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TIME'S UP
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2022-07-31 21:00:00He had bizarre, ugly mood swings; I’d grown to fear them already. Not because he’d ever hurt me, but because they took him someplace I couldn’t follow. His gaze would go empty, his body slack. He might disappear like that for hours, then return to me as though he were waking from a nap. I was too naïve to understand that this was not normal. That’s what I tell myself, anyway.
“To be with you,” I said, because I knew that was the answer he wanted. I remember that the sunlight had a way of coming in golden at that time of day. It made the place seem less dingy than normal.
“Forever?” he asked, reaching out his hand. I took it, and he pulled me onto his lap. He held on to me hard, buried his face in my neck. I wrapped my arms around him.
“Forever,” I whispered in his ear, drawing in the scent of him. And I meant it as only a teenage girl could mean it, with a fairy tale in my heart.
He released
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There wasn’t much to Detective Ray Harrison. At least there didn’t seem to be at first blush. He was a man you’d pass in the grocery store and wouldn’t glance at twice-medium height, medium build, passable looks. He’d hold the door for you, you’d thank him and never think of him again. But watching from an upstairs window as Detective Harrison approaches the house, my heart is an engine in my chest. The gold necklace in my pocket is burning my thigh. I go downstairs to greet him before Esperanza can get to the door and let him in.I remember his face from last night; he’d seemed nice. Kind and without artifice. I’d liked him. But there’s something else I see in him as I open the door that I don’t like: suspicion. Today he’s a wolf at my door.“Detective Harrison,” I say, offering my best fake smile. “Are you checking in on us?” I keep my body in the door frame, careful not t
Last Updated : 2022-07-31THE VENGEFUL LUNA ZONED
The two men engage in a brief staring contest until the detective averts his eyes and brings them to rest on me.“Well, it was just a thought,” he says. He has a lot more to say, but he won’t say it now. “Sorry to have bothered you.”Harrison walks toward the door, and Gray follows.“There was just one other thing,” he says as Gray opens the door for him. “I noticed that Mrs. Powers was born in Kentucky. But I swear I hear New York in your accent, ma’am.”Noticed where? I wonder. Did he check me out after he left here last night, look at my driving record or something?“I was born in Kentucky but moved to New York with my family when I was a child.Kentucky, land of lenient birth-records release policies. Just a little easily obtained information-birth date, mother’s maiden name-and you’re on your way to a brand-new life. If he keeps asking questions and checks on
Last Updated : 2022-07-31THE VENGEFUL LUNA DANGEROUS FANTASY
But he fell softly to his side on the bed, head coming to rest against an old stuffed bear that I’d had since I was a little girl. He stayed like that nearly an hour, as I whispered and yelled, soothed and cajoled, stroked and shook, pleaded and wept. I was about to dial 911 when he returned to himself, drained and dazed.“What happened?” he asked me, I suppose taking in my tear-streaked cheeks and frightened expression. He was a person waking from a deep sleep, rubbing his eyes and issuing a yawn.“You, like, checked out,” I said, weary with relief to hear him talking again.“Oh,” he said with a shrug. “It happens sometimes. Like a seizure or something.”“It was scary,” I said. “Really scary.”“It’s nothing,” he said sharply. I didn’t press.Slowly the grim picture of his life with Frank started to emerge. They went to parks, to churches, a
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Meanwhile, of course, my mother nursed her own fantasy. Every six weeks she took a bus to the Florida State Prison, where she got to spend time with her fiancé separated by a sheet of bulletproof glass. She had never held, kissed, or even touched the hand of the man she planned to marry-and possibly never would. She wore this fact like a badge of courage. “But bars and armed guards can’t keep people from loving each other. They can’t stop the Lord’s will,” she’d say.She spent her free time lobbying for a new trial for Frank. She wrote letters, contacted law firms that specialized in pro bono death-row appeals. The private investigator she hired had told her that Frank Geary’s arresting officer had a career fraught with allegations of excessive force and coerced confessions, that one of his recent arrests and convictions had been overturned. This seemed to give her hope, even though Frank had never confessed to any of the murde
