Call of the Raven (23 page)

Mea’s eyes clouded. “Song?”

“That love grows where my Rosemary goes
song.”

Dazed, Mea slowly lowered her eyes. She took
a much longer sip on the mug and this time she didn’t make a face.
Elle wasn’t even sure she tasted the bad coffee anymore. “I don’t
drink Vodka. That belongs to my—that belongs to Burly. I just get
that way sometimes…in a trance.” Mea told her. “I dream and I see
him again and sometimes I don’t want to wake up so I make myself
stay there.”

“Him? Meaning Mary’s father?”

A tear dropped down Mea’s cheek and she
quickly wiped it away. “His name was Grant and I loved him very
much. But just like all men do in my life, he left without even
telling me goodbye. He used to sing me that song and he told me to
always remember it so that’s why I named her Rosemary.”

Leaning forward Mea sat the mug down on the
coffee table. “But sometimes looking at her is more than I can
bear.” Mea said. “She looks just like him, except for the hair. She
has my blonde hair. Her eyes belong to her father. The first time
that man looked at me with his blue eyes I knew I was in trouble.
Grant gave me such hope for the future.”

“You never tried to find him?”

Again Mea shook her head. “The last night we
were together there was something bothering him but he wouldn’t
tell me. Every time I asked he would hold me tighter or kiss me
again and that always shut me up. He would tell me that he just
wanted to live in the moment while he could. He was such a
mysterious man.”

“Maybe he was married?”

“No,” Mea slightly flushed, “I was his first,
ever.”

“How old was he?”

“Thirty-five. Look, I know what you’re
thinking but he wasn’t living with his mother nor was he some
deranged serial killer. Actually his family was very wealthy and I
believe he was afraid to fall in love. You know…some women are all
about money.”

Mea sniffed and wiped her nose on the sleeve
of her dingy robe. “I just wanted him. I should have known better.
Nothing ever good happens to me. People ridiculed me, called me
dreamy, crazy. They thought someone like him would never want
someone like me. Guess they were right.”

“What happened to Grant?” Elle asked, totally
enraptured.

“I’m not sure really,” Mea’s voice cracked.
“I worked for his family’s company. Word got around that something
happened. I asked a few questions and a week later I got fired.
When I tried to find out what I did wrong, I was escorted from the
building by someone I trusted. I was told to stay away. After that
I just drifted away from life…and from everyone else.”

Elle hung on Mea’s every word afraid to look
away or speak for fear she would stop talking. She had never known
love nor had anyone loved her so much they would sing her a song.
Mea told her how the two met and how Grant made her feel when he
took her in his arms. He was strong, powerful and handsome, and Mea
had never been wanted or loved that way by a man such as him. When
Mea was with him, Grant made her forget about everything else, even
her troubled past.

Grant made her feel that she was the only
thing that mattered in his life. Pulling the cushion out from under
her, Mea lied down on the couch and covered her eyes with her arm.
Elle suddenly felt as though she was intruding but she wanted to
hear more. She wanted to hear more about the mysterious Grant.

“Do you want me to make you more coffee?” she
asked.

“I don’t think so.” Mea weakly smiled. “I
think I just need to rest.”

Elle didn’t want to leave. She wanted to know
that Cinderella stories actually did happen to ordinary girls,
nobodies like her. She wanted to know that even damaged girls could
be wanted. When a thought formed, Elle eagerly spoke. “Do you mind
if Mary and I clean your kitchen then. I really don’t have anything
else to do. I can stay and maybe you might want to talk more after
you’ve rested?”

Removing her arm from her face, Mea looked up
at her. “You’re so pretty Elle. Why do you look so sad?”

No one had ever told Elle that she was pretty
before and meant it. Most of the time it was some boy that just
wanted to spend a few worthless minutes with her, and then leave
her behind like Mea said. But she had never given in until Julio,
and then it was only because she had no one else that wanted her.
“I guess because I’ve never known what you had even though it only
lasted a little while.”

