Write to Life blog

When the bus driver shut down the engine Millie tapped Molly on the hand. “Wake up. Breakfast time.” The kid could sleep through a tornado.
Molly, startled, inclined her seat, removed her ear buds, and shook her curly hair out of her eyes. “I’m starving,” she said looking at her mother.
“Sally Ann’s your best option.” The anorexic-looking girl across the aisle was standing and politely waiting for Molly and Millie.

“Say again,” Millie said, smiling at the young girl who looked like she hadn’t eaten in years.

Molly glanced at her mom, unplugged her iPhone from its charger underneath the seat, and stuffed it into her book bag. “It’s a restaurant.” Molly whispered to her mother.

The girl motioned for Millie and Molly to go first. “The reviews advise staying away from The Pitts. That’s the fast-food joint inside the bus station.”

The three exited the bus and walked inside the rear double-doors of the terminal. The lobby was large, much bigger than Toledo’s, and, so far, much cleaner. The gray and black floors looked like they’d just been waxed. “How far away is Sally’s?” Millie asked, not that hungry but knew Molly was, as always.

“It’s just two blocks north on 11th street. I’m going. Join me if you like. My treat. By the way, I’m Tracey.” This confused Millie. Anorexic’s are opposed to eating. And, why would this skinny, yet attractive girl who neither her or Molly knew, offer to buy their breakfast?

“I’m Molly. This is Millie, my mom.” Molly grabbed her mother’s hand and squeezed, knowing she needed to take charge as Millie battled depression. “Sounds good to me.” Molly said, shifting her book bag to her other shoulder.

Tracey led the way across the lobby, out the main entrance, and onto 11th street. Nothing much was said during their five minute walk.

The restaurant was small, and crowded. Six booths and an eight-stool counter. Not an available seat anywhere. For a minute, the three stood inside the front door, staring at the menu on the back wall taped to the metal hood above the griddle, and pondering whether to leave or wait. “Take ours.” An older man said from two booths away. “Come on Mildred, time to let these nice folks have our table.” The woman, probably his wife, looked like Millie felt: alone, sad, helpless. “You’re lucky. Food’s great. Come here every day.” It took another minute or two for the man to coax his wife from her seat, slip on a wide red scarf, and lead her outside. Millie couldn’t help but think how lucky the two seniors were, to have each other, hopefully after a long, satisfying life together.

“Where are you headed?” Molly broke the silence after the waitress filled their water glasses and took their orders. Millie removed her phone from her purse and started typing Matt a long text. She’d promised to update him every day.

“The Big Apple.” Tracey said, pouring half a Splenda into her water glass, then two shakes of salt. “New York City,” she added to clarify, but you probably know that already.” She stirred and used a spoon to test her concoction.

“What do you do there?” Molly was uninhibited.

“I teach meditation, also known as mindfulness.” Oh my, Millie thought about the Moonies along Canal Street she’d see every Thursday afternoon during her walk to her psychiatrist.

“Sounds like woo-woo to me.” Molly had no filter. Millie eyed her daughter, shaking her head sideways.

Carrie Borders was a Moonie, and she was a paralegal at Winston and Strawn. She occupied a cubicle in Millie’s quadrant, and like her, reported to law partner Kimbal Deitrich.

Tracey chewed slowly as though garnering time to frame her response. “I teach Zen. It’s nothing to do with the metaphysical. Simply put, it’s an exploration into the nature of the mind, a tool to open completely to our lives.”

Millie wasn’t especially spiritual but for the last year had attended a small church in their neighborhood. The unspoken reason was to create more time on weekends away from Colton. She ate a bite of her bran muffin and recalled Friday’s at Winston and Strawn.

Once per week, if their schedule allowed, the paralegal staff was allowed to dress casual. Carrie would always wear a t-shirt that read, “I’m a Moonie and I love it”. Millie had tried to avoid Carrie as much as possible but sometime she’d be stuck with her in a conference room indexing depositions. There, Millie learned a near-complete history of the Unification Church. It’s founder Sun Myung Moon, was allegedly a Messiah, second only to Jesus, wholly sinless. Moon’s purpose, as was all his followers, was to replace Christianity with his mission which was, in essence, to unite all humans into one family under God bringing peace throughout the earth. Woo-woo for sure, Millie had always concluded.

Molly ordered a refill of orange juice and continued peppering Tracey. “Where have you been? Did your car breakdown?”

Tracey pushed back her oatmeal bowl and forked a slice of pineapple. “I love your inquisitive daughter.” Her eyes met Millie’s and lingered a long while. “Two or three times per year I go on retreat. I always travel by Greyhound. For me, it keeps me rooted to life, real people, and real dependency. But mainly, I’m selfish. Riding the bus creates a lot of time to meditate without having to worry about driving.”

Molly interrupted Tracey. “Where was your retreat. This time?”

The waitress delivered their ticket and waited. Tracey removed a card from her pants pocket and handed it to the voluptuous red head. “Ottawa, Illinois, One River Zen. The center is a beautiful Queen Anne Victorian built in 1890, situated on the scenic banks of the Illinois River.”

“How long are retreats?”

“They vary. At One River they’re either a weekend or a week. Mine was the latter.” Tracey ate two bites of cantaloupe, and swallowed some water.

