Craving Constellations

by Nicole Jacquelyn

  “Yeah, baby. Do that. I’m here. No need to worry,” he soothed. “Everything’s fine. You’re fine. If I thought you weren’t, I’d be there. Casper’s out front. Let him know when you’re heading over. Okay, Mama?”

  Mama was a new endearment he’d started using last week, and every time I heard it, my stomach filled with butterflies.

  “Okay,” I told him quietly as I pulled my jeans up my legs.

  “You take that test before you leave. No more puttin’ it off. I wanna know what it says when you get over here,” he told me before he hung up.

  Last week, I’d noticed that I hadn’t had my period since the first week I’d been at the club. It hadn’t concerned me for a while because the thing came and went with no rhyme or reason. But by last week, my boobs had started magically growing, and I’d seemed to be popping out of my bras. When I told Dragon, he’d given me a small smile and then dragged Trix and me into town. We grabbed a pregnancy test at the drug store that day, but I’d been putting off knowing for sure until this mess with Trix was finished. I didn’t want anything else clouding my head, and I was sort of hoping that all of our good news could come at once—after the stress was gone. Obviously, Dragon had a different opinion, and my reprieve was over.

  While Trix played quietly in her room, I went in the bathroom to take the test. Morning pee was apparently the best, and I’d been jumping around while getting Trix her breakfast, trying to hold it, until I had a minute to get to the bathroom. I took it and set it on the edge of the tub, pulling my hair into a ponytail and brushing my teeth while I waited. The sense of urgency that had plagued me during my conversation with Dragon never left, and I found myself pacing the bathroom. Two steps forward and two steps back—there wasn’t much room to lose my mind in the tiny room. I finally decided to dress Trix before I came back to check, and I left the bathroom, shutting the door behind me as I went.

  She was sitting on her floor, playing with some little plastic horses, when I got to her room. I overlooked the toys spread across the floor as I grabbed shorts and a shirt out of her dresser and tried to remember where she’d put her sandals the night before.

  “Trix! Where are your purple sandals?” I asked her as I pulled clean underwear and shorts over her tiny little bum.

  The horse distracted her, and I quickly snatched it out of her hand and flung it on the bed. The hair on my nape was standing straight up again, and my stomach was in knots for a reason I couldn’t figure out. I was starting to feel panicked, and there was no clear reason for it.

  “MAMA! Why’d you throw my horse?” she sniped at me as I tugged her T-shirt over her head. “I was playing with that! I don’t throw your stuff!” She stomped one foot. “It’s not nice!”

  I was strung so tight, spots of sweat were standing out on my forehead. “Baby, I’m sorry. Mama’s in a hurry. Now, where did you put your shoes?” I asked her urgently as we heard a car pull out in front of the house.

  Her face was screwed up in confusion, her skills at reading my body language impaired from the peace we’d lived in these last couple of months.

  “Someone’s here!” Trix told me as she ran to her window that faced the front of the house. “Whose car is that?” she asked as I came up behind her at the window.

  Before I could answer, the sound of a silenced gunshot pierced the quiet morning, followed by something big hitting the front porch. Hard.

  I didn’t know why they said that a silencer lessens the noise of a gunshot. It didn’t. The shot I’d heard was by far the loudest thing that had ever reached my ears.

  In the movie The Matrix, the fight scenes slowed down to an impossible level, so you could see every single movement. I’d always thought when movies slowed it was for the viewer’s benefit, a chance to see all of the action in perfect detail. What I hadn’t known, what I wish I’d never learned was the fact that it happened in real life.

  As soon as I heard the sound on the front porch, I slammed my hand over Trix’s mouth and dragged her away from the window toward her bedroom door. Once I knew she would be quiet, I let go over her mouth and lifted her up into my arms and squeezed her tight. Her little body was trembling in fear, but there was no time for me to comfort her, except to make small noises in my throat as I rubbed her back and hurried across the hallway.

  My mind raced.

  In a split second, I remembered that the front door was locked. Dragon always locked it when he left. It didn’t matter if Casper was on the front porch or not. He always locked it. It was an assurance of at least a couple more seconds of time.

