Maria angled the .45 to her head, pushing her peroxide-blonde locks aside so that the gun was firmly placed against her right temple. She looked around the room. There was nothing left. The bare walls, the second-hand threadbare sofa and the lack of furnishings were evidence of the nothingness – of the years of labor won and lost.
His sweet talking tongue and mellow kisses had encouraged her to take out loans, increase the credit on her three cards and had lied and loved with the insight of a trained chameleon.
His tongue had conned her out of her all her savings, and squandered Martha’s Harvard fund. It had pawned her mother’s diamond ruby ring that had been in the family for four generations.
‘I’ll reclaim it, when I win big,’ he promised, just as he had when he sold an original Thomas Kinkade, a special gift from her grandfather, who adored ‘the painter of light’.
The foreclosure notice on her rose edged cottage, reminiscent of an English postcard, predicted a life of homelessness, sleeping on the streets or worse, accepting the charity and hospitality of well-wishers, family and friends.
But when he suggested that he pimp his 14 year old step-daughter, her beloved Martha, ‘just to pay off a few debts,’ she shot him.
Martha walked in as her mother’s gun splattered the brains of the man, she’d always known as Daddy Martin, around the walls of the home they no longer owned. Maria swung round and killed the two friends that he bought to start Martha ‘on the game’. Clean shots to their unsuspecting hearts.
Moments later, Maria’s dead body beat to Martha’s silent screams, the blood of the fallen and Springsteen’s No Surrender playing in the background.
Men in black carried the bodies of her mother and stepfather in matching body bags. Men in white delivered her motionless body to The Columbia Institute. Men in coloured shorts and baggy tees, those in business suits, in coffee shops, pubs, on the train, on buses and in automobiles spoke of the incident in whispered tones for months after.
Martha was silent.
Silent for months of cold, hard stares at walls awash with white, magnolia and ivory, that looked more like fifty shades of money. Too silent! Her eyes bore the marks of emptiness and nothingness, just like the home and family that she had lost.
‘She’s not shed a tear since she’s been here, said Dr Ryan, lead psychiatrist at a case review’.
‘And she’s not likely to,’ added Adelaide Symthe, her nurse and companion.
Their conclusion was that she was suffering from a severe case of post-traumatic stress disorder. A new set of meds and treatment were prescribed to assist in her recovery.
Martha remained in her silent house, the one that she now called home, safe and away from the violence and craziness of a world gone mad with love and lies. She was decorated with thoughts of peace and angels and John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ and she filled her life with the threads of the mundane and insignificant.
The Columbia Institute was set in 30 acres of outstanding beauty. The fresh smell of pine roared through its halls in the winter. Bursts of color rushed in each autumn. Summer was aglow with the voice of thrush, sparrows and finches and spring tasted like the yellow daffodils that carpeted the lawn immediately outside the building’s reception.
The Columbia Institute was a place of rehabilitation, but its opulent decor and pristine exterior and grounds resembled a palace. Only the rich could afford this place. Only those who didn’t have to ask the cost were eligible candidates to be cured, with no expense spared.
Martha was here on the request of an anonymous benefactor. Miriam, her mother’s sister, suffered with lupus and was barely able to care for herself. It was said that her Uncle James, her mother’s only living brother, was in and out of prison “more often than a woman can change her underwear’. The remaining family members were immersed in their own lives and the orphaned, traumatized daughter of a ‘dead serial killer’ was not a priority.
So Martha stared and stared and stared – until the day that Keeble arrived at the Institute. He was 16 years old, suffered from Attention Deficit Hypersensitivity Disorder (ADHD) and, unlike the passive and silent Martha, brought the place alive, with his annoying comments and his overwhelming personality.
Each morning he would wake up and play air guitar and hollow Springsteen’s No Surrendermuch to the annoyance of the other clients. The first morning this happened, Martha voluntarily walked out of her room, for the first time since she’d entered the place and stood in the corridor, her eyes dark. The rage in her eyes bore into his soul and he temporarily stopped and stared at her.
‘Hi, my name’s Keeble,’ he said jumping up and down, like a demented frog.
Martha walked past him, round him and returned to her room..
Doctor Ryan dubbed it ‘progress’.
‘ I think it’s only temporary,’ said the cautious Adelaide Smythe, who believed she was an expert on young Martha.
‘Inconclusive’ was the outcome of Martha’s next case review.
Martha’s door remained closed each morning for the next week, despite the deafening sounds of No surrender, accompanied by a real guitar that some well-meaning relative had given to Keeble, who had little clue how to use it.
In Keeble’s world, there were no boundaries, no limits and one morning, he bounded into Martha’s room, unannounced and rearing to go.
‘Hi, my name’s Keeble’ and started his morning jingle.
Martha sat up in bed with the pristine sheets almost covering her face. The sun played hide-and-seek through the half-opened curtains and somersaulted all over the room. She looked like a shy Snow White with her blonde locks and her sparkling blue eyes. She resembled a young Maria, when life was carefree, Maria minus Martin.
‘Who are you?’ Keeble was insistent.
Martha, stepping out of bed with silk pajamas that gave her that princess look, laughed and left the room. The sun waltzed on her face and in that moment she was so beautiful that excited Keeble increased the volume of the song. He became a regular morning visitor to Martha and was rewarded by a giggle or two.
‘Progress’ was the medical team’s diagnosis when they next met.
But no-one was ready for the breakthrough that occurred that one special day – the day when election fever infected the United States and every new station ran the story. It was while Martha watched the televised campaign trail of President Obama on the 18th of October that her world opened. Sprinkled among the politicking in Ohio, with Barack and Bill, Bruce stepped out of the shadows and crooned,
like soliders in the winter night
with a vow to defend
No retreat, baby, no surrender
Martha’s tears that were vaulted for months flowed long and free. Martha, who had decried her mother’s taste in music, and had despised Springsteen (he didn’t have the kudos like Jesse J, Alicia Keys or Nicki Minaj) was released by the lullaby that rocked her mother to her final sleep.
And as Martha’s tears fell, Keeble was silent.