Daniel could just never stay away. Always popping up and his family asking the same questions. Expecting the answers to change. Now here I am once again answering questions about a man I haven’t seen in over twenty years. That can of Coke looked so tempting on the table. The condensation of the can started to leave a small puddle around the base.
“If you’re thirsty, you can have a drink,” Agent Davidson said, interrupting my answer.
“No, I’m fine. I’d much rather finish this up and head home,” I said as meekly as I could.
“You just keep looking at the can while we’ve been talking, just figured I would let you know again we are happy to accommodate you while we sort this out,” he said, ruffling through the pages in the folder.
“I’m fine. It’s just I don’t understand why you’re bringing Daniel back up. You haven’t found him, haven’t given me any new information. I was cleared as a suspect years ago. I’m just a bit confused as to what is going on,” I said, starting to get a bit edgy.
“I’m just here to get the whole picture. You’ve had a lot of unfortunate events in your life over the years, as I have noticed in your file. A lot of insurance money has been paid out. Trust funds set up, a few interesting health inspection violations. Yet since I got off that plane and checked into my hotel room, everyone has recommended going to your bakery. Honestly, I’ve passed by, but I haven’t gone in to try anything yet,” Davidson finished with a focused look on his face.
I felt as if he was trying to read my thoughts and see if what came out of my mouth differed.
“Why haven’t you? This week’s special is my famous peach cobbler. It’s almost to die for,” I said, feeling like a trapped animal, knowing those were the wrong set of words to mix together in this setting. However, if he wanted to play, I would play. All my alibis are rock solid and have been looked over with a microscope a hundred times.
He was just another punk in a suit trying to make a name for himself off my blood, sweat, and tears. Your husband dies, and you make a way to salvage the family and home. Now you’re suspect number one, America’s most wanted. Yet when the bills were piled up and I was alone with hungry kids, there was no one offering to help. My husband has both his parents, brothers, and sisters. Their grandson/nephew has barely received a card in years, all because I took the money that was meant for me.
This agent is different from the rest. I could tell by his demeanor. He seemed like a city boy. This country life was overwhelming him. I could tell just by the way he kept having to wipe his nose. Those sinuses will damn near break down when they get a taste of this real pollen out here. Now I just need to figure out what’s his angle.
“I’ve seen in your file you won the town’s bake-off twelve times. That’s impressive, congratulations,” the agent said with a snarky yet facetious tone.
“Would have been 13 if the mill didn’t close down that year,” I said defensively, still a little bitter I let Rebecca Hylandier steal my first place with cinnamon rolls.
Was he trying to gauge my reactions and responses like a human lie detector? Whatever his motive was, there was nothing to find, no matter how deep he dug.
This folder in front of me, though, still made me feel uneasy.
It seemed to be custom-made by him. The inside seemed to be color-coded by section. I got a glance at the page behind Daniel’s picture. He took very detailed notes. The printed page had bullet points and even a custom border. With mere seconds, there was no way to decipher what it actually was. It seemed to be small black praying mantises.
****** *******. ********. ******
Flashback
Daniel pulled into the driveway and stumbled out of the car. He looked at his watch and it read a little half past ten. In his state, thinking about the exact time was too much, knowing it was almost eleven was good enough. Standing up straight and trying to fix himself, he attempted to make it to the front door.
After the third attempt of picking his keys off the floor and trying them at the lock, there was success finally and into the house he stumbled further in, making his way to the bedroom. Daniel bumped into every wall, even knocking a few pictures over. The sound of breaking glass is what actually woke me up. Yet I dare not move while he was in this state.
The smell of liquor and sweat now filled our bed. The peaceful silence and comfort that filled our home was now filled with Daniel’s snoring and farting in his sleep. The smell of some other woman’s perfume and his sweat made me nauseous. I slowly slipped out of bed in order to stabilize my already on-the-fritz senses.
I walked in the dark along the wall, trying to avoid the broken glass. Thankfully the moon was bright enough that night to illuminate the hallways just enough. I would take care of that in the morning. Making it to the baby’s room I was still constructing by myself. The runt started kicking, causing me to halt, grabbing his baby crib and trying to calm him down.
