Transience

by Stevan Mena

  Rebecca looked around the room, pausing at every distinctive item — a framed painting of Jesus on the wall, a man's hat hung on a hook, an old worn out dog's bowl on the floor. Each elicited a unique reaction on her face.

  There was a collage of snapshots of Carmen and family on the refrigerator. Rebecca turned and looked up at Francisco. He gave her a curious smile.

  Hester pulled out a chair at the kitchen table for Laura to sit down. The table had a floral pattern of yellow and pink under an outdated laminate, scratched and stained from years of use. Laura remembered it.

  "Would you like something to drink, Laura? Some tea?"

  "Yes, please." Hester put the kettle on the stove.

  "How about you, Rebecca?" Hester opened the fridge and bent to search inside, moving a few items. "I have some juice…" Rebecca was silent. "No?"

  "Rebecca? Manners?" Laura said, sticking her neck out and opening her eyes wide to emphasize her point.

  Hester closed the fridge and walked over to Rebecca, who was fascinated by an oil painting hanging in the hallway. Hester stood behind Rebecca, joining her in admiration.

  "My daughter paint this. You like?"

  "The color's faded," Rebecca said flatly. Hester didn't quite hear.

  "It's my favorite. That is Saint Peter."

  "Saint Joseph," Rebecca corrected. Hester's eyes swiveled down to Rebecca. A sudden, odd tension filled the room.

  "What?" Hester said, very interested in what Rebecca had to say now. But the moment was interrupted as the family dog somehow managed to escape from the room he'd been quarantined in. He raced across the floor and dove right for Rebecca. Rebecca's eyes burst with a sudden joy, she knelt down to embrace the slobbering animal.

  "Faucet!" she cried out. Hester turned to Laura, somewhat stunned.

  "You told her about the dog?" Hester asked. Laura slowly put her hand to her mouth, touching her lips with her fingers.

  "No."

  Rebecca and the dog were like old friends, a bond reunited. The dog licked her face like she was made of sugar, slobbering all over her, much to Rebecca's infinite delight. She laughed with squeals of joy.

  "He really likes you," Hester said as Laura's eyes shifted back and forth. "That dog won't die. Just sleeps and eats. So old."

  The dog jumped up, knocking Rebecca over playfully. "Okay, Faucet, okay!" Rebecca laughed.

  "Okay is right; Francis, put him outside." Francisco leapt into action and grabbed the dog by the collar. "Vete aquí, let's go." He pulled the dog to the front door and pushed him outside. The dog tried to nose his way back in, so Francisco used his knee to corral him and closed the door.

  Hester sat down at the kitchen table. Rebecca got back up on her feet and brushed herself off, her dress damp from the dogs saliva. Laura stared at her.

  "Come here," Hester said to Rebecca. Rebecca didn't budge.

  "Rebecca-" Laura insisted she listen. Rebecca slowly obeyed and drifted towards the table.

  "Rebecca, how did you know my dog's name?" Rebecca blinked but didn't answer. "I don't bite, come here." Rebecca took another step forward. Hester reached out to tickle Rebecca under her chin. "Well?"

  "Because I named him," Rebecca said. The room fell silent. Hester's eyes opened wide — but not from Rebecca's outlandish remark — something else had caught her attention.

  "Where…where did she get that?" Hester said, almost stuttering.

  Laura stood up and lifted Rebecca's chin. She saw the gold cross around her neck. Laura frowned, not at Rebecca, but at Jack for giving it to her. "Where she get it?" Hester repeated.

  "A friend gave it to her," Laura said apologetically.

  "The detective?"

  "Yes."

  Hester stood slowly. "That belong to Carmen." Rebecca took a step back, holding the cross with her fingers, protectively.

  "I'm sorry," Laura said, reaching for the necklace. Rebecca dodged her defiantly.

  "Why she wearing it?"

  "Rebecca, give her back the necklace."

  "But it's mine."

  "Rebecca, now." Laura grabbed her arm to pull her close but she resisted, twisting and squirming away. "I'm sorry, we've been having some problems. Rebecca, now!"

  "No!" Rebecca shouted. She looked at Hester. "You gave it to me, for my first communion."