Mea quickly sat up. She kept her head down
but Elle could tell that she was crying. “I think I’ll take a
shower,” she announced. “When I’m not drunk that’s when I go into
those trances. I don’t know how to function when I’m not drunk. I
don’t want to drink, not really. It’s just the pain is too much. I
don’t want to live without him and so far I haven’t found a reason
to.”

“Mea, you do have Mary to live for.”

As Mea stood, Elle could see the woman’s
thinness underneath the robe. “I know and I also know it’s time I
let him go. You would think that after ten years I would accept the
fact that he’s not coming back.”

Elle was just finishing up the last dish when
Mary finally emerged from her cubbyhole of a bedroom. She had gone
in there to change but for whatever reason had decided to stay
there awhile. Elle sat the last omelet down in front of her knowing
the second Mary shoved the food away that something was wrong. She
had assumed her disappearing act was to get out of doing her share
of the housework but now Elle wasn’t so sure.

“Are you mad at me Mary?”

Mary shook her head. “No, I heard what she
said about not being able to look at me.”

Thinking back Elle replayed the conversation
with Mea in her mind and realizing what the little girl must have
overheard, pulled the chair around so that she was sitting next to
her. “Mary your mother loves you. It’s just you look like your dad
and sometimes it’s hard for her.”

“She doesn’t show it,” Mary said stabbing a
fork into the center of the omelet. “I heard what she said and it
makes me wonder if she doesn’t love him more than me.”

“I think that’s wrong for you to say that.
Every woman longs to have a man in her life that means as much to
them as your dad did to your mom. What happened hurt her deeply,
but now she’s just got to find a reason to move on. It’s not in the
booze or her boyfriends. Her biggest reason to go on is here with
you and I think she knows that.” Elle playfully poked at Mary’s
nose. “You sure do smell better Miss Rosemary.”

Mary pinched one blue eye closed. “Better
than before?”

“Oh, most definitely,” she said.

Out of the corner of her eye, Elle noticed
Mea standing in the doorway and quickly stood. She had dressed in
jeans that were far too baggy and a tee-shirt that had seen better
days but at least she was out of the dingy robe.

“I’m sorry. I hope I wasn’t being too
presumptuous,” Elle apologized. She removed the apron she had found
in the closet and tossed it over the table in front of Mary. Behind
her the dishes were drying on a towel and Mea was noticing
everything that she had done.

“You don’t have to run off,” Mea told her as
she crossed to the sink. She stopped before a cabinet and started
turning the dials on an under-the-counter radio. “You’re an easy
person to talk to Elle.”

“No one’s ever really told me that before.”
Elle moved over to where she stood.

“You are and that’s why the children must
like you. You just speak your mind and see behind a person’s
faults.”

“I guess it’s because I have enough of my
own.”

“You said you got fired?” Mea selected a soft
melody on the radio and started putting the dishes away. Elle
nodded an answer, picked up a towel and started to dry. “What
happened?” Mea asked, curiously. “I think Mary tried to tell me but
I can’t remember.”

“The guy said he knew daddy,” Mary blurted,
“and he tried to take me to him but Elle stopped him.”

Cringing Elle sat the mug down on the counter
that she was in the process of drying, since Mea’s wide eyes were
staring directly at her, and she had stopped putting things away.
She had washed her hair but instead of putting the soppy wet
strands up in a towel, her hair hung down upon her shoulders, and
there was two inches of her natural darker roots showing in
contrast to her white bleach job.

“I don’t know anything about that,” Elle
explained. “Some guy just tried to take her from the library and I
stopped him.”

“Do you know what he looked like?” Mea asked.
A new intensity formed in Mea’s eyes and Elle had a horrible
feeling that it wouldn’t take long for that passion to form into
obsession. She looked back at Mary and the little girl possibly
wasn’t sharing in her mother’s same enthusiasm, but there was
definitely something warring in her expression, Elle couldn’t quite
place. Her mannerism told her that she had been waiting, almost
testing her mother and her reaction. “You must have some kind of
description. Elle please,’” Mea pushed.

“He was wearing a leather jacket with a bird
on the front. He had dark blonde hair, and he looked like an actor
I saw in an old vampire movie once,” Elle reluctantly said. The
look on Mea’s face grew distant and Elle instantly regretted
telling her. “Do you know him?”