The baby crib was given to us from his parents. It had been in their shed for years. I had to thoroughly clean it and sand it back down. My favorite part was applying the wipe-on polyurethane, and seeing that wood grain glistening will never get old to me. With a quick trip to the paint store, I found this baby blue that would offset the royal blue of his room.
We made it to my rocking chair, and I didn’t know whether to massage my swollen feet or rub my stomach. Knowing in my state I could not do both made me even more exhausted, which quickly turned into anger since I was sound asleep ten minutes prior. Now to top it off, I’m getting hungry but just don’t have the will to get up.
“Well, make it through this, Johnny,” I said, rubbing my stomach to reassure him as well as myself.
With a groan, I pushed myself out of the rocking chair and headed towards the kitchen, once again trying to avoid the broken glass on the floor.
***** ******** ******** **********
“We’ll, I’m really not trying to keep you here longer than we need. Do you mind if we continue? I do have a habit of getting off-topic,” Agent Davidson said, pulling the folder to himself and opening it up.
He also took the picture of Daniel off the table and slid it back into its page in the folder. The agent meticulously combed the folder. He would look up at me every now and again, as if gauging to see what the next question would be. His fingers landed in the middle of the folder at a pink index tab, and my stomach began to turn for some reason.
Placing the folder down on the table in plain view of both of us, he pulled the picture out of the plastic sleeve he custom-made it for, which creeped me out even more. I stayed focused, though, and peeked as best I could at the notes on the other page.
It was the same thing as the first page I saw. Typed up with bullet points and a border. This just seemed to be some general facts, but at the bottom, he had some starred notes. I could not read what they said, though, since he closed the folder rather quickly once he noticed I was trying to snoop.
Clearing his throat, Davidson slid the paper over to me and asked if I knew the person in the photo. Tears began to well up in my eyes. I could barely control myself.
“Do you know where she is, or what happened to her?” I asked, almost sobbing. “Leslie said she was going back home to see her mom, and I never saw her again.”
“No, unfortunately I don’t have any new information on her, and I know it’s hard right now after all this time. I would still like to ask you a few questions,” Davidson said calmly, almost sympathetically.
“Yes, sure, anything,” I said, wiping my face with my sleeves.
“What happened the day before she left? Did she say anything out of the ordinary or anything about her demeanor that maybe you didn’t remember or thought was not important back then?” he asked, leaning in as if I was about to tell him a secret.
***** ****** ******** ***********
Flashback
Leslie carried a laundry basket through the house and into the master bedroom. She dropped it on the floor and collapsed on the bed. She sniffed the pillow and buried her face in it.
“What are you doing, you weirdo?” I said, laughing as I entered the room, noticing the odd behavior.
“Just trying to capture your smell in my head while I’m away,” Leslie said, taking a bigger whiff and laughing.
“What am I going to do with you?” I said, jumping into the bed next to her.
“I’ve got a few things in mind.” Leslie said, jumping on top of me and kissing me as we giggled in the bed.
She was like the sister I never had. A best friend I never knew I needed. Leslie was my world, and the kids loved her. Over the past few months, though, she has been rebuilding the relationship with her mother. After years of no contact, Leslie was ready to reconnect, and her mom was more willing to try than her dad. The thought of having a lesbian daughter, I guess, still didn’t sit right.
However, after all of that, Leslie was ready to go back home, and I wanted to support her. Family was the most important thing after all. Although running the shop and managing the kids by myself for a week seemed daunting, I couldn’t allow myself not to support her just as much as she had me over the past year.
Looking at her now, I can still see that glimmer in her eyes that I saw the first time we met. Leslie came into the shop on a Monday and bought some croissants. By that Friday, when she came back in, she barely had enough change for a donut. I could tell she hadn’t showered in a few days. There wasn’t so much an odor coming off her as it was just the disheveled look to her.
