CHAPTER XIX: A MOTHER'S TALE...

Rob and the twins and I sat in the Great Room, looking at what we assumed was a still living human being, but from the sounds she was emitting I feared the end might come at any moment. She made continual sleeping snoring groaning moaning sounds plus a few I didn't know what to call them.  Emissions from the deep? Volcanic eruptions set to music? Dance of the seven whooping cranes? Seismic eruptions from the inner core of the earth?

She looked dead but God knows she didn't sound dead. Some of her sounds were notes even Beyonce had never heard.

I might have called the coroner but for the horrenous array of what might be called sounds coming from the carcass laying before us. This was one of those moments when the thought of...
"One day we will look back on this and laugh," crosses one's mind...but in this case I didn't think so. Certainly not now. Not so much as a whisper of a giggle could be found.

This went on for over an hour while we waited. Initially, we did try for a bit to rouse her but that achieved absolutely nothing except the sounds she was making got louder and we decided that they had been loud enough already, thank you very much...and so we decided to stop and wait her out. For however long that took, and I feared that at my age (ALMOST 23) I might run out of time from the sound of things. I said as much and that got a round of raucous laughter and normally I would have feared it might wake her, BUT...

FINALLY, and I do mean finally, we heard something that sounded remotely like a word or a phrase or something such as "OMG" and/or "WTF" or...ok, there were several in rapid succession amidst several snorffles, gurgles, and a nasal rhapsody of Grammy award winning something or 'nother.

Then there came a slight stirring from the couch that resembled an Elephant attempting to roll over in the muck. Then she did roll over and then KABOOM. She shot bolt up right eyes wide open...perhaps to see if she could see her bottle?
Trust me, there wasn't one and wasn't gonna be one either.

THE BAH, MADAME, SAD TEW SAY, IS CLOSED FOAH THAH EVE-NIN'.

She looked at us sitting there as if she had just awakened on another planet and was now seeing the natives for the first time. God I wanted to laugh. I really did.

"Who the Fuck are you?"
This from a woman just rising from a drunken stupor/coma/death spiral...and I suppose in such circumstances it would be normal to cut this person some slack...but these are not normal times and I for one wasn't gonna. No intention. NONE.

"I am Dylan Le Maire and these (I pointed at Rob and the twins) are the Ciccolone's. This is (pointing at) Rob, and those two cretins are his twin brothers Drew and Dylan whom I believe you already know," I spit out sorta in her direction (while breathing fire I might add). (I was gonna say Wrack and Wruin, but the look on Rob's face said...uh uh. DAMN."

She looked at the twins, winced and peered and satisfied they weren't aliens i guess got a look that was perhaps a smile or a grimace or something like that and said 'HI' and they responded.

"Where am I?"
"You are at our house."
"Oh," and then after a pause,
"Uh,  how did I get here?"
PAUSE...

"Well," Drew giggled, "let's just say you had a TEEEEEENY EEEEEENSY BITTTTSY LEETLE help."

"Dylan choked on his Coke and Rob almost fell off his chair.

I wasn't amused. For some reason, I just didn't find this woman terribly sympathetic. I seldom if ever do with drunks. Call it a character weakness I suppose.

"Ok, let's just see what we can accomplish before you pass on again," I intoned...and she blushed, knowing exactly what I meant."

I asked Drew what her name was, and he said it was Katherine.
Hmmm. Doesn't look like a Katherine to me. Shady lady perhaps."

"Ok, Katherine."
"Oh you can call me Katie."
'Ok KATHERINE," I continued...none in the least deterred in my quest for...

"Katie? Rob cut in. Relief pitcher.
I've never been totally sure, but my instincts tell me that Rob had sensed a volcanic eruption of epic proportions imminently coming from yours truly and  he SOO hates that THUS the interventionist mode he is sooo good at came to the fore/floor.

"Katie? The boys were at your house tonight. Do you remember that?
Rob sat looking at her far more sympathetically than I had to be fair, and somehow I knew he was gonna get further with his sweetness and light approach than me with my 'ice in veins' approach. Ok, let's just say his plan was better than mine. Point taken, but I had become a walking talking breathing fire none too pleased GRADE A OFFICIAL ... pahtee puupur poo. Just call it a case of one too many bodies without even a note of apology from the murderer/homicidal maniac and I just don't do well with that.

"Katie, this is very important. Do you remember?"
Frankly, I thought to myself, she didn't exactly look like she could even remember her own name at this point.
"SURPRISE ME", I thought.