  Hester's face went pale. She turned to Laura. "What does she mean?"

  Rebecca broke free and held up the cross. There was a tiny inscription on it. Laura reached again and Rebecca slapped her hands away. She read the inscription aloud — not looking at it — from memory:

  "El te bendice con su amor. Dios te bendinga, hoy Y siempre."

  As Rebecca recited those words, Hester mouthed the same, simultaneously.

  Laura stood dumbstruck.

  "Why? Why are you?" Hester's mouth was quivering.

  "I know it sounds crazy," Laura said, "but…Rebecca thinks she remembers this place. Remembers you. She has these dreams, that she and Carmen…are the same person."

  Rebecca caught a closer look at the framed photo of Carmen amongst the flowers. A yellow flag in the center read: In loving memory. "Please don't be angry," Rebecca whispered softly to Hester.

  Hester turned to look at the photo, sorrow welling up in her eyes. "The night she disappear, we had a fight. I said things. Terrible things. I tell her, Jesus will never take you now, you have shamed him, shamed yourself. She rip her cross from her neck and throw it at me. She never come home—" Hester's words got caught in her throat from the emotion. It spilled out, tears flowing.

  Francisco stepped towards her, reaching out. "Mama?"

  "I pray and pray; please, Jesus, I honor you every day of my life. I ask, please, give me another chance. Please, let me speak to my daughter one last time…tell her how much I love her." Hester's eyes closed with grief.

  Laura got caught up in the emotion too. "These last few months have been so hard… I didn't know what to do. I thought if I brought her here, it would satisfy something, but… Oh God, Rebecca."

  Hester turned to Laura, gulping air, her eyes draining tears. "How…?"

  Laura smiled. "I don't know-"

  "How dare you?"

  "What?"

  "Get out!" Hester shouted, her face red. Her words were like a slap across Laura's cheek. Laura looked back with absolute confusion, nearly losing her balance as the rage in Hester's voice grew with intensity. "Get out of my home!" Her voice echoed loudly in the tiny kitchen, the air in the room grew hot.

  Rebecca reached for Hester, but Hester slapped her hand away like it was diseased. Hester's cheeks hardened with anger and resentment. Rebecca recoiled at the fierceness of Hester's disgust. Laura hugged Rebecca close.

  "How dare you come here and tell me that my Carmen is anywhere but by the side of Jesus!" Hester nearly fell over with rage. Francisco reached for her. "Cuidado, Mama!" As he comforted her, he looked over at Laura. "I think you should go. I'm sorry." His sorry was genuine and heartfelt, as if a part of him believed.

  Hester wailed, collapsing into her chair in a pile of grief, head down. Francisco rubbed her shoulders. She came up for air, face wet and contorted from crying. "My Carmen sits beside Jesus in Heaven!"

  Rebecca pushed out her bottom lip as her face went red. She too started to cry. Laura pulled her towards the door.

  "I'm so sorry, for everything," Laura said. Francisco gave her a nod of understanding. Satisfied with that, Laura exited with Rebecca.

  She held her hand as they descended the steps in retreat. She could still hear Hester crying out, "Jesus cradles her in his arms! Jesus cradles her in his arms!"

  As they reached the ground, Rebecca pulled away from Laura and raced back up the steps. "Rebecca!"

  Laura watched her go back inside, but didn't follow.

  Rebecca approached Hester, whose head was still down, sobbing. She fiddled with the clasp on the gold cross necklace. She opened the latch and unwrapped it from around her neck.

  She draped it onto the tab
le next to Hester's hand and gave one more look to Francisco. He stepped forward and knelt down to her, gently embracing her.

  "Thank you," he said, staring into her eyes, spotting something familiar. It made him smile.

  His acceptance brought no smile to her face, just wonderment. Rebecca wasn't sure what she was feeling, but the sense of urgency she had been experiencing for so long seemed strangely absent at the moment. She went to breathe in and her heart skipped a beat, which made her gasp mid breath. She turned and ran out the door, so hard and fast the screen door slapped the metal guardrail outside with a thwack.

  She flew down the steps to where her mother was waiting. Laura didn't ask why she went back, but noticed the gold cross was no longer around her neck. She put her hand on her shoulder and they walked back to the car.

