Martyr Chapter 4

FOUR

Only a week after Thanksgiving, Antoni’s wife, Liv, had us stringing the mansion in lights. My brother and I were high enough on the list to get to do the easy parts. My buddy Jared, was supposed to be outside lighting the bushes, but Rhys and I had snuck him inside when Liv wasn’t looking. With a bottle of rum being passed between the three of us, she was constantly checking the progress – laughing at us when we’d only gotten one rail wrapped in thirty minutes.

Christmas time in the Canaan house was usually full of outsiders. No contracts, no missions, no errands. Just time to pretend the thirty or forty people living in the house were the paid staff and family like we pretended to be. We threw parties, held charity events and some people hosted their mothers or girlfriends who weren’t normally allowed on the premises.

Liv was a true beauty, the heart of our entire family. She was the one who ran the charity balls and did Christmas card tours of the house. Though most of us had made our peace with God by either ignoring him or coming to one agreement or another – we all bought into the idea of family. Not because we were forced to, but because we trusted each other. Because we all worked together. Because we all knew more about each other than anyone on the outside ever could.

I was stringing Christmas lights with two brutal killers. They just happened to also be my brother and best friend.

“Hey foreigners.”

We all stopped cutting up and dropped the lights when Peter’s voice sounded from behind us.

“Peter.” Jared’s voice was formal and cold.

“No one’s talking to you, Irishman. 

“What do you want, Peter?”

Rhys and Jared shot me warning looks at my tone.

Peter tried to get in my face, though I stood a few inches taller than he did. He was slender built, with a pretty boy haircut and manicured fingernails. Nothing about him looked intimidating. Except his eyes.

“You think you’re better than me? Because my father likes you? He’s not going to be around forever. You’ll answer to me someday.”

Jared scoffed, but I held my words. Antoni had begged us to keep the link between Peter alive and well. Rhys and I would be called to service if he ever left the family. We knew he was taking outside jobs. There were enough case files out with him to worry us. High profile cases, like the Steins. Fourteen million dollars could make Peter a very, very power man.

“I don’t think I’m better than you, bub. Just a little drunk.” I forced a smile as I held the bottle out to him.

Rhys smiled as well, lightening the mood with his natural charisma. “Wanna stay and have a drink?”

Peter smirked, nodding down the stairs. A woman with curled black hair and the remnants of a red dress stood at the bottom, smiling up at Peter. Jared rolled his eyes, going back to taping lights to the railing.

“Have fun with that one.” I said between clenched teeth.

“I always do. Have fun stringing lights, boys.”

Rhys caught my gaze as Peter went down the stairs to join the girl. Looks like we’d have more police reports to handle in the morning. It sickened me to pray for a little battery or even rape. Anything to not have to cover up another murder.

“What are you guys doing suckin’ up to that prick?”

“It’s political.” Rhys commented weakly, taking the bottle from me and swallowing a few gulps.

“Its horseshit is what it is.”

“Aye, that it is buddy. That it is.”

***

The rest of the semester passed too quickly for my taste. It seemed as if the part of my life that I would rather forget had spanned multiple lifetimes. Now that I was happy, borderline psychologically ecstatic, the time was passing too fast.

A week before finals, I was sitting in my office grading papers when Amber stumbled in. With a large, pointy nose, a wiry frame and blonde stringy hair pulled tightly up in a pony tail, she didn’t look like someone you’d want to befriend. Her bitchy scowls and spiked heels confirmed the notion. Amber’s only redeeming factor was her honesty. She might have eaten you for dinner, but she’d at least be nice enough to forewarn you. 

“Haven’t seen you in awhile Evie.” She was facing her computer, browsing social networking sites.

“Yeah, well you stopped showing up to your office hours.”

“Whatever.” The keys on her keyboard continued to click, so I went back to grading.

Almost thirty minutes had passed before Amber spoke again. “Do you remember the night before your acquired your little roommate?”

Amber, a few of her friends and I had been bar hopping. I’d stumbled the two blocks from her house to mine only a couple hours before my alarm went off. My head nodded to tell her I remembered.

“Maddy has been asking about you, pretty much nonstop. I’m going to have to switch my bar nights, thanks to you. She’s always hanging around us asking about you.”

“Who?”

She sighed noisily to show her annoyance with the conversation, like I had been the one to initiate it. “The blonde girl you picked up. You left her passed out on my couch that night and I had to lend her my bathroom for a few hours.”

Obviously, there now existed two distinct and equally emotional Evelyn’s inside of my body. One who interacted with Chloe, and one who partook in the rest of the world. Since Chloe wasn’t here, I felt no need to apologize, no need to respond at all. My doppelganger would be disappointed, but she didn’t seem to be here today. Amber and I sat in silence until it was time for our nine o’clock classes.

She flipped the underneath of her hair, letting it settle around her face. “Yeah, whatever. I know we both may be bisexual, but keep in mind that I have standards. I don’t want your table scraps, so stop leaving them at my house. Anyway, the guys wanted me to invite you back over. So do what you want.”

         “Thanks for the heartwarming invitation. But you do realize I haven’t even talked to you in almost two months. Maybe that should be a hint that I just don’t want to hang out.”

         She smirked, a look that was both cruel and indifferent. “Well, if you change your mind, you know where I live.”

I scowled at her as we walked to our classrooms, which were right next to each other. 

I got my first Christmas present at the beginning of December, when I got a job working for a local publishing company. I’d be doing photojournalism for various locations throughout the local area. No more teaching, and after another semester, I’d be done with the school scene forever.

