Jack Mars - Recall Zero

As long as she lived, she would never forget the panicked expression on her little sister’s face. Please. Please don’t, Sara had begged her. Don’t leave me alone with him. I can’t do it.

As much as it broke her heart, Maya had made her plans and intended to see them through. So Sara made some of her own. She went online and found a lawyer who would take her case pro bono. Then she filed for emancipation. She knew it was a long shot; there was no proof or evidence of neglect, abuse, or anything like that.

But in a turn that shocked both sisters, their father did not fight it. Less than two weeks after Maya left for military school in New York, her dad attended the court date and, in front of a judge, told his then-fifteen-year-old daughter that if she wanted freedom from him enough to do this, to take him to court for it, she could have her freedom.

That same night came another event that Maya would not soon forget. Her father called her. She ignored it. She still hated him back then. He left her a voicemail that she didn’t listen to for two days. When she finally did, she wished she hadn’t. His voice wavering, breaking even, he told her that Sara was gone. He admitted that he deserved all of it and then some. He apologized three times, and told her he loved her.

It would be another six months before they spoke again.

But Maya did keep up with her sister. Upon emancipation, Sara packed up what she could carry and got on a bus. She ended up in Florida and took the first job she found, as a cashier in a thrift store. She still worked there. She lived in a co-op, a rented house with five other people. She shared a bedroom with a girl a couple years older than her, and a bathroom with everyone else.

Maya made sure to call her sister at least once a week, and more when her schedule allowed. Sara always promised that she was doing fine, but Maya wasn’t sure she could believe it. She’d left high school with the assurance that she’d go back, but she never did. These days Maya didn’t bother trying to convince her to return; instead, she pushed for Sara to test for her GED. Just another thing Sara claimed she’d do. Someday.

Maya lived at the academy year-round, and was given a stipend every semester for uniforms, books, food, and the like. She usually didn’t have much left over, but she sent her sister some money when she could. Sara was always appreciative.

Neither of them needed anything from him anymore. They didn’t want anything from him anymore.

They really had talked the day prior; that part wasn’t a lie. Sara was sixteen now, and one of the girls in her co-op was teaching her to drive. It pained Maya that she was missing out on such important parts of Sara’s life, but she had her own goals and was determined to meet them.

Simply put, the truth about their mother’s death and their father’s lies had driven a wedge between not only them and their father, but the two girls as well. They were on separate paths, and though they could keep in touch and help each other when able, neither was about to go too far out of their way to disrupt their own lives.

“Would anyone like some more?” Maria offered. “There’s plenty.”

Maya’s attention snapped back to the dinner table. She’d been lost in her own thoughts, and when she looked around she saw that everyone else was finished eating. Still she set the spoon down. She just wanted this visit to be over, to thank them and get the hell out of there. “No thank you. It was very good.”

“Agreed,” said Greg enthusiastically. “Absolutely delicious.” And then the blond idiot went and opened his big mouth yet again. “Thank you, Mrs. Lawson.”

A flash of anger combusted inside her like a swelling backdraft. The words forced their way out of Maya’s mouth before she even thought about them. “She is not Mrs. Lawson.”

Maria did a double-take. Her father continued to stare, but now his eyes were wide in surprise and his mouth slightly open.

Greg cleared his throat nervously. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I just assumed…”

More anger welled inside her. “I told you that on the ride down here. You wouldn’t have to assume anything if you stopped talking about yourself for five damn minutes!”

“Hey,” Greg bristled. “You can’t talk to me like that—”

“Why not?” she challenged. “Is your mommy going to do something about it? Yeah, Greg, I know, she was the mayor of Baltimore for two years. You only mention it every other sentence. No one gives a shit!”

His throat flexed and his face flushed red, but he said nothing in return.

“Maya.” Maria spoke softly, yet firmly. “I know you’re upset, but it was just an accident. There’s no reason to be rude. We’re all adults here—”

“Oh.” Maya scoffed. “I think there’s every reason to be rude. Would you like me to enumerate them for you?” She was smart enough to know what was happening, but angry enough not to care. The truth was evident; she was still very angry with her father, despite telling herself she wasn’t. But she had channeled all of that hostility and ire into school and her goals. Here and now, without any of that and sitting across from the man who had done this to her, it all came bubbling back to the surface. Her face felt hot and her heartbeat had doubled its pace.

She was suddenly keener than ever that she could not conjure a single happy memory from her childhood without the stabbing realization that her father’s life, and by extension much of her own, was one big lie wrapped in a thousand smaller lies. The brightest light in her young life, her mother, had been cruelly and coldly extinguished because of it, at the hands of a man Maya had been foolish enough to put her own trust in.

And her father not only knew about it. He let that man, John Watson, walk away.

“Maya,” her father started. “Please just—”

“You don’t get to speak!” she snapped. “She’s dead because of you!” She surprised even herself with the intensity of it, and was then surprised again that her dad did not have a burst of anger in response. Instead he clammed up, staring down at the table like a kicked pup.

“Look, I don’t know what’s going on here,” Greg said gently, “but I think I’m going to bow out…”

He started to rise, but Maya stuck a threatening finger in his face. “Sit down! You’re not going anywhere.”

Greg immediately lowered himself back into his chair as if she were a drill sergeant ordering a private. Maria regarded her aloofly, one eyebrow arched slightly, as if waiting to see how this was going to play out. Her father’s shoulders slumped and his chin nearly touched his collarbone.

“Goddammit,” Maya muttered as she ran her hands over her short hair. She thought she was past all this, past the emotional surges that crashed on her like an errant wave, past the attempts to reconcile the smiling, humorous professor that she called Dad with a deadly covert agent who had been responsible for the trauma she would carry with her for the rest of her life. Past the late-night sobbing bouts when she changed her clothes and saw the thin white scars of the message she had carved into her own leg, back when she thought she was going to die and used her last ounce of strength to give him a clue to her sister’s whereabouts.

Don’t you dare cry.

“This was a mistake.” She rose and started for the door. “I don’t ever want to see you again.”

She was too angry to cry, she realized. At least she was past that.

Maya slid behind the wheel of the rental car and turned the key in the ignition before Greg came jogging out after her.

“Maya!” he called. “Hey, wait!” He tried to pull the handle of the passenger side, but she’d already locked the doors. “Come on. Let me in.”