After seeing this girl every day this week, sometimes even twice, I knew she was not from around here. Driving home one night, I saw her sleeping at the bus station. I had enough mouths to feed at home; I didn’t need another one, so my drive home continued without delay. The thought of a young girl out there, though, didn’t sit well with me as I tried to sleep that night.
The next day, though, she didn’t come in. I figured she must have finally gotten on the bus. I closed up the shop and began heading home. There she was again, just sitting on the bench. Staring into space like a zombie, she looked dirtier than she did prior. The light turned red, and I was stuck at the light.
Just don’t look over there, go home, and start dinner. You have enough going on. I tried chanting to myself a few times in the car. It seemed like the light would never turn green. There was hardly anybody on the road. With the anxiety building up inside me, I almost wanted to run it. Just to get away from looking to my left.
Then I did it, and as if fate weaved it into the tapestry of life, Leslie looked right at me, and our eyes connected.
“I didn’t see you at the shop today!” I said, winding my window down.
“I ran out of money. I’m trying to save up to get to Los Angeles,” Leslie shouted across the street.
There was something in her smile when she said Los Angeles that just warmed my heart. I remembered when I was young and full of dreams, before reality actually set in and the kids came.
“Where are you staying?” I shouted back, kind of already knowing the answer.
“Right here for now until I find a ride going that way or earn the money.”
“Hop in, you can stay with me tonight. You look like you could use a shower and a meal. These streets aren’t safe for a girl your age,” I said, and the light turned green finally. “You better choose quick; I’ve got kids to feed.”
Leslie hopped in the car, told me about running away, missing her bus, and not being able to afford another ticket. The creeps that tried to pick her up over the past few days. Most of them I knew and was happy she didn’t take their help. I could have given her the money to get the ticket the next morning.
Instead, after seeing how my kids enjoyed having her and how she helped that night after dinner, even got Rosie and Tommy to bed with no issues, I offered her a job the next morning to earn money for her bus ticket and money when she got there. I also told her we could arrange room and board here for an extra fee or help with the kids.
She accepted the latter. I gave her five dollars that morning as an advance, told her when the bus picked the kids up and where the town bus stop was in the neighborhood. Asked her to be at work at 8, and Leslie never disappointed me.
******** ********** *********** ********
I could hardly control the tears as I answered each of his questions. Each one pierced my heart like a dagger as I remembered all the precious times we had together before she started to act like the others.
“I have one final question on Ms. Manifest. There was something different about your pies that year at the fair. Did she help you with it, or do you remember what made that pie so much different from the rest? From questioning, it seems that it’s one of the more memorable years of what seems to be an iron hold on the bake-off,” he asked nonchalantly. “I quote from the festival president at the time: ‘One of the sweetest meat pies I’ve ever tasted.’”
“No, Leslie had already left by the time the festival came around, if I’m not mistaken,” I said.
“I see,” he said, just staring at me.
***** ******* ****** ****** *******
“How about we take a break?” Davidson said, pulling the picture off the table, placing it back into its sleeve, and closing the folder.
“No, let’s continue so I can go. What else do you want to know? You still haven’t told me what this is about. You are bringing up people I haven’t seen in years, give me no new information about them, but yet here you are holding me against my will,” I said, starting to become irritated.
Agent Davidson cleared his throat. As if not even hearing me, he opened the folder again and thumbed through it once again. There were ten tabs I noticed now, which meant one thing, and my stomach really started to tighten up. Pulling myself together, I awaited his next question.
His fingers seemed to defy time as he flipped through the folder. It seemed like an eternity for him to turn the page. Yet I looked intensely at anything I could see on each page, trying to gather as much information as I could with every second. It was so quiet in the room I could hear every tick of the clock. My heart sounded louder though, and I prayed it was only me that could hear it.
Finally, he slid back to almost the start. I almost sighed out loud because I knew what was coming this time. Stopping at a lavender-looking tab, Agent Davidson pulled out another photo from the sleeve and slid it gently across the table.
“Well, let’s just kill two birds with one stone, shall we? I had a friend from Immigration contact me and ask me to look into this man. He was already on my list, coincidentally,” Agent Davidson said while fixing his tie.