  I carried Trix into my room, knowing I had less than a minute before Tony shot the deadbolt and got inside. I could hear the beat of my heart in my ears as I set Trix down in front of the open window next to our bed. I was glad that Dragon hadn’t gotten around to fixing the screen even though we’d had a fight about it the day before. He slept really warm. This meant that without air conditioning in our room, we had to sleep with the window open, or we’d both wake up in a pool of sweat. I had bitched that he was letting bugs in, which he was, and he’d told me to stop bitching because he killed all the damn bugs anyway, so it wasn’t like I had to do anything.

  Fortunately, this meant that the window was completely open to the outside, and it was only about six feet off the ground.

  Every mother plays the what-if game. What if a car ran over my child, and I had to lift it off her? What if my house got broken in to, and I had to hide my child somewhere? Where would I hide her? What if my car crashed into a river? How would I get my child to the surface? What if there was a national emergency? How would I keep my child safe? What if? What if? What if?

  My what-if was happening.

  I’d thought about it. Of course I’d thought about it. I’d had escape plans hatched in my head since before we’d left Tony. They’d changed depending on where we were, but they were always there in the back of my mind. What if? What if? What if?

  How would I keep her safe?

  Doing the thing you know is best doesn’t make it any less scary. I was terrified as I kissed the silent tears on her face, memorizing her. I knew I had only seconds before Tony made it in the door, so I quickly explained to her what I needed her to do. I grabbed the sides of her face with one hand, so she knew I meant business, and then I started to speak quickly and quietly.

  “I’m going to drop you out the window.” I shook my head at her as she whimpered. “You’ll be fine, baby. It’s not very far. As soon as you hit the ground, you start running for the clubhouse. Do you understand me, Trix?”

  She sobbed as I jerked her once and then kept on with my directions. “You DO NOT stop. Understand? I don’t care what you see. I don’t care if you step on a rock. I don’t care if you’re afraid. KEEP GOING. You absolutely do not stop until you get to Papa, Gramps, or Vera. Do you understand?”

  The heartbeat in my ears was growing louder by the second, and I was terrified that Tony was going to barge in, and all this would be for nothing.

  “I love you to the moon,” I told her fiercely as I propped her on the window ledge, kissing her once on the lips. I heard the gun go off again as I leaned out the window as far as I could, pried her arms from around my neck, and dropped her to the grass.

  “Run, baby! Go!” I whispered urgently.

  I had only a moment to make sure she was okay and running before I spun around and walked toward the bedroom door. I made it all the way into the hallway before I saw him. He was standing in the living room at the end of that hall, looking around in disgust. I’d known it was him, but the shock of actually seeing him after all that time must have caused me to make a noise because he immediately swung the gun in my direction.

  “Wife.” He nodded, moving the gun in a come-here motion like he saw me every day, and he didn’t just break into my house.

  “What are you doing here, Tony?” I asked him, sliding forward slowly, trying not to antagonize him.

  I knew I didn’t have a chance. He was here
, pointing a gun at me, and my guard was on the front porch with a bullet somewhere in his body. As I got closer, I prayed that I was giving Trix the chance she needed to get away. I prayed feverishly that she wouldn’t stop, and that Tony wouldn’t look out the window and see her running to the clubhouse, her hot pink shirt like a beacon in the tall grass. I couldn’t even think of Casper.

  “It’s time to go, Brenna. You’ve had your fun. Get Trix. We’re leaving.” He spoke to me like a parent to a child, both frustrated and amused.

  “Trix isn’t here, Tony. She stayed the night at a friend’s house,” I told him calmly, hoping he couldn’t see the artery fluttering quickly in my neck.

  He didn’t notice my panic, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t say a word. He just calmly punched me in the face hard enough to shatter my jaw. I saw stars, but I didn’t fall down. The pain was excruciating, and I could no longer move my mouth. I grabbed the back of the couch for support as the agony in my face threatened to drop me to the floor. It couldn’t end this quickly. Trix couldn’t be to the clubhouse yet. I needed to keep him inside until I knew she’d made it. Then, he could do whatever the hell he wanted.