  Laura wiped one errant tear from her cheek and started the engine. Rebecca turned and looked out the back window, Francisco was watching from the balcony. She waved to him.

  He lifted his hand to acknowledge her. As Laura pulled away, Rebecca kept staring at Francisco until he was no longer in sight. She kept looking back until the building disappeared around a bend.

  Finally, she turned and sat down. She faced front the entire way home, not looking out the side window, not looking at her mother in the rearview mirror. Just looking straight ahead.

  CHAPTER 55

  The large wooden doors of the detention center swung open. Reporters and curious onlookers battled to get a glimpse of the killer. Bishop was led out wearing a white coverall jumpsuit, his hands zip tied behind his back. Two burly officers escorted him forcefully through the crowd to a waiting police van. He appeared meek and frail next to them; his cheekbones flush and protruding, as if he was sucking in, clenching his jaw.

  Bishop played to the cameras, not talking, but not shying away from their lenses either. He appeared calm, almost serene in the chaos, the attention not disagreeing with him. From the look on his face, it was clear that this was the moment he had been working towards. This lonely drifter was now in the spotlight, people were shouting his name. So what if it was because they hated or feared him. So what if he would be infamous for such violent, nefarious deeds. He was somebody now. He stuck his chest out, almost strutting, but remained silent. They would have to wait and wonder what went on in the mind of this mindless killer.

  "Did you murder those girls?" one reporter shouted.

  Another, the same woman that had interviewed Jack on the 6 o'clock news, stuck her large rounded microphone under Bishop's nose. "Can you tell us why you did it?" One of the officers swatted her microphone away with the back of his arm.

  Reporters started to overlap each other, screaming questions at the same time, louder and louder, trying to drown each other out, hoping their voice would be the one that solicited a reaction from the monster.

  Bishop was hustled into the back of the van. An officer climbed in and closed the door, nearly taking the arm off another reporter for The Detroit Free Press.

  The officer sat beside Bishop as they rode through the city to the courthouse. Bishop's air of indifference — the look on his face, the lingering smile — irritated the officer more as each second passed.

  "Wipe that shit grin off your face," the officer said. Bishop widened his smile to show teeth. "You're the flavor of the hour. Tomorrow you'll be locked away, left to rot in a cage. And no one's gonna give a shit."

  Bishop continued to smile, infuriating the officer, who kept making fists inside his leather gloves, anxious to vent his disgust. Then bishop's face abruptly grew solemn and straight. He looked at the officer with a sort of pity.

  "My place in history is secure."

  "As a fucking nut job."

  "Exactly." Bishop ate back a smile. "It's you who'll be forgotten. I've left my mark on society. They'll spend years agonizing over clues they missed, how I could have been stopped, studying me in order to prevent the next one." Bishop couldn't contain his grin, perhaps trying to goad the officer into a physical altercation.

  "I know all about you," the officer said, looking away, not giving him the courtesy of eye contact as he spoke. "Let's see; loner, parents were assholes, no friends at school, probably bullied because you were such a witless pile of shit. No girl will have anything to do with you, so you sit home alone, pity yourself, and you get angry. You want what you can't have, what no woman will give you. You got tired of paying for it, so you decided to just take it, take out your frustration on a poor defenseless girl. And it made you feel like a man. But that's all you can do, because you're not a real man, you're a rat. A worthless piece of trash no one gives two shits about. And now, for the first time, people are saying your name, talking to you, and you feel important. You're even grinning like some fucking retard. But by tomorrow you'll realize what your mother must have realized long ago — what a total failed experiment giving birth to a fuck up like you was. As you stare at those same four cement walls for eternity, you'll have forever to think about what a complete fucking loser you turned out to be. I give you three weeks before you hang yourself with your bedsheets."

  Bishop stopped smiling. He rode the rest of the trip to the courthouse in silence.

  CHAPTER 56

  The sun broke through the clouds. Jack lifted his face, inhaling the cold November air. He gazed out at the reservoir as divers went under and resurfaced, searching.

  Harrington was leaning on the hood of Jack's car, overseeing the investigation. There were officers and forensic personnel standing by the shoreline, awaiting the gruesome task of retrieving and bagging any evidence that might be discovered at the bottom. Harrington twisted to see if Jack was still behind him, he was being so quiet — had been all day.