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“I’m saying that you don’t need to make up for what your mother didn’t give her little girl-you-by overcompensating with Victory. That doesn’t make you a better mother. A child needs a whole and healthy mother, someone separated from her to a certain degree. Otherwise, when she naturally starts to move away, she will feel as though she’s taking something from you. She’ll feel that you need her too much. It will cause her pain, guilt, impede her emotional development. Does that make sense to you?”I made the appropriate affirming noises, but I didn’t see how a mother could love her child too much. Seemed like only a man could imply such a thing.That afternoon, after the detective’s visit, while Victory is still in school and Gray has gone off to do whatever it is he does in a crisis situation, I move my stash to a locker at the bus station in the downtown area.It’s a small and seedy place about a
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When Gray takes me into his arms, my anger fades and is replaced with guilt for lying, for doing what I did. I’m suddenly unsure of myself, of this flight response I’m having to the threats I perceive in my world. The worry on their faces reminds me that it could be real or all of it could be imagined.“We were wondering if we could have Victory for the weekend, Annie,” says Vivian from the table. She is a big, strong woman, but beautiful and feminine, with a neat steel gray bob, flawlessly smooth skin, and square pink fingernails. She’s always in silk and denim. “It will give you and Gray some time to yourselves.”I don’t say anything but my anger and annoyance creep back. There’s always this implication that I need time away from Victory. Or is it that they think she needs time away from me, her crazy mother? If I protest, it makes me seem selfish or unstable or both.“Just tonight and tomorrow night,
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Now that the engine is off, the ship has started to pitch in the high seas, and my stomach churns. I pause at the bottom of the staircase that leads up to the deck. I can hear the wind and the waves slapping the side of the ship. I strain to hear the sound of voices, but there’s nothing, just my own breathing, ragged and too fast in my ears.I make my way up the stairs, my back pressed against the wall. My palm is so sweaty that I’m afraid I’ll drop my gun. I grab on to it tightly as I step onto the deck. I am struck by the cold and the smell of salt. The sea is a black roil. The deck is empty to the bow and to the stern; the light on the bridge has gone dark, like all the other lights.Suddenly I am paralyzed. I can’t go back to the cabin, but I don’t want to move outside. I don’t know what to do. I close my eyes for a second and will myself to calm, to steady my breath. The water calls to me; I feel its terrible pull.While
THE VENGEFUL LUNA POWERS AND POWERS II
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THE VENGEFUL LUNA TONIGHT
I reach my cabin and fumble with the lock for a second, then push into my room. A small berth nestles in the far corner. Beneath it is a drawer where I have stowed my things. I kneel and pull out my bag, unzip it, and fish inside until I find what I’m looking for-my gun. A sleek Glock nine-millimeter, flat black and cold. I check the magazine and take another from the bag, slip it into the pocket of my coat. The Glock goes into the waist of my jeans. I’ve drilled the reach-and-draw from that place about a million times; my arm will know what to do even if my brain freezes. Muscle memory.I consider my options. Once again suicide tops the list for its ease and finality. Aggression comes a close second, which would just be a roundabout way toward the first option. Hide and wait comes in third. Make him work for it. Make him fight his way through the people charged with protecting me and then find me on this ship. Then be waiting for him with my gun when he does.
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The farce of it all sickens me. Sarah Harrison might as well be seated across from me at the long glass table where we have gathered for dinner. A wide orange sun is dropping toward the blue-pink horizon line over the Gulf. We feast on filet mignon and twice-baked potatoes, fat ears of corn. Drew and Gray knock back Coronas while Vivian and I drink chardonnay. Victory sips her milk from a plastic cup adorned with images of Hello Kitty. Anyone looking at us might feel a twinge of envy, the rich and happy family sharing a meal at their luxury home with a view of the ocean.“Annie,” says Drew, breaking an awkward silence that has settled over the table once vague pleasantries and chatty questions for Victory have been exhausted. “You seem well.”He is smiling at me in a way he never has before. There’s a satisfied benevolence to him, the king surveying his subjects. I thank him because it seems like the right thing to do in this context
