Wheelchair Girl

After what she'd done, she knew he'd kill her when he came back.

She took a little time to nurse Jamie until she settled down. Then grabbed a suitcase out of her closet and dumped some clothes and underwear into it. Another suitcase got Jamie's dresser drawers dumped in. She hauled both out to her car.

Lastly, she grabbed the tin can she had hidden with the three thousand dollars that she'd managed to squirrel away before he poured it down his throat. On her way out with Jamie in one arm and the can clutched tightly in her hand, she paused.

The handgun! He kept it in the dresser by his side of the bed. If he came after her, she'd need it.

Racing into the bedroom, she retrieved the gun and a box of shells. Outside, she tucked Jamie into her car seat and hit the road, taking the opposite direction from town. The state border was two hours away, and if she could make it that far, the local cops wouldn't be able to grab her without raising attention.

Roaring up the highway, she wondered whether her husband would go to the hospital or head for Fred's place. The hospital would call the cops. No way would he admit to them she had bested him.

With a wisdom born of years of living and being beaten by him, she knew the answer as sure as the sun rising. He'd get Fred to bandage him up and come after her. Which was good because the cops wouldn't be involved and, at the same time, alarming. No way could her car outrun that truck.

She kept an eye on the mirror and, sure enough, it wasn't long before she glimpsed a flash of red, the same colour as his truck. A few minutes later, it was confirmed. His truck barreling up the highway at a high rate of speed, determined to catch up. She couldn't even fathom how he could be driving like that after the wounds she'd given him.

She started watching the road looking for the right spot. Going around a sharp curve, she found it.

She pulled over and stepped out of the car. He'd be blind coming around the curve, and his temper wouldn't allow him to slow down; that would be his mistake.

Making sure the gun was loaded, safety off, she braced herself and waited. One of the only good things around this neck of the woods was the male insistence that women learn to shoot. And she'd gotten outstanding. She could hit a can at fifty feet with that pistol.

The roar of the motor got louder, and there he was. Fred was with him, and she saw their shocked eyes widen with fear realizing she had them lined up with a gun. Both of them knew she wouldn't miss. The brakes screeched, and the tires smoked as he tried to stop to no avail. In a split second, she saw his eyes turn ugly like he was going to crush her with the truck. Then she saw the abrupt shift when he realized he'd also ram the car with Jamie in it, sending his baby daughter over the edge. That changed his mind, and for that brief change of heart, she almost forgave him.

But anger over years of beatings and humiliation won out!

The gun roared, and the front right tire blew out with a huge bang. The truck abruptly veered to the right, the unintentional change in direction rolling it up on two wheels until suddenly, there was nothing under those wheels but air.

It flew about forty feet down the slope, bouncing once, then rolled a couple of hundred feet further before wrapping itself around a tree like a horseshoe.

She listened for a couple of minutes. There were no pleas for help, no moans of pain. Nobody crawled out; things were silent. Just the buzz of the cicadas in the wilderness looking for a mate. Those two were either dead or unconscious; she'd prefer dead. Even Fred, who abused his wife as severely as she'd been, deserved to die.

Satisfied no one was getting out of the wreck, she walked over to examine the pieces of tire left on the road. She lit up with excitement when she spotted a piece with a bullet hole in the sidewall and an exit hole in the tread. Perfect shot! She picked it up. With that evidence gone, the cops could never prove anything. All they had were a couple of good old boys that wrecked going too fast around a sharp corner, and the front tire blew out.

Unless they survived.

She eyed the wreck again, but nothing had changed. Satisfied, she climbed into her car and headed for someplace no one would ever find her and Jamie again.

************

The wedding was over yesterday. Cory and Jamie had gone back to the same resort as before on their honeymoon

Unable to quell the demons in her head, she sat in her usual pew with her purse open, fondling that gun from so long ago, its silver gleam hypnotizing. To this day, she had no idea whether she'd killed them; or if there were warrants for her arrest. All these years, she'd held the truth away from Jamie, afraid that confessing would lead to a life in prison for her and Jamie in his custody. Would Jamie even believe why she'd killed her father or tried to?

It was time to finish it. Take the gun and end her pain.

"Mary, I hope you're not considering using that on yourself in here!"

Startled, her head snapped sideways and she spoke before thinking, "Father Michael! No, I was thinking about the back alley."

He sat down beside her and pulled her into a comforting hug. "It's not the answer, Mary. You'd traumatize Jamie, and that isn't fair. Not to mention you won't get to see your grandchildren. You fought so hard to get here; why are you faltering now?"