  Jack didn't answer his phone that morning, Harrington feared something might have happened to him overnight. A macabre thought, but Jack had seemed inordinately down and depressed the night before. And you never know how people might respond to that depth of despair. Some might put a gun in their mouth.

  But a few minutes later, Jack had pulled up. Any small talk Harrington had offered up was met with silence.

  The hours of watching and waiting were starting to get tedious. Harrington tried again to start a conversation.

  "So…Carl's not coming?"

  Jack inhaled the cool dry air. "Refuses to believe she's down there."

  "Where's he now?"

  "At the arraignment."

  Harrington nodded. "I'll be real happy when this one's over. I spend any more time at work, I'm gonna come home and find the wife with the mailman."

  Jack looked up at the sun. "Forecast said rain."

  "What do they know? Good thing, wouldn't that have sucked. I hate standing around like this. So do you, you get all jittery when things take too long."

  "I'm in no rush to see it."

  Harrington turned to look out at the divers. "Yeah…who knows, maybe Carl is right. Maybe Bishop's pulling our chain." Jack ran his tongue over his teeth.

  "Maybe."

  "All that hard work, and it's dumb luck that cracks it," Harrington said, looking back at Jack. Jack's face was expressionless.

  "That's usually the case. They make a mistake, you catch a lucky break. It's never what you expect."

  "What were you expecting?"

  Jack looked out at the water. He tucked his cold hands in his jacket pockets. "I don't know. You stare at something long enough, your mind starts to play tricks on you."

  Harrington began to say something, but held it. Then said, "I know what you mean, I keep trying to put together that winning parlay. Lions were getting 7, I thought they were a lock at plus 17. I had it, but shit never works out the way you plan it. I guess if it did, I wouldn't be doing this. I'd be playing left tackle. Fuckin' hamstring." Harrington stretched and scratched at the sky with a loud moan. He took a few steps towards the water. "They must be freezing down there. Shit, it's cold. This is taking too long, maybe we should just drain it."

  Jack walked over to the dri
ver's side of his car. "Call me when they find something. You're in charge now." Jack climbed in and closed the door. Harrington hardly had time to process what Jack had just said when Jack started the engine and threw it in reverse.

  Harrington threw his hands up. "Where are you going? Whaddya mean I'm in charge now? You make it sound like you're not coming back." Jack reached the road and stopped, eyeballed Harrington over the steering wheel. Their gaze locked for a brief moment, Harrington sensed Jack was saying goodbye. Jack straightened out onto the road and drove off, kicking up a cloud of brown dust.

  "Jack?" Harrington jogged up to the road, watching Jack leave. He meandered back down to the water's edge, his makeshift seat now driven away.

  He spotted a ripple in the water. A diver emerged, his head popping up with a loud burst of air. The diver spun around, disorientated. He found Harrington on the shore. Harrington held his palms up, anything? The diver shook his head, no.

  CHAPTER 57

  Robert's home was a small three bedroom colonial with beige siding and a chain-link fence. There was a gate in the center, the hinge broken. He stood on the front steps, greeting two more guests at the door. A man and a woman handed him a wrapped gift with a card taped on top.

  "Thanks guys, come on in." Robert lodged the gift under his arm and waved them across the threshold. Patricia gave them a second greeting from the living room, which was overflowing with guests now.

  "Oh my gosh, you're ready to burst!" the woman said, extending her hands out to touch Patricia's very pregnant middle, bulging under her sweater. Trish smiled and allowed the guest to rub her stomach, beginning to feel more like a sideshow attraction than a party host. She wiped her sweaty forehead and smiled, initiating small talk, even though she felt a little nauseous and tired.

  Robert noticed, but didn't pay it too much mind. She'd been feeling off for a few days — she'd just gotten over a cold — probably just remnants of it lingering.

  Robert stepped outside and watched the street, scanning the passing traffic expectantly. Cars were parked all along the curb in both directions. One was partially blocking his neighbor's driveway. He would tell them to move it, anticipating the obligatory complaint. Not that he really cared; they were moving soon, he'd never see most of these people again.