I saw Christ today.

Twice.

He caught the corner of my eye as I got out of my car at the grocery store. He was a cliché Jesus -- long brown hair and beard, a cloak-like wool coat, and socks with sandals. The sandals were not in the Christ style; cheap blue nylon glued to a black rubber base that screamed Wal-Mart clearance sale. He finished the ensemble off with blue running pants and a worn t-shirt that had some kind of race car on the front. He seemed to be having a problem with the dome light in his car. He kept getting out, shutting the door, seeing that the light was still on, opening the door, playing with the light...

I knew of course that this was not the Son of God, but as I headed towards the store I playfully bounced the idea around in my head, the same way I had entertained monsters and Santa Claus when I was a little girl. Maybe Christ was battling dome light issues in a grocery store parking lot. Maybe he still lived, and traveled in cheap cars to unlikely places to save sinners from themselves. Maybe he was here for me.

Maybe.

As the automatic doors swooshed open, Jesus and his dome light issues blew away from me in wisps of so much fine smoke, taking my consciousness with them. Often, when I'm done, I don’t even remember what happened. I'll recall sneaking a purse into my cart, but I won't remember going through the cashier's line. I'll be in the car on the way home, bags of groceries in the front seat next to me, and I'll have no memory of having paid for them, yet I know that somehow I must have.

That's the secret, really. Business as usual. Take a purse, get some crackers. Snatch a wallet, grumble about the price of milk. It's amazing how little attention a woman like me gets in a grocery store. Perhaps it's because the entire place is filled with women like me.

Well, women who look like me, anyway.

I hit my third stop light before I even checked the purse. Twenty-seven dollars in cash. Damn. No one carries cash anymore, and using credit cards is too risky. They'll find us if I start using credit cards.

I glanced at the clock. 4:37. Miranda needed me home by five. But my take for the day, after my shopping, was only fifty-two dollars, and Miranda would expect thirty of them. I prayed that Miranda would understand as I turned the car right into the Safeway parking lot.

I hated the Safeway. It reminded me of the one back in Modesto, where I used to go every Sunday afternoon. At parties, back when I used to go to parties, the lawyers at my firm used to tease me about the time I drove all the way home, realized they didn’t charge me for the laundry detergent, and drove all the way back only to get laughed at by the assistant manager. They thought it was funny, my fierce sense of honesty and honor. They were amused by my Herculean adherence to ethics.

If only they could see me now.

Getting the wallet was easy. He was one of those business men who was too obsessed with his own importance in the world to notice a small, plain housewife bumping into him in frozen foods aisle.

I apologized and opened the door by the frozen juices. I mumbled under my breath about no-pulp orange juice, grabbed two cans, and moved on to the next aisle. The next thing I remember is pulling up into the driveway of my home. The living room curtains swished angrily into place as I got out of the car. Miranda was livid.

"I have my own things to do, you know, Ms. Anderson." Miranda waddled over to the coat rack and snatched her large grey coat off of it. It looked like a horse blanket, and it smelled funny when it was wet.

"I know, Miranda, I'm sorry. I had an appointment."

I held out the thirty dollars for her. She swiped it out of my hand. "When I tell you I have to be somewhere at 5:15…"

"… then you have to be there at 5:15." I smiled at her, reminding myself how good she was with Abby, how Abby had only started to really talk since Miranda's forceful entrance into our lives. Miranda was tough on me, but she was good to Abby. And for that, I’d walk through fire.

I followed her to the door and held it open for her. "Again, Miranda, I'm sorry. I got held up. I apologize."

She beat me down with a suspicious glare. My heart exploded into a gallop, and my inner voice rambled, “She knows, she knows, she knows...” Abby toddled over to my side and tugged at my pantleg, holding up her arms. I picked her up and held her close, closing my eyes as I inhaled her sweet baby smell. When I opened them, Miranda had gone.

I set Abby down and kneeled before her. "Did you have fun with Miranda today?"

Abby shrugged. I guess fun was a bit much to ask. "Did she teach you anything new?"

Abby nodded. She grabbed my index finger in her grubby palm and led me into her small bedroom, pointing up at a mobile of tropically painted wooden fish which hung from her ceiling. I lifted her up and she grabbed one of the fish.

"Shishie." She gleamed with pride. "Shishie."

I smiled. "Yeah. Fishies."

