Her Story

She's back!

"Have you ever seen death, Ms. David?" Everett Rowley asked in all seriousness but there was a smirk hiding in his tone and it evoked a rather unpleasant feeling in Moira. Her palms itched to lean across the sofa handle and slap him across the face, but it wouldn’t satisfy. He was a small but sharp man and his articles were controversial, but it never stopped him from pursuing the undignified truth or buried secrets. Slapping him on public TV would not only cause a major inconvenience and character assassination for me, Rowley’s smirk would never disappear. He knew all the right buttons to push and as annoying as his all-knowing smile and personality was, she wondered; did he know her secrets?

Moira would never forget that fateful night. The helplessness she had felt as she ran through the alleyway towards a still body. The bile in her throat and tears in her eyes when she saw the blood spreading on the dark gray concrete. The pressure in her chest that she couldn’t release no matter how much she screamed for help. She was witnessing death and at the age of twelve, that’s a jarring image. Watching someone die, it’s not as easy as watching it happen on TV. They cut the scene, or edit the angle, relieve the viewers of watching the horror but still put integrity into their work. To her dislike, she remembered it rather clearly as if it had happened yesterday and the reel to that real-life scene never stopped playing in her mind.

Instead of answering, Moira smiled and asked sarcastically, "As a witness or the killer?"

Rowley’s eyes shot up at the insinuation. Before he could respond, I launched into my previewed and practiced speech at all these interviews, "This book looks into not just the psychology of a killer but their everyday life triggers, like every other human being that walks among us. It humanizes them but doesn’t de-criminalize their actions, more so makes the audience interpret the reasons why they did what they did”. Moira’s hand waved through the air as she explained. “I’m writing about a journey, and like many books and authors have before me, try to understand their mindset to relate to them.”

“Does that mean you relate to the tragedy they cause in some way? Perhaps from a past incident?” Rowley perched his chin on his fisted left hand, his elbow resting on crossed knees. It was as if an inquisition had begun, a criminal on trial.

Moira crossed her arms across her chest and settled into the armchair. "My life is an open book Everett. I’m sure it wasn’t hard to find the little girl who found a dead waitress in a back alley. If I remember correctly, it was front page news.”

"Yes, it was!” Rowley slapped his palms on his thighs as he sat back into his seat, a cocky, satisfied grin on his face. “But for the readers, please tell us if it in anyway ties into your book?”

Moira tried not to grumble. Taking in a deep breath, she leaned forward, and looked at the camera. "I did start out writing my book about discovery, but as all authors are, I too was inspired by my anger and helplessness I had felt when I was a child at a crime scene. It would be unfair of me to say that my past didn’t have a little to do with it,” she looked back at Rowley and continued, “If I hadn't used my past emotions, I wouldn't have been able to write this book."

He contemplated her words in silence while holding her gaze, the tension palpable between them. He wanted to pry information she wasn't willing to give. He kept hitting the brick wall and it pleased her to see him so irritated. Then, as if the tension has suddenly burst, he beamed with another smile. "Ms. David, you are a delight. Always keeping the audience in the edge of their seats. I hope you enjoy your press tour back in your hometown Hardy to promote your new book.”

Her manager had insisted it be a stop on her book tour. Where better to get an audience of her fans than the town she kept running away from?

**************************

The Uber stopped in front of concrete steps leading up to a red brick townhouse. Moira gathered her luggage and slammed the door shut. As she pulled her suitcase on to the pavement, she took in the neighborhood she once lived in. The rustic, small town called Hardy, where not only did she have to grow up fast but had to come to terms with situations no little girl should have to. Walking up the stairs to the front door, she grabbed the key from her coat pocket and it, hit by the suffocating smell of homes being locked up for years. Her parents had abandoned this home none more so than they had abandoned each other. A messy divorce and a couple of alimony checks in, Moira’s mother had left on her own riveting journey of the Himalayas and her dad had made another family with his business secretary. When she moved away for college, her home was just a lay stop to visit her childhood memories.

It was as she had left it, white cloth draped over furniture, rolled up rugs and boxed belongings. She had wanted to sell the house after her mother had bought plane tickets for India, leaving a cryptic voicemail for her during graduation and no date of her return. Moira had flown out afterwards, contemplating about a burden she didn’t want to carry. But the town Mayor, Derrick Henshaw, had convinced her to keep it. He took over the deed to the house, still under her name, but kept up the maintenance after she had the water and electricity shut down. She would never admit it, but she was grateful for Derrick’s offer. He understood her in ways she never could have.

Nine years later, her mom was in a spiritual retreat in Canada and the house seemed to have been preserved in time. The peeling wall papers, the stopped clock hanging over the mantle and glass cabinet that held all her plush toys. They were mere things to her now, once a prized possession, but she didn't want to dwell on her own abandonment issues. She wanted to finish this part of her book tour and move on.

A knock resounded through the main hall of the house. Moira turned around to see Mayor Henshaw standing at the door, an amused grin on his face, "Being back brings a lot of memories doesn’t it?"

Moira walked over to him and he gave her a big hug. Mayor Henshaw was a tall, African American man who lived in a town where his talents were wasted. He came back to the town after ten years, political experience under his belt, to be the Mayor of a small town.

One could never guess his age either. He, like the house, also seemed to be stuck in time.

"I still don’t know how you manage to live here every day, let alone be Mayor. It’s all still raw for me,” Moira’s arm still wrapped around his waist, she stepped to the side and leaned her head on his shoulder, looking out over the covered furniture. She sighed, “I also want to thank you for taking care of the house. But I think it would be better if I sold it now."

"Would you stop with the ‘thankyou’s’?" He stepped out from the hug to run his fingers along the wall and clapped his hands, dust flying everywhere. “And I think of this house is past its selling point now. It’s going to go down in the history books as the famous author Moira Veer’s birthplace. Heritage site and all. The town will gladly take it off your hands," Derrick smiled his devilishly handsome smile at Moira as he leaned against the wall, arms crossed.

Moira unsheathed a beige sofa under the draped cloths. Slowly, they uncovered the whole living room and it was a scene from the past. Moira sniffed, “You think people would flock to Hardy for me?”

The Mayor put a hand on his heart mockingly, insulted by my words. "This is the town that started your story. People go crazy for origin stories."

Even she couldn't argue with that. Everything that had happened to her, this town had been at the center of it. It had seen her tragedies, her childhood, drama, happiness and secrets. But her book wasn’t about her. It was about the killer she didn’t know. A perspective she created to write a story she wanted to empathize with. She knew she had to accept it, like she had said to Mr. Rowley, because without this town she would not be where she was, a published author with a fictional story to channel her anger, to understand why people kill.

Resigned, she looked at the Mayor and replied, "A killers origin story. Not my own"