On a Rainy Night in Georgia

by Olivia Gaines

  “Mrs. Neary, that’s my last name and I guess yours as well in a day or so when we begin anew. We continue this fight, and in the morning, we try some of that applesauce in the bag to get some food on your stomach. Sleep well. I will see you in the morning,” he told her. His finger touched her cheek.

  For some odd reason, again, he was compelled to place a warming kiss on her temple as he had with the baby. It wasn’t much, but he needed her to know she was safe with him. The kiss was given with purpose. Purpose. The lady and her daughter had given him a reason to get up in the morning. He wasn’t so certain how he felt about marrying a stranger that he didn’t know or whether she was a complete loon, or worse. Currently, she dozed peacefully, the color returning in her cheeks and the peroxide, lightening her hair.

  “The baby will give me a few hours of rest, then I will be back,” Zeke told her sleeping form.

  She wasn’t asleep.

  She’d heard him and everything the man had said.

  A single tear ran from the corner of her eye as her mind registered a solitary thought. My life is not forfeit.

  I am alive.

  Day Four – My Life is Not Forfeit

  “ARE YOU LISTENING TO me, girl?” Lisa Miller said to her only child Aisha. “Your life is not forfeit for some man to try and control you. I don’t raise you to be a fool. Do you hear me?”

  “I hear you, Mama,” Aisha mumbled under her breath.

  “Listen to me well, child, and repeat those words. Life is full of men who try to control what you think, how you look, and even how you feel about yourself. If they can’t mold you, they will try to break you. Sex is a weapon for them. If you allow your vagina to think for you, filling your head with feel-good endorphins, you will always be at their mercy. Your life is not to be forfeited to some man. The power is in you. Use the power of your brain to outwit them so if I have to leave this world, I know you will survive,” Lisa told her.

  “My life is not forfeit,” Aisha repeated, her eyes meeting her mother’s in the rear-view mirror.

  In her mind, it was her fault Lisa Miller was gone from this world. Maybe if she hadn’t been looking at her in the rear-view mirror, she would not have run the red light. Maybe she would have seen the garbage truck that smashed into the side of the compact Toyota, flipping the car on its side. Struggling to climb out through the broken window in the backseat, 14-year-old Aisha Miller could smell the gas leaking into the car. Lisa Miller wasn’t moving. Lifeless eyes stared at Aisha as she yanked on her mother’s body, pulling, crying, trying to get her from the car. The explosion catapulted the teen girl nearly six feet into the air. Everything went black on that day.

  Darkness entered her life and refused to leave, like a silent friend keeping her company when she couldn’t stand the sight of another human being. She definitely couldn’t stand the sight of her Uncle Joe, his son JJ, or the little jerk Spencer. The boys were her cousins.

  JJ was only two years older than Aisha and Spencer about the same age, but dumb as a box of rocks. They were supposed to be her new brothers when she went to live with her mother’s only sister Renee, a self-obsessed woman who loved to shop, get her nails done and live in the beauty salon. None of the coverings of paint could disguise the ugly in her heart. She resented Aisha being in her home because Uncle Joe thought she was pretty. So did JJ.

  Spencer liked to sneak in the bathroom on Aisha when she would shower or try to use the facilities. She remembered her Mama’s words and waited for him one day behind the bathroom door. The knob turned slowly as she hummed away as she always did before starting her shower. She knew he was coming in but instead of seeing a boob or her naked ass, he was hit in the face with a handful of warm shit.

  “Every time you try and sneak in on me, there is more where this came from, you jackass,” she said to Spencer. It stopped him from coming in the bathroom on her from that day forward. Her younger cousin made a wide berth from Aisha, staying out of her way.

  JJ, on the other hand, was bolder, opting instead to sneak into the damp basement where her Aunt made her live. Most of the time she could not rid herself of the cough which haunted her like the darkness which kept her company. She knew it was the basement making her sick. JJ made her sick as well.

