|
Terina
hurried out of her apartment onto the patio, wearing jeans and a
blue sweatshirt. His dark Taurus, which he bought because he was
born in mid-May, was the first thing she saw.
Not again, she thought.
He follows me everywhere and tenses me up.
On
second glance, she thought her ex-husband looked the attractive
man he was when they met on a park trail in another place long
ago. That gorgeous
man with a swoop of curly black hair, lashes so long she could see
them from here, and those wide muscular shoulders.
For one moment she felt a twinge in her gut; he was such
a good lay.
Coming
back to the present and determined he wouldn’t stop her, she
stepped under cover of the slender trees, whose branches flared
with fall leaves. Depression,
like she’d had during the marriage, settled upon her.
Body heavy, her shoulders drooped a little.
Once at the sidewalk, the sun cast its full radiance on
her. And the warmth of this spring day, after the record-low freeze
of the past winter, eased her spirits enough to keep going to the
car.
Shadows
behind her now, she unlocked her yellow Cougar, got inside, and
turned the ignition producing a roar; she wished she had that much
energy. It reminded
her of the sound she had to practice for her Karate classes.
That also called for a lot of energy and helped reduce
depression. But it
didn’t help her to land a kick on target.
Still, she kept up Karate because she needed exercise and
felt fabulous afterwards.
The
booming of the engine reminded her she better get going before
that asshole in the Taurus decided to come to her car.
Once she married him, she’d discovered he was as brutal
as he was dark, tall, and smart.
The Peace Bond was almost eight months old; he just ignored
it, and the cops always let him go. He was also an ex-cop. I
wish he were ex-alive.
Then
she backed the car out of the parking space, soared up the slight
hill, on her way to the park.
He
followed her and parked his Taurus on the opposite side of the
street. Both climbed
out. He remained on the sidewalk across from the courthouse; she
ran to the nearest concession stand.
The smell of that barbecued chicken filled her nose, and
she just had to buy some.
After
buying four pieces, she meandered through the crowd, wishing
desperately to lose him. Some
people were in suits and dresses out on a noon break, and others
were attired as she was. Soon she found her usual place: bushes setting beside
concrete steps leading to the circular area where the band played.
On previous visits, she’d glanced around constantly
because he would suddenly step-out and scare her if she didn’t
keep track of him.
But
for some reason, today, she simply ate, let the jazz race through
her mind, and everything reminded her of better days.
Though she felt unusually good, her right eye twitched
because she knew he was near.
She didn’t let it bother her, not now.
The cloudless sky, the warmth of the sun and chattering of
the crowd made her relax and feel good.
Then
she noticed the bushes. How
many times have I sat here and never noticed the fir branches
filled with dead oak leaves.
Yanking each one out, she crunched it in her hand; its
stiffness pinged her palms, then she held her right arm high in
the air and let the fragments float with the South Wind. With each bunch of leaves that she crumbled and let fly, she
felt more energy surge through her and depression flying away with
the leaves. Into this
void, came anger, and it too gave her energy.
And
each time she grabbed a leaf, she muttered, Clint is dead,
Clint‘s alive...until the very last: He’s dead...no
more dead leaves remained within her reach.
And in her mind, she fantasized him lying on the ground
dead. How
fantastic, if it would only come true.
After
an hour or so, she glanced around and saw him nowhere.
Do I really have a chance to get to my car without a
scene? She asked herself.
So she chanced it. The
remains of the chicken tossed into a nearby trashcan soared her
spirits because she imagined the rest of her fear was thrown away
with that chicken. A
chicken-liver, she was no more.
Making
her way through the maze of groups between her and the car, she
watched her sides and back so constantly that when Clint appeared
in front of her with a knife, she jerked up and back a foot or
two.
For
the first time since her marriage, she wasn’t afraid, nor did
she think. While
jumping back, she was already raising her leg and crunching his
knuckles, a blow that jabbed his hand back and up.
Immediately, she stepped between groups chatting merrily
during their break, merrily, that is, until everyone heard the
anguish, a guttural screech like a wounded animal trapped by
hunters.
Terina
gazed back through an open space.
The knife stuck in her ex’s heart.
Too stunned to sprint away, she stood there like a shocked
spectator. It had happened so quickly, and people had been chatting so
intensely no one had seen what happened, nor was anyone running
away. Within ten
minutes, she had slowly withdrawn from the crowd, gotten into her
Cougar, and driven away. Home-Free!
Not
until that night did her nightmares awaken her to the reality of
having killed another human being.
Plus the next day, she read in a newspaper that the
security cameras, monitoring the grounds around the courthouse,
had been going out one at a time. None could be fixed until July,
when the new fiscal year began.
Home
Free? She
wondered, I didn’t know it would be freedom... and... burden.
|