She looked back at the mobile with wonder and pushed the fish, watching it and all its buddies swim around in circles. "Shishie."

Later, when Abby was in bed, I pulled open my laptop, one of the few things I brought with me when we ran, and hooked it into the phone outlet. As usual, there was nothing. I searched under Abby Martin, Abigail Martin, and my own name, Holly Beeme. Nothing.

They didn't want her back. They weren't even looking.

I shut down the computer, my heart swimming in relief and anger. They weren’t looking for her. It had been almost a year. How could they not even look? What if she had been taken by a serial killer? Why didn’t anyone care where she was?

Probably because it was obvious where she was. No one was looking for me, either.

Thoughts sprinted through my mind, thoughts of doctored identification, of fake credentials mirroring the real ones I couldn't use, of new names for both me and Abby, of erasing the past and being her real mom once and for all.

I shot up in bed.

The wallet.

I hadn't even thought to check it. I raced to the living room and pulled it out of my coat pocket. It was a long shot, but three hundred would do it. I could get fake credentials with three hundred. And then I could get a job and a life for us and if anyone came looking, we’d just run again.

My hands shook as I tried to open the wallet and it fell, the soft leather hitting the cheap linoleum with a muted smack. Before I could pick it up, the doorbell rang. I froze for a moment and tried to reason away the ice that shot over my skin whenever the doorbell rang unexpectedly. My imagination flew to Miranda, calling the police. “Something suspicious going on with that woman...”

I snuck up to the door and looked through the peephole.

Jesus.

I opened the door. He smelled of a mix of cologne and cigarette smoke, and he had a small scar beneath his left eye. Probably from a knife fight with one of the apostles.

He asked to use my phone. His car had broken down in front of my apartment. I looked out and saw it, a small blue toyota emitting a soft glow from inside.

"Damn wiring," he grunted as I let him in.

I stayed still by the door, listening as he told the tow company that they'd better well get here in twenty minutes because he wasn't going to be freezing his ass off out there all night. He slammed the phone down and growled out the door before I could offer him a cup of coffee or a place to wait.

From the window, I watched as he stomped out to his car and kicked the tires. Curses left his mouth in short, white puffs of hot, angry air smashing against the frigid night air. I smiled to myself and wondered. What are the chances of bumping into Jesus twice in one day?

I picked up the wallet and reached inside. I counted eight one-hundred dollar bills and four twenties. I gasped and counted again. I was wrong.

There were nine hundreds.

I looked out the window. Jesus was hunched over on the hood of his car, trying to light a cigarette and not having much luck. I thought of the businessman who was likely suffering the loss of nearly a thousand dollars as most people would suffer the loss of a nail file. I thought of the woman, who was probably mourning the loss of her twenty-seven dollars and her favorite purse.

I took one of the hundreds and stuffed them in the purse. Tomorrow I'd return it to the store and say I found it in the parking lot.

Tomorrow I would do a lot of things.

I was waiting at the customer service counter while two old ladies argued with the assistant manager about the rising cost of cigarettes when Jesus sidled up next to me. He had taken off the wig and traded the cloak for a cheezy, light blue three-piece suit, but I recognized the faint mix of cigarette smoke and cologne.

A numbness spread over my arms as I fought panic and turned to face him, hoping it was my imagination and that Jesus of the Dome Light was not someone dressing up in disguises to tail me. But I knew it was him. I knew I’d been caught. I turned around to face him. "Well, hello."

"I'm sorry?" He painted an innocent expression.

“How’s your car?” I said. He shook his head at me with a confused smile. Faker.

“You’ve been made, mister,” I said. He nodded and smiled big, showing off some state of the art fake bucked teeth.

The cigarette ladies moved on and I stepped forward and handed the purse to the assistant manager. "I found this in the parking lot yesterday." I glanced at Jesus. He smirked slightly.

The assistant manager gushed about my honesty and how so few people had any honor nowadays. Then she smiled at Jesus. "Can I help you?"

"No," I said. "He's with me."

He smiled. "I'm with her. But I would like to say that you're absolutely right about honor. We need more people with honor in the world. Wouldn't you agree, Holly?"

My heart skipped. It had been a long time since anyone had called me Holly. I tried to keep my voice from shaking. "Yes. I would."

I thanked the assistant manager and walked out of the store with Jesus on my heels. I sat down on a bench, its coldness seeping into the bones of my legs. Jesus situated himself next to me, putting one foot up on the other knee to show off his special edition Scooby Doo socks.

