Chapter 14 Maurice #3
He nodded slow. “He started carrying a gun the year I turned thirteen and woke up taller than him. My mom sometimes worked for Aunt Deb. She’d get weeks of consistent work, and we’d be happy.
Sort of. Then something would set Rob off, and then my mom would have to miss work.
Lose her job. A lot of times, I wouldn’t see her for days. ”
The sky darkened, as if he told the clouds to blot out the moonlight.
“It was a Wednesday. I remember that it was really warm for early November, so I left for school without a jacket. Tommie was waiting for me and reminded me to go back and get it.”
He spoke like he had when he was questioned by the police, by social workers and psychologists. He spoke in the same way he had when he was in front of the judge, as if he were telling someone else’s story.
“I surprised them. Rob was shouting about eggs. My mom tried to cover her face when she saw me. But I’ll never forget how the right side of her face was all lumped and discolored. Like there were new bruises on top of old ones.”
“That must have been shocking for you. How long had it been since you last saw your mom before that day?”
He tried to count, but the memories blurred. No one had asked him that before, not the lawyer that Deb had hired for him, not the counselors. Not a single person in thirty-five years.
A drop of water splashed on his hand. He looked up for the source, but the clouds had moved on.
Monique wrapped her arms around him, drawing Maurice’s head to her chest. To the side that she often rubbed. “You’re safe. It’s okay,” she said, her fingers raking through his hair, rocking him gently as the coquí serenaded them in the darkness, an accompaniment to his silent tears.
He didn’t know how long they sat there. Long enough for every internal alarm that usually governed his life, telling him when to sleep, when to eat, when to pray… when to breathe, to be silenced. Overridden by her presence beside him.
Maurice checked his watch: 1:34 a.m.
“There y’all are!” Tommie appeared on the stairs above them. “Time to go, kinfolk!”
Monique looked up from beside him and then stood. She stretched, but suddenly hitched her side, fist going to her hip.
“You okay?”
She nodded, lips tight. “Sometimes I forget about the surgery, the scars. The pain passes fast, but I can never predict when it’ll return or what triggers it.” She blew out a breath, like she was breathing through waves of pain.
He tried to get her to sit back down, but she waved him off and walked around to the passenger side of the van and climbed in.
Once his charges were settled in and secured, Maurice started the engine and knocked the van into gear, following the other van and its hired driver onto the dark mountain road.
The subtle motion of Monique’s hand covering his on the gear shift pulled his eyes from the road. Neither of them said anything. Didn’t need to.
He drove with one hand, the other turned palm-up under hers. Her thumb traced circles on his wrist—over his pulse, steady and sure.
In the back, the Turners dozed. Aldonia watched them both in the rearview mirror, a small knowing smile on her face, but she kept quiet.
The midnight hours, in Maurice’s experience, tended to be that way.
Quiet. Inside, that was a time when rats could be heard working their way through the maze of tubes and channels that ran between the concrete prison walls.
Other sounds reached him that weren’t always rats.
He learned to wait them out—to let the quiet settle.
Silence had become its own kind of solace.
There, he had preserved his sanity, cataloging his short list of friends and family, reminding himself that there were people outside who were eager for him to return.
Maurice shook his head. He’d spent thousands of hours alone with his thoughts, pointing every one toward survival. Toward getting out. Toward being useful. He hadn’t considered this. Not even a little bit, this wanting someone and being wanted back.
Now the woman of his previously unknown dreams had returned his interest. She said she liked him. She had let him kiss her, let him touch her. He had no reference point for this, no personal memories to pull from. All he had was her thumb moving over his pulse, already catching the beat.
“Are you okay driving in the dark like this?” she asked, running her fingertips softly over the top of his hand. “I just started needing glasses to drive at night.” She let out a long sigh. “Getting old is crazy, right?”
Old, her? Never. “I’m struggling to see where you’re old. Maybe I’m the one who needs glasses.”
“Well, with all the treatments and whatnot, nature just sped up in a lot of ways.” Her voice was full of loss, and Maurice hated that she had any lack in her life. If he were fortunate enough, he’d spend the rest of his life making sure she never needed for anything, ever. Where did that come from?
The winding coastal road. The dark ocean. The city lights growing closer. It all felt momentous. Maurice should be exhausted. He should be a lot of things. Instead, he felt awake. More awake than he’d been in thirty-five years.