The Easy Way Out

21

Ashley leaned against the kitchen counter, watching her mother slicing a plump, summer tomato. "Wasn't you scared?"

"There wasn't time for it." Faye sipped the tomato juice from her polished fingertips. "Momma was shaking me out of my sleep. And out in the hall, there was a ruckus, hollering and shouting, and oh, my goodness, the most horrible noises like the whole building was coming down around us. I was so scared."  

On two plates, she arranged tomato slices on white bread slathered in mayonnaise and salted them liberally.

"And I smelled smoke rolling into the room. Momma went to the door but she was wise not to open it. She said the fire was already out there in the hotel hallway wanting to get in."

Faye carried the plates to the kitchen table and pulled out her chair. Ashley sat across from her mother, listening and watching with questioning eyes.

"It was getting so thick in there so that I could barely see Momma standing but a few feet away. The smoke was choking the life out of us. I remember terrible coughing, just terrible and I couldn't catch a lick of breath."

"And so your momma pushed you out the window?" Her voice rose an octave.

Faye cleared her throat, the vivid memories still bitter and sharp. She forced a nervous smile that failed to find its place. "I was seven years old." She unclasped her hands and dropped them into her lap.

Ashley's eyes widened. "And she shoved you out the window? Four stories up?"

"I got about halfway out that window shaking like a leaf. I could feel the cold night air on my legs and I got scared. I grabbed onto her arm for dear life."

"Then she pushed you?" Tomato juice dribbled from the sandwich clenched in her little hands and ran down her arms.

"She had no choice. We was both gonna burn."

"But she was your momma. How could she do a thing like that?"

"Courage." Ashley could feel the tension, Faye pushing back against the terror, suppressing the anguish, a perceptible tremor in her quiet voice. "She knew what she had to do and she found the courage to do it. If she hadn't, neither one of us would be sitting at this table right this very minute."

Ashley thought about that while taking a small bite of her sandwich.

Faye dabbed the mayonnaise from the corner of her mouth. "When a terrible misfortune strikes, when you know your very life is at stake, you find a part of yourself deep down inside that will do things that.... Well, things that you felt certain that you'd never ever do."

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Furiously, Rachel flung an overnight bag onto the bed. She stomped to the dresser, and grabbed a stack of folded tops muttering, "That nosey bitch." As she stuffed clothes into her bag, Rachel ran exit strategies through her mind. There were no good options. Mrs. Caputo was calling the shots.

"Robbery. Rape. Even murder," she thought. "Mostly one-time crimes. But blackmail, that's never over. It just goes on and on and on and on. Fuck."

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Glancing occasionally at the local news blaring from the little TV mounted above the counter, Mrs. Caputo sat alone in her kitchen eating dinner at a folding card table. The chances were so remote that she'd be serving guests at mealtime that she never bothered to invest in a proper wooden kitchen table. She worked her knife through an overcooked pork chop so vigorously that she shook the drinking glass and silverware on the table.

Behind the landlady, Rachel peeked out of the adjoining office. She crept stealthily into the kitchen. With trembling gloved hands she raised a poly 5-gallon bag and waited a moment for Mrs. Caputo to withdraw the fork from her mouth. Rachel yanked the bag down tightly over the woman's head, sealing her gaping mouth.