"Have you taken Abby yet?" I stared out at the frozen parking lot. "Or is there time for me to change your mind?"

He spit the buck teeth out into his hand. "This isn’t about Abby."

"Then what is it about?" The petty thievery. The kidnapping. Pick a crime, any crime.

“Guess.”

“This isn’t a game, you son of a bitch,” I spat. “This is my life.”

“Point taken, but before you continue to impugn my mother’s honor, which is unimpeachable by the way, I think you should calm down and listen to me." I sighed, trying to rid my mind of the picture of Abby sitting in a police station, playing Go Fish with an officer and wondering where Mommy was.

"My name is Max." He held out his hand. I ignored it. He dropped it. "Max Treetman. I’m a private investigator, kinda like Magnum, P.I. only with much less glamour and very little cash. I come from a small town in Ohio that you've never heard of, and really, why should you care? Although you may want to look up my mom and apologize to her, but we'll get to that later."

He smiled. I didn't.

"I was hired by Sam Brittley to find you."

“Sam? Jesus.” I slammed my back against the bench, trying to knock my heart back into a regular rhythm. "That little shit."

“He’ll be pleased to hear about that reaction.”

I snapped my head to the side and hissed through my teeth. "Tell Sam that I'm not coming back, and if you tell a soul where I am-"

"Tell him yourself. He's sitting in the red Durango over there."

He pointed to a bright red SUV which sat humming patiently about five spots away. I held my hand over my eyes to block out the sun and squinted. A man was sitting in the front seat, wearing an Oakland A’s baseball cap. Sam.

"Oh, man," I groaned.

"I know," Max sighed. "I didn't think the red car was a good idea, too conspicuous, but Sam wanted an SUV and that was all they had and you know how he is when he gets his mind set on something.” He turned his eyes to me on the last beat, making a point about what Sam really had his mind set on. I stood up. "Tell him to leave me alone.”

I got up and started to walk away, but Max grabbed my arm.

"Hands off, Magnum…"

"Hey, look, lady, whatever is between you and Brittley is between you and Brittley, but I don’t get paid until he talks to you and I haven’t been freezing my ass off tailing you to not get paid." He looked angry. And he’d been tailing me. For a month. He held all the cards, and by the look on his face, I could tell he knew it.

I gently pulled my arm from his grip, but didn’t make a move to go. He sighed and squinted towards the parking lot as he spoke. "Look, the fact is that I found you once, and I can find you twice, and I will, because I'm just that good. All I want is for you to talk to the guy. Hell, you owe me. You snatched my wallet last week at the Chevron on 5th.”

I stared at him. “Oh, please.”

“No, I’m serous. You owe me $32.89 and a cheap nylon wallet with a picture of a bald eagle on the side.” My eyes shut tight. I remembered the wallet. I felt the nausea rise, and looked down at my feet. He put his hand on my arm and leaned over to speak softly to me. “It’s okay. You were just doing what you had to do.”

I looked up at him. “What do you know about what I had to do?”

He kept his eyes on mine. “Everything. But it’s okay. I don’t care, and I’m not going to tell anyone I found you. I just want you to talk to the guy, so he can pay me, and I can move on to warmer climes.”

I looked towards the Durango, and the man in it who was watching us. “I guess I don’t have much of a choice.”

“You always have a choice,” Max said after a minute. “We’ll come by tonight at seven, okay?”

I nodded. I can’t remember getting in my car and driving home. But I did.

The doorbell rang at 7:06.

"Abby, honey," I said as I squatted down next to her. "Go to my bedroom and put a movie in and Mommy will be there in a little bit, okay?"

She nodded. I gave her a kiss and waited until I heard my bedroom door shut before I started working the deadbolt.

The first thing I saw was the dozen roses in Sam’s hand. He was wearing jeans and a denim shirt and the Oakland A’s cap I’d bought him a couple years back. The casual look was hard on him; I used to tease him that I was sure he’d been born in a three-piece suit.

That first tense moment of silence ended in a self-conscious bear hug. "I'm so glad you're okay." Sam pulled back and gently touched my face. Every move seemed planned for dramatic effect. I wondered why I had never noticed Sam's deliberateness before.

"I've missed you," he said softly. Max coughed conspicuously and stepped into the house, closing the door behind him.

