She was almost there, almost at the door. Breathless, she reached up and took hold of the handle, and the door -just a screen door, through which the sunlight seemed to glow, washing out the features of the encroaching subdivision across the street -the door rattled in her grasp and she braced her feet and took a tight breath, her thumb lowering on the latch and she was almost out, she had almost escaped.
Only to be frozen in her tracks by the sound of her mother's voice.
"Monica."
Her thumb tightened on the latch. She could hear the springs creaking rustily within, and the door shuddered in her grasp, struggling to open, to be free. The outside was so close, the outside was so bright... and the shadows at her back were so dark.
"Monica come here."
For a few seconds Monica could actually see herself flinging open the door and running outside, away from her mother, away from the farmhouse. Running barefoot across the street, through the mud and into the klatch of half built houses, where she could hide amongst the front end loaders and porta potties and mounds of dirt, she could roam the houses and scrawl messages in the walls to their future owners and steal food from the coffee truck, and then-
Monica released her thumb from the latch. She couldn't run away. There was nothing she could do. She was just a kid, unable to plan far enough ahead.
Her whole life others had planned everything. Her Mother, Jerry, Doyen Jan... Mostly Doyen Jan, of course... But the point was, not her, not Monica. She just didn't know how.
So Monica turned around and faced her mother.
At first the shadows were all one form, but then her eyes readjusted from the light and she could see her mother in the old LAZboy chair, leaning forward, elbows on her knees. The steak knife in her right hand.
Her mother wasn't looking at her. The chair faced sideways from the door, and somehow Monica knew that even when she had called to her, Mother hadn't been looking. She'd been staring at the floor in front of her.
"Please Monica. Come back."
The hard jolt of panic that had sent Monica running was lowering itself within her body now. She could feel it as a numb pressure gripping her legs, while her chest grew hot and she realized that she hadn't taken a breath in several seconds.
Breathe, she told herself, and the air burst from her lungs in a sudden anguished rush. In spite of the numbness in her legs she took a step forward.
Mother still wouldn't look at her. Mother's face was frozen and drawn in profile. She was, in fact, completely motionless. Even the knife held steady as a grave.
Mother had done something bad.
"I did what I had to do, Monica," she said, moving only her lips to speak, no other part of her moving at all.
A single drop of blood had formed at the end of the knife. It held there, quivering. Monica stared at the drop and waited.
"Sometimes," Mother was saying, her voice the softest whisper in the dark, barely a breath, barely a sound at all. Monica kept staring at the drop of blood. "Sometimes a thing can seem very, very wrong... but it turns out to be... turns out to be really the only thing left to do."
And now Mother turned her head to look at Monica. Her face, stark in the light of the doorway, was stretched wide over her skull like a map of desperate pain, widening the eyes with crazy sorrow looking at her, looking at Monica.
And so Monica took another step, and then another, until her shadow fell across Mother's face and took away the bright overexposed image of her skin, but her eyes still seemed to reflect the same way until she looked down at the knife in her hand.
The drop of blood had fallen to the floor. Joined by other drops, which gathered together the further over Monica looked, collecting finally into a pool of blood that soaked up into a sneaker on the floor.
"He was going to hurt both of us Monica."
The sneaker, and the leg with the old scuffed jeans he always wore, and then- well, then there was the rest of him. There was Jerry, on the floor, not moving. Jerry was on the floor and he wasn't moving because he was dead.
"I had to do it. There was no other way."
Monica blinked and realized there were tears in her eyes, just the beginning of tears... Just enough to start turning her vision blurred. The tears gathered in the bottom of her eyes and it was like the time Doyen Jan had let her try on his bifocals; the lower half of her vision faded to a blur while above she could still see everything clear as a picture. Which was good because Jerry was dead on the floor.
The look of panicked grief had settled on her Mother's face. "Monica... You know that I love you, don't you?"
The hot tight burning in her chest grew heavier. Monica nodded and the tears spilled down her face.
"And you know I'd do anything for you, right?"
She nodded again. The heat in her chest divided up into flutterings like a family of moths living in her lungs.
Mother didn't say anything, just stared at her for what seemed like a long time. "Okay... Okay, well, Monica, I need you to do something for me." Her eyes flitted over to the kitchen. "First I need you to go into the kitchen and take the oven mitts from the stove and then I want you to put them on. Then I want you to bring the tea towel from the rack and then I want you to come back in here right away. Okay?"
