Darkness Before Dawn

by Ace Collins

  Opening the cabinet, she automatically pulled down two glasses and set them on the counter. Reaching into the freezer, she grabbed the ice tray and dropped six cubes into each of the glasses. After replacing the tray, she opened the refrigerator, took out a two-liter bottle of Coke, and began to fill the glasses. As she waited for the foam to settle, reality hit her.

  Suddenly a feeling of rage, the same rage that had kept her awake most of the night, began to envelop her. Taking a still foaming glass in her hand, she spun around and threw it as hard as she could against the far wall. Ice cubes and Coke splattered all over her kitchen as pieces of glass slid in eighty different directions all at the same time.

  Turning, Meg stared at the wall, amazed by her own actions but seemingly calmer because of them. Except for the noise made by her fizzing drink, the apartment was immersed in complete silence and that was simply not natural. Steve should have been singing a stupid song or telling a funny story. Sighing, she picked up the other glass and walked to the window.

  Trying to push the memory of past mornings from her head, Meg focused on the scene beyond her window, which showed signs of being a typical midwestern March morning. A light snow had fallen during the night and covered the unspoiled ground with a pure and beautiful carpet of white. A strong northerly breeze, evident in the swaying evergreen trees on the corner of the front lawn, coupled with a grayish sky, made it seem even colder than the twenty-eight degrees indicated by Meg’s window thermometer. Birds, mostly small sparrows, along with one beautiful male cardinal, played in the white fluff, while a neighbor’s cat, partially hidden behind a tree, stalked them.

  Meg’s brown eyes darted to the far side of the street. Old Mr. Fudge, bundled up as if for a Russian winter, eased out of his front door, across the snow, and awkwardly slid into his trusty 1985 Olds. Meg knew that soon, after the car’s motor had sufficiently warmed, Mrs. Fudge would follow her husband’s path, and just like they had done for sixty years, the two of them would head for church. Normally she would have been joining them, but not now, not without Steve.

  Another old-timer, Herb Lucas, waved at Mr. Fudge from his blue pick-up as he delivered the Sunday morning edition of the Springfield Herald. Meg watched, just as she had a hundred times before, as the ever accurate Herb, while never leaving the truck, hit porch after porch with carefully rolled papers. On most Sunday mornings, she would have timed opening her door at just the moment the paper landed at the base of her stairs. She would have then shouted a hearty greeting to Herb and waved and smiled at Mr. Fudge. But today she didn’t want to talk to anyone or have anyone else see the sadness in her eyes, so she simply let the paper land on the concrete and watched Herb drive on.

  Taking another sip of her Coke, she stared back at the idyllic scene in front of her. The world still turned just as it always had. Steve’s death hadn’t stopped anything or anyone. The snow still fell, the papers were still printed, and the birds still sang. It seemed that only her life was different, only hers was empty.

  Glancing at the stove clock, she noted that on any other Sunday she would be getting ready for church by now. She knew that the fifth graders in her Sunday school class must be confused and waiting for her. She’d seen some of them at the funeral. They were sweet to come to such a grown-up event, but from now on somebody else would have to explain the mysteries of God and the world to them. She didn’t have the answers to their questions any more than she had the answers to her own. While she would miss the kids, she’d already moved church and all that went with it to the past. It was that simple. And why hadn’t she made that decision years ago? She could have enjoyed those wasted Sunday mornings with Steve. Think of all the things they could have done. Now she couldn’t get them back. That was the problem with life, once it slipped away you couldn’t get anything back.

  The ringing of her cell phone roused her from her thoughts. Stepping across the now sticky kitchen floor, being careful to avoid the shards of glass, Meg stopped the iPhone’s chirping on the third ring.

  “Hello.” Her greeting revealed absolutely no enthusiasm.

  “Meg, it’s Mom.” Barbara sounded far too caring and for that reason Meg didn’t respond with anything more than a deep sigh. Perhaps sensing her daughter was not going to speak, Barbara charged on, “Dear, I do wish you’d let me stay with you last night.”

