FirstLineFiction beta

from Contest #3

I read about it in the paper, in the subway, on my way to work. It was one of those moments that, in the cartoons, I would have had occasion for steam to pour out my ears and my hat to fly off my suddenly overheated head (from, I assume, a build up of pressure from the heat). In a cartoon, that’s how I might have reacted, however as I’m sadly rather more flesh and bone and logic than that, I neatly folded up the paper, put it on the vacant seat beside me, and tried to calm my cheeks from burning.

            On the very front page the headline read “Governor seeks more than solace from an old friend” the “more than solace” was a reference to the headline a few days prior, which had read “Simply seeking solace?” which was a reference to the governor claiming his repeated private meetings with an old friend were “entirely platonic. They are a solace from the havoc of politics.” Underneath todays headline there were two photos, one clearly showed the governor and a woman holding hands, the other showed the governor kissing the same woman. It wouldn’t have been clear it was the governor and the “old friend” without it’s accompanying photo, because their faces were so close you could barely make out the features of either, just a little of the governors face from the side. The “old friend” of the governor was my mother. In her mid-forties now, she’d had me soon after high school, with her high school sweetheart, the man who was still her husband. It wasn’t really a scandal for the governor, he was unmarried and well liked, so it was just juicy gossip. The scandal was reserved all for my mother.

            After the first skeptical headline had come out I had went to see her and asked if there was any truth to it. She acted as if I was being silly and told me of course not, the newspapers will write anything for a headline. They’d gone to school together and had recently reconnected, simple as that, platonic and easy as pie. I glanced again at the paper, and felt myself getting flustered. My instinct was to skip out on work and confront her immediately, or at least comfort my father. He had grown into a skittish man, prone to jumping at nothing and mumbling, and I suspected he would let her walk all over him about this.  My logic told me I needed the money and was in a new job, so I shouldn’t fuck this up. My logic almost always wins, so I settled with calling my parents house and leaving a concerned message on my parents machine, saying I would try to stop by later and they could call if they wanted me to bring them anything on the way.

            My mother would occasionally get up to these sorts of things but it was never serious and never lasted long. But this was ridiculous. The fucking governor, I could already hear her flippant denial that it was any kind of big deal, and I felt myself getting angry again. I resolved not to worry until later, and went to work as normal. I’m a morning waitress at a diner on the park, so I was out of work at 1:30 PM and on my way to my parents house, on the other side of the city from my own apartment.

            I brought a few slices of pie from the diner, a peace offering to the tension I was about to walk into. I wondered a moment why I would willingly walk in there, my father would be hunched over in his chair, a book on his lap that he hadn’t turned a page of since he’d sat down. Mother would be in the kitchen, or the bedroom, sullen and pretending nothing had happened. Unless, of course, she was fending journalists off at the door. Or gossiping to them on the phone; I could expect either.

            When I got off the subway and turned the corner to their street, what I got was entirely unexpected. There were the journalists, but they were being fended off by a row of police barricades, cars, and policemen. I hurried and broke through the line of journalists, quickly telling one of the officers it was my parents house, he went inside and came back out with a detective, who apologized and asked for identification (they had to be careful) and when I finally produced it from my bag in my by then frenzied state, I had dropped the pie and the detective was decidedly annoyed at my lack of finesse and speed. He nodded to the officer who moved the barricade aside for me, the detective introduced himself as Blake, and told me that my mother was inside, fine but frantic, and my father had been killed.

            I ran into the house and found my mother sobbing in the living room, and turning around, I saw my father lying in the kitchen. He was half leaning in the corner, back against some cupboards, and his abdomen and the floor around it was covered in his blood. An officer stepped into my way to make sure I didn’t go any further, but I was rooted to the spot, there wasn’t a thing on earth that could have moved me into that kitchen. The detective entered more slowly behind me, and put a hand on my shoulder, asking me to sit in the living room with my mother. She was on the couch, the perfect picture of despair, sobbing and yelling incoherently into the couch arm, and I found myself sitting in my fathers chair when she eventually looked up and noticed I was there.

            Her face looked panicked at first, and then she started sobbing about how grateful she was I was there, I would understand, she said. The detective asked her could she repeat her story more calmly (his expression gave the impression she’d been so incoherent they couldn’t make out a single word let alone attempt to understand her story. She nodded and, between sobs and the detectives questions, eventually got through what had happened.

            When they got the newspaper that morning she threw it away, she claimed it was for his own good, he was jumpy and didn’t need any big shocks, it would only hurt his nerves. He saw it in the trash later in the day, while she was out back, and when she came back in he was sitting in his chair in the living room, with the newspaper on his lap. He was angry and wouldn’t listen to reason, she went into the kitchen to get away from him and he came in after her, she said he was yelling, the neighbors would attest to that, he was calling her a harlot, a whore, a bitch (words I never would have thought he would say), and when she tried to move past him to leave the house, he grabbed a kitchen knife and said she wouldn’t leave until she explained herself. She was scared, and tried to move past him, she showed a tear in her clothes from where she said he’d grabbed her and thrown her back (my father was a small man, mostly owing to a disease that made his deteriorated his muscles – I was sometimes surprised that he could lift himself around, and I hated it but somehow knew my mother was lying). She said after he threw her she got scared and wrested the kitchen knife from him, he grabbed another and made to attack her, so she attacked back. She said it happened so fast, she barely knew what was going on. She looked at me as if awaiting approval, as if I would back her up; she said my father had been violent before, said she was scared for her life, said he became a madman (nice clichés to round off her story).

            I wasn’t sure when I’d started crying but it was silent, unlike her award worthy sobs. I wanted to scream and yell and tell her what an awful lying bitch of a woman she was. But then again, maybe he had been angry, and taken up the knife, but he wasn’t a violent man, he would never have hurt her. In all of his years being trampled on he still somehow managed to love her. So, my logic won out. I asked the detective if I could speak to him privately. My mother sobbed for me not to go, but the detective agreed and we walked out back, away from lurking ears. I explained my mothers history, and my fathers weakness from the disease. I told him my father was never violent around me, and was gentle and caring, no matter how my mother abused him. He’d offered her a divorce once, because he thought that’s what she wanted, and the thought of it broke his heart. She spent the next week yelling at him for it. I told the detective that my father might have reacted strong enough to pick up a knife and tell her not to leave, but that I didn’t believe he could have thrown her even if he’d wanted to, or even presented a truly threatening appearance. He was gentle and quiet, and my mother was the one with a history of abuse, although it wasn’t physical.

            I didn’t like speaking against my mother, so I tried to avoid it and mainly tried to speak well of my father. I asked the detective if I could go home, he obliged after a series of questions and then handed me his card, saying he might be in contact with me again, and I was free to call him. He was kind enough to ask how I’d got to the house, and when I told him the subway, he offered, and I accepted, to have one of the officers drive me home. I didn’t look at my mother when I left the house, despite her demanding to know where I was going. The ride home was silent except for some radio chatter. When I got to my apartment, having thanked the officer dazedly, I was unnaturally grateful for the party going on down the hall. The noise of the music and the people trying to talk over it was enough to fill my apartment with something other than the dark and my thoughts, as I attempted, and quite failed, to sleep. 

back to Contest #3