After finals, we set up a Christmas tree at Chloe’s insistence. I’d never put a tree up before, and we had to go shopping for garland, bulbs and a star. We also got stockings, and Chloe showed me how to write my name in glue and dump glitter over the white fuzz. A week before Christmas, my heart was swelling with festivity.

For the first time in my twenty-two years, I had Christmas presents under a Christmas tree. I’d caught the spirit in time to go all out for Chloe, and when I woke up Christmas morning it was immediately evident she had done the same.

“Merry Christmas!” A big green floppy sweater displaying a puppy dog wearing a Santa hat covered Chloe all the way to her knees. She had donned her own hat as well and plopped one on me the second I emerged from the bedroom. Sometime between the time I had gone to bed and the time I’d woken up, she had even baked and decorated sugar cookies.

“Wow, Chloe. This is amazing.” I cleared my throat when the last word of my sentence came out squeaking.

Soon, Frank Sinatra’s Christmas album was playing while Chloe and I sat on the couch amid not-so-modest piles of presents.

She had all of her presents unwrapped quickly, evidence of someone who expected presents and was used to opening them. It took me forever to unwrap all my gifts, and every one of them made me feel like I should be thanking her more than I already was. I could tell by the third or fourth gift that she was annoyed and ready to do something else.

After we’d finally finished the presents, I followed her traditions as we sat through every Christmas show and movie on the television. She compared me to the Grinch on several occasions, and I couldn’t help but agree with her. My transformation over the past month and a half was nothing short of miraculous. Yeah, sure I was still the bitch I had always been to everyone else, but Chloe was my friend.

Her mom video chatted with us late in the afternoon, and we spend hours making a full out Christmas dinner fit for thirty people. Chloe drew inspiration from her own family dinners, while I pulled from shows I’d seen on TV.

“How did you used to spend Christmas, then? I mean. Did your family just ignore it completely?” She asked me over a sink of soapy water.

“No, we didn’t ignore it. We just didn’t have money for presents. My mom went through men like you couldn’t believe. It seemed like there was a new one every couple of months. She lived on welfare and had men to help her pay for her fun… but they never really knew me well enough to buy me presents.”

“Did she ever have a nice boyfriend?”

“No. Never. If you knew my mom, you’d understand why no good man would ever associate with her.”

She chewed on her lip as she finished washing the glasses and handed them to me to rinse. “Why did  you stay with her. Did you ever try to run away? I mean, did you ever tell the school anything? How did it ever get so bad?”

My mind went back to the day I’d shown up at school with arms so bruised it hurt to lift a pencil off my desk. I’d only been in sixth grade, and my teacher sent me to the school counselor. When he asked me what happened, I told him that my mom’s boyfriend did it. That he’d pulled me around the house showing me all the things that needed cleaned.

The state was called in, and my mom was forced to filing a restraining order on him. When I came home from school the day after he left the house, she tried to choke me as soon as I walked in the door.

“Look what you’ve done to our family! It’s broken now, and it’s all your fault.”

That wasn’t the first time I’d been to the hospital, and it wouldn’t have been the last.

“Hey? I’m sorry, are you okay?” Chloe’s words brought me back to present day.

“Yeah, sorry I just zoned out.”

She was still curious but she didn’t push the issue.

I spent the rest of the evening learning how to play Scrabble, and letting Chloe still win after I caught on to the rules. The games went quick, as most of the words she came up with were only four or five letters. It will fun, none-the-less, and was the first board game I’d ever played. She went to bed promising that we could pick up some more and play them.

After Chloe said goodnight, I sat and stared at our tree. I propped all the pillows on the side of the couch, leaned against them and pulled my new black silk robe tighter around my body. In the late night chill, the mug of hot chocolate in my hand was perfect. The Christmas lights sparkled on the white Christmas tree while the blue and silver bulbs shot the light out in beautiful patters all over the walls and ceiling. We’d spilt a little vial of mint extract on the carpeting, and the overwhelming odor faded to something warm and comforting.

For the millionth time that day, all I wanted to do was cry. Since she was finally in bed and presumably sound asleep, I put my head on the back of the couch and bawled like a toddler into the white fabric. What had I ever done to deserve a day so perfect? What have I done to deserve a moment so full of sights and sounds and even smells of a loving home?

Resolved and exhausted, I went to my bedroom and pulled a box out from under my bed. In it was a picture of my mother, taken her junior year of high school. Her bright red hair was feathered and natural around her face which was smiling with eyes shining. I’d never seen that look on her face, and I’d never really seen her hair look pretty either. After fifteen years of hard drugs, her hair fell out in clumps until she cut it pixie short. Under her picture was the beginning to a baby book. In it was a picture of me fresh out of the hospital, my weight and height and my full name. She’d even written “To my beautiful Evelyn. I can’t wait to give you all the loving in the world. July 20, 1987 – the best day of my life!” on the inside of the front cover. It was as if, for a very brief moment in time, she was happy. I can imagine her and my biological dad crooning over me, loving me for just that one day.

According to my mom, my dad skipped out the next day and she was forced to move from our Kansas City home to one in the corner of southeast Kansas where her family was born. It was my fault she lost the man of her dreams, and she is still going through a man a month trying to find him again. Each man was worse than the last. Each one a little bolder, a little meaner.

I took the box into our kitchen, and threw it in the trash.

She’d never given me a moment of happiness. I’ve based everything on her; spent my life trying to be anything but her. Chloe was my new family. Chloe was my happiness. For a roommate, and a friend, I put way too much pressure on our relationship; and I was careful to not let on what she meant to me. It was understandably creepy.

The Christmas of 2009 was just a launching pad. Like my mother’s note said, only with more sincerity. “The best day of my life”.