Resurrection

Prologue: Nada

Eddie's anxiety attacks had returned since he'd joined the Alamogordo police force.  Of course, most of the things he'd seen would rattle most nine-to-fivers.  Even so, he was learning that hiding a terrifying five minutes--short breath and hammering heart in his evening shower, or pulled over on a quiet street in his cop car, flinching at every squawk from his radio--would be impossible for much longer.

The return of the attacks in his adult life had come five years ago after returning home from a particularly gruesome crime scene.  He had held his four-year old daughter Ramona so tightly to him at the dinner table that his wife Carmen had to pry the sobbing girl out of her father's unrelenting grip.  An hour of bedtime stories later, Carmen had returned to the dining room to find Eddie staring down into a cold plate of slightly scattered black beans and red enchiladas.  A ring of condensation had puddled around his full bottle of Corona.

Eddie had jumped at her hand on his shoulder.  She massaged the tight knots around his neck.  Immediately he began to weep, his firm upper body convulsing into an accordion of wracked sobs.

"I didn't mean to scare M-Mona," Eddie stammered. "It's just that... at the crime scene today, that poor kids' brains—"

His words melted into weeping.  It alarmed her to see him so shaken.  This was a man who had grown up fending for himself against gangs in the inner city alleys of El Paso.  It occurred to her that this was the third time she'd seen her husband cry, the first being at his father's funeral, and the second when he had first held Ramona.  Even then, those occasions had been restrained trickles, not this hysteria and distress.

Eddie lifted a hand and gestured at the wall with his palm open, trembling slightly. "There was so much red on the walls.  And in my head I just saw that k-kid getting slammed against the wall for every one of those red spots.  And then... all I could see was Mona.  All I could see was m'ija getting thrown—" Suddenly he froze, and Carmen saw that he was staring straight into the picked-at tangle of red enchiladas.  His jaw began to quiver again.  Carmen dumped the contents of the plate in the disposal.

Eddie mumbled something heavily as she rinsed the plate. She turned off the water and said, "Say it again.  The water's loud."

"Some people are fucking evil." The look in his eyes was hopeless.  He looked like a terrified child.

Carmen quickly flipped on the water again, her mind racing for normalcy. "No F-bombs por favor.  She repeats everything she hears." She glanced down the hallway to make sure Mona hadn't snuck out of her room to check on Daddy, and saw no sign of her.

"Some people don't deserve things like... like dinner with your family.  A cold beer.  They don't deserve their own children." His eyes met hers with a fierce and primal love.  She understood the fear now.  It was fear of losing them.

Carmen turned off the sink and dried her hands slowly as she came back to the table.  Her husband's eyes were cast down again when she sat across from him, and his tears had created a puddle on the placemat.  As his shoulders heaved with the heavy breath, she took his beer, downed a lukewarm swig, and wiped the condensation from the bottle with her towel.  She reached a hand out in his line of sight.  Eddie wiped his face quickly and placed his hand palm-up in hers.

Carmen began to massage his palm as she spoke. "You scared Mona.  She has no idea the kind of things you saw today.  And neither do I."

"And you never should know what that's like."

"Listen to me, Eddie.  There will always be bad people.  Evil, like you said.  There will be more ugly things, even uglier than tonight, that you're going to see.   But do you see that door right there?" She gestured to the kitchen door that led to the garage, where his car was parked now amongst a flurry of Ramona's abandoned toddler toys. "That evil stays outside of this house.  It doesn't get to come through the door.  So I don't care what it takes, but don't you ever scare her that way again.  Don't you ever let evil in this house again.  This is a safe place.  For all of us."