The Painting

#71 Why - Cen Fath

"May, darling," He pulled back and shrugged as if he were explaining to a child why they couldn't have a tenth piece of candy. "I know you're new to negotiations, but you've already had your pitch. You don't get to go back and tack on anything new. Besides, you're smarter than Charlotte. Take the money and go. Don't get attached."

He uttered the last sentence so flippantly that I couldn't hold back anymore.

"She wasn't attached to you. You broke that spell the first day you cut her a check and told her to pack up." I felt taller with every word as they rolled off my tongue, each syllable like a punch to Monroe's ego. "The first time I came to see you I had it all wrong. I thought that my mother came back to you because she loved you - I shouldn't have flattered you. She came back to you because of her love for me, she wanted me to have a family and I won't be fooled anymore. Now tell me what she said." I stuck out my free hand and pointed in his face. "What did she say to you to that made you-" My voice left me, why couldn't I say it? Why couldn't I fully confront the man who I knew had taken my mother from this world.

Seizing my moment of weakness he shoved my hand from his face. "Made me do what?" He mocked innocently.

Every foot hold that I gained in confidence was pulled out from under me as he glared down. A sudden tinge of fear settled in my stomach as if I'd eaten a bag of cement that was coagulating in my gut.

Lyle was right. This was a dangerously stupid plan. How could I think I would have the tact to go up against Monroe and win? I was an idiot, insane to reenact the same mistake that cost my mother her life. My eyes wandered from Monroe's intense gaze to the bench resting just over his shoulder.

I blinked.

Sitting in the center, my mother, her feet covered by the long grasses and closed blossoms. Her hands rested on her knees as she held her head up. Moonlight shown down on her as if it were a spotlight leaving the rest of the clearing in relative darkness and revealing her eyes to be closed as the breeze settled through her loose braid. She looked peaceful, more calm than any painting I'd ever seen.

For a split second I looked back at Monroe, wondering if he too had seen her? The muscles in my face relaxed and my outward expression must have visibly changed as he frowned. Following my gaze he looked back to the bench, but she was gone.

"No."

Monroe whipped his head back around to look at me.

"You killed my mother without a second thought. I deserve to know why." My feet, taking on a mind of their own pushing me forward bringing me within inches of Monroe. "Why here? You knew where she was the entire year, why not then? Why not the day she came to your office? What the fuck happened for you to kill my mother you fucking coward."

My words were raw and unrehearsed. What I needed to say had been ruminating in the back of my mind for too long. For years I'd fought my thoughts with a three foot pole to keep myself from falling into a pit of unknowns.

There were so many unanswered questions that I knew I was destined to live with but there was one I could not let go of. My knuckles turned white as I clutched on to the thought of my mother's final days, hours, minutes. What happened at the Lily Pad Place.

A crime of passion is how Lyle described it one night as we lay out in the lawn. If Monroe intended to kill her, why would he have not done it a long time ago? He was surely smart enough to know that as time goes on the chance of my mother becoming restless with the thought of taking his bribe money would weaken his control – I was proof enough. There was something I was missing. Something that was said or done that sealed her fate.

I needed to hear it, even if that meant hearing it from the man who killed her.

"You fucking coward," I repeated. "You hide behind your expensive suits and paid for interviews, but you're nothing and everybody knows it."

"At least I know who I am." He cut me off throwing his hands into the air. "Charlotte's head was always in the clouds, she never came down long enough to use her fucking brain. The best decision she made was to take the money and leave, but no, she had to get a fucking conscious and come back."

"What do you mean?"

"She wanted to return the money." Monroe almost spit in disgust but I had to do a double take.

"What?"

He curled his lip in aggravation. "Your mother was a goodie two shoes. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"And you killed her for it." My mind raced fitting together the pieces that I collected bit by bit. "She wanted to give you back the money so you didn't own her anymore – she wasn't going to keep the secret."

"Ding ding!" He clapped in fake excitement, mocking my epiphany.

"My mother was going to ruin your marriage and you job." I continued but it was one too many steps for Monroe as he took a menacing advance of his own. Startled I stumbled back closer to the edge of the pond.

"Give me the book May. You got your answers. Play time is over"

I ignored him. "Where is she?" I looked around the clearing. This was the last place they met. "Did you do it here?"

I reached for him suddenly overcome with the need to shake the answer out of him. Monroe was already ahead of me as he reached behind him producing a gun. I recognized it from the top drawer of his desk. "You're out of time May," He held the weapon steadily pointed at my chest. "Now give me the book."

"No." I shook my head defiantly. "You can't hurt me, I have people who know I'm here, they will send the journal to the media."

"Oh dear, another critical mistake. The Big Ten loves me, they'll give me whatever air time I want as long as I throw enough money at them. I'm thinking of buying one myself." He mused briefly distracted by the thought of his own media empire. "Besides, you're bluffing. See I don't think you told anyone about this, I've watched you May. You're alone just like your mother. And even if you did find some poor soul to 'blow the whistle' on me, who do you think they're going to believe?" He snorted out an incredulous laugh. "It's my word over a dead woman's."

The click of the trigger was so faint I had no time to think as the force carried me backwards. My feet flew out from under me and I fell into the pond.

Lily pads gathered around my face, their edges bumping into my cheeks as I sank into the water. 

- 

I'll leave us on a bit of a cliffhanger (;