  His courage had risen one cool December evening as he tipped down the stairs. She heard him coming and was prepared for anything he wanted to try. His hand slid under the covers, touching the warm thigh, slipping upwards to the pones of her butt cheeks. She felt his finger wiggling, trying to get inside of her panties, but she turned. The cold blade of the knife pressing into his throat.

  “Next time, I won’t give you warning. I’m will just slit it long and deep, watching you bleed out on the floor like the pig you are,” she told him. “Get your nasty ass back up those stairs.”

  He slunk away like the snake he was, never mentioning anything to his mother, but she wished the dumb jock had warned his father. He was next to try his hand at the fresh piece of ass under his roof. Uncle Joe was slicker in his advances. Sneaking up behind her to provide unwanted hugs or kisses too close to her mouth. His favorite thing was to find reasons to be home alone with her.

  Six months was all it took his ever-present hard-on to lead him to the laundry room where he tried to corner her. Aisha stood still, perfectly immobile as he touched himself, nearly drooling as he looked at her small breasts and honey-colored skin. She showed him no fear.

  “My life is not forfeit,” she told him.

  “I don’t know what that means, Honey, but I need your help with this,” Uncle Joe said. “Come make me feel good, and I will see about getting you a little car to get back and forth to school in, you know, so you can ride around with your friends.”

  She didn’t blink.

  Aisha stared at him in a dumbfounded manner, trying to make certain she’d heard him clearly. “You are asking me to sacrifice my virginity to you for a car?”

  “Oh, you’re a virgin. I hadn’t planned on that,” he told her, still rubbing himself.

  “You also didn’t plan on me leaving this house, going directly to the police, and reporting you for cutting me with this knife,” she said, pulling it out and making a cut on her arm.

  His eyes were wide.

  “Wait...I didn’t do that,” he said, stepping back.

  “No, but it will be your word against mine. Your nice job will let you go once it hits the news. Those asshole sons of yours will have to testify in court. Spencer will have to tell about the time I smeared his face with my shit to keep him from coming in the bathroom on me every time I went to take a shower. JJ will have to tell the court how I nearly sliced his throat one night he tried to finger me in the nasty damp basement which is leaving me with this cough,” she told him, hacking loudly as if she were about to spit up a lung. “More importantly, Aunt Renee is going to be so fucking pissed when she is no longer able to shop, and she is going to let your ugly, bald-headed ass rot in jail for not teaching those Mongoloids you call children any better.”

  Uncle Joe mumbled a few words as he stepped back.

  “I think we have an understanding,” she told him as she went back to folding her laundry. Blood dripped from the cut on her arm as he walked away from the small enclosed space.

  The next day, Uncle Joe gave up his home office and ordered her a bedroom set on the main floor of the home. Aisha never slept in the room. At her new school, she made friends with two very nice girls, one named Cabrina Roberts and the other DeShondra Leman who had very nice families.

  She’d slept over at Cabrina’s, who was also an only child. Her mother was wonderful and her father was sweet. She practically lived there, never really going back to her Aunt Renee’s. Cabrina’s father, Nelson, helped her fill out her college applications, get a scholarship, and enrollment into Dartmouth.

  One hot, humid and sticky evening, she found herself home alone with Nelson, Cabrina’s father, who accidentally walked in on her in the bathroom. He apologized profusely,
ashamed, and embarrassed for not only seeing her in a compromised position but for not knocking first.

  “I’m sorry, Aisha. I didn’t know you were home,” he said averting his eyes.

  She found herself smiling because he’s said the word home. He said it as if it were her home as well. More importantly, he was genuinely sorry.

  “It’s my fault. I thought I was home alone and didn’t lock the door,” Aisha told him.

  “Always lock the door, Pumpkin. It doesn’t matter whose house you are in, whether you are at home here, or anywhere, protect yourself and lock the door. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, Sir. Thank you,” she told him.