Monica shifted from foot to foot. The kitchen was just past where Jerry was lying.
Her Mother glanced down at Jimmy's body and then back to Monica. "It's okay Honey. He can't hurt you. He can't-"
Abruptly Monica walked past Jerry and into the kitchen. Here the air was brighter and she felt the hum of the refrigerator as she padded across the linoleum. Then she slowed down in front of the fridge, pausing to look at the pictures on the door.
She knew she should be quick about her work, but her eyes were pulled to the pictures- polaroids held in place with novelty magnets of various cartoon animals (a duck, a cow, a chicken, plus a caricature Charlie Chaplin) and lined up neatly in rows across the door. After a few steps Monica came to a full stop.
Here was Mom with her at the seaside in Maine, eating lobster on a pier, the both of them making a giant grinning mess of themselves. And here was Monica standing alone in a snowfield, a tiny pink dot amidst a sea of white. And here... here was Jerry on the porch of this very house, smiling with a can of beer in his hand. And another of their old home in Wisconsin... Much larger than this place, a big sprawling ranch where they had all lived... Back when everyone had been together...
"Monica I need you to hurry up Dear."
She looked back and realized that her Mother had been watching her the whole time. She... Mother hadn't told her to hurry right away. She'd let Monica look at the pictures and had waited for her.
Monica turned away from the fridge and hurried over to the stove. She reached for the towel from the rack next to the stove and then remembered that she was supposed to put the gloves on first. The oven mitts. She put on the oven mitts and grabbed the towel and rushed out of the kitchen into the shadows of the living room and before she knew it she was stepping over Jerry's body.
"Monica!" her Mother cried out. She felt her feet sticking to the floor as she lifted them. She had stepped in Jerry's blood. Jerry's blood was on her feet.
Something between a gasp and a sob erupted from between Monica's teeth. Mother was beckoning her over with her free hand. "It's okay Honey just come back to me here." She took a few more steps, the stickiness getting lighter each time, and then she was handing the towel to her Mother.
"Sit on the arm of the chair Monica. I need to clean your feet."
Monica hesitated. The knife was still in her Mother's other hand, which wasn't steady anymore. The knife was shaking and glittering between the streaks of blood, picking up brief scatterings of half light, and at that moment it seemed like some sort of hateful snake, waiting to strike out and bite her the way it had bitten Jerry.
Her Mother watched Monica watching the knife.
"Monica," She whispered, eyes pleading. "Sit on the arm of the chair now."
Monica sat on the arm of the chair, back turned to her Mother. She heard Mother move from the chair, felt the chair shift from her weight leaving. And then her Mother was in front of her, kneeling before her her. Mother laid a gentle hand on her leg, her other hand setting the knife down and pointed away from them both, like a loaded gun.
And then she took the towel from her shoulder and began to blot the blood away from Monica's feet. As she did this she looked directly into Monica's eyes.
"You know what you are to me, Monica?" Mother broke her stare and looked down at her work. "Well, the truth is you're a lot of things to me- you're my daughter, my heart, my soul..." The towel was soft and warm against her feet, soaking up the blood. "But today," Her eyes turned up and locked onto Monica's again. "Today you are my little soldier."
These words seemed to make the heavy burning in her chest a little lighter now, a weight she hadn't even realized was there. Somehow this would be alright, after all. It would be alright because they were soldiers, her and Mom. And soldiers knew how to handle things. The thought actually made her smile.
Mother finished cleaning her feet and smiled back at her, a delicate look that made Monica feel even braver. "Okay," she said, "That's most of it, but now I want you to go outside and finish washing the rest with the garden hose out back."
Monica nodded and hopped down from the chair, the impact of the floorboards sending a slight shock through her feet. Then she turned left and made her way around the chair and into the back hallway. She was at the back door when her Mother called out, "Don't forget to wash between your toes Honey!" She tried to call back OK, but found that she just couldn't. It was all so reassuring- "wash between your toes"- so comfortable now, that all she could do was open the screen door and emerge into the backyard.
There was no subdivision being built back here, just a giant backyard of overgrown grass bordered to the East by a garden of sunflowers and lotus blossoms. A still but deep woods lay to the North, and to the West the yard opened up into fields that gave way to rolling hills and finally, the mountains. Back here you could pretend it was a hundred years ago, as though there were no subdivisions anymore...