She continued to merely sit... and I began to think that this might be a good time to do that reading War & Peace thing I had been putting off (since 7th grade) or knitting a shawl (woefully unskilled at) or...and then she abruptly went into thinking mode, or that is what I assumed it was. It was damned near painful to watch. I checked my watch...and then,
"Yes."
"Ok, and you talked at some length I believe, about your knowledge and suspicions about the several murders that have happened in town recently. Do you remember that."

Again with the think-face. It  was a sight to behold. I just wish I hadn't had to.

"Yes, sorta."
"Ok we need to go over that again, Katie. Just to make sure we understand it."
She looked a bit daunted at first and then...
"Will you tell my husband? He will kill me if you do."
"We will protect you. That will not happen, trust me."
"Ok."

She asked for a drink and I was STILL determined not to give her any alcohol...but she said water or coke was fine. That I deemed ok and sent Drew to get it for her.

We sat silently, waiting. I had no clue where all this was going and wanted to. Badly.

Before long, Drew returned with a tray of coke and glasses and even some chips and trail mix. OH GOODIE, A PARTY. I thanked him and began plotting his imminent demise.

Fortified with Coke, Katie/Katharine sat looking at me. WHY ME?

"Ok, lets start over. Drew why don't you refresh her mind (God I was tempted) and then we can go over it."
"Sure, Dyl," and he did...and she did.

I will spare you all the gory details. Two and a half hours of gory details I might add. The upshot was, her adoring husband had abused her from early in their marriage. She had had a couple of miscarriages in rapid succession, and then had given birth to Johnny and Tommy also in rapid succession and then couldn't have any more. (I suspected the abuse had something to do with that). and then John (the husband) began abusing the boys and then raping them. Lovely man eh? She did say that John had been the victim of repeated rape as a child, as had HIS father. Now there is a genetic strain for yah. Strains the mind to be sure.

Katharine suspected (but perhaps couldn't prove) that the years of sexual abuse had built up in her son Johnny's mind to the point that he was no longer capable of ratonal thought. He could no longer act normally so blinded by the pain and intense rage he felt inside. The cumulative effects of all that had to be staggering, I thought to myself.

"I only see him sporadically. I don't know where he is most of the time nor who with or why. I just know he is more than a little unhinged."
She started to cry.
Oh God. A woman's tears.

Dylan went and got her a box of kleenex.

"It's my fault. I should have done more. I should have taken both boys and my daughter and left...for good, but I didn't have anywhere else to go. I had no money...there aren't any shelters around here, and I knew if I tried to leave my husband would come after us, and do God knows what. My parents had died already, I had no brothers or sisters and John ran off what friends I had had...and I felt so helpless. I know it's no excuse but I guess I took my solace in the bottle, and prayed a miracle would happen...but it never did."

I began to see a pattern of hopelessness and a feeling of helplessness and of despair in her I hadn't seen before. I began to suspect that maybe I had been a bit hasty in my judgement of her as merely a drunk. In truth, she had lost years of her life to abuse and then alcoholism...endured a life of misery almost beyond my being able to fathom it and watched helplessly as both of her sons became victims of a sexual predator and now one of them was dead...and I felt she had a pretty good idea who just might have done it. Her very young daughter had fled from a horrible life at home to a life of unspeakable emptiness out there somewhere most of the time.

I sat listening to her and increasingly I felt the helplessness she was describing and the loss she seemed to almost be unable to describe but she didn't have to. It was obvious. it was the embodiment of a life full of drama and pain, and she had done her best to endure, medicated to be sure but who of us could have endured what she had and NOT sought help wherever it could be found.

"Katie," I said looking at her and holding her by the shoulders.
"You are gonna stay here for now. You will be safe here. If you need things from home we will take you to get them and stay with you. Otherwise we can go to the store and get what you need. We need to pursue what you have told us and we will need your help. I think it is time you get back to the land of the living, Katie."

She gulped a couple of times, wiped her eyes, and nodded. Round 1 on the road to recovery. That is usually the hardest one. I began to think she just might come out of this alright. Time would tell. Time and having people to for once care.

I couldn't help but wonder if she had ever considered that her husband just might be a repressed homosexual himself, but I decided to set that aside for now. She had gone through enough for one night.  Tomorrow is another day, and I for one was ready and pretty much able to wait for it. Exhausted.

CONTINUE TO CHAPTER XX: