I’m your mother, you will call me mother. And another burn would follow.
Mother, please don’t hurt me.
And Desiree would burn her again and cackle, Your mother doesn’t love you, Becky. She has never loved you because you don’t deserve it, not like other children who are good and pure, which you are not. You are wicked and nasty and not to be trusted.
Cain jumped up and rushed into the bathroom, where she upchucked her burger, fries, and milkshake meal into the toilet. She washed off in the sink and stumbled back into the bedroom and collapsed on the bed.
She lay there, breathing deeply until she fell asleep. In the swirls of a misty dream she saw a face with features that resembled so remarkably her own that it was like staring into a mirror. The gap in the front teeth, but dirty jeans instead of a dress, a resolute chin, a fierce look, a small hand clenched into a stubborn fist. A name kept calling out to her, but it was a muted voice in the midst of a hurricane. She just could not make it out. However, it gave her calm, a certain, necessary strength; it always had.
Cain awoke and the image vanished. She sat up and cursed. Why did it disappear as soon as she opened her eyes?
She looked outside and was surprised to see that it was pitch-dark. She’d been asleep longer than she had thought. Cain took the elevator down to the hotel bar. She sat at the end away from the live band and moodily drank her beer. The bartender was black and in her early forties with pink and purple hair, an athletic build, stylish forearm tats, an efficient manner, and a twinkle in her eye.
“You look like you need that beer, girl.”
“This one and a dozen more.”
“Hope you’re staying here then.”
“I am.”
“You in town on business?” the woman asked.
“No, just passing through from somewhere else.”
“Ain’t we all.”
She moved on when another thirsty customer held up a hand.
The TV mounted on the wall was on a news channel, and Cain choked on a mouthful of beer and spilled some of it from her glass when she saw her picture come up. The notice said that the FBI was looking for this woman, the image was from 2002, that her name is, or was, Rebecca Atkins, and that any information about her whereabouts should be sent via phone or email, and that information then flashed up on the screen.
Cain slowly put her beer down and wiped off the residue from her chin.
The bartender came over with a towel and sopped up the spilt beer from the bar. “You okay?”
“Went down the wrong way.”
Cain laid some cash down for the beer and included a healthy tip. She got up and staggered off.
The bartender turned and looked at the TV where the picture of Rebecca Atkins still filled the screen. Then she looked back at the disappearing Cain.
And she frowned as she picked up the cash.
*
After checking out of the hotel the next day, Cain did her work at the truck terminal and got her paycheck. She then called the trucking company and told them she would have to take a few days off. The man told her if she didn’t show up for work she was fired.
“Okay, I’m fired.” Cain hung up. She sat down, counted her money, made a rough calculation, and made the same call to the security firm. The manager there was a good guy, a grandfather with a soft spot for her.
“I got twenty laid-off bums waiting in line for the job, Cain, and ten of them have college degrees. You sure about this?”
“I’m sorry, but I got some place I gotta go. I can’t get out of it.”
“Okay, good luck. If you ever come back, let me know. I’d take you over some philosophy major any day.”