Monica blinked. Anymore? That was a strange thought. She breathed the early day's slowly warming air. There would be time to wonder about time another time- she stifled a giggle. Get ahold of yourself, go wash your feet.
The water from the garden hose was icy cold against her feet but she was a brave soldier and she kept washing, making sure to get the blood between her toes, which was hard to do with the oven mitts but she managed to do it just the same. She was a brave soldier.
Her feet were clean. But- but there was some blood left after all, just a little, underneath her big toe. Just a small drop, really. She didn't know how she had managed to miss it, but anyways she turned the hose on it and washed it away. Then a few seconds later, the drop of blood reappeared.
Monica stared for several long seconds. She had cut her foot. She had cut it, before? after? stepping into Jerry's blood.
She was only ten years old but Monica already knew about the bad diseases you could get from other people's blood. "The Big A" her Mother had once called it, and then Doyen Jan had talked about how nothing from outside of you can truly hurt you... Only that from within. Besides, Jerry... he was clean, wasn't he? Jerry was alright.
He was going to hurt us, Monica. Her Mother's voice echoed in her head. How "alright" was that? And the oven mitts, those were to protect her from Jerry's blood, Monica realized. The blood on the knife. The knife-
"Monica! I need you here!"
The water from the hose gurgled at Monica's feet, forming a puddle that grew steadily wider in the soil. Jerry's blood. Had Jerry really been a bad man? Had he deserved to die? Was he dirty?
Monica ran the cold water over her cut again. Cold water heals cuts, she knew. After a while she stopped and checked her foot. The cut was gone. It was like it had never been there.
"Monica!"
She dropped the hose. The water continued to spread in a widening patch on the ground. Monica turned the tap off and returned to the house.
Her Mother was in the back hallway, standing next to the old rotary dial phone that hung from the wall next to the coat hooks. She was hanging up the phone just as Monica came in through the back door. The screen door banged loudly shut behind her but Mother didn't complain, only looked at Monica as though contemplating something, deciding what to say next.
"Monica." There was a pause, some sort of hesitation in her voice. "...I called for help. Did you get your feet clean?"
"Yes Momma."
This time it was Monica's turn to hesitate. She could see the relief in her Mother's eyes and knew it was because her feet were clean. The blood was gone.
At that moment Monica came to a decision. She wasn't going to tell her Mother about the cut. She wasn't going to say anything because there hadn't been any cut.
"Monica."
Mother was holding something out to her. Something wrapped in cloth. Without needing to ask, Monica knew that it was the knife. She accepted the package, cradling it between her waterlogged oven mitts. Mother leaned in close and spoke to Monica in a low whisper.
"Now Monica... I want you to take this and bury it for me. Someplace where no one can find it."
"Yes Momma."
"And Monica?"
Monica waited, looking up at her Mother.
"I don't ever want you to tell me- or anyone else for that matter- where you buried it. This is a big responsibility Monica. It's a secret you have to keep to yourself only; no matter what. Do you think you can do that for me?"
"Yes, Momma."
Mother straightened up. "Okay. Then go. Right now."
Monica nodded her head, then turned hesitantly in one direction, then the next, trying to decide- which door? The front or the back?
"You have to decide for yourself Monica. I can't help you right now. It's up to you."
After another few seconds Monica ran out the front door and then stopped in the road, scanning the subdivision. The workers were beginning to move about, making their construction racket. For a brief moment, Monica hated them. They had normal lives. Normal lives building beehives.
Monica knew where to go.
She turned left and ran down the road. The construction workers ignored her as she passed, too busy building beehives to notice a little barefoot girl running along with a package under her arm. She ran past a line of elms and that was it; no more trees. Everything was dirt and asphalt from now on.
The morning sun glared off of the road as she hurried along. Monica wished she had worn sunglasses or at least a hat, but there was nothing she could do about that now. Also the asphalt was hot beneath her feet; why hadn't she put on some shoes or something, especially after-
After nothing. And it was bad for your feet to wear shoes. Barefoot was the natural way.
She had found her spot. A slight bump in the road, because there was a culvert running beneath here. Monica looked back. The house was out of sight from here. She left the road and picked her way down through the rocks and dirt. A stream ran through the culvert, just a lonely and pathetic thing filled with grey tepid water, seeming to move slower and slower by the second. It was dying; why had they even bothered?