  “I was fine, Mom. Besides, there wasn’t enough room.” Meg hoped her flat tone made it obvious that she didn’t want to deal with her mother nor the words of wisdom that would soon spill out of the receiver.

  “Well, you should have at least come home with me. It’s not good to be alone at a time like this.” Barbara waited an appropriate time for a response, and when none came, she continued, “Meg, why don’t I pick you up for church and then we can come back over here for some roast.”

  “No thanks, Mom. I’m just going to stay home today.” Her controlled response remained polite, hiding the fact that the mention of attending church had sparked an explosive fire in Meg’s heart. And though she likely didn’t know it, if she kept pushing, Barbara was walking a line that could transform her daughter’s normally calm nature into a violent storm. Meg hoped her mother would read between the lines and drop this spin for togetherness.

  “Meg, you just don’t need to be by yourself, not yet anyway. I know what you’re going through.”

  Meg was surprised it had taken as long as it had. Now came the time for the older woman to deliver the kicker—the moment when Barbara would try the ultimate attempt at bonding by trotting out the story that Meg knew had to have been on the tip of her tongue for the past three days. Oh why couldn’t she just say good-bye and head off to church?

  “When your father died,” Barbara began, her tone sincere but a bit forced, “all I wanted to do was sit in a chair and look out the window. But, you, your sister, and my friends didn’t let me do that. I mean . . .” There was no reason to listen to this old story. She’d heard it many times before. So Meg bluntly cut her mother short.

  “Mother, I don’t want to hurt your feelings. I know you are trying to make me feel better. But you’re not. The fact is that you don’t know what I’m going through. Steve was twenty-eight—just twenty-eight. Some drunk killed him! It happened suddenly—without warning! One minute I was a wife, the next a widow. I didn’t have any time to think about it or prepare for it. There were no goodbyes.”

  She could have stopped there and probably should have, but the anger raging in her soul had now taken control. So she spit out another series of thoughts as if they were being delivered by a machine gun. Their impact was almost as cruel as it was deadly.

  “Dad had heart trouble for years. When he went into the hospital that last time, he knew he wasn’t going to come out. We knew it, too. Dad was sixty-one years old and I miss him. But you can’t begin to compare that to what happened to Steve. Dad was within a decade of a normal life span. He had kids, went on fun vacations, and got to spend all of his active years with you. He actually lived life! Steve only got to start living. So don’t even try to tell me you know what I’m going through, because you don’t.”

  Barbara evidently had no response to calm her angry, hurt daughter and an awkward silence, made even more awkward by the fact the conversation was taking place on a phone and not in person, filled the next few moments. Finally, obviously struggling to find words, Barbara continued.

  “Honey, I know it didn’t happen the same way, but . . .”

  In a challenging tone now filled with hostility, Meg fired back. “Mom, when Dad died, Terri and I were already out of school. He left you secure. You didn’t have to go back to work. That made it easy for you, at least compared to what I’m going through. Show me one place you had it tougher than me! I dare you, show me one place!”

  Her voice now growing louder and more demanding, Meg challenged her mother again, “Show me, Mom!”

  Attempting to apply a mother’s empathy, Barbara answered with a calm steady voice. “Meg, dear, your
father’s death was not easy for me, no matter how long I’d had to prepare. We had been together for thirty-six years.”

  “Mom, be grateful for them, that’s an eternity compared to what Steve and I had.”

  “I know, Meg, but still I had a very difficult time adjusting. Your father and I were a team. We were together all the time.”

  “Dad didn’t leave you pregnant.”

  The silence that followed had the effect of an immense black hole—all energy immediately drained from both ends of the call and neither woman spoke for almost a minute. Finally, Barbara whispered, “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “When did you, I mean, how long have you known?”

  “I found out right after he died, Mom. How’s that for a kick in the pants?”

