Step by Step
Chapter Seven — ESCAPE!
Cole and Alice played merrily on the inflatable Lilo, as their mother watched amused.
Her husband, in trunks and an open short sleeve shirt had disappeared after lunch to work on a few assignments while she, sunglasses, straw hat and a red bathing suit, her belly bloated with child number three, watched the kids for hours at peace with herself and the world.
Life was pretty busy Mary had to it. Since Jordan’s promotion she had little reason to work and really being a mother was a full-time job, intense, stressful at times but she wouldn’t trade it for anything.
When Jordan returned, announcing he was done for the day, Mary rose from her deck chair and huffed “Ah darling, watch the kids for a while, won’t you? Old school chum’s waiting.”
Jordan nodded, sitting himself down as Mary grumbled cheerfully at how heavy her midsection was. The baby was due in a few weeks but might pop at any moment. Still third time around and she was getting good at it.
Making a bead line across the cobbled floor of the hallway, Mary stopped briefly to ire her reflection in a mirror. Even after three pregnancies she still had that enviable figure, and while her modelling career was technically on hold that didn’t stop the fans and press begging for her to come back. She appreciated their sentiment but knew a return to modelling was unlikely. She didn’t miss it for one and loved being a mother more.
Anyhow there had been a Facebook message from an old school friend named Rosie, asking her if she’d care to meet up, and Mary who barely thought of her school days, had half-heartedly agreed to meet the woman at “Dalton’s” the café down in the village.
Why Rosie had been reluctant to come to her home was a good question.
Come to think of it, who was Rosie again? Mary ed a moody goth, black lipped, white skinned with loads of piercings and tattoos but why would the popular Mary hangout with a kid like that?
Still unable to resolve her conflicting memories, Mary entered the café, looking over the usual crowd, tired parents, sweaty hikers, some familiar locals before spotting a lone goth woman, dressed in black leather, metal piercings and combat boots.
Who else could it be but Rosie.
And as Mary approached her table, the woman turned to face her, and grinned an unimpressed grin: “Yeah, he really modelled you into his ideal partner, didn’t he? Supermodel meets the perfect mom.”
Once again, the strange conflict bubbled inside Mary’s mind; she was torn between the utter confusion of having never met this woman before and yet somehow instantly recognising her as an old friend. Like Déjà vu only a thousand times more intense.
“Excuse me?” she said, “Err Rosie is it; how can I help you?”
Rosie looked down at Mary’s baby bump and snorted as she exhaled from her vapor.
“Children,” she sighed “that complicates matters.”
Then Rosie did something that was so queer, so strange but so familiar, she reached into her tro pocket in a way that reminded Mary of Jordan, how after an argument he’d always…
But there it was again, the spinning pendant dangling from a chain, something she swore she had never seen Jordan do and yet whenever he wanted to get his own way…
Then it hit Mary, like a shot between her eyes. She staggered back, clutching at her skull, gasping and heaving, before sliding onto a chair as people around her stared. Rubbing feverishly at her temples, an avalanche of memories engulfed her, for now, Mary ed everything.
She knew who she had been, knew the life she had once had, and recalled every instant of Jordan whipping out his pendant to remorselessly sculpt her more to his liking, burying the real her under layers of his perfect woman.
Sitting there, silently, Mary felt nothing but shock, somehow the inevitable despair and heartbreak was delayed as she, still tried to process the fact that the man she had called her husband had done all this to her.
“Sorry it took me so long to find you,” Rosie spoke “your husband covered his tracks pretty well. I’d say he’s more experienced in magic than me.”
“What?”
“You always laughed in school when I told you about magic and called me crazy when I said there were loads of dangerous witches and wizards out there. Well sorry to break it to you but your husband is a dangerous warlock.”
“A warlock?”
“A powerful one too,” went on Rosie with a smoky exhale “guys like him don’t look for wives, they make ’em. I think the bastard got off on it, turning the type of girl he hated, into the perfect partner.”
What could Mary do but sit there, reeling over the fact that everything in her life had always been a lie, everything save for…
“My children,” she pleaded at Rosie “what about my two little angels?”
And Rosie shrugged, as if she hadn’t even considered them. Not reassuring.
What could Mary do? Run away, hide out in a woman’s shelter? Taking their two kids with her? Jordan had been nothing but the best, most doting father, to tear the children away from that happy environment was unthinkable!
“We should leave,” said Rosie “go on the lamb. A warlock of Jordan’s abilities would be hard to escape from. I just wish I could have found you sooner, but he covered it up so well. I lost sight of you and him for ages. He only appeared on my radar eight years ago, when he cast a locator spell.”
