Denouement

by Kenyan, M. O.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “She’s a writer and they met because she wrote a part for him in a movie.” A dark realization dawned on him. “Does she really love him or is it an illusion?”

  “That I can answer.” The doctor shot Marietta a look. “She is pissed off. She may try not to show it. I guess that is a defense mechanism. But I swear if her husband was here she would have ripped him to shreds.”

  “That’s a good thing?”

  “That’s the best thing. She’s emotionallyvoid,love and anger for her husband may just pull her out of this hole she’s hiding in.” The therapist said her goodbyes then left.

  “Did you think that I didn’t know?” Chris saw the anger the therapist was talking about when she stomped up to him. If it weren’t for the bulge under her T-shirt he was sure she would have attacked him. “I knew she was a therapist. I’m grateful that you are looking out for me, but I am dealing with this my way.”

  “Mattie…” Chris didn’t speak until she turned to face him. “I thought we could go to the cemetery today.”

  She shrugged her shoulder and took her coat from the rack. She opened the front door and looked back at him expectantly. Chris wondered where she was off to. She had barely left the house, only taking short walks down the block, where was she going now.

  “Are we going or what?”

  “You mean now?” Chris followed her. “I didn’t mean we should go to the cemetery now.” He stopped talking when she settled in his truck and buckled her seat belt. “Well, I guess we can go now.”

  He watched her from the corner of his eye. At first she had this long faraway look as she stared at something outside the window. Chris couldn’t see what, especially since he only had a fraction of a second to look before his eyes were back on the road. Once they drove down the block, Marietta turned and looked through the back window then all of a sudden, she turned facing the front. Marietta hummed a tune as she drummed on his dash board.

  “I miss Toby.” She frowned. Then almost immediately the frown was replaced by a smile as she waved at the little kids playing on their lawns. “If my baby hadn’t died, Toby would be teaching him how to ride a bike. Of course it would be a tricycle. But it would have been awesome to watch him grow up, don’t you think?”

  “Sure, it would have been awesome.” Chris fought the urge to turn the car around and point it at the nearest psychiatric hospital. He was quite sure suggesting a visit to the cemetery wasn’t a good idea after all. “Are you having a nervous breakdown?” He asked once they were at a stop light. Chris stared into her face hoping to get a read on some sort of an emotion. He almost didn’t believe it but he did catch the sadness in her eyes and tremble of longing in the tone of her voice.

  “Can’t I think about him?” She asked, “He grew inside of me for six months and I never got to bond with him. Can’t I just miss my baby without you thinking that I’m going crazy?”

  “I’m sorry I said that. Of course you can miss him.” He stretched out his hand and she took it. Giving it a squeeze he hoped that he hadn’t completely offended her.

  Marietta squeezed back and smiled, “Do you know that Toby was terrified to touch me those six months before we got married. Then for a year he couldn’t take his hands off me. When I didn’t get pregnant then, he suggested treatment. I didn’t want to. For the next two years he became obsessive about it. I could see the sadness in his eyes, he was never able to get over the…” she bit down on her lip and paused. Marietta rubbed her round belly, “Now here she is. I believe in the laws of nature letting things happen when they should, letting life fall into place. There is a reason for everything that happens to us, you know.” She chuckled but there was nothing but a cold echo in her laughter, “I have to believe that, considering everything that has happened. I have to believe that.”

  “I know.” Chris swallowed the lump of emotion that had formed in his throat. He pulled into the cemetery and parked the car. He walked around to the passenger side and helped Marietta out of the truck, “You are getting huge.”

  “You think so.” Her eyes lit up.

  Chris realized that the emotion only existed when she was talking about Tobias, their baby and their lives. He wished the past didn’t exist. Although it pained him to see her upset, it comforted him when she cried about her husband and her dead baby, it pleased him when she giggled each time the baby inside her kicked. He needed her to be Marietta Harden and not Marietta Samuels. Marietta Parks had managed to hold on to her sanity but that hold, he could see in her eyes, was slowly slipping away.

  “She’s going to be a big baby. Toby will have to find a crib that can carry a hundred tons.” She chuckled just before she stepped on the grass.

  Chris immediately took note of the change. The giggles were gone, the laughter in her eyes disappeared and was replaced by pain. Pain that he couldn’t describe or even imagine being subjected to. This was the grown Mattie and he could see she was having a difficult time handling the atmosphere of where they were, he wondered how the seventeen year old Mattie had managed to bury her family.

  “Do you know, after my father left, David always said, I’ll be the number one guy in your life.” She didn’t bother with the tears that fell freelyfrom her eyes. “And mom would say, wait until she falls in love.”

  “He almost kicked my ass that summer.” Chris chuckled.

  “I think he always knew that he was going to get sick. It’s the only reason he let you take me to the junior prom.” She steadied herself on Chris’ arm as she sank to the ground sitting in between the two graves, crossing her legs as far as she could. “Don’t let him kiss you.”

  “Is that what he said to you?” Chris laughed and sat beside her. “That cock blocker.”

  “He always wanted me to marry you. He said that you would always take care of me, that you would never hurt me. David said you would accept me for whoI am because you knew what happened to me,” she whispered.