  “Don’t lie to me! She told me you and Trix were home with the spic last night!” he yelled at me, spit flying from his mouth and landing in my hair.

  “Who told you?” I mumbled, trying to keep my eyes on him as my vision clouded. It was a mistake.

  Tony always had a pet peeve when we were together. He didn’t like to be questioned. About anything. He expected his word to be law. This meant that I was expected to keep my questions to myself; he wouldn’t clarify things for me. If I had the audacity to question him, I was always sorry for it. I’d learned to nod politely while my mind raced with questions.

  My confusion over his informant must have triggered his ire because the next thing I knew, I was cowering against the couch as he punched me repeatedly in the chest, stomach, and back, asking over and over again where Trix was.

  I was beyond any sort of control of my body and curled into a ball as he hit me. I whimpered repeatedly that Trix wasn’t home, begging him to stop until I lost consciousness.

  I was sitting at the bar inside the clubhouse when I heard one of the boys yell my name from the forecourt. Normally, it wouldn’t have made me leave the conversation I was having, but the tone of his voice was off, so I immediately stood up.

  “Kendra, I’ve told you. You can stay there a couple months, but you need to be lookin’ for some place to move.”

  I was so fuckin’ annoyed at the bitch. If Brenna saw her hanging around here, she’d flip her lid. We hadn’t heard anything from my ex until last week when she was supposed to move out of my fuckin’ apartment, and instead, she’d started showing up at the club with a couple of the other women that came for a good time. I had no interest, but that didn’t seem to stop her from eyeballing me whenever she was anywhere in looking distance. She was being passed around like a pool stick, and every time she headed toward someone’s room, she turned to look at me like I was going to stop her.

  “Stop fuckin’ comin’ around. No need for you to be whoring yourself out in some twisted way to get at me. I. Do. Not. Care. Fuck anyone you want. It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to me,” I told her as I walked toward the open door.

  Before I stepped into the sunshine, I heard her call out behind me, “It will!”

  But I kept walking.

  When I got outside, the first thing I saw was two of the boys looking toward my house, so I automatically looked in that direction. When I did, I noticed what they were staring at. Trix was limping toward me about fifty yards away. Her face was covered in snot and tears, but she was completely silent. As soon as I registered what I was seeing, I ran to her, the chain on my wallet slapping against my leg and jingling against the keys sticking out of my pocket. I reached her in seconds.

  “Papa!” she gasped, not able to catch her breath. The strength of her sobs had her body trembling against me as she tried to speak.

  I jerked my head to one of the boys. “Go get Poet. Now!”

  “What happened, little warrior? Are you okay?” I asked her, searching for a wound or injury of any kind.

  She seemed to be whole, but I couldn’t understand what she was saying, and I was wondering where the hell Brenna was. Something was going on. The feeling that had been bothering me all morning got stronger.

  “Loud noise…Mama was scared…she dropped me out the window!”

  Poet, Slider, and Vera came jogging out of the club as Trix tried to explain, but I was no closer to a straight answer.

  “She says there was a loud noise, and then Brenna dropped her out the window? I don’t know what the fuck is going on. I need to get over there,” I told them as I kissed Trix and handed her to Vera.

  I was about to climb on my bike when I glanced one more time at Trix and really recognized the look on her face. She was terrified.

  As I held her eyes, she whispered one word that made my blood run cold, “Daddy.”

  Slider, Poet, Grease, Tommy Gun, and Butcher followed me to the house. They’d all been in the forecourt and decided to follow me as I roared out of the yard. I saw Kendra’s convertible driving where the club’s driveway and ours met, but I didn’t think about it as I drove up to the house. My gut clenched as I saw Casper on the porch. There was a huge smear of blood in an arc across the floorboards, like he had dragged himself after he was shot. One of his arms was hidden behind the doorframe inside the house, and his head rested about six inches inside. The screen pressed into his side, and it looked like that was what had stopped him from making it any farther.