Eight years? That was the time Jordan brainwashed Mary into wanting children. She recalled how he left to retrieve the missing box of his. Was that where he kept his pendant?
“Then he cast a healing spell,” Rosie mused “I think it was when your son fell over or something.”
That was the worst moment of her life, happened a month ago, Cole had climbed a tall chestnut tree, fell twenty feet and landed directly on his head, Mary had clutched his still body against hers, weeping as a white Jordan had rushed into the house, possibly to call an ambulance, but suddenly Cole’s cold body felt warm and he coughed without a cut on his forehead.
A trip to the hospital revealed no skull fracture while Mary was convinced that he was lucky to even be alive…
“That’s when I got a lock on him and well here I am.”
A pause then as the sounds of chatter, the clinking of drinks and the faint rumble of traffic filled the silence. Rosie sat back gazing upwards, as Mary kept processing everything.
The real her was trapped underneath this voluptuous housewife, she had been wearing this mask for oh so long but…
Couldn’t she believe in the lie, couldn’t she tell Rosie to fuck off?
No, not knowing what she now knew. The illusion was shattered, and she could never get it back. No more of this wonderful life, no marvellous children, no loving husband.
She’d lose all of it…hell she had already lost it, could never return…
But could she?
And she spied the pendent, as Rosie was texting on her phone, lying by her empty cup of coffee and, without reflection, Mary grabbed it and dangling this trinket in front of Rosie, chanted:
“Forget everything you know about me and Jordan and never come near us again.”
Rosie’s face was dull, bleary and all she did was stare at the dangling thing before Mary coughed and said, “Now leave and never return!”
With no protest, Rosie staggered up from the table in a robotic motion and left the café without a backwards glance.
God what had she just done? Mary Maxwell gulped and marvelled how she had expelled her only means of escape, did this mean that…
She looked at the pendant and thought of Jordan, (she found she couldn’t hate him) and somehow wouldn’t let herself accept that her beloved, caring husband was in truth a complete monster.
Complete monster? Tell that to their children!
She could dangle this pendent in front of him, maybe make him as geeky as she had been, perhaps turn their mansion into a nerd’s heaven or…
Mary knew that she didn’t miss being a nerd, didn’t miss being asexual because God was the lovemaking ever thrilling, and having children was the best thing that ever happened to her.
What could she do to her darlings? Destroy their happy home, destroy their father and then go back to the life she once had, dead end job, shit apartment but with the added burden of being a single mother with three children to raise?
No, they loved their father, and he loved them so…
Mary weeping a little, entered the woman’s bathroom and finding the tiny place empty, looked at herself in the mirror. Still beautiful, still a work of art even in her thirties, with a life she never would have earned not without Jordan…
The last decade had been the best, she couldn’t pretend otherwise, only knowing what she now knew meant it was all over, unless…
Unless the lie became real, unless she made the final push.
Dangling the pendant in front of the mirror, she stared at it and letting it sway two and throw, two and throw as she chanted to herself “You have no memory of being a geeky loser, you have always been this beautiful happy woman, and this life is the only one you have ever known. This is the real you, the only you, the nerd you once were, never existed. Forget your old life, let go and become this woman forever!”
Mary lurched forward, worrying if her pregnancy was the cause and after rubbing her eyes, noticed something a little strange lying by the sink, some sort of necklace, bronze in colour but as she blinked for a second, the necklace seemingly vanished. Was she imagining things?
But as she stood there, breathing in and out, she felt a growing ease deep within her, what could she say only that a low-level doubt that she had carried with her for the last ten years had left, and she finally felt completely at peace.
She smiled, wondering why a moment ago she had been so anxious. And as she left the bathroom, an agreeable sense of tranquillity hung all around her. Unexpected but very much welcome.
ing a couple of nerds by a table, arguing on who was the coolest Star Trek captain, Mary paid them no heed and no longer felt any weird recollection or wistfulness on seeing geeks like these. That nagging conflict on encountering nerd culture was forgotten because she had always been the homecoming queen, supermodel, wife and mother. Geeks and nerds meant little to her as they should.
Pulling into the driveway, Mary entered the garden via the side gate and smiled at her family sitting by the table, Jordan the love of her life was working the barbecue and her two kids waved on catching sight of her. Feeling not an iota of regret or confusion, as she sat herself down, Mary kissed her two children on their foreheads, knowing that this was all she ever wanted out of life. A loving family and pride in the woman she had always been.
She was finally home.