The stream fed into a corrugated steel tube. Slabs of concrete aligned the tube, and there was a space between one of the slabs and the tube, a space which seemed in fact to go down below the tube, into an ever deepening darkness.
Monica dropped the package into that space and then quickly walked back up to the road. Only once she was up on the road did she look around to see if anyone had been watching her.
She was alone. Surrounded by dirt and more dirt, without even any houses out this way yet. Nothing but dirt... but then she she spotted a lone stand of trees off in the distance, a green island amidst a sea of brown. Monica stared at the trees. They were so far away, but as she focused her vision the trees seemed to be getting closer... And as the trees drew closer she began to hear them, swaying in the wind. Monica listened to the trees as they sang to her.
Suddenly she could feel the asphalt burning her feet. Monica hopped from foot to foot for a moment, before turning back towards home.
It was as she was passing the elms that Monica saw the big black stretch limo parked in front of the farmhouse. Standing next to it- there he was. Barney- Doyen Jan's driver. He had his back turned, lighting a cigarette, so he didn't see Monica as she approached.
What were they doing here so soon?
"Barney!"
Barney turned and beamed when he saw Monica.
"Hey lil' pumpkin!" His smile faltered and his face grew concerned. "You holding up okay kiddo?"
"Yeah I'm okay. What are you guys doing-"
"We're here to help Monica. Your Mom called."
"But I thought you were down in-"
"Just go inside kiddo. Doyen Jan's talking to your Mom right now and I'm sure he'll be glad to see you." Barney was smiling even more broadly now, but his eyes had that serious look that she knew so well.
Monica climbed the porch steps. They were supposed to be down in Florida- Doyen Jan, Barney and the others. How did they get out here so fast? And then the thought came to her, for the second time that day.
Had Jerry really been a bad man?
"Monica!" The screen door opened with a bang, scattering Monica's thoughts like a sudden wind. Doyen Jan filled the doorway before her, all six foot plus of him, arms held out expansively, his hair a brilliant shock of white above his shining beautiful face. He swept Monica up into a big bear hug and spun around with her, like he always did whenever he saw her. Monica giggled breathlessly, bare feet twirling behind her in a whirl. He set her down and placed his enormous brown hands on her shoulders.
"Let me look at you. My life, my beauty." He turned back to the front door, where Mother stood, smiling expectantly. "Like all of my daughters. Beautiful as the Sun..."
Doyen Jan turned back to Monica and stooped down till they were face to face. He settled his bright blue eyes on her own and gazed straight into her, so that she felt like a cocoon of warm air had formed around the both of them, a universe of two, just her and Doyen.
"And brave, as well. Did you do what your Mother told you to do?"
Monica nodded her head eagerly. "Yes sir, I-"
Doyen Jan held a large finger up to Monica's lips. "Ah, no need, my dear. This is not for me to know. Not for anyone to know. That's your secret." His smile broadened, showing brilliant, perfect white teeth. He pressed the fingertips of his right hand gently to Monica's shoulder, just over her collarbone, above her heart. "And to whom do your secrets belong, Monica?"
The warm glow surrounding them sank into Monica's chest. She could feel it pulsing within her, beating- and right then she knew that it been her heart, the whole time.
"They belong to me."
"That's right child." Doyen Jan turned the palm of his left hand upwards, curling the fingers loosely, as though holding a cup. "Your secrets belong to you. They are part of your dignity, your personal identity. For you to hold, to keep, until you know- truly know- who you really are." He held his curled hand still, watching Monica the whole time. Mother watched over Doyen Jan's shoulder, her smile gone now. His fingers seemed to press into Monica's shoulder a little more firmly. His fist held steady.
"And then... when you know really know... who you really are..." Doyen Jan's eyes shimmered. His voice had lowered to a trembling whisper. "And only then..." His fingers uncurled into an open palm.
"Only then can you let your secrets go."
This was supposed to be the first chapter of a book I was planning seven years ago. The book never really got off the ground, but I thought maybe this could hold it's own as a stand alone short story, in a kind of open ended way.
So what do you think? Does it work on it's own? Or do you really want the story to continue? Please let me know with your comments.
Writing and image by Greg McCann, the author of this post and owner of this Steemit Channel. To view more of my work, please visit www.fireawaymarmot.com.