Marilyn was looking out the window as the train began moving. She dropped back into the seat so hard that it hurt, so badly, in fact, that it momentarily made her forget about the panic attack she was having. “Owww,” she said to the little blond girl sitting next to her. The little girl responded, “Ouchy?” “Yes, darling, ouchy,” she replied. She couldn’t help but smile; it was the first in a long time. But they were finally on the train. She was sure that the train was their only hope of escape. She considered taking the car, but that wouldn’t be fast enough. Besides, they knew her car—they had followed her from Seattle after all. She took a deep breath and could already feel herself beginning to relax.
After a few minutes, she pulled out some cookies from her bag. Do you want…she stopped. The child sat motionless, staring straight ahead. “Honey, look at me,” she said. The child started straight ahead. “Oh no, please God, not again!” Panic was creeping up her spine. “Honey,” she said again, pulling the child up into her lap. The child didn’t respond. “No, no, please…” she thought. This can’t be happening again. She began to sob.
“Ouchy?” she heard. She opened her eyes and looked at the child’s face. “Ouchy?” The child said again, touching a tear making its way down Marilyn’s cheek. Marilyn gasped. “Oh baby, you’re OK,” she said. “No ouchy,” she said managing a smile. She stroked the child’s blond curls. The child settled herself into Marilyn’s lap. Marilyn held her tightly until the child fell asleep. But the incident rattled her. It was starting again—she could feel it. She didn’t know how or why—all she knew is that she wouldn’t let them take her child again. Her only hope now was to get as far away from them—this evil--as she could. She willed the train to go faster and hoped they weren’t too late.
It was dark now and the train was quiet. For a long time, Marilyn dozed but couldn’t fall asleep. Instead, she thought about what had been happening since they got to the shore. It just didn’t make any sense. Who were these people going after her child? Why? She shuttered as she thought back to that evening in town when they tore child away from her. “She doesn’t belong to you,” they had said. God, she had screamed so! But then--just as unexplainably--the child was back. And she seemed to be fine.
“Maybe it’s payback,” she thought. “Maybe she really doesn’t belong with me…NO, don’t think that way!” she screamed back to herself, “she does belong with you and not that monster!” Her head was pounding now. “Hold it together Mare,” she thought, “you have to hold it together.”
Weeks earlier, she and the child had been in Seattle. She hated most everything about it. She grew up in Florida--the Sunshine City to be exact--where they gave out newspapers for free if the sun didn’t shine. So, day after day of the wet, gray weather wore on her.
But she loved her job. All she ever wanted was to be around children.
“Why torture yourself. Mare?” her mother would say. “Since you can’t have any of your own,” was implied but not stated out loud.
“I love kids, Ma,” Marilyn would say.
“Suit yourself. I just think you’d be better off if you forgot about children all together.”
But she couldn’t do that. Children were pure innocence—well the little ones anyway. And they didn’t try to fool you or mess with your head. If she couldn’t have any of her own, she’d just have to enjoy other people’s.
And there was one child she loved more than any of the others. So much so that she had quit her job at the daycare center to become a fulltime governess to the child. The child’s mother was a “modern” woman who had a big, fancy job and traveled frequently. “One of those bra burners,” Marilyn’s mother would have called her. She hired Marilyn as a live-in to care for the child while she worked (which seemed to be around the clock) and run the household while she was away.
