Allan Leverone - Mr. Midnight

Tears rolled down Virginia Ayers’s cheeks and Cait felt her own eyes fill and the three people stood motionless, one inside the house and two outside. Finally, Kevin said, “This is Caitlyn Connelly, Mrs. Ayers. This is your daughter.”

The inside of Virginia Ayers’s kitchen looked exactly as Cait had pictured it since learning she was going to meet her birth mother. A gas stove, decades old, sat against the far wall, its ceramic finish worn and chipped. Next to the stove and of the same vintage stood a small refrigerator with rounded corners, originally white but now yellowed with age.

The threesome sat awkwardly around a Formica kitchen table that had probably been new in the 1950s. The surface featured an unidentifiable pattern that looked a bit like spilled ice cubes and had been dulled by age and use. The same was true of the wooden chairs upon which they sat. The finish had been worn completely off the seats but the chairs were solid and sturdy and surprisingly comfortable.

The kitchen was impeccably clean, spotless, and Cait thought she could probably eat off the floor’s ancient linoleum tiles, which, although worn and faded like everything else, sparkled as though they received a thorough mopping once a day. Maybe twice.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Virginia Ayers said softly, blowing on the steam curling into the air out of her teacup. Identical cups had been placed on the table in front of Cait and Kevin. Both had so far been ignored.

After her initial shocked reaction at the door, Virginia Ayers recovered quickly, and instead of having the door slammed in her face as Cait had feared might happen, the woman had bustled forward, crying, and ushered them inside. She led them down a short hallway to the kitchen where introductions were made again; then she invited her guests to sit while she busied herself boiling water for tea. Cait and Kevin sat silently.

Now Cait picked up her tea and blew away the steam like her mother had done. The delicate porcelain cup was bone-colored with a silver plated rim, clearly reserved for special guests. “Why did you invite us in if you don‘t want to see me?” she asked timidly. “After hearing your response to Mr. Hirschberg’s request for a meeting, we almost didn’t even bother flying up here.”

“Oh, child, I never said I didn’t want to see you. I’ve wanted to see you for the last thirty years. I’ve wanted nothing more than to lay eyes on you myself, even if for just a few precious minutes. This might be the happiest day of my life. I only wish your father had lived to see you, too.”

Cait sipped her tea and shook her head in confusion. “Then I don’t understand…”

Her mother’s face darkened. It was as if a storm cloud had rolled in and taken a position directly over her head. “This is so difficult,” she said. “It’s very complicated, in ways you may not be able to understand. I’m not sure even I understand completely. I…I don’t even know where to begin.”

“I do,” Cait interrupted gently. “Begin at the point that matters the most, at least to me. Why did you give me up? No matter what hardships you were facing in your life—money problems, job woes, personal issues, whatever—how could you believe they would be solved by giving up your newborn baby?”

Virginia held her tea in two hands, elbows on the table, looking into the cup like it was a crystal ball. She shook her head. “I never wanted to give you up,” she whispered. “Neither did your father. My God, we were never the same after the night we…watched you leave. Before you were born, we were a normal couple, at least as normal as possible. But after that horrible evening…”

Cait waited, spellbound. She glanced at Kevin and he was riveted as well. Virginia Ayers’s eyes were red-rimmed, tortured. She said nothing for a moment, composing herself, and then continued. “You were born in this very house, you know, and then taken from it just a few hours later. After that cursed night, your father and I never looked at each other the same way again. We blamed ourselves, we blamed each other, we blamed fate, we blamed God. We laid blame everywhere, even though we both knew we were doing the right thing by giving you up.”

Virginia looked at Cait bleakly. “Eventually your father couldn’t take the guilt. He hanged himself in a men’s bathroom at South Station a few years later.”

Cait gasped and even Kevin seemed startled. “But I don’t understand. If you both wanted me… why?” There seemed to be no need to finish the question.

“As I told you before, it’s very complicated. More to the point, it’s dangerous. It’s bad enough that you’re here, but the more you learn, the worse the situation becomes.”

“Well, it’s too late now,” Cait said. “The genie is out of the bottle. How bad could it be? Please tell me; you owe me that much after making me wonder about my history for the last thirty years, making me wonder what a tiny baby could possibly have done that was so horrible her own mother had to abandon her. Please.”

Virginia Ayers shook her head in mute protest at the words coming from her daughter’s mouth. She had begun crying again and the tears ran down her gaunt cheeks, dropping off her jaw and splashing on to the table around her teacup like a tiny rain shower. “I’m so sorry,” she sobbed. “It wasn’t your fault; none of it was your fault. Of course you didn’t do anything wrong. But we simply had to separate you from your twin, we had no choice in the matter.”

Cait froze, teacup halfway to her mouth, staring at her mother in astonishment. She set her cup down on the table with a clatter and tea sloshed over the side unnoticed. For a long moment, no one moved. Then Cait said, slowly, “I have a twin?”

The chair occupied a position of honor, placed by Milo Cain squarely in the middle of the mostly unfurnished room. Dust bunnies surrounded it like tiny sentries on the scarred hardwood floor. Occasionally a stray breeze would catch one, sending it skittering through the accumulated trash into a corner, only to be blown back to the center of the room with the next air current. The chair looked like a bare-bones throne for a deposed king.

Atop it lay the disheveled body of the prize Milo had won last night. Rae Ann dozed fitfully, her head lolling to the right, resting precariously on her bony shoulder. Her ponytails had been removed and now messy hair partially obscured her face, a clump sticking to her cheek, glued to her flesh by last night’s dried sweat and tears.

Her sweater and short skirt—and her panties—remained undisturbed for the moment. Milo had every intention of relieving the girl of her clothing—eventually—but for now occupied himself by indulging in one of his favorite fantasies. He played with the handle of the long-nose pliers absently, snapping the jaws open and closed while he watched his guest sleep.

Snap…Snap…Snap…

Thick strips of silver duct tape secured Rae Ann’s forearms to the chair’s sturdy armrests, slapped down tightly by Milo to eliminate any possibility of escape. Her ankles were secured in a similar manner at the base of the front legs. Her torso he had left intentionally unencumbered. Years of perfecting his hobby had taught Milo that if tied up in this manner, his subject’s natural reaction to the pain he was inflicting would be to thrust her hips up and down over and over in an obscene parody of sex—fear and desperation driving her body in a vain attempt to escape the torture—while he played his games. This was what he lived for.

Duct-taped to Rae Ann’s right hand as she dozed was a dingy white dishtowel. Milo had fastened a makeshift cotton mitten last night when he finished playing with her, placing the towel over her hand and then winding a long strip of the tape tightly around her wrist. A tinge of light-pink stain was just visible, indicating the blood had continued dribbling out of her missing fingernails, soaking into the terry cloth for quite some time.