Katrina Prado - The Whore of Babylon, A Memoir

I reach our bedroom and stand in the middle of the room, suddenly unable to move further. On the dresser is a framed picture of the three of us standing in front of the house we used to rent on Orchard Avenue back in Aztec, the day we brought Robyn home from the hospital. She is a tiny chrysalis of blankets in my arms. The look on my face I suddenly realize isn’t so much happiness as it is apprehension. Rob’s eyes follow mine to the picture on the dresser.

“I was thinking,” Rob begins. “Maybe after Robyn gets out of that place, we could move back to Aztec. But we wouldn’t have to stay with your Mom or anything,” he quickly adds. He prattles on about eking it out, how sort of romantic it would be starting all over, just living the simple, unencumbered life.

“And I swear to you,” he says. “I’d go to A.A. I would. I think I even remember where meetings were; behind that First National Bank, on Chaco Street.”

His voice is distant, like a radio station that only partially comes in so that I hear only every other word or so. I am suddenly tired, I feel like now I can finally sleep. Really sleep for a thousand years without a care, now that Robyn is safe and sound. I collapse to the bed. I sit slumped and mop the hair off my forehead and with it a sheen of sweat. Rob stops his little fairy tale and peers at my face.

“Are you okay?”

His arm finds my shoulders.

“Hey,” he whispers.

“Nothing,” I murmur, my eyes staring blankly at my lap.

He sits beside me, cloaking me. The pong of stale sweat curdles my nostrils. It seems a Herculean effort to say even a single word, but I manage.

“What did you say?” he asks, his voice filled with anxiety.

I turn and meet his gaze.

“Please, just leave.” My voice is as dry as dead leaves. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

The coffee maker burbles and coughs to life as I review my to-do list. Finish cleaning the house; put the laundry away, and my appointment. My hand edges to the Los Medanos Community College catalogue on the counter, my fingers skimming over my handwritten note concerning my appointment with a counselor this afternoon. Though it is a Friday, I arranged with Carmelita to take the day off. Carmelita was so grateful that the situation with Robyn had been solved that she readily agreed if it meant getting me back to a semi normal schedule.

I smile inwardly as I open the cabinet beneath the kitchen sink and retrieve the Comet and sponge. It seems indescribably splendid to be thinking about school again. Already my mind is beyond the two years I’ll be at Los Medanos and is plotting how I’ll manage getting to classes at the UC extension in Concord. By that time Robyn will be college-aged herself. Perhaps the two of us will go to school together; trading silly commentaries on our professors, sharing notes as we sit in the cafeteria, books and papers sprawled over a table, as we linger over café mochas and decadent cinnamon rolls.

Earlier, I dusted and vacuumed the entire house, taking special care in Robyn’s room, having arranged everything just so. Yesterday I bought and hung new curtains with a matching comforter and pillow shams, all in a lovely pink with lavender and green colored sweet peas. I am hoping that when she returns and sees her room so perfect, so welcoming, she might realize how much she is loved.

As I cross the living room making my way to the bathroom, I glance at the living room window; the curtains are parted slightly, permitting streaks of morning sunlight into the house. I imagine that the days must be growing cooler, disregarding the sweat that covers my body like a wetsuit.

I soak the sponge beneath a rush of cold water in the bathroom sink and shake the green powder across the top of the wet sponge. The tang of the disinfectant coils through the air, giving me a feeling of deliverance from the past two months of hell. I scrub the porcelain to a bright shine and then start in on the silver spigot. This ritual, this ablution, is a comfort. It is a reminder that everything can be made right if only enough rigorous effort is exerted.

As I finish scouring the bathroom sink I think of Rob. He’s been gone two weeks, has called and left several messages, but we haven’t yet talked. In truth, I don’t know what I want to say to him. Most of me misses him terribly. Beyond that I haven’t allowed myself to give any thought.

I am midway through sluicing water along the walls of the bathtub to remove the last of the cleaner when the telephone rings. I mutter to myself as I peel off the yellow rubber gloves and sprint for the phone. The remote is in its stand in the kitchen, right next to the caller ID display. I know there are two messages left by my mother, and until now, I’d managed to forget about the need to return her call. ‘Unknown caller’ shows on the readout. I know from previous phone calls that it isn’t John Simpson from Peaceful Acres. I think momentarily of letting the answering machine pick it up, but then think better of that decision and grab the phone, depressing the ‘talk’ button.

“Hello?”

Silence.

“Hello?” I say again.

“Es no finish, señora.”

My heart is suddenly a staccato of gunfire in my chest. I will never forget that voice. It is BLU BOY.

“You will never see Robyn again!” I yell into the phone. “Do you hear me?”

I hear laughter, the sound of evil incarnate.

“ No puede hacer nada.” He laughs again and then his voice is a thin whisper: “she es mine.”

“You will never ever touch her again. Never!” I scream. I click the ‘end’ button and drop the phone. It clatters to the counter. My body is shaking with rage. The phone begins ringing again. ‘Unknown caller’.

I let it ring but the caller hangs up when it comes time to leave a message. I pull out a chair from the kitchen table aware that my legs feel like wet ribbon. How did BLU BOY get this number? I can’t believe that Robyn would have given this monster her home number. Maybe Chevy knew and BLU BOY beat it out of her. If he knows the phone number, maybe he knows the address too. A feather of dread whispers down my back.

I stand suddenly and lurch for the front door, twisting the lock with all the force my hand can muster. I am on the couch now, peering surreptitiously from behind the drapes, looking for the telltale BMW. But all I can see is my neighbor, Mrs. Cotillo, watering the dogwood hedge that separates our property.

I storm back to the kitchen and call the Pittsburg P.D. but they offer less than any help, telling me that without a crime having been committed, there is nothing they can do. I phone Bart Strong but only get his answering machine. I leave a message.

Now what? After whisking Robyn out of ‘ Sodom and Gomorrah ’, I hadn’t planned on this animal invading my life; our lives. I expected that with my daughter’s departure he would find some other poor soul to prey upon. What did Sister Margaret tell me; there are hundreds of runaways on the streets of San Francisco. My stomach is suddenly roiling with an acid foam. I reach for my bottle of Axid and open it, popping two of the white tablets into my mouth.

I have never before in my life understood how one human being could take the life of another. At least not until now. I could kill BLU BOY this very minute without batting an eyelash and walk away feeling completely free from any wrongdoing.

An hour passes and then two. I cannot clean, nor can I think straight. Shards of fear and dread needle my skin. The appointment with my counselor looms. I should be in the shower, getting ready, but I seem frozen inside the house, cocooned by an oppressive disquiet. My mind tells me that Robyn is perfectly safe, down in Newport Beach, tucked safely within its confines, getting the help she so desperately needs. No one knows where she is other than Bart, his helper Freddie, Rob and I. John Simpson, the director of Peaceful Acres said that Robyn would not have access to the outside world for the first thirty days, and even after that she would be allowed contact with immediate family only. There is no way that BLU BOY can know where she is, much less get to her. And yet. I try dislodging the fear from my body by briskly running my fingers through my hair. My mouth still feels dried up as dryer lint and my heart hammers inside my ribcage.