This installment written
by Mary Ann.
Continued from Friday…
I slept most of the day. I hadn’t realized how exhausted I was. Sleep had been a luxury I hadn’t known in many months. When I finally awoke, around 6:00 p.m. it was already dark outside. Prentice was standing outside the apartment, leaning against the railing overlooking the courtyard and smoking a cigarette. I threw on my robe, but still in my bare feet I opened the door. The cold rushed in.
“What are you doing outside? It’s freezing!” I called to him, motioning that he should come inside. In one motion he flicked the still burning cigarette over the railing, turned and started toward the door. Once inside he shut the door behind him, then slipped his icy hands inside the robe to pull me toward him. I screamed at the touch of his frozen fingers, laughed at his playful audacity, jumped back pulling the robe tightly closed around me, then stepped forward again into his arms.
What a wonderful time these past three days had been. The struggles, fears, hardships and tears of the past two years had certainly been for something—something precious and uncommon. But, the weekend was coming to an end, and I could sense that something had happened while I was sleeping.
“It’s nothing to be upset about,” Prentice tried to assure me as he pulled a brown envelope from his hip pocket. “It’s just something that I’ll have to deal with, and I can deal with it.”
“Where did you get that? Did it come in the mail here?” I asked, noticing the cancelled postage stamp on the envelope’s corner. “How could anyone know we’re here?” I asked, alarmed and reaching to take the envelope from his hand. I sat down on the green sofa that the management provided with the apartment.
“Oh no, Prentice,” I said nervously as I looked at the face of the envelope. “ This isn’t a joke. This isn’t a joke at all. I’ve seen this before.”
I had seen this before, an identical envelope addressed with what I was certain had been the same typewriter. Just like the one I’d taken from my post office box at the small, suburban post office near Atlanta where Prentice’s letters came to me during the months I was there alone. The envelope flap had been licked and sealed, and a small strip of Scotch tape secured the flap for good measure. I never knew the identify of the sender, but I knew for sure that this letter was something to be upset about.
I opened the envelope and pulled the single tri-folded sheet from inside, What I found inside made me sick.
Crudely drawn in what appeared to be No. 2 pencil in the center of the page was a stick figure of a long haired girl in a straight, sack dress. Tears poured down the girl’s face. Taped to the sheet below the drawing was a small strand of hair. It couldn’t have been my hair, but it was identical in color.
“Why can’t they leave us alone, Prentice?” I asked, looking up at him from where I sat on the sofa. “What more can they want than what they’ve taken from us already?”
“You know why,” Prentice answered. He took the envelope from my hand and laid it on the dinette table as he walked into the small kitchen. “You didn’t really think they would just give up, did you?” he rhetorically asked while he washed his hands in warm water to thaw them a bit. For the next few moments he seemed lost in his thoughts. Then, toweling his hands dry he returned to the living room and made an announcement that surprised me as much as the letter had.
“I know who sent this envelope, Mary Ann,” Prentice started, “and I know why.” I couldn’t imagine that he was serious, that he really knew who had sent it. I thought we both knew why.
“Trust me,” Prentice said. “I’ve seen an envelope like this before myself. Last summer, toward the end of the summer, I found a letter like this in my mailbox at the dormitory on Guadalupe. There was a photograph of you inside, a snapshot taken… who knows where? That wasn’t all. There was a second photo, a snapshot of an apartment complex somewhere in Florida. The implication was that you were there … that you were no longer in Atlanta. That you had either left Atlanta on your own or you’d been taken away against your will.
“It was a stupid. It took me two hours to prove to myself you were safe. I made a phone call, and two hours later I had confirmation. LW said he had seen you with his own eyes. He didn’t approach you or do anything to give himself away. He just drove across town and had a look at you through the cafe window while you were working.”
Just at that moment something hit the front door with such violence it seemed that the door must have cracked. Prentice jumped to the plate glass window, pulled back the curtain and looked outside, telling me to get into the bedroom, put on my clothes and lock myself in. A moment later, as I was pulling up a pair of jeans and grabbing for a sweater from the bedroom closet, I heard the front door open, and I heard Prentice yell to me, “Mary Ann, stay put!”
I heard the front door slam, then I heard nothing. For what must have been several minutes no sound came from the living room, and I could hear nothing that might have been happening outside. I had shut the bedroom door, and I had unlatched the narrow sliding windows on the wall above our bed. There was no fire escape near the window, but we were only on the second floor. I knew I could climb out the window and drop to the ground without injury if it came to that.
Where was Prentice? How long should I wait before… before what?
If he didn’t return soon, should I look for him? Should I stay in the bedroom and continue to wait, or should I make that jump out the window and to the ground. My thoughts were in a jumble, and my heart was racing. I was afraid for Prentice.
If I went out the bedroom window I figured I could circle around to the front of the complex and have a look. I could get to the corner market on the other side of the block and phone the police. Involving the police would be a matter of last resort, but seeing that Prentice was safe would be my first objective.
The seconds ticked away like hours as I waited alone in the bedroom.
To be continued…
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Wonderful! Reading your tale of Hiding across America in a VW Bus reminds me of Saturday afternoons at the little theatre in my home town where we were shown a new chapter in an one going story. You couldn’t wait to see the next part of the story. Keep up the GREAT JOB. – Del