"It eats at me, Father. The guilt is unbearable. Not being able to tell Jamie about her father. Maybe having killed two people. It haunts me at night. I wake up screaming! Other nights I wake up screaming that he's coming after me again and going to beat me."

He nodded; they'd discussed her trauma before in confession. He'd been trying to talk her into counselling for years.

Father Michael sighed. "Mary, I would never break the confidence of a confession, but I did something. Maybe a bad something! I'd like us to walk next door and talk to my lawyer friend Don. I asked him if he could do some work in confidence, quietly checking out your old haunts to see what happened. He has a report there and says it's quite startling. Maybe it'll go a long way to easing your mind. In the meantime,...!" He put his hand out for the gun.

Surprisingly, some of her darkness lifted when she handed the gun over. She realized keeping it had been burdening her all these years, a reminder of her descent into killing violence.

Doc and Don were waiting for them.

"I asked Doc to come too because I could see you were quite upset." Father Michael confessed.

"It's ok! I confessed it all to him years ago."

Seated in Don's comfortable office, Father Michael did the introductions.

Don went over to a locked cabinet and pulled out a file.

"You're welcome to read all this, but if you like, I can give you the highlights right now. I think you'll be shocked by what we found!" Don said.

"We?" Mary questioned.

"Yes, I have a friend in the area I went to law school with. I gave him the anonymous information, and he discreetly investigated for me. He has no idea who he's doing it for."

Mary braced herself for the worst. "Okay, what did you find out?"

'Your husband survived the wreck, although he spent a couple of months in the hospital, he was so badly injured. He's walked with a cane ever since because his leg was shattered. His friend did not survive. Your husband was charged with dangerous driving and pled guilty. He was sentenced to three years in prison for the crime. At his trial, his pleadings to the judge stated he had beaten you badly, and you had fled with your daughter. He confessed he was drunk, angry, and chasing after you at a high rate of speed when the tire blew out, and he wrecked. He was remorseful because his drunken rampage had lost him his wife, daughter and best friend. His exact words from the transcript!"

Mary was gobsmacked! "Are you shitting me? He took all the blame?" She was immediately embarrassed; swearing wasn't something she normally did.

"He did. It gets better. He got out of prison six months early for good behaviour. In prison, he found religion. His first act on getting out was to find a local Church and join. He stood in front of the congregation and openly confessed what he had done to you and that you had rightfully fled the violence with your daughter. He was gutted that he had behaved like that toward the woman he loved and lost you both. He has a huge scar on his face and calls it his eternal reminder of the drunken violence he embraced in the past. According to him, he got it in the accident."

Mary was stunned, her mouth gaping open in shock.

Don took her silence as permission to continue. "He studied for the Ministry and was ordained as a minister two years later. He took over the church he joined, and he's been the pastor there ever since."

Mary clutched at Father Michael's hand. She couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"My friend was intrigued by what he heard, so he made an effort to go visit your husband."

Mary panicked. "He didn't tell...?"

"No, he told him he had clients that were interested in buying land in the area and asked him if he'd ever thought of selling? He said your husband was very kind and soft-spoken and invited him in for coffee. That gave him a chance to look around. He said the house was neat and well looked after. But what caught his attention was a large picture of you and your daughter on the mantle with burnt candles on either side. He remarked on it, and your husband freely told him the whole story. And how he hoped beyond hope that someday he might be reunited with you or his daughter so he could apologize and maybe make amends.

Afterward, he stopped in town at a local diner. He mentioned to the waitress he'd met your husband and was touched by the honesty of his story and the picture on the mantle. The waitress told him that it was known around town as your husband's shrine, and he prays in front of that picture with the candles burning every night before bedtime."

Mary's head was spinning after hearing all this. It was unbelievable. "And charges...?" she hesitantly asked.

"Nope, he refused to press charges. Said you had rightfully fled the violence and taken your daughter to a safer place after he almost beat her in his drunken state. There's nothing against you."

Don passed the file over to her. "There's a lot more in here. He has a long list spanning almost twenty-five years of charitable and community organizations he's supported and works with, including spearheading a local group against domestic violence. All in all, I'd say your husband has shown genuine remorse and maybe deserves some consideration. But that's not my business."

Doc spoke up, "Mary, I have some questions if you don't mind."

Mary nodded.

"So, Jamie never had an identical twin brother?"

"No, the only identical twins in my family were my sister and me."

"This may be harsh, but did your sister ever have sex with your husband?"

"I caught them in bed during an affair they had. I was so mad at her; she went into hiding and then disappeared. I never heard from her again and discovered years later she was dead. Why?"