  Fast forward twelve years later, and she found herself in a bathroom at a roadside rest area, dizzy, and confused from whatever Jimmy Don put in the bottle of water. She got away from him, hiding in the bathroom, but she forgot to lock the door. Jimmy Don was able to take her drugged body away because she’d forgotten to lock the door. It had taken nearly eleven months of waiting him out, reminding herself of Lisa Miller’s words. Her life would not be forfeited to the likes of a backwoods hillbilly named Jimmy Don Macklemore. Each morning, she thanked God she was alive to live another day. Every night she prayed that He would not forsake her and provide a means for her to get free to live a good life since thus far, most of the one she lived had been a daily struggle to survive.

  “If you hear me, Lord, please send help. My desire to live is fading and so is my strength,” she said one evening as the rain poured down on the shack where she was being held. Naked, constantly afraid, but waiting for an opportunity. A pain hit her low and she knew it was time. She ran. She didn’t know where she was going but a draw pulled her towards the road, to the blue mailbox, up the hill to the small cabin with the two large windows like eyes. Something was in one of the eyes that moved back and forth pacing as if he were waiting for her. She stumbled, her last ounces of strength used to knock on the door, get inside, and deliver the child forced upon her by a man she refused to allow to have any true control over her.

  Towards the end, he hated her as well, which is why she figured Jimmy Don left her to die. It wasn’t her time though. She wasn’t going to go without a kick ass fight and that little cabin she located, she prayed whoever opened that door would help her. Luckily for her, the man who answered the knock was dressed in a white tee shirt with intense blue eyes. He helped deliver her baby.

  His kind voice she could hear through the darkness which had returned to keep her company, but the gruffness of his voice was melodic. It pushed aside the darkness, allowing in a new light, which she could feel upon her face like a shining beacon of hope. Even now, he read a story to the baby she wasn’t certain she could ever love, but God had brought her this far. She would not leave her child.

  After eleven months, she gave the nice man the one thing Jimmy Don could never get from her: tears. A few slid down the corner of her eyes as she listened to him start Chapter Four of Treasure Island.

  “Thank you,” she said in a croak, the dryness of her throat preventing her words from coming out louder.

  He heard her though. “Don’t thank me yet. We still have to get us off this mountain and away from Jimmy Don and the Sheriff,” Zeke told her.

  Thin fingers went to her hair, feeling for the missing, long, luxurious tresses which used to adorn her head. In their place were short chopped off strands of the former crown of glory. Her other hand went low, also feeling for the missing forest which had grown unchecked between her legs. It too was now gone but she felt the cotton of a pair of panties. The pressure of the catheter raised more questions than she was able to pose. She swallowed hard.

  “Are you a doctor?” she asked Zeke.

  “No, I’m something entirely different,” he told her. “It’s time for you to get up now, my dear. Your dinner will be applesauce and a peanut butter sandwich to start, but time is not on our side.”

  “I prayed every night and each morning,” she said softly.

  “Evidently your prayers were heard,” he told her. “I wasn’t coming to Georgia. Even as I entered the beltway in DC with that the traffic bumper to bumper, I swore that at the next exit I was going to get off and head home. Funny thing was when I got to the next exit, it was closed but all the traffic was gone. I had a clear shot all the way to Georgia.”

  His eyes searched her face as she struggled to sit up on the couch. He didn’t move to help her. She needed to get up and get moving.

  “The rain didn’t start until I crossed over into the state. Once I got up this mountain and parked my car in the garage, the heavens opened up and it has been raining nonstop ever since. Whatever your prayer was, it must have been mighty powerful. It will take a while to fix and prepare that road for traveling.”

  Struggling, she attempted to sit up. The soreness hindering her freedom of movement. She struggled to also speak, “How much time do you think we have?”

  “Two weeks, give or take, before they come looking for you. In the meantime, you and I have to get to know each other and pull together our little family unit,” he said.

  She managed to sit upright and look at him. He wasn’t a bad looking guy, but she would be damn if she would go from one prison to one of this guy’s making. “Family unit?”

  “Yes. My name is Ezekiel Neary, and you are Tameka Neary, or soon to be. It will be our cover to get us off this mountain as man and wife. We will need to establish our story, get cozy and work hard to be as comfortable with each other as we can possibly be, so when they come, we look natural and like we are in love,” he said.

  “And the baby?”

  “Our daughter’s name is Michelle Marie Neary,” he said to her, watching her face. His chest tightened at the words “our daughter,” but Michelle was his as far as he was concerned. If she didn’t want the little angel, based on the circumstance of her conception, he would understand. He would raise her himself if needed.

  “It’s one thing to give me a hood rich name, but I assume you named my child after some black girl that you lusted after in high school,” she said, suddenly finding her voice. She wanted to appear strong so that he wouldn’t get the idea she had no fight left in her.

  “No, I named her after one of the greatest first ladies I ever had the pleasure to work for,” he told her. “You, I named after the black girl I lusted after in high school. Save your fight for getting stronger. I’m not your enemy.”

  She nodded.

  When he spoke, she couldn’t see what he was hiding, but hovering around his aura was a darkness. It wasn’t the same kind of blackness which surrounded Jimmy Don, but a pain. The dark shadow lightened to a grayish blue when he looked at the baby.

  “What is her name again?” she asked him.

  He looked down at the baby, smiling as her small fingers wrapped around his index finger.

  “Michelle Marie,” he said with a smile. The grayish blue turned azure when he spoke her name.

  “Interesting,” she said. Over the next few weeks, it would become clearer if he’d been sent to Georgia to save them. However, based on what she’d just seen, the possibility was high that Ezekiel Neary just may have been sent to Georgia for Aisha and the baby to save him.

  Day Five – Save Him!

  SUMMER 2017, RWANDA

  “I don’t care what you have to do, save him!” she screamed at the Secret Service Agents tugging at Ezekiel Neary’s limp body. He’d taken three bullets at close range to the left leg, but the bullet to his shoulder was the one causing a great deal of concern. Deep crimson liquid gushed from his shoulder, covering her dress, and she kneeled in the back of the car. Bullets zinged outside of the vehicle as the driver began to barrel through the crowd, his hand laid into the horn, blowing and honking, but driving like a bat out of hell to get them to safety.

  “Mr. Neary, if you die on me I am going to fire you,” she told him, applying pressure to the wound. The second agent in the vehicle worked diligently to elevate Zeke’s body
by performing a field triage to slow down the bleeding.

  “We need to get him on an OR table,” he told the First Lady.

  “I know. He’s strong. He will make it,” she said, touching Zeke’s hair. “He will make it.”

  ZEKE WASN’T SURE HE was going to make it. Each time he closed his eyes he saw the barrel of the gun in his face. He heard the click of the trigger. He recognized the misfire which saved his life. The warnings he’d issued had all but been ignored. Callum White, the Special Agent in Charge, laughed at him when he spoke to him quietly about the bad feeling.

  “Man, I can’t completely reroute the motorcade based on your bad feeling,” Callum said to Zeke. “If you have some hard data, we can use that, but a bad feeling...I’m sorry, I can’t go by that. Sorry, Zeke.”

  His instincts had never been wrong. They were not wrong today. If only he could quantify what his body qualified as imminent danger, but he couldn’t. All he was able to do was to ensure if push came to shove and bullets went to flying, that he would do what he was trained to do. In his head he wandered off to the cabin in Georgia, dreaming of a cozy fire as he sat down with a book in one hand, his newborn son in the other while the little lady made some cocoa over the potbellied cook stove. He knew the dream of having those things were fading as soon as the car began to roll.

  I’m going to die today.

  I should call my parents.

  Maybe my brothers.

  I don’t think I’m going to get a chance.

  His eyes turned to Callum, who was in the vehicle with him, then back out the window, taking watch. He spoke softly into the microphone attached to his wrist. “Callum, if I don’t make it, tell my parents and brothers that I love them, but please, just don’t let me die if you can help it,” he said in a calm voice that freaked Callum out a bit.