#71 Why - Cen Fath

I switched on the small flashlight I found in one of the many over filled kitchen cupboards at White Pine. The slim beam of light did little to help me navigate my way through the green space at the back of the Bull Frog Country Club, and I was thankful for the total lack of bumps and holes due to an over attentive grounds crew.

The night air was moist form an earlier rain and the material of my sneakers were soaked by the time I reached the mulched path. I took my time weaving under and around loose branches, not in any hurry to reach my destination. Each time I'd met with Monroe – planned or not – my body went numb. Similar to the out of body experience that overcame me in my dreams, I was unsure that I could control myself when I was in his presence. Emotions would overtake me as I spoke.

That was what I found to be the most dangerous about Monroe, and maybe why my mother didn't want to leave him at first. He was intoxicating in the worst way, to the point where you weren't aware that time was passing. When I first stormed into his office I had no idea the manipulation he was capable of, he masked it so well as he sat beside me filling my ears with lies.

I was reminded every night of who he was when my body lunged forward waking me from a painful scene of Monroe taking a chain saw to my mother's bench or throwing me out of his thirty-two story building. Each time after that I prepared myself more and more, but it never failed to come as a shock.

Tonight I wanted to be different - I knew it would be different. For once I felt powerful, we were on a seesaw that had tipped his way but now it was lowering gradually. My mother's journal in my hands became lighter and lighter no longer weighting me down with 'what ifs' and doubts. Her words and my connection to them through her paintings and the pond before me buoyed me like a hot air balloon as I rose above Monroe.

The clearing was empty for the moment and I gravitated toward the edge and circled around to the more narrow curve closest to the bench. Soft croaks of the frogs filled the air with pockets of silence as they waited for others to answer. A cloud passed over the moon leaving only a sliver of her light to dip into the pond illuminating a few of the lily pads that covered the water like overlapping tiles.

"Lovely evening isn't it?"

Plucked from my lost thoughts I took a step back and swiveled to see Monroe. He stood several feet away in the shadows where the moon's light didn't reach.

I didn't answer as he took a step forward both hands clasped behind the back of his impeccable navy suit. Fighting the urge to clutch my locket at the sight of him I let out a deep breath and closed the distance between us until there we stood two feet apart.

"Let's get this over with, I have a wife and family to go home to," He taunted releasing his hands he brought one arm out to fiddle with his cufflinks as if he were bored waiting on his dry cleaning.

I held my ground. "You wouldn't want to lose one of those here."

He laughed tilting his head back in amusement. Although he was slim, Monroe was a good six inches taller than me. I kept Mo Soileireacht behind my back as we spoke. Lyle instructed me to try and not focus on the possibility of violence, but at the same time to be cautious. Up until his entrance I was doing my best to heed her warning that if my guard was up too high it could act as a blinder and inhibit my ability to detect or diffuse a situation.

This was much easier said than done as he took a half step toward me and leaned down getting in my face as he sneered. "Where is Mo Soileireacht?"

At his advance I felt my consciousness look frantically for the exit door in my body. The flight instinctively overpowering the fight, but tonight I knew I needed to take a different route. I locked the door, erasing it from my mind's eye as I willed my entire body to stay in the moment and fight for my mother's memory. "I won't give it to you, not until you tell me why you killed her."

"May, darling," He pulled back and shrugged as if he were explaining to a child why they couldn't have a tenth piece of candy. "I know you're new to negotiations, but you've already had your pitch. You don't get to go back and tack on anything new. Besides, you're smarter than Charlotte. Take the money and go. Don't get attached."

He uttered the last sentence so flippantly that I couldn't hold back anymore.

"She wasn't attached to you. You broke that spell the first day you cut her a check and told her to pack up." I felt taller with every word as they rolled off my tongue, each syllable like a punch to Monroe's ego. "The first time I came to see you I had it all wrong. I thought that my mother came back to you because she loved you - I shouldn't have flattered you. She came back to you because of her love for me, she wanted me to have a family and I won't be fooled anymore. Now tell me what she said." I stuck out my free hand and pointed in his face. "What did she say to you to that made you-" My voice left me, why couldn't I say it? Why couldn't I fully confront the man who I knew had taken my mother from this world.

Seizing my moment of weakness he shoved my hand from his face. "Made me do what?" He mocked innocently.

