Ashley leaned against the kitchen counter, watching her mother slicing a plump, summer tomato. "Wasn't you scared?"

"There wasn't time for it." Faye sipped the tomato juice from her polished fingertips. "Momma was shaking me out of my sleep. And out in the hall, there was a ruckus, hollering and shouting, and oh, my goodness, the most horrible noises like the whole building was coming down around us. I was so scared."  

On two plates, she arranged tomato slices on white bread slathered in mayonnaise and salted them liberally.

"And I smelled smoke rolling into the room. Momma went to the door but she was wise not to open it. She said the fire was already out there in the hotel hallway wanting to get in."

Faye carried the plates to the kitchen table and pulled out her chair. Ashley sat across from her mother, listening and watching with questioning eyes.

"It was getting so thick in there so that I could barely see Momma standing but a few feet away. The smoke was choking the life out of us. I remember terrible coughing, just terrible and I couldn't catch a lick of breath."

"And so your momma pushed you out the window?" Her voice rose an octave.

Faye cleared her throat, the vivid memories still bitter and sharp. She forced a nervous smile that failed to find its place. "I was seven years old." She unclasped her hands and dropped them into her lap.

Ashley's eyes widened. "And she shoved you out the window? Four stories up?"

"I got about halfway out that window shaking like a leaf. I could feel the cold night air on my legs and I got scared. I grabbed onto her arm for dear life."

"Then she pushed you?" Tomato juice dribbled from the sandwich clenched in her little hands and ran down her arms.

"She had no choice. We was both gonna burn."

"But she was your momma. How could she do a thing like that?"

"Courage." Ashley could feel the tension, Faye pushing back against the terror, suppressing the anguish, a perceptible tremor in her quiet voice. "She knew what she had to do and she found the courage to do it. If she hadn't, neither one of us would be sitting at this table right this very minute."

Ashley thought about that while taking a small bite of her sandwich.

Faye dabbed the mayonnaise from the corner of her mouth. "When a terrible misfortune strikes, when you know your very life is at stake, you find a part of yourself deep down inside that will do things that.... Well, things that you felt certain that you'd never ever do."

########

Furiously, Rachel flung an overnight bag onto the bed. She stomped to the dresser, and grabbed a stack of folded tops muttering, "That nosey bitch." As she stuffed clothes into her bag, Rachel ran exit strategies through her mind. There were no good options. Mrs. Caputo was calling the shots.

"Robbery. Rape. Even murder," she thought. "Mostly one-time crimes. But blackmail, that's never over. It just goes on and on and on and on. Fuck."

########

Glancing occasionally at the local news blaring from the little TV mounted above the counter, Mrs. Caputo sat alone in her kitchen eating dinner at a folding card table. The chances were so remote that she'd be serving guests at mealtime that she never bothered to invest in a proper wooden kitchen table. She worked her knife through an overcooked pork chop so vigorously that she shook the drinking glass and silverware on the table.

Behind the landlady, Rachel peeked out of the adjoining office. She crept stealthily into the kitchen. With trembling gloved hands she raised a poly 5-gallon bag and waited a moment for Mrs. Caputo to withdraw the fork from her mouth. Rachel yanked the bag down tightly over the woman's head, sealing her gaping mouth.

Rachel thought she'd fully anticipated the brutality of the act but the ferocity of the struggle was horrific. Wishing that there had been another option, any other option, she clung to the bag with all her might. 

The landlady flailed desperately, her silverware clattering on the linoleum floor. The woman's frenzied fingers clawed at the poly to no avail. She groped for a face, a wrist. Anything. Her attempts were futile. She kicked, thrashed, her forehead variegated with veins. The chair rocked violently.

Rachel's hands shook from the strain as she withstood the last convulsive burst of adrenaline.

Her victim relented and finally went limp. The body listed and tumbled onto the floor.

