Maple Street Part 2

    Maryanne sat in the kitchenette drinking her fourth cup of coffee. She hadn’t slept much in 2 weeks. Not since James had brought that woman home. She’d had a bad feeling about her from the moment she showed up on their front doorstep, something had seemed off. She was asking for someone named Samuel. Maryanne had volunteered in a psychiatric facility when she was a nurse, she knew that you didn’t argue with the mentally ill and unstable. That’s why she’d said “He’s not here” instead of “You have the wrong address”

Looking back, maybe telling her she’d had the wrong address would have prevented all of this. Maybe she would have thrown herself in front of someone else’s car. Maybe she would have broken up another couple’s marriage, and left her and James alone.

“She’s all alone Maryanne” James had said.

“There are lots of people who are all alone, Jim. Why is that our responsibility?” She remembered the look he gave her and squeezed her eyes shut.

“Maryanne this girl thinks that I’m her father! She needs someone to trust! Can’t we provide that for her?” He dug through their closet looking for something, sighing and shaking his head.

“That poor girl, poor girl I can’t even imagine what she’s been through. She thinks that her father hit her with a car. And she still wants to make amends!”

“Woman” Maryanne had said it in a short, harsh voice.

“What?”

“You keep saying ‘girl’ you make her sound like a small child appeared on our doorstep asking for help. She’s a grown woman, James. A grown woman who THREW herself in front of a moving vehicle!” James yanked their travel case out of the closet and pulled the price tag off.

“She’s coming to stay Maryanne. Just for a while. Just until she finds her way”

That had been that. That was the end of the conversation. James had come home in a few hours with an unwanted house guest, who immediately asked to call her mama, or mah-mah or maa maa. Something strange.

“Can I call you Mom-ma?” Maryanne wanted no part in that. She refused to play along in their deceitful, and almost perverse game of house. And yet, she called her by that name anyway. Everyday, without fail, called her by-

Maryanne looked up at the sound of footsteps. She was coming….

  Rachel ran her fingers along the wallpaper in the hallway. She didn’t remember any of it. She didn’t know if it was the same wallpaper that they’d had when her and her mother lived there. She imagined that after they left, her father was so distraught that he changed everything. That’s why none of her things were still in her bedroom. That’s why everything was so different. She took in a deep breath. Coffee. Mom-ma had made coffee. Mom-ma made coffee every morning. She’d get up before dawn and make so much coffee! Rachel loved it. It was like their own little tradition. Their own little something that they had together that they could share. She walked down the stairs, letting her fingers dance across the railing.

“Mom-ma!” Rachel called out in a sing-songy voice “Mom-ma, I’m coming!” Rachel’s heart began to pound with joy. Soon she’d be sitting at the kitchenette with Mom-ma and they’d wait for Daddy to wake up. Daddy hadn’t been to work for 2 weeks. He wanted to stay home and help Rachel get acclimated to her new home. But of COURSE she’d have no problem getting used to her new home. In a way, this had always been her home.

Rachel came galloping into the kitchenette to see Maryanne sitting at the table with a fresh cup of coffee.

“Oh Mom-ma!” Rachel exclaimed. “You and your caffeine addiction!”

“Please” Maryanne whispered with a shake to her voice “Please, just leave. Please leave. I can’t go on like this. I can’t do THIS any longer. I am weak. I am so exhausted. Can you please, please just find someone else to torture.” Rachel poured herself a cup of coffee and spun around on her heel to face Maryanne.

“But Mom-ma” She said in a sickeningly sweet tone “We only just started to get along. We only just started to get back on track. Oh Mom-ma, we’re a family. I can’t leave you!” Rachel took a long sip of her coffee.

“He’s not your Father” Maryanne thought. She wanted to scream it at her. She wanted to tell Rachel that this whole thing was a lie. That she should take her backpack and leave. She squeezed her mug tightly in her hands.

Rachel stood from the table and slowly made her way to the refrigerator. “Maybe some breakfast would cheer you up”

“I’m not hungry” Maryanne lied. She was starving, she’d barely eaten in a week. Rachel pulled out the milk and the container of oats from on top of the fridge.

“Mom-ma, I’m going to make you some oatmeal. It’s good for you. I want you to stay healthy” Rachel brought her supplies to the stove and started looking for a pot.

The sink was full of dirty dishes, stacks of pots and pans with crusted on oatmeal, sauce, meat and cheese.

“Mom-ma, are you alright? You haven’t done any dishes. That’s how people get sick you know. Once, when I was in the women’s shelter with my mother, I had dish duty. And, oh my goodness Mom-ma it was awful” Rachel let out a small laugh.

“Did Daddy ever tell you about my Mother?” Rachel started filled a saucepan with tap water.

“I imagine he did, He would have had to. In order to have a healthy marriage you should talk about these sorts of things” Maryanne began to shift in her seat. She looked down into her now empty mug.

“No, he never told me about your Mother” Rachel’s head snapped around so fast Maryanne thought she heard her neck crack.

“REALLY? Well, my darling Mom-ma, let me enlighten you” Rachel sat down at the table across from Maryanne. The stove was still on high.

“My mother was a dancer. She worked for a ballet company here in Jackson. She was the most… she was so beautiful…” Rachel’s voice seemed to trail off, her brow furrowed like she was trying to remember.