“The description fits one of my old
boyfriends. I always thought he looked like Kieffer Sutherland.
Actually, I was dating him when I met Grant. He hung out with some
Harley riders in a group called the Blackbirds.”

“Well he followed me home afterwards and he
let me know he wasn’t too thrilled about my interference.”

“He
followed you home
.” Mea frowned
looking at Mary. “So that means he might know where I live?”

“I’m sorry Mea,” Elle apologized as Mea
headed for the kitchen door. “I thought I was doing something
right.”

Mea stopped and turned around. “I’m sorry
Elle, you did the right thing but my reasons to move on without
Grant just got a little more complicated.”

Chapter
Fourteen

Something Broken

Elle pulled off
the plastic gloves and
tossed them in the trashcan next to the backdoor. She rested her
arms on the windowsill and stood watching the sun, big, round and
orange as it lowered behind the abandoned building down the alley.
Inside she wondered how something could be so glorious that it
could bring beauty to a structure left neglected and uncared for a
decade ago.

“I really appreciate you doing this,” Mea
said, from her seat at the kitchen table.

“You have to keep the dye on for twenty
minutes and then wash it out,” Elle told her. She went into the
living room where Mary was watching a cartoon and collapsed on the
couch. Had Mea not waken her out of her depressed slumber, Elle
would have remained in bed. “What is that you’re watching?” she
asked Mary.

All morning Mea had been trying to talk to
her but Elle wasn’t in a talkative mood. Elle didn’t see the point
in talking. Her situation was hopeless. Nothing would ever change,
at least not for her.

“Its ‘American anime’ but it’s not as good as
the books you read.”

“The characters don’t even look real,” Elle
grunted. “Hatori’s look real at least.”

Mea sat on the other end of the couch. Elle
was glad she was keeping her distance. The chemical smell of the
hair dye was starting to play havoc with her stomach.

“Mary, would you mind going to your room a
moment?” Mea’s tone drew Elle out of the funk she was in. Elle
waited for Mary to obey before she turned her eyes on Mea, but she
spoke first. “Elle you’ve been moping around for days. You need to
tell—”

“I’m pregnant,” Elle cut her off. She had
meant to take Mea by surprise but she responded with a solemn nod.
Elle on the other hand started crying. “Mea what am I going to
do?”

A sad expression crossed Mea’s face. “Elle,
you’ve got to get away from him before he hurts or kills you both.
That’s what you’re going to do.”

“You make it sound so easy. I would have been
gone a long time ago if I had some place to go. I have no money, no
family. Even then, Julio may claim that he doesn’t want me but he
always manages to find me. Believe me those fights you’ve overheard
are nothing in comparison to what he puts me through afterwards
when I try to leave. There is
no place
or
no one
that
could protect me from him.”

“Elle don’t give up on me.”

Elle turned her head away and started
watching the cartoon again. “You better check the clock. I think
it’s been twenty minutes.”

Once Mea left to wash the dye from her hair,
Elle hurried out the door. She didn’t want to talk to her anymore.
Mea was convinced that Grant was still alive, thanks to an
ex-boyfriend gang member in a leather jacket trying to take her
kid, and she was off living in her own fantasy world.

Finding Grant however and living happily ever
after was an illusion, a dream. Things like that didn’t happen to
women like them. Things like that didn’t happen in real life. Real
life was shacking up with a man you didn’t love just to have the
security of a roof over your head.

Elle shut the door behind her and quickly
flipped on the lights. Julio wasn’t sitting on the couch but only
after she thoroughly inspected every last closet, and space big
enough for him to hide, did she relax. Julio had been doing that a
lot lately, hiding in places she wouldn’t think to look and spying
on her.

Going to the bathroom, Elle took out a tube
of ointment from the medicine cabinet and applied some to the teeth
marks on her neck. She really hated Julio and the last thing she
wanted was to have his child. She wanted a distraction, something
to help pass time and take her mind off her problems, but there
wasn’t anything.