All feedback welcome
The fog comes on little cat feet…
Marissa adjusted and wiped her glasses Tuesday morning before taking the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. She told herself she wanted to return to school and complete her degree. Her recently tuned up Toyota Corolla just had to make it across the sinuous 4.3-mile expanse nearly 200 feet above water.
The car seemed low, gripping the ground. Confidant. This was reassuring considering that when she looked ahead and saw a gray, wet uncertain road conditions. There was no emergency pull off lanes.
The car felt steady. She was not.
***
Five weeks ago when she was hunched over a bowl of steamy Ramen noodles in her dorm room, Marissa got a phone call. She bounded off the bed, throwing a few mismatched socks, sweatpants and stretched out T-shirts in a backpack and grabbed her keys.
“Sissy, what’s up?” her roommate called out she brushed passed her in the dorm hallway.
She didn’t answer. Her flip flops snapped across the green tile files, and caught on the graveled parking lot, little pebbles stuck in her heel. She threw the backpack in the back seat and headed home at breakneck speed. Strands of hair plastered her face from the snot and tears.
When she got to her block, police scanners and strobe lights from emergency vehicles reminded her of a street fair. Surreally scripted. “Step right up,” she heard a carnival barker shouting in her head.
When the detectives did speak, their voices were muted. Calm.
“We just need you to identify…if you wouldn’t mind stepping over here.”
The bodies of her parents and brother were unrecognizable. “From the looks of the door jam, it was a push-in. Probably a crow bar.”
Looked like a close-range execution, they said.
Her 19-year-old brother had dealt with thugs buying and selling mopeds, some stolen, some fenced. They were the wheels of choice for drug dealers, who zip in and out of suburban streets, making their drops. “Petty stuff,” said the detective. “This was brutal payback.”
They assailant tagged the living room with spray paint. Marissa took out her cell phone and snapped a photo of the graffiti on the wall.
***
The bridge winded so that she was not able to see more than a yard a two ahead. She put her wipers on, and the swishing sound made her shiver. She thought about hiring a driver. Crazy but for a fee you could pay someone to make the transverse for you and as a passenger you could close your eyes or lay down in the back seat. Marissa did not take that option.
Gripping the steering wheel, she went it alone.
There some traffic today. Each ¼ mile felt like marker.
***
The three coffins formed an L-shape in front of the viewing room. She only saw their outline, blurry through her tears. She wiped them away.
Each whispered condolence felt like one too many. Each relative, neighbor and classmate wanted to help carry her burden. She prayed for the funeral to be over. She knew what she had to do.
She showed the tag on the streets and found out the thug’s identity.
The burden of being the last one standing felt heavier than the unlicensed revolver in her backpack.
***
When the wind picked up on the bridge, light cars swayed. The extra weight in the trunk provided some protection against an overturn. She emerged from the tunnel mid-span and felt resolved.
Once she crossed over, she would be lighter.
***
Marissa pulled up to her campus’ parking lot. Faculty parking spots were clearly marked. She opened up the trunk and lifted the black contractor bag out. It was the beginning of the spring semester. Move-in day. Discarded broken furniture, clothes, and books spilled out and around the dumpsters.
She had wrapped the body tight in a rug.
She shook the spray can and marked it, “garbage.”