“There was no Ballet Company in Jackson.” Maryanne thought “St. Paul maybe, but not Jackson.”

“I’m sure she was very beautiful” Maryanne spoke softly, but inside she was screaming.

“We left Daddy when I was 5. I’m sure he told you that much. We ran away. We went to stay with my Grandmother in New York, and when she died….” Rachel trailed off again.

Behind her Maryanne could see the oatmeal bubbling up. This was her chance.

“Rachel, sweetie” She was careful to speak how she imagined a loving mother would. “The oatmeal is….”

“When my Grandmother died the bank took the house and me and my mother were on the street. Do you know what happens on the street Mom-ma? Do you know what happens to a little girl and her beautiful young mother, alone on the street?”

Rachel’s eyes widened and then softened again

“Dear, the o-”

“I don’t imagine you would know about such things. Would you Mom-ma? You were too busy keeping my Daddy from looking for me. He would’ve come for me had it not been for you. I know that. I didn’t know, not when I came here. But, he did come for me in the hospital. That’s how I know. That’s how I know he would have come for me, had it not been for you seducing him into this...this loveless marriage”

Maryanne lost herself, for just a moment in those words

“Loveless ma- loveless?!” her voice cracked

“Mom-ma. Of course it’s a loveless marriage” Maryanne looked behind Rachel to see a large bubble of oatmeal forming just above the rim of the saucepan. “If he loved you, truly truly loved you, he would have left me in that hospital bed” Rachel stood up and turned towards the stove. This was it, this was Maryanne’s moment.

With every ounce of strength in her, she threw the mug at the back of Rachel’s head. Without waiting to see impact, she arose knocking her chair to the ground and ran from the kitchenette toward the front door. She could hear the chain clanging behind her as she made it just to the doorway, then felt an all too familiar pain in her ankle. Maryanne came crashing to the ground. She glanced behind her to see Rachel sitting on the floor with broken mug all around her. She could hear the oatmeal bubbling over into the flames on the oven range. She looked down at her ankle, at the chain wrapped tightly around it causing dark bruises. She’d been sitting at that kitchenette table for a week and a half. She hadn’t seen James in 3 days. Maryanne looked back at Rachel to make sure she was still there, she was, but there might not be time. Maryanne took a deep breath, and pulled her leg, the other end of the chain was attached to the table. She pulled her leg, and the table moved just a bit. She began to wiggle and pull, wiggle and pull.

“She turned me out Mom-ma” Maryanne froze, and quickly looked into the direction where Rachel had been sitting. Only now she was standing, with something in her hand. “Mother left because of you Mom-ma. I always knew. She told me. She told me Daddy had a whore on the side and that’s why we left. That Daddy had found someone else to love. She tried to turn me out Mom-ma. She thought that because I was young and cute that I’d make us some money. But the John she turned me out to was an undercover cop. So Mother went to an institution, I went into the system” Maryanne’s eyes widened in horror. Rachel began to move towards her.

“I ran away when I was 16 because I knew. I knew that we could be a family. A real family. Me, Mother and Daddy. But when I went to the hospital where Mother was the Doctors wouldn’t let me see her. They said she was a Paranoid Sociopath. She has 2 conflicting mental disorders, and she’s violent. But she would have been fine, Mom-ma. She would have been fine if it weren’t for you.” It was now that Maryanne noticed the smoke. The stove was still on!

Rachel was now standing right in front of Maryanne. The will to live was not as strong as it had been moments ago. She accepted that this poor, crazy homeless woman was going to kill her. And that would be it, that would be the end of this hell. Rachel was now so close to Maryanne’s face that she could have crushed Maryanne’s head with her shoe. Rachel knelt down to eye level with Maryanne, raising the object in her hand so that it was parallel to her cheek.

“Maryanne” Her eyes were wide, unblinking.

“Yes Rachel” Maryanne whispered with fear and exhaustion.

“I don’t think it fair. That you would lie to me” Maryanne furrowed her brow in confusion, before the grim reality struck her all at once.

“YOU KNEW? YOU KNEW HE WASN’T YOUR FATHER” Rachel’s lips spread into a sinister smile, as she nodded slowly.

“I figured it out. What I don’t understand is, you had all that time to tell me I was wrong. You could have told me right away that I’d made a mistake.”

She pulled the object in her hand in front of her face so Maryanne could see.

A butcher knife.

“Because you’re not the REAL Mom-ma, I’m going to let you go.” The fire alarm started to go off. The house was filling with smoke, the flames engulfed the kitchenette. Rachel rose to her feet and walked over to Maryanne’s foot that was tied up in chains.

Rachel raised the butcher knife over her head and screamed and she came down full force onto Maryanne’s ankle, only plunging it halfway through. She let go. Maryanne let out a painful whimper, it was all she had left within her, the feeling of the blade inside her was so intense. She looked up into Rachel’s eyes once more, now surrounded by smoke.

“You’ll have to do the rest yourself.”

    Rachel sat on Black Bridge road in Des Moines. She had walked almost 2 hours to get there, but now she could sit and watch the house on Maple street burn. It was quite a show. She could hear the fire engines, like the sweet serenade of victory. She’d find him someday. But today, she was happy to watch their world burn.

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