"Little chilly tonight." He rubbed his arms to warm up. The blue suit was gone, replaced by the classic Northwest look of flannel, jeans and work boots. It suited him. Whether it was the real Max or one of his personas, I didn’t care. I just wanted them all to go away.

I pulled myself away from Sam. "I'll make some coffee."

Max grinned. "Sounds great."

"So… uh, Max, is it?" I asked.

"Call me Magnum."

"Fine. Magnum. Why are you here? Making sure Sam doesn't duck out of town without paying you first?"

"I asked him to come," Sam said. "I thought it might make you more comfortable, having both of us here. Max said you guys really hit it off."

“Oh, really?” I shot a look at Max, then turned back to Sam. "If you were concerned about my comfort, you should have never hired him in the first place."

Sam's jaw muscles tightened. I forced a smile, remembering Max’s words. You know how he is when he gets his mind set on something. I knew exactly what I had to do, exactly how to play Sam to get him to go away, but I was so tired of playing people it hurt to even think about it.

"I'll go make that coffee." I turned toward the kitchen, which was little more than a breakfast bar attached to the dining area. Sam hit me gently in the arm with the roses.

"You might want to find some water for these."

I nodded and took them.

"I don't love you, Sam." I sighed and stared at my hands, as worn and cracked as the old linoleum table upon which they rested. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Max sitting in the dimness of the living room, trying to blend in with the couch.

Sam breathed in deep, preparing his next statement, much the way he did before he closed in court. I knew he planned on arguing for my affection, and I was too tired to hear it.

"Sam, I'm sorry, but I don't love you. I never did. In my defense, I never said I did. You've created this whole thing between you and me."

"So I imagined it all? There was nothing, then?"

"No, not nothing. Just not everything. You need to let it go."

His jaw muscles tightened as he bit back the words he travelled four thousand miles to say. Finally, after a strained silence, he spoke again. "I can help you. I can get you out of this. I can get your life back for you."

"Can you guarantee that I'll get Abby?"

He pulled off the A's cap and ran his hands through his hair. "Holly, you know I can't do that."

"Then you can't help me."

He slammed his fist on the table. "Dammit, Holly. You're throwing your life away. Forget me. Forget what we -- what I imagined -- we had. Think of yourself."

"That's what I'm doing."

"Holly – " He stopped. The lawyer’s rule. If you know you’re losing, shut up and pray for a miracle. I put my hand on his. "I'm sorry that you spent money hiring an investigator to find me. I'm sorry that you flew all the way up here. But I didn’t ask you to be my hero. I don't need a hero. I just need to be left alone."

Sam gave a short nod and pushed back his chair, scraping the lineoleum with a screech of finality as he stood up. He grabbed his coat, put one arm in, then stopped and looked at me.

"I won't tell them I found you. Is that heroic enough for you?"

"I think the question is, is it heroic enough for you?" I forced my eyes up to meet his, to give him the closure he’d come all this way to get. We locked on each other for a moment, then he opened the door and left.

I sat at the table and stared at my hands, feeling the numbness wash over me as my mind curled up in a fetal position. I had forgotten Max was still there until he took Sam's spot at the table across from me. He drummed his fingers on the table. "So, I guess you'll be packing now?"

There was a faraway sound of tires screeching as Sam made his final statement from the driveway. I looked up at Max. "Wasn't that your ride?"

"No. I predicted we’d need separate cars."

I took a sip of my coffee, too worn and confused to throw Max out.

He drummed his fingers again. "You sure don't let people get too close, do you?"

"Isn't your job done here, Max?"

"I don’t know. Is it?"

I threw my hands up in the air and leaned back against the chair. “Oh, for crying out loud...”

“What?”

"I don’t need a hero and I don’t need a saviour. Will you guys ever get over yourselves? I can take care of myself."

He held up his hands in mock surrender. "I never doubted that for a second. What I question is why you choose to go it alone when there are people out there who want to help you. And who can."

"Sam can't help me."

"I wasn't talking about Sam."

I looked up to find his eyes locked on me. "Oh, I see, you think you can help me?"

"Yes, I think I can."

I laughed. "You've known me for what, twenty-four hours, and you suddenly want to save me? I think your time would be better spent seeing a therapist."

"I've been on this case for four months. Studying you. Learning your background. Getting to know you."

My stomach turned. "So?"