  “I didn’t think you knew.” Chris had never been able to bring the subject of abuse up. He thought it would be better for her, that she would be more comfortable if she didn’t know he knew.

  “Oh please!” She punched his arm. “You need to give me more credit, dude. That thing you said to me before you deflowered me on senior prom.”

  Chris laughed and buried his face in his hands. “It was cheesy wasn’t it.”

  “But it meant the world to me.” She pulled his hands free and looked into his face. “You will never know how much those two cheesy sentences meant to me.”

  He kissed her cheek and tried to keep the mood light. “You have to admit I’ve got game. The words might have been cheesy, but I got to look up your skirt.”

  “You did more than look up my skirt.” Marietta chuckled then sighed. When she looked over at her mother’s grave her hands wrapped her belly protectively. “I never did get it. I would pretend to understand but I never did get it until now.”

  “Get what?” Chris realized that her arms were around her belly. At first he panicked, thinking that she might have been in pain and something was wrong with the baby. But she gave no indication that anything was wrong.

  “I never completely understood why she killed herself until the first time I felt the baby kick.”

  “She could have sought out a different method.” There was bitterness in his tone. People never wanted to leave the ones they loved but Marietta’s mother did.

  “She worked long hours and I never told anyone. She left her children with the one person she could trust, their father. My mother knew we were safe. I can only imagine how she felt when she found out. I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself either.” She shivered then turned her head to the right.

  Chris looked up at her when she had fallen silent for more than a couple of seconds. That was when he saw what she was staring at. He was standing there watching them as if it was normal. Chris jumped to his feet and helped Marietta up. He tried to get her to walk but she looked
like she was trapped by the man’s gaze.

  “He’s been watching me, you know?” she said, the flatness back in her voice.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Then what?” she paused, “He’s my father, there is no way I can get rid of him. There is just no way.”

  “How could you call him that after what he did?” Chris asked, gently shaking her.

  When she finally looked into his eyes, he wished that he hadn’t asked. “He was the one man in my life supposed to love and protect me unconditionally. You ask me why I don’t hold Tobias more accountable for cheating. He’s why. If he can betray me, what stops the rest of the world from betraying me too?”

  Chris found himself grabbing Marietta by the elbow and dragging her to the truck. He noticed when her step faltered,his other arm was ready to catch her if it was necessary. But she didn’t stumble because he was dragging her, but because she couldn’t seem to break the locked gaze she had with her father.

  When they got back home, Chris packed up his mother and Marietta. He wanted to go as far away from Robert Samuels as he could, as soon as possible. He knew he could relocate her but it was obvious that he didn’t have the means to ensure she was protected. He had to call in for reinforcements.

  Chris watched as Marietta laughed with his mother as they went through old family albums. “Hey, it’s me. How soon can you get here?”

  Once everyone was loaded in the car, Chris looked around for anything suspicious before he pulled out of the driveway. He was about to drive off toward his country home just outside the city when Marietta turned the steering wheel in the other direction.

  “What the hell! Are you crazy?” he exclaimed.

  “You seem to think so,” she shot back. “I want to drive past the old house.”

  “It’s not there anymore, remember? You sold it and they tore it down. The only thing there is the new development.”From her expression he knew she understood but still she was adamant about going.

  He drove down the block toward the new complexes where Marietta’s house used to be. It looked so different; there was no evidence of what had happened there all those years ago.

  “Stop!”

  Chris slammed on the brake. He watched her as she stared out the window and realized that she was in another locked trance with Robert. He wanted to go out there and give the man what he deserved but he couldn’t. Getting Marietta out of there was his first priority.

  He turned the car around and sped down the road, ignoring his mother’s exclamations for him to slow down.

  ****

  Tobias didn’t like the tone in Chris’ voice when he called him. Already he had sent some men ahead to meet him. He stayed behind to take on a much more dangerous mission. Tobias hesitated and stood around for a couple of seconds. The neighbors were beginning to notice him, and his cowardice was now entertainment for a handful of people. Unable to take the silent judging anymore Tobias knocked on the door. Once it opened he stepped in, he couldn’t wait for an invitation.

  “Hey! I didn’t tell you, you could come in,” Jessie spat out.

  “I just needed to get out of that hallway. They looked like they were about to lynch me.” He shivered at the thought.

  “It might be because of this, douche bag.” Jessie led him to her laptop and played the video.

  Tobias gasped as he watched stunned. His publicist had managed to keep the questions about his missing wife to a minimum. But now his shame was on line for everyone to watch. There were parts of that day that he hadn’t seen, but his infidelity was there, documented for everyone to see. He vaguely remembered what happened that day. He only had one image etched in his mind, the way Marietta looked at him when she left. “Who had this camera?”

  “Sam,” she answered. “Marietta wanted to tape your genuine surprise. Apparently, you don’t have that many honest moments on tape. ‘Surprise, you’re on candid camera.’”

  “So Sam leaked this.” Tobias tried to communicate with her while listening past the sarcasm.

