The Woman in the Black Car She showed up at the row house next door everyday. Her face was hidden so Johanna never got a good look. It's not as if she wore a mask, but it's the way she held her skull - always pointed downwards as if stuck that way. Johanna couldn't imagine such a scenario. A person who could never glance into another person's eyes. A person stuck seeing only ground - pavement, grass, tile, wood. The woman that climbed out of the black car on evenings wore baggy clothes. Her hair was never up in a ponytail. The long strands covered her face as if another barrier. Johanna began to stand at the window at 6:00 pm as a form of routine. She left the curtain closed but, would press herself against the wall so she could see the woman through a sliver of light. The woman arrived when the people that lived there were not home. She brought a child with her, the same child Johanna imagined she heard through the row house walls, although perhaps a different one. The woman would sometimes stand outside with the toddler, collecting rocks as if to savor the time between car and house. Often, Johanna would arrive home late from work and the woman in the black car with the child that could be the child she heard through the walls would scoop the child up and take him to the other side of the lawn. They would turn away from her, continue their excavation of the earth with their backs positioned like No Trespassing signs. Johanna began to fear seeing the woman and boy. She would hear the car arrive and would immediately call someone on her phone just to listen to another voice. The woman in the black car didn't seem to miss her at the window. The woman in the black car with the boy would eventually go inside her neighbor's row house. She hated the row house. It seemed an escape for the woman and the boy - a realm that seemed hollow because it was never seen. It was a Friday when Johanna arrived home to the woman and boy for the last time. Maybe it was the delirium from the stress at work, but Johanna couldn't take it anymore. The woman and the boy made themselves into an impassable wall again. She got out of her car and picked up a rock from the ground. "Here's a pretty one," she said and the boy couldn't help but turn around. He reminded her of her brother. A red head with a perfect smile, perfect dimples. It broke her heart for a minute, not because she had lost him to drug addiction, but because she imagined this was how her own little boy would look if time had allowed. The boy ran towards her. The woman turned and ran after him. The woman tried to keep her face down as she scrambled to stop him. Johanna did the unthinkable when the woman came close enough; she held out her foot and tripped her. The woman fell to the ground and Johanna tackled her until she could see the woman's face. The little boy's glee turned to a scream, which contorted into the last screaming rage of her brother, the last time she saw him before the overdose. Johanna let out a gasp. The woman was her mother, or the woman she had seen in photos. Her face was a cluster of bruises. She was holding her stomach as if Johanna would kick it. Her stomach was full with life, about to give birth. Johanna stepped back as the woman screamed, "Michael, Michael, leave us alone." A chill ran down Johanna's back. She ran into the house and locked the door, but the wails continued. She peered out at her brother, now fully grown, begging a man to stop hitting his mother. The man was not there, but the boy thrashed at the wind anyways. Johanna looked at her mother, or the last of her. The police had always said it was a suicide-homicide, that after her mother gave birth, she went crazy with postpartum. Johanna shook her head. She knew the truth. She watched as welts appeared all over her brother. He screamed, "Someone protect the baby,” and there was a baby in the woman's arms. Her mother grabbed a rock and brought it down on the wind over and over again. ![]() Bio: Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her writing has been published in several magazines, including Gargoyle, Silver Birch Press, and Story Shack Magazine. Comments are closed.
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December 2024
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