The remains

Chapter 3

I knew it was going to be a long night from the second I pulled into my apartment building parking lot. I attributed the pessimism to a fire-engine red Toyota pickup that occupied my designated space. Which of course meant that I would have no choice but to park in the visitor’s lot on the opposite side of the common.

It wasn’t the occupied parking space that irritated me. What irritated me was knowing that the Toyota belonged to my ex-husband, Michael.

I killed the Cabriolet engine and pulled the keys from the ignition. I would have gotten out immediately and braved the rain had my cell not begun to vibrate. I pulled the phone out of my knapsack and flipped it open. A new text had been forwarded to me. Thumbing the OK button, I retrieved it.

Remember

It struck me as odd. Did I remember who or what exactly? Baffled, I shook my head, reading the question again and again as if the answer would somehow reveal itself. But each time I read it, the question stayed the same. No answer appeared.

Thumbing OK once more I searched for a caller ID. A name, a phone number. I found neither.

Truth is, this wasn’t the first time I’d received a text that from some out of the blue Unknown Caller. Over the past few months I’d probably received two or three of them. Only difference was that in each of those, only my name appeared.

Rebecca

No caller ID. Only Unknown Caller and no phone number displayed, ever.

It felt more than a little creepy having only your name appear as a text, especially when you had no way of knowing who the sender might be. On the other hand, I couldn’t help but think that Robyn was up to one of her tricks. Playing games with my head purely out of boredom, even if she was getting ready for a date. If that was the case, I was not about to afford her even an ounce of satisfaction by responding to the messages or, for that matter, acknowledging their receipt in the first place.

So why not call the cops?

A very strange and irrational part of me could not help but think that maybe, just maybe, Molly could be trying to communicate with me. In all my grief, I could not help but think that maybe she was sending me texts from, well, let’s call it the ‘great beyond’.

As the rain steadily tapped the windshield I felt myself smiling-happy but sad at the same time. I closed the cell, chose to remain seated behind the wheel, tear-filled eyes staring out the windshield onto a brick apartment building. The rain and the tears obscured my vision, turning the stately buildings into something out of a Salvador Dali painting. Why was I just sitting there? Why did I feel like smiling and crying at the same time? I felt like I needed to breathe, get my act back to something resembling reality before facing Michael.

Remember

“I remember everything, Mol.” I whispered, as I shifted my eyes up toward the Cabriolet’s fabric top, as if I could see through it to heaven itself.

Wiping my eyes with the backs of my hands I exhaled, resolved myself to facing the reality of my ex-husband. I opened the car door, stepped out into the rain. Moving as quickly as possible, I pulled up the seat-back, grabbed hold of the knapsack and Franny’s canvas. Then, sliding out of the car, I made the mad dash across the green to my first floor garden apartment.