  “He called,apparently one of his flings took his camera for revenge. She found the tape and sold it to the highest bidder. I’m surprised you didn’t try to stop it.” Jessie smirked.

  “I didn’t know about it.” Tobias peered into the laptop and saw a different video on the play list.“What’s this?”

  “That’s a video of the day the ladder fell on Marietta.” When she saw him click on it she tried to warn him. “I wouldn’t watch that if I were you.”

  Tobias didn’t listen. He played the video and as soon as it was over, he felt as if someone had cut his legs from under him. “This isn’t what you described.” Sure the ladder was there, but Jessie had failed to mention its enormity. He had seen her water break, how did Jessie describe it again—flood gates, but it seemed more like a river of blood seemed to pour out of her. Marietta didn’t just scream the sound that escaped her lips made his stomach churn and his heart shatter into millions of pieces.

  “Why did you come here?” Jessie shut the laptop and redirected his attention. She could see all the color drain from his face and she was sure he was going to pass out at any second.

  “Chris called, there’s trouble,” he managed to gasp out. “Pack your bags, we’re going to Minnesota.”

  * * * *

  “Why did you bring me here?” Marietta asked as she stepped out of the truck and stood before a huge log house.

  “I thought we could get away for a while.”

  “I don’t run.” She stared him square in the face and the strength in her eyes had him staggering.

  “I know.” He feigned a smile. “Mama, could you please help Marietta inside.”

  Chris stood back and watched as his mother help Marietta into the house. He wondered why Tobias hadn’t gotten back to him yet. He tried to call but his phone was off, Jessie’s too. He looked up at the blue skies and hoped that the man upstairs wasn’t going to forsake his friend.

  Marietta lowered herself into a rocking chair. It was placed just in front of the windows. From where she sat she could see the whole farm. The scenery was beautiful.It was like something that she could only make up in her mind and tryto put down on paper. She laid her hand on her belly and rubbed in a circular motion as the baby began to kick. “Beautiful, don’t you think,” she said to the baby inside her.

  Marietta was convinced that her baby could hear her. She felt this overwhelming connection with the life growing inside her. She wanted to protect her,this baby was her fresh start. She knew that Chris was worried about her, so was she. Usually she managed to restrain her demons but being here in Minnesota where it had all begun, she felt herself being dragged back into the void.

  She missed Tobias and wished she could hear the sound of his voice. But she didn’t know how she would react to seeing him. Every emotion that had to do with him, she felt. But then being in this environment, those emotions seemed to take a back seat to the memories her home town seemed to bring back. At times, she could feel everything, the pain, the fear, and the desperate need to disappear. She felt that now and having been face to face with her father the fear was what she felt the most. Chris was trying to be her anchor but his knowledge only made him sink into the abyss with her. She needed Tobias, whose ignorance might just actually save her.

  Marietta had told Chris that she didn’t run, but that was a lie. As soon as she was old enough and had the money for school she took off. There was a reason why her movies were always in faraway locations, she felt safer there. She had run away from Tobias and now all she wanted to do was to run away from here. But watching the birds and gazing at the clear blue sky seemed to have a calming effect on her.

  She gazed at the scenery and for a second she thought he was standing right in front of her. He was in his long trench coat, his ball cap lowered to just above his eyes. He had been watching her for the past two months. When she sat out on the porch he was there just a few feet away, he stood outside her bedroom window and watche
d. He was everywhere in her reality and in her imagination. Her father’s eyes looked right through her, demanding that she yield to him. Marietta closed her eyes thinking that if she didn’t look at him he would disappear. The sound of Chris’ voice cut through her thoughts, she opened her eyes and was relieved to see just the green pastures.

  She kicked at the window seat in front of her and noted that it sounded oddly hollow, “What’s this?”

  “Don’t tell my mom, it’s where I keep my guns,” he said. “It’s purely for sport. I’m not some serial killer.”

  “Good to know.” She chuckled.

  “What do you think?” Chris asked as he came up behind her.

  “I think I need to go back home,” she said in an almost whisper.

  “Why?” She heard the panic in his voice and she knew something wasn’t right.

  “You need to get back to living your own life. You can’t babysit me forever,” she mumbled. “I have a husband I need to talk to, a job I need to get back to.”

  “I thought we could spend Christmas here,” he lied.

  “Christmas? What month are we in?” she asked in a daze. Had she started losing track of time already? This wasn’t a good sign.

  “We are in December. Christmas is two weeks away.” Chris moved and crouched in front of her. “The year is also two thousand and twelve and Obama is the president.”

  Marietta laughed. The concern in his eyes was obvious, but she appreciated that he was trying to take her out of her panic. “My first Christmas without my family.”

  “Hey, what am I, chopped liver. I know the Hardens have grand Christmas parties, but no one can make a mean barbeque like I do.” He chuckled.

  “My peach cobblers are also going to be earth shattering.” Marietta turned around to see Mrs. Bennet standing behind her. The old woman had a heart of gold that was where Chris got his good nature from.

  “I guess my in-laws will have to settle for a phone call this holiday.” She laughed when Chris did his happy dance. “You better make the best barbeque of your life, the baby and I will settle for nothing less.”