feet. Maybe the letters had spilled out of it? Maggie set the mail down when she saw me and grabbed a cup of coffee that was in front of her. As I watched, she twisted the cap off a whiskey bottle and topped off the cup. Rashidi had propped his lean frame against one of the kitchen chairs, and he was sipping from his own coffee cup. Something green and ugly wiggled in my gut. I tried to ignore it.

  “I take it the two of you have met?”

  Rashidi smiled. No toothpick. Maybe he’d run out. “We have now.”

  I turned toward Maggie. “Coffee at”—I looked around for the time but couldn’t find anything but the dark of night out the window to judge it by—“this hour?”

  Maggie held the bottle up. “And whiskey anytime. Can I pour you some?”

  “Sorry. I’ve—wait, what are you doing here?”

  She stood and grabbed me, pulling me into a hug. I breathed deeply. She was eau de 80 proof, Aqua Net, and sawdust. “I heard about your day.”

  I bristled. “It’s been awful.” I pulled back so I could face Rashidi. “There’s more I haven’t told you,” I blurted. “You know my mother died?”

  “Yah.”

  “My parents had a baby before they got married. They gave him up for adoption.”

  Maggie stood beside me, rubbing small circles on my back. I moved a step away. She said, “I read that on your blog.”

  Rashidi started pacing slowly, his footsteps rhythmic. “I read it, too.”

  “Okay, well, this whole thing with Gidget’s daughter, with my mother and her son, my brother, it’s all mixed up inside me. I’ve got this crazy feeling that if I find one, I’ll find the other.”

  Maggie pulled me to face her. She put her hands on my cheeks. “Of course you feel that way. I’ll help.”

  Normally I wasn’t a very touchy person, but I felt myself giving in to her. It had been so long since I’d been touched, that I found I needed the contact.

  I laughed. “How can you help me?”

  “I used to sleep with someone who was working at the state registry of adoptions.” She patted one of my cheeks and let go of me.

  “That’s . . . useful.”

  “Let me see what I can find.”

  “About Gidget’s daughter, too?”

  “Of course. We can call and find out if I’ve been forgiven for being a wrecking ball yet.”

  “What?”

  She thrust me the coffee cup she’d docto
red earlier. “Never mind. Drink.”

  “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”

  “Drink,” she repeated.

  “Bossy. All right.”

  She and Rashidi looked at each other and the exchange of glances was telling.

  “You guys are ganging up on me.”

  This time I laughed aloud. Another confession came barreling out, a non sequitur, but I couldn’t stop myself. “My kids don’t need me anymore. Sam is coaching all over the country and Annabelle’s off at UT. They don’t return my calls. I’m totally alone.” Sam. I needed to get him on the phone. I took a swig of coffee and two beats later spewed most of it—along with something that tasted like paint thinner—across the room, finishing off with a few coughs.

  Rashidi Yanked, “She doesn’t hold her liquor well.”

  “You think?” Maggie shed the top layer of her outfit, a vest of strings attached to each other in a netlike pattern. The threads were a metallic purple. She tossed it on the couch and fanned her face. “This house have an air conditioner?”

  “Sorry. I was gone all day and had it off. Things went haywire and I forgot.”

  Rashidi said, “Praise Jah. I thought it was broken.”

  I looked at him. Sweat beaded across his forehead. How had I not noticed the heat before? I started to move to the hallway to turn the unit back on, but Maggie grabbed my arm.

  “Count heads.” Her eyebrows furrowed but her forehead barely wrinkled.

  How had a woman who spent years abusing drugs and alcohol managed to stay so youthful, so beautiful? Maybe it was Botox or maybe it was good genes.

  “What do you mean?”

  “How many people are in here?”

  “Um, three?”

  “Yeah, that’s the number I came up with, too. What about you Rashidi?”

  He made a show of counting us. “One, two, tree. I get tree, too.”

  “I would think . . .” Maggie sniffed. “That even in your impaired emotional state you could see that you are anything but alone.” She waved her hand at me. “Now go turn on that AC.”

  I laughed and did. When I came back, Rashidi had brought a third cup of coffee into the living room. He handed it to Maggie. She poured whiskey into it. Glug, glug, glug, then tossed it back. Liquid splashed on her emerald-green tunic. She’d paired it with a blue jean mini—frayed at the hem—torn black fishnets, and a pair of turquoise high-heeled boots. Her hair was teased up on top, framing her face, and the rest of it stuck out in an electrified mess like she’d just crawled out of an orgy. Her chandelier earrings hung to her shoulders and tangled in her hair. Something in them caught the light from the single bulb in the ceiling and sparkled. She returned to perusing the stack of photos and mail. I took a bigger sip of whiskey.