  Meg now sensed her mother had fallen into a complete state of shock. The pregnancy had come from out of left field. Meg knew the older woman hadn’t even suspected. Before her mother could sort through her confused thoughts and emotions, Meg bluntly ended their conversation.

  “Listen, Mom, if you don’t get on the move, you’re going to be late for church. Your friends will all be there and they’ll want to talk about how horrible this all is. I wouldn’t want you to miss that. I want to be alone today anyway. Please respect that. Don’t come over and don’t call me. Now, good-bye.”

  Meg didn’t even wait for her mother’s response. Satisfied she had extracted a full measure of pain, she hit the end call button and tossed the phone onto the couch. Wandering back to the kitchen window, she once again picked up her Coke and looked outside. Mr. Fudge’s car was now gone and the only signs of life on the street were the playing birds and the stalking cat. For reasons she didn’t comprehend, she found herself drawn to the scene under the elm tree just a few yards from her door. It was escapism at its best, like an Animal Planet documentary created only for her eyes. Best of all, the unfolding drama took her mind off the pain that had so unexpectedly entered her life.

  For ten minutes, the cat watched unmoving and unseen, hidden by the tree’s large trunk. Little by little, the birds came closer and closer to where he lay. Meg stood perfectly still, amazed by the cat’s patience and equally impressed with the hungry stare in his large, green eyes. He had become a living statue, a beautiful work of art. But he didn’t stay stone cold for long. With absolutely no warming, in a very carefully planned moment of his choosing, he sprang to life. Landing in the middle of the dozen or more sparrows, his paws reached out, and in a split-second of brutal savagery, broke the neck of the lone, unsuspecting cardinal.

  As the red bird dropped lifelessly to the ground, the other birds scattered in a panic, some quickly landing on low limbs then turning back to observe their fallen comrade. Others, pushed by continually exploding fear, flew out of sight. They didn’t want to know what would happen next. They didn’t have the stomach for it. Yet, Meg couldn’t pull her eyes from the victorious feline. The cat quickly surveyed the area before picking up the lifeless bird in his mouth. He violently shook his prize once more and then trotted off, disappearing beneath her window.

  These events would have shocked her not so long ago. The brutality of the act might have even brought tears of rage, but now the nature play only served to give her a few minutes of escape from the reality of her own loss. So while it registered in her mind, it came nowhere near touching her heart. Casually turning from the window, she opened the refrigerator and announced to no one, “Well, now that we know what the cat’s having, I wonder what I can whip up for breakfast?” After a moment of staring at her choices, she closed the door without making a decision.

  Wandering back through the living room, she pulled her oversized, terry cloth robe a bit more tightly around her, stepped out on her second-floor landing, walked down the steps to the apartment complex’s first floor porch, and bent over to pick up her paper. A bloody sight stopped her short. Once again standing upright, she studied the form of the newly dead cardinal, lying on the walk less than a foot from the rolled-up paper.

  “I guess the cat wasn’t hungry,” she coldly murmured.

  Shrugging her shoulders, Meg once again bent over, grabbed the paper by one end, while using the other end to flick the bird off into the snow-covered grass. Turning, she marched back to her apartment, opened her door, tossed the paper on the floor, walked to her bath, eased out of the robe and nightgown, and turned on the shower. As the water heated up, she attempted to lose herself in soap and steam. But no matter how hard she scrubbed, she couldn’t get rid of her anger or pain.

  7

  WITH THE SHOWER’S HOT WATER POURING DOWN HER FACE, MEG ONCE again went through the ifs she had considered for the past three days. What if she had told him to wait? What if he hadn’t gotten his work done so quickly? What if? What if? What if? Then, as she reached for her shampoo, another question surfaced, the same question that had haunted her the night before. Who? Who was that drunk kid? Who killed Steve?

  Putting the shampoo down without ever using it, Meg turned the water off, wrapped herself in a towel, and still soaking wet, ran back to her landline phone. She punched in a familiar number and waited as it rang—once, then twice, and finally three times.

