by PS Gifford

Created on: December 14, 2007   Last Updated: December 15, 2007

Things remembered.

This was her fourth day of cross-country driving. She had no idea where she was heading, and she did not care, as long as it was away from him. Having cleared out forty seven hundred dollars from his bank account, she piled a few things into her old 66 Mustang and set out.

"Where the Hell am I anyway?" She wondered aloud. "Kansas perhaps? What difference does it make anyway?" She considered as she examined the hand written sign. Something about it drew her in. Pulling into the long driveway, she could not help but wonder at how it would have looked in its prime, perhaps in the 1920`s. Despite being well weathered and tattered, signs of its former glory were

abundant. Fine marble lions sat guarding the front, chipped and faded, yet still hanging on to some of their dignity.

Methodically she parked her car and slowly walked up to the front door. She examined the double mahogany doors for a moment, captivated by the carvings. Looking for the doorbell, she finally spied a tassel just off the side of the door. Having remembered this from a movie once, she tugged firmly upon the end and was instantly rewarded with the magical tinkling of bells. Mary is quite taken aback; she had never actually heard real bells used on a door before!

It took a couple of minutes before the door opened. Standing there she began to contemplate her life. At twenty-two, she appeared to be quickly spirally down the road to destruction. She had never even known her real parents, having grown up in a series of foster homes,
the older she got, the less welcoming each home got. Finally, at the age of eighteen she had been thrust, ill prepared into the world alone. That was when she had met Chad, at an all night truck stop where she was a waitress. He had seemed like her knight in shining armor on a great white stallion at first. Soon enough she realized
that he was just a fat, lazy, leathered slob on top of a purple Harley The last few years had been full of abuse. She had even found herself pregnant at one point, happiness seemed to gleam in the distance, yet, this too was taken from her having a miscarriage just four months along.

Finally she had enough.

She quit her job at the caf. No more dirty truckers were going to lay their hands on her. Then, more importantly, as Chad slept, hung over from a night of cheap whiskey, she left him. She chuckled to herself. "Just wait until the rent check bounces and he discovers all the money is gone"

The panic that he might come looking

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