CAPTURED INNOCENCE (2 page)

“Okay.” The little boy slid his hand into hers.

With a firm grasp on Alex’s hand, Jo led the way down the three flights of steps to the first floor. She rapped on the door labeled ‘Manager’, then buttoned her sweater to the top button, covering the thin white blouse beneath.

“Jo
.” The man stunk of body sweat and beer. He wore faded black slacks and a stained, sleeveless tee shirt that strained to cover a large paunch, a ludicrous addition to his gaunt frame.

Jo wrinkled her nose and stepped back. “Mr. Every
, there are still cockroaches in my apartment. You promised you would take care of them.” She averted her eyes from the way he’d combed thinning hair slicked over to one side of his head in a vain attempt not to appear bald.

“Now, Jo.”
He stepped aside and flung an arm wide, inviting her inside. “Let’s talk about this inside.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. You promised. A man’s word should be concrete.”

His eyes narrowed, and his gaze to ran slowly over her body. Jo clenched her fists at her side and struggled to remain where she stood and not shrink back. Her flesh crawled, and she mentally counted her loose change, estimating whether she had enough for a bath. The apartments shared several bathrooms, charging a dollar for each short shower.

“Jo, things could be so much easier for you if you’d only let me…”

“Besides the bugs, things are fine as they are.”

His face flushed. “I could give you so many more things. A woman with your beauty should have the finer…”

“No, thank you.”
I’ve had it before
.             

A muscle twitched near
Mr. Every’s eye. “There’s a charge for me taking care of bugs for you. Maybe you need to clean your apartment. I haven’t had complaints from the other tenants.”

“A charge
? Clean my apartment? Fumigating should be one of your duties as apartment manager.” Alex yelped, and Jo loosened her hold on his hand. She mouthed “sorry” and turned back to the scowling man.

“That’s the way of it, unless we could come to an agreement of some sort.” He leered at her.

“So, unless I give you special privileges, you won’t take care of my problem. Is that right?”

“Pretty much.” He spit on the floor at her feet.

Jo spun and dragged Alex with her. “Fine. I’ll take care of it myself.”

She stomped up the stairs, jerking her son along beside her. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’ve got to get away from that man before I do something bad.” Her voice shook,
and tears prickled behind her eyelids.

“Are you going to cry, Mommy?
Sometimes crying helps.” Her son patted her arm.

She
blinked back the tears and gave him a shaky smile. “How did you get so smart?”

“I’ll kill the bugs for you,” Alex
said. “Smash them and throw them out the window.”

Jo laughed. “There’re way too many. And the window is painted shut.”

“I can kill some of them. I’ll toss them in the garbage. That’s better than nothing. Mrs. Leonard stepped on one today. I hardly never see them in her place.”

“It’s hardly ever, and I’m sure you don’t see bugs any where near her. They wouldn’t dare.” She opened their apartment door and tousled the boy’s hair as she let him precede her. “Why don’t you
go on a bug hunt while I fix us something for dinner?”

She
had a difficult time preparing chicken noodle soup and sandwiches as Alex flicked the light on and off in his hunt for the distasteful bugs. She laughed when he yelled triumphantly each time his shoe made contact.

He ran into the kitchen, shoe held high as he chased one of the insects. Jo jumped and shrank back against the wall
, cringing at the crunch of the shoe on the bug’s armor.

She waited for the light to come back on before setting the bowls on the small, scarred dining table. The wooden top had once been varnished a honey oak color. Now it was faded. Two plastic lawn chairs served as their seats.

She looked around the room they’d lived in for the past few months. At the faded, peeling, striped wallpaper. She didn’t have a clue what its original color had been, but now it was different shades of grey. She took in the chipped paint on the metal kitchen cabinets--the hot plate that served as their stove.

H
er son happily ate the meager dinner she’d prepared and the tears threatened again. They lived on soup and sandwiches or macaroni and cheese. Once in a while she’d bring home something from work. A real treat.

Alex was smaller than most of the children in his class. Life should have been different. It
had
been different until she’d married
him
. Not perfect, but not this either. She shook her head, shying from the memory. As if by thinking about him, she would alert him to their presence.

Jo lifted the spoon to her mouth and smiled around the utensil at her son. Alex beamed back at her, and suddenly, the glamorous life she’d lived before her son’s birth didn’t seem so important.

She sighed and finished her meal then removed the dinner dishes from the table. “Brush your teeth and get in bed. I’ll be there in a minute.”

The rhythmic movement of her hands as she washed dishes, and the lavender scent of the dish soap soothed her, erasing the fear and stress of the day.

Alex spit into the sink beside her, and she frowned. They couldn’t even afford an apartment with a separate bathroom and even with rent as cheap as she paid, she didn’t see improvements in the near future. It was like living in the 1900s. What kind of people spit into their kitchen sink? 
People in our circumstances, that’s who
. She replaced the dishes on the shelf that served as their dish cabinet and turned to usher Alex into bed.

She tucked him into the single bed in the small eight-by-ten foot bedroom and smoothed the dark hair back from his forehead. “You need a haircut
.” Jo planted a kiss on his forehead. “I’m off work tomorrow. How would you like to play hooky from school?”

“Can we
go to the zoo?” A look of hopefulness, mixed with the fear of disappointment, shadowed his face.

Jo wracked her brain for ways of cutting costs in order to be able to afford the outing. They’d manage. Somehow. Alex had too little fun in his life.
“You bet.”

“Night, Mommy.” Alex closed his eyes and turned on his side.