  “Come on, Heather, be home.”

  On the fourth ring, a sleepy voice answered. “Hello?”

  “Heather.”

  The shock of hearing from her friend must have yanked Heather from deep sleep into a complete and fully awake awareness. Somehow, as she framed a question, she also managed to embrace a tone filled with compassion. “Meg, how are you?”

  “Heather, do you know the name of the kid that was driving the other car?”

  “What kid?” After an awkward pause, she added, “Oh, Steve’s wreck. I don’t know? Why?”

  “You can tell me,” Meg was pleading. Her tone was almost frantic. “Surely you’ve heard. I’ve got to know.”

  “I really don’t know, Meg,” Heather answered sincerely. “If I did, I’d tell you. I just haven’t heard anybody say. In all honesty, maybe I didn’t want to know.”

  Meg swore.

  In four years of working with her, Heather had never heard Meg utter even the mildest obscenity, so the word likely contained the shock value of a 7.0 earthquake. Maybe that was the reason she didn’t offer a response. For whatever reason, before Heather could fully gather her wits and respond, Meg’s voice came back on the line.

  “Okay, thanks, I’ll see you tomorrow at work.”

  Repeating the process, Meg called over a dozen different friends and the seven she actually reached all gave the same response. No one knew. She looked up at the living room clock. It was 11:17. Still wrapped in a towel, her hair now damp not wet, she got up and walked around the couch toward the kitchen, nearly tripping over the morning paper.

  That’s it, the paper. Okay, the accident happened on Thursday night, so the story would be in Friday morning’s Herald. I didn’t read it, but Mom brought it in when she came over. Where did I put it? The trash, I pitched it.

  Pulling out a large, white, plastic trashcan from the pantry, she dug through empty cans and bottles until she found a newspaper. Yanking the plastic wrapper off, she unrolled it. Reading the masthead, the words “Friday Edition” jumped out. Quickly she scanned the front page, and then page two, and so on and so on. Sitting in the middle of a week’s worth of kitchen trash and a now dried Coke spill, surrounded by pieces of broken glass, she desperately searched for some report, only to find nothing.

  Come on, Steve was a pretty well-known guy. Where’s the story? As her hunt bore no fruit, she grew angry. It just seemed the world was out to keep her from getting the information she needed!

  Shoving the pages to one side, she looked around the kitchen. Suddenly her eyes lit up. Almost startling herself with her own voice, she all but yelled, “Of course, it happened too late for Friday’s paper; it’s got to be in Saturday’s.”

  Standing up, she once again tightened her towel and looked into the trash can,
but the paper wasn’t there. Wandering back into the living room, she frantically scanned the area hoping that the paper would jump into sight. When it didn’t, she screamed, “Where are you?”

  Wanting to cry, she fell in a heap on the couch and tried to remember what she’d done with it. There might have been no one to hear her words, but she put voice to her thoughts. “Okay, I got up yesterday morning, got dressed, and drove to Mother’s. I had to have walked by the paper, so I must have picked it up and done something with it . . . but what? The car, that’s it, I tossed it in the back seat of my car.”

  She was about to get up when it hit her—the information would likely be online. Firing up her laptop, she did a search for the Herald’s website. A roadblock once more greeted her. The paper was now subscription only. She didn’t have the patience to dig out a credit card and sign up, so she turned her focus back to the paper she’d tossed in the Mustang.

  Jumping up from the couch, she opened the apartment’s door, charged down the steps, up the front walk, out to the curb, and threw open her yellow Mustang’s passenger door. Not once did she notice the cold wind, the snow on her bare feet, or the fact that she was dressed in only an oversized bath towel. Reaching over the front passenger bucket seat, she tossed aside a pile of old clothes and a tennis racket and grabbed the paper. Running back up the walk and the stairs, she raced through her open apartment door and went directly into the kitchen. As soon as she had spread the paper out on the counter top, a front-page headline leaped out at her.

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