She removed the bag, then turned the corpse onto its back, jolted by the grotesque, contorted face, Mrs. Caputo's purplish tongue protruding from gray lips. Rachel closed her eyes and clenched her hands into one big fist, grappling with the panic welling inside her, resisting with all her might the impulse to bolt out of the apartment and keep on running.

"You got this," she said to herself. "You got this. Calm down and think."

She got off the floor on wobbly legs while folding the poly bag then stuffed it into her pocket. She took a moment to collect herself, analyzing the scene. She felt weak and deflated like she'd depleted half of her life force committing the act and she felt sick, too, sick with the solution her brain had just devised and sicker still at the thought of carrying it out.

She stepped over the corpse on her way to the dinner plate then cut a 2-inch piece of pork chop with hands shaking so severely, that she twice lost her grip on the knife. She gnashed the rubbery chunk between her molars, averting her eyes from the lifeless woman.

She spat the chewed pork into her hand, knelt beside the body, pried open the landlady's jaw, and jammed the meat into the corpse's mouth. She opened a drawer and found a rubber spatula. She took a deep breath, steeling herself, then inserted the handle into Mrs. Caputo's mouth and pushed, wedging the slice of meat into her windpipe.

Rachel rinsed the spatula, dried it with a dish towel, and put it back in the drawer. She glanced toward the window noticing through the narrow gap in the curtains that the clouds had absorbed every last glimmer of sunset. There was no chance that outsiders could have witnessed the activity in Mrs. Caputo's second-story apartment, not through a three-inch gap in the curtains, but as daylight died, Rachel felt increasingly on display in the brightly-lit apartment.

She dropped to a crouch and rolled the landlady face-down on the linoleum floor. She took a quick inventory, prepared to evacuate the premises when she spotted, attached to the refrigerator door with a magnet, a scrap of paper with familiar handwriting.

She drew closer and read the name, Harley, and his phone number. She pocketed the note, surveyed the kitchen, then slipped out into the hallway, framing the incident as an act of moral equivalence. 

Her hand had been forced and so she did what she had to do. The conniving witch had jeopardized everything, pushed her beyond her breaking point, provoked her into doing something she swore she'd never do, and transformed her into something she really wasn't. And it hurt. The pain grew so quickly that it nearly stopped her heart but she'd have to learn to live with it, to live with the ugly thing that didn't belong, to find a place for it somewhere in her life. But right now she had to run from it and hide. 

########

That night, as Rachel dressed in her skimpy sports bar uniform, nerves frayed, Blake entered, keys in hand. "You almost ready?" Then, noticing her scratched forearms, he asked, "What happened to your arms?"

She brushed her hair back and stretched a ponytail holder. "That money belongs to both of us, right?"

He nodded. "I'll give you back the three hundred."

"I need fifteen hundred dollars. Today."

"Wait. What?"

"Goddamn Lou is holding back on the money he owes me. I'll get my money, but in the meantime, I got bills."

"Okay, so now you're okay with keeping it?"

She erupted. "Why are you doing this to me? Like I don't already feel guilty enough."

He reached for her, she withdrew.

"It's my fault," she said softly and lowered her head. "It's true."

"You gotta stop this. You weren't driving that truck, Babe. Damon was. It could have happened on the way home from the club, or on his way to work. Or anywhere."

"No. It was because of me. I called--"

"--It was my idea," Blake said. "I took the money. All you had to do was keep an eye on the big guys. So, you're free and clear. Okay? The bad juju is all on me."

She wiped a tear from her cheek. "Damon is gone. And it's like you're not even dealing with it."

He drew her closer and gave her a soft kiss. "I'm sorry. I don't know how to process all this. I guess I'm numb."

She pulled out of his arms. "I'm gonna be late."

"We'll go get your fifteen hundred dollars when I pick you up from work," he said gently. "Okay?"

She exited the room, shoulders slumped, his offer failing to lift her spirits. His throat burned, his chest ached from the strain, feeling like he'd been holding his breath since he charged out of that garage, carrying a bag full of money, scared to death that he'd just shortened his future.