“Wow, I haven’t seen or heard from Carlos in well over ten years. He went to California to work in the vineyards. He promised to send some money but never did. I just figured he started a family and forgot about us,” I said calmly.
“Was that before or after you planted your famous peach tree?” Agent Davidson asked.
“We planted it together. Carlos is the main reason my garden looks as good as it does. I’ve kept up and maintained it the best I can, but I could never have the passion he had for it,” I said, starting to glaze a bit.
I placed my hand on the Coke on the table. It was warm now. I couldn’t drink it, though, no matter how parched I was. To take anything from them put you right in the palm of their hands. I’ve never taken anything, and I won’t start now. They’ve grilled me harder than this before.
******* ********* ********* *********
Flashback
It was not long after I opened my bakery. I remember that summer we had a heat wave. Nobody in town wanted to do a thing. Back then, it was just me and Johnny. Things were much simpler. We were struggling but happy. One Sunday, I heard a knock at the door. There was Carlos with his horse and buggy filled with lawn tools.
The tomatoes growing in my garden at the time looked like cherry tomatoes. They didn’t taste like them, though. I never had much of a green thumb but was giving it my best. I even found some old bins to use as compost barrels. My vision was definitely there but lacked the skill or labor time.
He was like a breath of fresh air, a sip of lemonade on a hot summer day. Carlos finished my lawn, backyard, and tended to my plants all before ten. He might have finished earlier if Johnny was not trying to help him out, questioning him about everything.
Every time I shooed him off and turned my back, Johnny was right back under him. Carlos would just laugh and continue showing him whatever he was curious about. Every Sunday, like clockwork, Carlos pulled up with that horse and buggy. Johnny would wait on the steps just to run up to them and ride to the house.
Over the next few months, it went from having lunch ready by the time he was done to inviting him over for dinner to Carlos staying the night. His passion for plants transitioned to the bedroom. He took care of my needs just like he tended to the roses, not missing any nook or cranny with his tongue or hand.
I gave him all the supplies he needed, and my garden was started. Now Johnny wanted to be a farmer, so he got a plot in the backyard. Carlos wanted a waterfall into a pond that would intertwine with the irrigation system he was setting up.
He dug up all the yard himself, designing the plans and adapting as he went. Johnny was stuck to him like glue. I remember fighting with him in the morning to not go in the garden before school. He would get so dirty while trying to have the plants looking good for Carlos to see.
Once he finished the pond, he bought koi fish and small catfish to put inside. The next week, Carlos bought a box of chicks. He and Johnny built a chicken coop not far from the compost site. It was the first time Johnny held any actual tools. Between the building and rounding up the chickens, feeding the fish and horse, he went to bed that night all by himself.
A few months later, after we finished the greenhouse, me, him, and Tommy planted the peach tree. I was almost about to have Nina by then. It was not much long after that, he started calling about the vineyards. I didn’t understand why. I offered him everything he wanted or could need. We had even started growing grapes in the greenhouse and around it.
Before Nina was even born, Carlos received the call he wanted. His friends had an opening and wanted him to come visit. He became cold and distant. The weeks following up, he became late on Sundays. Johnny sat outside waiting, and I didn’t like that.
******** ************ ***********
“That was the first year you won the bake-off with your meat pie, was it not?” Agent Davidson said, putting the picture back in his sleeve.
“Yes, actually it was. I do have chickens in my backyard,” I said, getting defensive now.
There was a long silence in the room. I couldn’t tell my heartbeat from the clock on the wall. Agent Davidson now began to skim through the folder again. I tried to look at the pages better. It was just so hard to focus over the beating.
Tik-thump, toc-thump, tik-thump, toc-thump
Tik-thump, toc-thump, tik-thump, toc-thump
Tik-thump, toc-thump, tik-thump, toc-thump
Finally, he stopped at the baby blue tab in the folder, and for once, I didn’t know what to expect. Mentally, this was draining and emotionally exhausting. His collected and composed attitude started to give me the chills. This agent was still as much a mystery to me now as he was when he first walked in.