He leaned forward and looked me squarely in the eye. "I read the background on Abby. I wouldn’t have let them give her back to the mother, either." I put my head in my hands. I wasn’t ready to talk about this.

"Look, Abby is none of your business, and now that Sam's gone, neither am I. To tell you the truth, you're freaking me out and I wish you would leave us alone."

"Well, okay, then." He dropped his hands down on the table and pushed himself up. He grabbed his coat and placed his hand on the door handle for a split second before pulling it away and turning back to me.

"I don't know why I want to help you. But I do. God help me." He sighed. "I know what happened to Abby. I know what her mom did. I know about the days she spent in closets, and I know about the boyfriend who – ”

I held up my hand. “Stop it. I can’t... I can’t talk about that.”

Max nodded, and slowly sat down at the table. “I think you did the right thing. I’m not going to turn you in. But if Sam hires someone else to come get you – and he will – that person probably won’t be as understanding as I am."

We sat in silence. His eyes were a deep shade of blue, and they were wide, and round, and begging for my trust. And for some reason which I couldn't explain, they won it.

"How exactly do you think you might help me, Magnum?"

He smacked his lips with a small pop. "I have no earthly idea."

I let out an exasperated chuckle. "Good night."

"But if you'll promise not to leave tomorrow, I'll promise to come up with something."

"Oh, you will?"

"Oh, I will." He stood up and held out his hand. "Do we have a deal?"

"Will you leave if I say we do?"

"I'll leave when you tell me to. We both know that." He pushed his hand forward and waggled his fingers at me playfully. "C'mon. Be a man. Shake on it."

I stood up and shook his hand.

"You realize," I said as his hand touched the doorknob, "that I'm a petty thief. My word means nothing."

He turned and eyed me for a minute, then smiled. "If your word means nothing, then I'm a bigger fool than you think. And, honey, my mama didn't raise no fools."

"So, I guess I owe the woman an apology."

"I guess you do."

A moment and he was gone. Fifteen seconds later, I collapsed in bed next to Abby and dreamed of train stations and lost baggage.

I had our bags packed by six the next morning, and left a message on Miranda’s machine that I was sick and she had the day off. I don’t know why I started to cry when I heard her recorded voice. She had been good to Abby, but leaving Miranda was the least of my concerns.

At the airport, I bought two tickets to Tulsa, Oklahoma. It would be nice to go somewhere warmer, and I'd never been to Oklahoma. The possibilities were open, though. I had some money left over from the tickets. Maybe I’d have enough to buy the credentials I needed. Maybe I could get a real job, and Abby could go to school, and we could live together and no one but me would ever know. And maybe I could forget.

Maybe.

I walked Abby over to an empty row of seats. She crawled up and planted herself, her legs dangling over the edge. Her eyes stared straight ahead in the blank weariness of a child whose sleep has been interrupted. Her face was flawless, her cheeks with a subtle blush and her lips perfectly red and not entirely closed. She had no questions about where we were going, nor did she ever have any about where we'd been. She had only the toys we could fit in the little pink backpack I'd gotten her on her second birthday. She had only the clothes we could put in the Blue's Clues suitcase I'd bought after lifting a wallet in Wal-Mart.

I didn’t even realize I was crying at first, until a tear splashed down on my hand. Once I started, though, it was like a dam breaking. My chest constricted as my heart broke, the sobs shaking my body in violent waves. Abby's grip on my hand tightened, and I tried to speak, to comfort her, but I had no comfort in me. A woman standing nearby handed me a package of travel tissues. I waved a thank you at her, and she moved away.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. I didn't look up, fearing it was Magnum. Hoping it was Magnum.

"Ma'am?"

I tilted my head up. The kid from the espresso cart was holding out a cup of coffee. He was sixteen if he was a day, all elbows and knees and freckles and acne.

"This is on the house. Okay?"

I took the coffee and tried to smile. "Thanks."

He nodded and walked away.

Over the P.A. system, they announced that our flight was boarding. I tapped Abby on the shoulder and she hopped off the seat. I took her hand and we walked to the gate in silence.

copyright 2005 Lani Diane Rich. No part of this may be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written permission of the author.

Posted by Lani at 7:59 AM | Comments (2)

Comments

Posted by: ZaZa at February 9, 2005 11:14 PM

Posted by: Cece at February 10, 2005 5:28 PM