Well Water

    She’d convinced herself that this was the perfect job.  No, she thought the day after finishing her first full shift, it was more than that.  What she’d found was more than a place to go everyday, more than a job.
 

Sanctuary?
 

Yes, yes, yes, yes, sanctuary.
 

For no reason other than that which stirred to life by the sensation of wind and late evening setting sun heat upon her face, she knew she’d be as safe in this place as she could ever be anywhere they’d promised her safety.
 

No.  No one could save her.

She’d save herself.

Had to.
 

The job in the bakery was ideal.  Lynne was not going to resurface not going to come back, not this time, not for loyalty, not for love, not for money, not for him, not for her, not for them.
 

Lynne had dissolved into the wind swept alley of that late afternoon heat haze enveloping cops, court jesters, judges, lawyers, hangers-ons and mechanics.

Yeah, she knew about mechanics.  Yeah, she knew what they’d fucking well fix if that were the order put on the table by people ready to pay the piper.
 

No longer her problem, not in this town, not in this kitchen, not with these women who asked nothing more than that she stick with the story she told them, which was without lies because she had no story.
 

Everyday she’d arrive early and everyday she’d leave late.  Initially everyone took it as her being eager, determined to make the impression required of all new employees, promptness, longevity, commitment, smile, pleasant and the trial period is cemented into a lasting job.
 

Did she have kids?
 

A husband, gone, missing, dead.  Lynne would smile as the three possibilities were listed. 
 

Abandoned?
 

Lynne smiled even at the truth. 
 

Only rarely would she confide even a semblance of truth and then only innocuously.
 

Lynne was older than she admitted.
 

Another truth better kept.
 

Jeans, t-shirts, apron, running shoes.  Lynne wouldn’t be seen in anything other than the most anonymous of body armour.
 

Dancing clothes.

Working clothes.

Living clothes.

Lynne’s clothes.
 

Safety now is being unnoticed, unloved, untouched.
 

She could move faster alone.
 

Lynne never looked back except at the sounds of footfalls not her own.
 

And now, after the running, after the days of living below the window sill, behind curtains forever drawn and without the phone ringing or the bell at the door downstairs in the rooming house she’ been living in for seven months ringing in her name, she took the job in the bakery.
 

Was she safe among these women, five in all?
 

Safer, maybe. Maybe.
 

Lynne smiled only to herself, only alone when she thought of the women she worked with.  Trust was something you felt, like a faint breeze only you feel.

Lynne at those moments, closed her eyes and felt trust waft over her, cooling her pained heart, and abating the fears of her past failures and cowardice.
 

In truth, they were dead.  Children, two, Brendan, Morag, dead.
 

She never heard their voices, never heard cries if any.  Never, wouldn’t hear the sound of pain so sharp that she tasted her own blood if for an instant, just an instant she knew what she heard.
 

And him?  He waited in the kitchen by the back door, broken blade in his hand, child’s blood coating clothes.
 

And that night, Lynne for all her weakness, was faster, just that once, and two children too late.
 

She heard his body hit the water of the well a ten, twenty foot fall.

But dead?
 

She glanced from behind the shades, dressed as she had been from the night before, sleeping in her clothes.
 

No one she didn’t recognize on the street.
 

Safe? Maybe?
 

The bakery was three blocks north, one west.
 

And as she stepped onto the porch, Lynne, for an instant couldn’t recall hearing his body hit the water in the well.
 

Safe?

Contact Michael O'Neil