Unstoppable force, Immovable object ~ Loretta and Martha
There were very very few things higher than long car rides on the list of Martha's personal irritants. Bikers. Lucas in his "let's irritate Ezekiel" moods. Not to mention slow moving staff, her old classmates, the members of Holy Ghost one and all, and flip flops. So maybe not so very few things. Regardless, several days spent driving cross country was very nearly enough to send her into a snit, especially on top of the days of turmoil and stress in which she had the great pleasure of packing everything she owned into the back of her small car, arranging for Myra's funeral, and bolting from the town she'd hardly left her entire life like a thief in the night.
Desert turned to wheat fields turned to grassy hills as she made her way closer to the address Lucas had sent her, stopping a few times to hole up in crap hole motels for the night. She'd managed to avoid thinking most of the trip, Martha had solidly compartmentalized the fact that Myra, her biological mother, a woman she'd barely had a chance to know, had been murdered, the day she'd shipped out of town. Hours spent on cruise control, with only the static of whatever halfway passable radio station she could find to break the silence,
The sizable home faded into view as she rumbled up the drive, surrounded by well manicured lawns.. Martha could handle green, everything here seemed less bare, less utilitarian, than the clay dust surrounding Prosaic. Parking and stretching her legs out as she slid out of the drivers seat, Martha brushed the wrinkles out of her dress and smoothed out her hair before approaching the front door. It was quiet, not a soul to be seen outside, and she braced herself, carefully softening her face before knocking on the front door.
Well, not appropriate exactly. She was far from pure. A mother out of wedlock, her child given to family. Martha still wasn't sure what all Myra'd gotten up to in the years between her own birth and her cousin Mother's return to Prosaic. But she'd died absolved, her conscience clear, and really, how more pure could anyone be?
It had been two days since Martha had spoken more than absolutely necessary. The idle chit-chat, banal comments on the weather and gossip would have seemed pointless even if people were speaking to her.
That had been an abrupt fall from grace.
They really were smarter than she gave them credit for sometimes. Of course Ezekiel's hasty flight from town, and certain headlines in the papers had matched up a little too well.
Martha herself was still a little in shock. Had been since Sunday, through packing, and planning, phone calls and arrangements and using the little bit of clout she still had left to arrange a passable funeral for Myra.
Nobody had come.
She'd been beautiful, demure, you'd never have guessed her torso was a mess of patched up holes and lead. The Father's message had been brief, there wasn't much to say, not when the only griever was dry eyed and stoic.
Martha didn't stay as the white robes disappeared from the corner of her eye back into the church, couldn't stay really. She'd only half packed, and there were things to do before she could join her brothers in Kentucky, of all places.
It seemed wrong, somehow, to leave without saying goodbye to the women who'd made her. She wasn't much for sentimentality, but the three graves, one still waiting for a headstone, deserved one last visit before the Saylor family name turned to dust in the California wind.
Arms full of lilies, Martha let herself into the church. She'd leave the key on the way out. Empty hallways magnified every rustle of her bags, and clink of metal vases as she walked. It was disconcerting, wandering the building she'd spent so much of her life in out of her uniform, out of context. The tick of the clock as it's arms moved towards 7 was drowned out as she found a room with a decent table, the almost-sunlight peeking over the horizons outside didn't reach the windowless little office, and her hands moved of their own accord as she snipped and arranged the flora she'd carted in.
This was comfortable. Customary. The product of a million other arrangements for a million other graves, a gift to the bereaved and a honor for the departed. Her mind was blank as she tucked the blooms into foam blocks, stayed so as she carefully lifted the three squat vases out to the church graveyard.
Leah Saylor, Anna Saylor, Myra Saylor. Mother, Sister, Cousin.
Leah had raised her well. Not unkindly, not without love, but she knew the rules and she taught her daughter how to play by them, to use them to her advantage. Her death had left a scared fourteen year old clinging desperately to the grace and manners learned at her knee.
Anna, pretty, sweet, unselfish Anna, had brought that girl into her home, pried at the ironclad civility, gently worked to open up the orphan she called a sister in law. There was progress, not enough to break down the walls, but they'd shrunk a little under such persistent kindness. Until Anna had been found, brutally murdered, and the scared child became a practically stonefaced young woman, sixteen and thrown into her position as matriarch of the family.
Myra had never been a part of her child's life, not since she'd given her daughter up so young, and her triumphantly drunken return to Prosaic had never garnered anything but disgust from her ill-begotten daughter, any attempts to connect shut down quickly and bitterly. There had been a moment, briefly, when it seemed there was potential for more. But alas, it was not to be, and Martha stood now staring at her last tribute to her family, her role models, the women who had loved her in such different ways.
The sun was done playing peekaboo, it seemed, and Martha swallowed the lump in her throat as she carefully wove her way out of the cemetery. Her tiny car was the only one in the parking lot, and she slammed the door behind her, taking a moment to process and put the moment away before turning the key and pulling out onto the road out of town. Thirty some hours driving, maybe a few nights in whatever motels she could find from now and she'd be safe, in some new home, with new rules, new people, a whole new life to stand on her own merit for once. The edges of Prosaic shrunk in the rearview mirror as she drove, setting cruise control and settling in for the ride.
It wouldn't be so bad. A lady always comes out on top.
We have sanctuary available to us in Kentucky, Lucas the retainer of the exact address whom I’ve told to text you as soon as able. Take your car, and any funds available, I will wire more at any turn if necessary.
Considering that there is far lesser risk for you in particular than Lucas nor I, there is the option for you to access the funeral. I have a friend who will allow you the breathing room required if you so choose. I must leave as soon as the roads have birthed a clearing for me. Once my phones have been discarded I will be unreachable until we meet at the final destination. Contact Lucas if anything arises.
I promise you this does not end here, we do not end here. Safe Travels my dear.
Yes She is, but that changes little to the fact that she was our blood, and therefore must be respected as such. I have no doubts that there is pangs that burrow in this,whether you recognize them or not and we may all yet have to mourn a days passage from here.
There is a time for you anger, and rightfully so, but if we embellish here we may all be joining her by tomorrow.
There is no more Church, there is no group meetings, no more underground dealings and empirical advance. All that will remain here are the mortal bearings of peace evertasting, while we carry her soul with us.
Ezekiel: there was a minor setback with the law catching a downwind to one of our labs. I have bought us a finite amount of time, but the phonecall I received. The one that had me Unable to contain, was information affirming that the search party has spread. Two more have succombed to the churning rake of the law, and there is no horizon that details a slowing. They have my name. Our name.
Martha: Oh. God. Okay, when and where? Do Lucas and Myra know?
But I don’t know. I mean, you did grow up beautifully. You are this strong, smart, and beautiful young woman now. I know I don’t have a right, but I am proud of you. And my Aunt Leah did that. She raised you like her own and I’ll be eternally grateful to her for that—as well as Ezekiel for keeping his ever watchful eye on you.
But… there are many nights I wish I’d had the courage to be a mother.
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