"Jamie and Cory have given me permission to share some medical information. Cory and Jamie's DNA is similar. I thought for sure they were possibly brother and sister; that's why I was so mad at you that day in the clinic, but obviously, that isn't the case. I may be that your sister ended up pregnant and gave him up at birth."

"But that would make them...!"

"First cousins! Maybe half-siblings!" Doc confirmed. "But there's a one in six billion chance it's natural."

Father Michael spoke up. "First cousins marrying are fine in this state and a lot of others."

Mary spoke up, "It's more complicated than that. My husband also had an identical twin brother. They used to share women when they were younger. If she was sleeping with him...!"

Doc shook his head; could this get any more convoluted? "Those kids are beyond happy. I'm not digging for mud and destroying their lives. I vote we don't pursue the issue."

Everyone nodded in agreement.

"Do you want to drop all this on Jamie?" Father Michael asked.

"I'm not phoning her today with this. Maybe later, after she gets back from her honeymoon. I need to absorb all this. It's stunning! But I do feel a lot better knowing the facts."

Mary held her finger up to stop everyone. "You know, as strange as it sounds and thinking back on it all, I often had the impression Jamie was talking to someone when she was in the womb. Lying in bed at night listening to sounds that sounded like gurgling coming out of my belly. Frequently it felt like she was stretching her arms out to someone. It was weird. I thought it was a pregnant woman's emotions out of control. Thinking about her and Cory's experiences, now I'm not so sure! How could they be talking to each other from a distance?"

Doc shrugged, "There's a lot about twins we don't know. Connections between them are common, even distant connections that are inexplicable by current science. Those two are so closely related; who knows? It happens in siblings too. They mentioned a strange language they both understood to me. It's called cryptophasia or idioglossia and is more common in twins, both identical and fraternal. But children invent them too. It's their own made-up language."

Mary shared some more. "When she was still small, she would often stop and cock her head like she was listening to something, then giggle. Like something funny had happened. Then she'd blow a kiss and go back to what she was doing. I used to wonder if she was alright in the head? It stopped when she got older.

"The thing is, I never shared a connection like that with my sister. And as far as I know, my husband didn't have anything like that with his twin brother. Why is that?"

Doc just shrugged! "As I said, there's a lot about twins we don't know."

It was all very strange, they agreed.

With the meeting over, Mary gave them all a hug for caring so much. For the first time in 28 years, she felt the darkness lift.

**********

"Hey sweetie, did you guys have a good time?"

"It was awesome, more fun than I can ever recall having."

"Is it ok if I pop over and talk to you two?"

"We don't need the "when are you having kids" lecture, mom," Jamie teased.

"I know. Twenty minutes?"

"See you then."

Cory and Jamie were a little shocked when Mary showed up with Father Michael and Doc in tow.

After serving everyone coffee, Jamie pointedly looked at Doc and Father Michael, then asked, "Is everything ok, mom? What's going on?"

"Yes, no. Doc and Father Michael are here for moral support. I need to confess something. I've kept our past a secret, and you haven't been told everything. I'm here today to tell you what happened and ask your forgiveness. I'd like to be able to talk without questions. You can ask anything you like after."

Jamie and Cory glanced at each other. "Ok, mom."

Mary started talking. When she finished, Jamie sat there stunned. Then she got up out of her chair and sat beside her mom, gathering her in her arms.

"You did what you had to survive and keep me safe, mom. I have no regrets over what you did. It was the right thing. I can understand why you never went back or mentioned it. Thank you for protecting me!"

"Thank you, baby!" Mary sobbed. "You have no idea what that means to me."

"So, my dad is alive?" Jamie was having a hard time with that.

"He is, and he's done a lot of years of penance for his behaviour. As much as I hated him, he's become a good person now. His only desire is to reconnect with you or us. I'm not sure I can handle that, but you might want to. His number is there in the file."

"Should I call him?"

"It's up to you, baby. I'll support you either way."

Jamie got up. She needed her Cory; her hands were trembling.

Burrowing into his loving arms, she gradually calmed down. Finally, they looked at each other, and she nodded.

Watching eyes did not miss Cory dialling her phone despite never being told the number or looking at the file. Cory's calm hand held the phone up for her while she snuggled close for support.

"Church of the Valley, Pastor Mellon speaking."

Jamie tried to talk, her voice almost verging on tears.

"Daddy?"

There was a shocked silence on the other end. Then his voice came back tremulous with emotion.

"Jamie? Oh my God, JAMIE?"

The End.

©2022 Gordo12

Author's notes: There are four contests a year on Literotica, and Valentine's is one of them. Your vote is especially critical today. And as always, your comments are welcome.

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"On The Streets Before Christmas With A Four Day Old Baby"

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