“Goodnight, sweetheart.” Jo gave him another glance before closing the door. Her heart lay heavy in her chest as she prepared her bed on the lumpy sofa.

She thought again of her husband
, his hard-handed, controlling ways, and punched her pillow into a shape for her head.
God, where are you
?

She sniffed and lay on her back
to shift her weight on broken springs.
I’ve run for three years. Hoping…praying for a place to raise my son in safety.
A place where his father’s long arm and wealth couldn’t reach them
. Help us. Please, God.

###

After the crying woman bolted into the apartment building, Conley headed back the way the woman had come. H stopped in front of the dark alley and listened then ventured toward the opposite end.

Nothing moved. No cat or rat. No dogs howled. A gust of wind rattled the pages of a newspaper, and
he swung his head around. Not seeing anyone, he continued his search. Here is where she’d hidden behind the dumpster. A few more feet and he found the torn garbage bags where she’d fallen.

L
aughter rang out from the street. He ducked into an alcove.

A man, staggering drunk, and his female companion entered the alley, tottering and giggling. They kissed and groped each other as they fell to the ground, unmindful of the filth and wet.

Conley stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and leaned back, bracing his right leg against the brick wall. He’d acted on a hunch anyway. He doubted she’d be carrying a clue to her real identity.

Ten minutes later, the drunken pair left the alley, leaning on each other for support. The woman laughed shrilly after she tripped and almost fell.

With one last glance around, Conley headed back toward the apartment building. His cowboy boots clomped against the almost deserted street.

He watched the light flicker on in the third floor apartment. The shape of a woman passed by the window. A child’s form joined hers, and the woman pulled the child close for a hug.
The picture warmed him, despite the chill in the air. He’d been hired to do a job, he no longer had the heart for.

Forty-five minutes later, the apartment light turned off. Conley pushed the button on his watch, illuminating the face.
Ten o’clock. He leaned against the wall under a large oak tree and continued to watch the window. His neck ached from peering upward. He waited an hour to see whether the light would come back on. It didn’t.

The wind blew colder, and he shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans, hunching forward
. Too bad he hadn’t brought a jacket. Long strides carried him quickly down the street. How would he tell the woman who he really was without her running again?

Jo gasped for breath. Fear cemented her bronchial tubes together and cut off her oxygen supply. She swiped at her face, flinging multi-legged creatures to the ground. Her mouth opened in a scream, and she spat out the insect which had crawled inside. She gagged. Tremors ran through her.

She slapped at her hair and dislodged whatever creature had chosen to set up residence on her head. She flung her long hair forward and back then scrubbed her scalp with furious hands. Whimpers emanated from her throat.

Her breath wheezed shrilly. The warning sign of an asthma attack. She turned and fell against the wall. She shrieked as the wall moved in waves under her.

Lunging forward, she fell to her hands and knees, not able to see, only to feel the hard armor and prickly legs of many different species of insects and spiders. Some crunched beneath her
, others skittered over her fingers. More fell from the darkness above and landed on her head. Her scream reverberated and echoed down the tunnel she suddenly found herself in. A tunnel that spun around her in kaleidoscope colors.

Her chest tightened more…

“Mommy?”

Jo opened her eyes
and looked into the worried brown eyes of her son.

“You’re having a bad dream, Mommy.”

She blinked. Entangled in her blankets, she bolted upright. Beads of perspiration dotted her upper lip. The sheet under her was damp.  She couldn’t move her legs, and discovered they were lodged under the sofa’s arm rest. Pulling herself free, she looked around the sofa and floor until she located her pillow. Throwing aside her coverings, she sat up.

“I’m sorry I woke you, baby. I didn’t know I screamed out loud.”
She placed her head in her hands.

Alex clutched her inhaler. “Do you want to sleep with me? It always helps me to sleep with you when I have a bad dream.”

Jo removed her hands and smiled at Alex. “I would love to sleep beside you. It’ll keep the bad dreams away.”

Her son’s smile lit up the dim room as warmth surged through her heart. He handed her the inhaler
then grabbed her hand and pulled her behind him. Alex leaped on his bed and bounced. The cheap mattress springs squeaked in protest. “Come on, Mommy.”

A slow smile spread across Jo’s face, and she crawled in beside him, drawing the quilt over them. The twin bed didn’t allow much room for her to stretch. She slid her arm under her son’s head. “Well, this is cozy,” she told him.

Alex nestled closer. “It’s great. What were you dreaming about?”

“Bugs. Lots and lots of bugs.” Her skin crawled. She raised the inhaler to her mouth and squeezed, breathing in the
bitter vapor.

“I like bugs,” Alex said
. His voice lowered into a drowsy drawl.

“I don’t.” Jo hugged him tighter to her as her bronchial tubes opened.

She’d had the same dream several times. What does it mean? She couldn’t remember ever having been trapped in a dark place with bugs. She shivered and pulled the blankets closer to her chin. Maybe it was seeing the cockroaches when she turned on the light.

She sighed and gently pulled her arm free, then glanced at her watch. Three-thirty. Jo sighed again and stared at the ceiling. Red and pink lights from a neon sign flashed above her. The bar across the street still seemed to be doing a rousing business.

A door slammed, and a woman giggled. A man cursed. A glass bottle shattered.  Someone screamed.
I’ve got to get Alex out of here. This is no place to raise a child
.
How much money do I have stashed away?
Is it enough?
A tear worked its way down her cheek. She groaned and flopped to her side.

###

Alex breathed in Jo’s face. “Is it time to get up?”

Jo plopped the pillow over her eyes. “What time is it?”