Now with the picture in front of me, I knew his game. I understood what the colors on the tabs indicated. They were my children’s birthstone colors, to some extent. I would assume each one indicated their father. It felt as if all the air was slowly being sucked out of the room.
Agent Davidson was a psychopath in a suit, most likely grew up torturing trapped animals or his pets. Over time, it just transitioned to people. I was just one of the latest trapped animals he got to play with.
“From my interviews, it seems like the two of you had a very strained relationship. You, however, got another hefty insurance payout after his untimely demise.”
“Is there a question there, or are you just being unsympathetic to a widow for pure spite?”
“My apologies. Could you tell me where you were when he overdosed?” Agent Davidson said firmly.
“Home with my kids. I never played with that stuff, and if I knew Harvey did, I would never have let him close to my family.”
“The insurance money got you ten additional acres on your property, and you expanded the business.”
“I was his wife. That money was mine to do with what I pleased. Everyone in town is welcome and comes to my garden. It feeds the church, the schools, and anybody who’s hungry in this town. I had already taken out a loan from the bank for my expansion before Harvey’s accident. Everything I’ve gotten has been given back to the community.”
“I see, and I have heard. Just wanted to hear these things from the horse’s mouth.”
******* ********** *********. *********
Flashback
Harvey Solferd was a name I hoped to never hear again once the funeral was over. He was the first and only husband I had to bury. That black dress is still in my closet. I’m sure in the darkest corner, still covered in plastic and pristine. Nina was old enough to understand, Daddy was not coming home.
It was pretty quiet in the house for a while. Even I missed the comic relief he offered. All the drinking and job losses aside, Harvey never cheated and treated my kids as his own. You would never have known we were arch-enemies a few years prior.
The Black Widow of Colorado was the title Harvey gave me. I couldn’t enter a bar after Jacob left without hearing it. It spread like wildfire across the town. After Gerald skipped town, even I started to believe it. I barely left the house, as customers were few and far between. Depression had finally gripped its hands into me and was not letting go.
I remember the first night I actually punched him in the face. After being at the bar at night, alone and grumpy, Harvey decided to follow me to the car. Asking his usual dumb questions as if he were Sherlock Holmes, going to solve the mass disappearances of all the men to unfortunately lay in my bed.
Before I knew it, my fist was connecting to his multiple times. I slapped and clawed at him. My cries and lashing out had a meaning behind each. Everything that had built up over the years, he received that night. For every time one of my kids came home from school crying. Each blow was a person that walked past me and whispered to their friend, avoiding me like a leper. Harvey took every blow and bite, every curse word I could muster out of my mouth.
When Harvey wrapped me up in a bear hug, my fury didn’t stop, though. As much effort was put into my kicks and bites. He must have finally had enough. Harvey shook me so hard, I felt my brain move.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Harvey repeated, pulling me closer and closer.
It was as if all the weight on my shoulders was lifted off. The tears that streamed now were not filled with rage. I couldn’t explain the feeling, but some would call it closure. After years of being terrorized by this town, the mastermind had finally gotten his. Harvey was bloody, and my makeup was smeared. We looked like a mess and collapsed on the floor. He even took the brunt of the impact.
From that night on, whenever I went out and was heckled, Harvey spoke up. No matter where in town or what event, he shut down all the gossip and jeers, like my own personal bodyguard now. That night between us changed everything.
It became almost weird to not see him at my shop. If I knew attacking Harvey would have put an end to it all, that beatdown would have come years ago. Now business at the shop was back to normal. Harvey brought me the special beers and custom ones from the brewery, which I infused into pastries and cakes for holidays and customers.
I knew Harvey for years in town. The thought of him being a drug addict never crossed my mind. Yes, a drunk, but during those days, who wasn’t? When the sheriff came to my door that night, it was as if he switched to speaking pig Latin mid-sentence.
It was not long during planning his funeral. The peace I once held faded away. That old fire of revenge started to smolder, preparing to rise out of the ashes like a phoenix. Harvey was like the rest, just with a different mask.