Every foot hold that I gained in confidence was pulled out from under me as he glared down. A sudden tinge of fear settled in my stomach as if I'd eaten a bag of cement that was coagulating in my gut.

Lyle was right. This was a dangerously stupid plan. How could I think I would have the tact to go up against Monroe and win? I was an idiot, insane to reenact the same mistake that cost my mother her life. My eyes wandered from Monroe's intense gaze to the bench resting just over his shoulder.

I blinked.

Sitting in the center, my mother, her feet covered by the long grasses and closed blossoms. Her hands rested on her knees as she held her head up. Moonlight shown down on her as if it were a spotlight leaving the rest of the clearing in relative darkness and revealing her eyes to be closed as the breeze settled through her loose braid. She looked peaceful, more calm than any painting I'd ever seen.

For a split second I looked back at Monroe, wondering if he too had seen her? The muscles in my face relaxed and my outward expression must have visibly changed as he frowned. Following my gaze he looked back to the bench, but she was gone.

"No."

Monroe whipped his head back around to look at me.

"You killed my mother without a second thought. I deserve to know why." My feet, taking on a mind of their own pushing me forward bringing me within inches of Monroe. "Why here? You knew where she was the entire year, why not then? Why not the day she came to your office? What the fuck happened for you to kill my mother you fucking coward."

My words were raw and unrehearsed. What I needed to say had been ruminating in the back of my mind for too long. For years I'd fought my thoughts with a three foot pole to keep myself from falling into a pit of unknowns.

There were so many unanswered questions that I knew I was destined to live with but there was one I could not let go of. My knuckles turned white as I clutched on to the thought of my mother's final days, hours, minutes. What happened at the Lily Pad Place.

A crime of passion is how Lyle described it one night as we lay out in the lawn. If Monroe intended to kill her, why would he have not done it a long time ago? He was surely smart enough to know that as time goes on the chance of my mother becoming restless with the thought of taking his bribe money would weaken his control – I was proof enough. There was something I was missing. Something that was said or done that sealed her fate.

I needed to hear it, even if that meant hearing it from the man who killed her.

"You fucking coward," I repeated. "You hide behind your expensive suits and paid for interviews, but you're nothing and everybody knows it."

"At least I know who I am." He cut me off throwing his hands into the air. "Charlotte's head was always in the clouds, she never came down long enough to use her fucking brain. The best decision she made was to take the money and leave, but no, she had to get a fucking conscious and come back."

"What do you mean?"

"She wanted to return the money." Monroe almost spit in disgust but I had to do a double take.

"What?"

He curled his lip in aggravation. "Your mother was a goodie two shoes. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"And you killed her for it." My mind raced fitting together the pieces that I collected bit by bit. "She wanted to give you back the money so you didn't own her anymore – she wasn't going to keep the secret."

"Ding ding!" He clapped in fake excitement, mocking my epiphany.

"My mother was going to ruin your marriage and you job." I continued but it was one too many steps for Monroe as he took a menacing advance of his own. Startled I stumbled back closer to the edge of the pond.

"Give me the book May. You got your answers. Play time is over"

I ignored him. "Where is she?" I looked around the clearing. This was the last place they met. "Did you do it here?"

I reached for him suddenly overcome with the need to shake the answer out of him. Monroe was already ahead of me as he reached behind him producing a gun. I recognized it from the top drawer of his desk. "You're out of time May," He held the weapon steadily pointed at my chest. "Now give me the book."

"No." I shook my head defiantly. "You can't hurt me, I have people who know I'm here, they will send the journal to the media."

"Oh dear, another critical mistake. The Big Ten loves me, they'll give me whatever air time I want as long as I throw enough money at them. I'm thinking of buying one myself." He mused briefly distracted by the thought of his own media empire. "Besides, you're bluffing. See I don't think you told anyone about this, I've watched you May. You're alone just like your mother. And even if you did find some poor soul to 'blow the whistle' on me, who do you think they're going to believe?" He snorted out an incredulous laugh. "It's my word over a dead woman's."

The click of the trigger was so faint I had no time to think as the force carried me backwards. My feet flew out from under me and I fell into the pond.

Lily pads gathered around my face, their edges bumping into my cheeks as I sank into the water.

-

I'll leave us on a bit of a cliffhanger (;