  I noticed all of that as I ran to the front of the house and onto the porch, yelling Brenna’s name.

  The house wasn’t disturbed. Everything was in its place, but I saw Brenna right away. She was facing away from me on the couch and flinched when I called her name, but she didn’t turn to look at me.

  The back of the couch faced the front door, and I had to walk all the way around it to get to her. I was afraid to walk around the couch because she was so still. That didn’t slow me down though. Tommy Gun and Butcher were lifting Casper off the doorframe when I reached her, and at my moan, both heads shot up.

  “Mama. Baby, you’re okay. You’re gonna be okay,” I told her as I dropped to my knees in front of her.

  If I didn’t know her…if I hadn’t kissed her good-bye this morning and traveled every inch of her body last night, she would have been completely unrecognizable. Her face was covered in blood, tears, and snot. It was swollen larger than I’d ever seen in my entire life. One side seemed to be worse than the other, and when I reached up to brush my hand against it, she made a noise like a wounded animal, but she didn’t move. God, there was blood all over her clothes, and I couldn’t figure out where it all came from.

  “Baby, where are you bleeding?” I asked her, but she just stared at me, her green eyes dilated with pain and fear.

  “POET!” I yelled for her Pop, but there was no need. He was standing right behind me, his fingers thrumming on his legs. “Get a towel out of the bathroom, would ya? Someone needs to call an ambulance!”

  As he walked out of the room, I tried to find out where all of the blood on Brenna’s body was coming from. I spoke quietly to her, the entire room dissolving around us, as I checked her out. I was going to find out where she was hurt. I was going to fix it. I promised her. There was barely any blood on her legs, so I smoothed my hands up her torso. When I reached her ribs, she moaned, but I couldn’t find any cuts or wounds. I grabbed my knife out of my front pocket, and her eyes went wide.

  “Always ready, just like a boy scout,” I told her with a wink, trying not to let the panic I felt show on my face.

  I cut the front of her shirt open from the waist to her neck, and that was when I saw bruising on her ribs. It wasn’t as bad as I’d thought I would find, but it was still pretty fuckin’ bad. She still wasn’t talking, but her hand had reached u
p and was resting on the side of my neck while she watched me.

  “Okay, baby, I’m gonna have to lean you forward? How’s your back? Is it worse?” I asked her, and I knew it had to be.

  Her body was too still. I was missing something. She started to say something, but when she did, she started choking, blood and spit pouring out of her mouth. Fuck. Her jaw had to be broken. I’d seen this before. I leaned her body forward gently, letting the blood drip from her mouth onto both of us, as I pulled the shirt down her arms.

  I knew it. I knew they’d be there. Bruises the size of fists were spread all over her back. Before I could do anything more, Poet came back carrying a towel and something else in his fist. He set down the pregnancy test on the arm of the couch and stepped around behind me, speaking quietly to Brenna where her face showed above my right shoulder. His accent was so thick that I could barely understand what he was saying, but Brenna didn’t seem to have the same problem because I felt her body relax the longer he spoke. I couldn’t do anything but look at that positive pregnancy test sitting on the arm of the couch. Fuck. It might be over before it even really got started.

  I was waiting on the ambulance with Brenna when we heard vehicles pulling into the front yard. She still hadn’t said a word, but her hand grasped mine tightly, never letting go for a second. It felt like we’d been waiting for hours, but it had to have been less than twenty minutes since Trix came running across the grass to me.

  I wanted to clean Brenna’s face, but she made this keening noise any time anyone got near it, so I just left it how it was. I wasn’t a fuckin’ doctor; I couldn’t have done a whole lot anyway. In the back of my mind, I was aware of my need to kill Tony Richards, but most of me was completely caught up in Brenna and getting her some help. I was fuckin’ terrified that she was bleeding inside, that the fuckin’ paramedics wouldn’t get to her in time to help her. So, when I heard the vehicles outside, I gingerly leaned forward and slid my arms under her legs. She made a sound of protest, but we had to move her. She didn’t have a choice in that.