Perfect Imperfections

Chapter 17: A FAMILY OF STRAYS

Tonight was just one of those nights when sleep was playing hide and seek with Margaret. She lay on her bed wide-eyed, admiring Emilia's spectacular ceiling choice for her room. She followed the wheat designs on her white ceiling with her goldish brown eyes, thinking about home. Emilia had particularly chosen this design for that exact same reason.

Margaret's mind drifted off to tough farm life in California under the scorching heat. The smell of hay and wheat that comforted her, the persistent neighs of the horses in the stables and the distinct vanilla smell that followed her mother wherever she went.

Her mother was a strong woman. A woman that had given up city life in Boston for the sake of her daughter's safety and had moved to California where she had taken over her brother's struggling farm and had made it thrive with much difficulty. Margaret wished that she would be back in her mother's tight embrace. She wished that her mother would scold her for licking the bowl with the cake batter before she could put it in the oven but that was never going to happen again.

Unbidden, the images of the fire that had destroyed everything came to the forefront of her mind, taunting her. Eight years ago, a fire had broken out on the farm killing her mother who had gone back into the blazing farmhouse to save some of the workers. Margaret loved to think that her mother had died a hero but that did not stop the bitter pang of loss that followed her wherever she went, the feeling of loneliness that swirled around her like a tornado. Ever since that day, she always felt like the outsider looking in. Maybe that's why she had saved Elaine that day. Maybe she was selfish for saving Elaine so that she could have her own family after all, her real family had rejected her.

The Houghtons had thrown her out of their luxurious double storeyed house in Mattapan the very day she had come to meet them after finding out from her mother's attorney that her father was not dead as she had been made to believe rather he was in Mattapan playing the family man with his legitimate family. They had accused her of only wanting money from them and her own half brother had thrown ten thousand dollars in her face as a parting gift.

Margaret didn't care about them though because she had built her own little family. Emilia was her daughter, of whom she was very proud because she had managed to fulfill her dreams despite her tragic past. There were two other members of her pseudo family; Gregory, Emilia's oldest friend and Andrew. Gregory owned and managed a car dealership in Boston while Andrew worked for Gregory as a salesman. They both identified themselves as lost souls with no families and Margaret had taken them in. All together, they formed a little family of strays.

Margaret continued staring at the white ceiling of her room praying for atleast three hours of sleep before she had to wake up and go to work and it seemed like God was finally listening to her prayer. Her eyelids fluttered closed and her muscles relaxed. It was a soothing experience as she finally boarded the sleep train.

BANG

Margaret was out of her bed before she fully woke up. She had heard a crash in her own house. She peeped at her driveway through her silky red curtains and saw a delivery vehicle parked at the end of the street. This vehicle clearly didn't belong in this neighborhood. Margaret was 99.9% sure that the killer was in her house and she would be caught dead before she allowed the killer to get the best of her.

Margaret was a fighter but she was also not stupid. She picked up her phone and dialled 911. A female voice spoke from the other side.

"911. What's your emergency?"

"Weymouth road, Park Lane. Plot number 23." Margaret whispered. She prayed that the woman on the other end had heard her rattle off her address and hung up.

Margaret made use of the light from the streetlights seeping through her curtains and located her shotgun on the top of her pine wood closet. She pushed aside her mattress and loaded up the gun with the bullets she had sequestered under it then left her room to locate the killer.