“Does meditation cause you to be so skinny?” Again, absolutely no filter.

“Molly, that’s too personal, borderline offensive.” Millie hoped her daughter would grow out of this.

“Oh, I love it.” Tracey replied. “So natural. She’s got a bright future.”

“Millie activated her cell. “We best be going. It’s almost 5:45. We don’t want to miss our ride.”

The food had been better than great. Even Millie bragged on the eggs, although she’d only taken a bite from Molly’s plate, who had wolfed down a southwestern omelet and a side order of bacon. Tracey’s appetite was equally as strong as Molly’s although she chose oatmeal, fruit, and unbuttered toast.

Millie was surprised she ate anything at all.

Millie squeezed Molly’s hand and wondered if by daylight she would extend another act of kindness and love. The feelings of guilt and worthlessness were always the first signs the manic stage was over, that her body, mind, soul, and spirit had peaked and she was spiraling downward, out of control. She prayed, doubting it would do any good.

Six months ago Dr. Maharaja prescribed Latuda for Millie’s depression, worried that some of her symptoms fit a schizophrenia diagnosis, especially the voices she occasionally heard. Millie opened her purse, removed the bottle of Latuda pills, and placed one under her tongue. She didn’t want to wait until tonight to take one as prescribed. Now was tonight, she told herself as the bus picked up speed heading for Pittsburgh.

Five minutes later Millie couldn’t decide if she was dreaming or simply exploring her memories. Either way, the guilt and worthlessness were center stage, wrapping her inside a heavy cloak of mistakes that engulfed her reality.

Millie had grown up as the only child in a happy household on the outskirts of Sanford, North Carolina. Her father wanted her to follow in his footsteps and become a lawyer. Although a good student at Lee County High School, Millie was an outdoorsy girl who liked to build things and, she wanted to travel. Uncle Dennis, her mother’s brother, was an expert welder and advised his niece to do what he’d done twenty-years earlier. He’d spent half-a-day at the high school and then rode a bus to Central Carolina Community College to learn to weld. After graduating he’d joined the local union and become a journeyman welder. “My job has taken me all over the country. If you want to see inside a nuclear silo, then become a journeyman welder. And, that’s what Millie did, to the consternation of her father.

In late summer 2006, a year after graduating from Lee County High School, Millie was given a four-month assignment at Belews Creek Steam Station in Stokes County, N.C. There, she met a dark-haired lumberjack figured man from North Alabama named Michael Lewis Tanner. Like Lewis, it was Millie’s fifth assignment as a union welder since turning eighteen. The two worked along with a hundred others side-by-side at the Duke Energy power plant during the day. Three weeks after meeting, simple and easy conversation and mutual attraction triggered a passionate romance. Time, touch, and talk came to a standstill when December came and new assignments appeared. Alabama Power’s Greene County Electric Generating Plant in Demopolis, Alabama for Millie. Nisource, Inc.’s Schahfer Generating Station in Wheatfield, Indiana for Lewis.

After a month of separation and a call or two per week, Millie sensed Lewis’ feelings were quickly waning and their intimacy had been nothing more than curiosity for the two nineteen year old inexperienced lovers. Then, Millie learned she was pregnant. This changed everything for Millie. There was never a doubt, she would become a mother and somehow raise her child; she would marry Lewis and they’d love their daughter (it had to be a girl) like her parents had loved her. But, a week later, when Millie finally got the courage to tell Lewis, he was cold, uncaring, and seemingly unwilling to shoulder any degree of responsibility. This had been the last time Millie and Lewis had talked, until August the second 2007, the day after Molly Leigh Anderson was born.

This time, Lewis was kind, sympathetic, open to a friendship, and willing to bear some of the costs of raising their daughter. However, things had changed for him. He was now a long-haul truck driver for J.B. Hunt, having completed his training in early July. The open road was now his life, and he’d come home, at most, once a month.

Lewis wasn’t the only one who’s life had taken a detour. In late April, after the Greene County job in Demopolis, Alabama ended, six months pregnant Millie returned to Sanford and her parents home. This time, she listened to her father, “picking up roots every three or four months is not the life for you and our grandchild. You need to go back to school, maybe become a teacher. You can live here with me and your mom and commute to my alma mater.”

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill had to wait, but Central Carolina Community College was the place to start. It took Millie a year to complete the associate’s degree she’d begun as a high school junior, plus, during this time, she’d had Molly and begun working for her father at his law firm. The latter had silenced her desire to become a teacher and seeded a growing interest in someday becoming a lawyer.

However, by Fall 2009, a smothering home environment and mounting tension with her mother over the raising of young Molly was fueling Millie’s impatience and need to blaze a new trail. Her sympathetic father came to the rescue and moved his daughter an hour away to Chapel Hill and paid the full tuition for the school’s Paralegal Certificate Program although it was mostly taught online.

Millie was startled to wakefulness when the loud speaker above her head announced the need for a detour. “Sorry ladies and gentlemen, we’ve got to exit here to avoid an overturned truck up ahead.” She raised her chair to upright and squinted down the bus’s center aisle. She couldn’t see anything but the white dashed lines in the road.

“A live-haul chicken truck turned over at the Franklin Park exit.” The anorexic-looking girl across the aisle declared holding a weird looking device attached via cables to her ears. The two met eyes and Millie semi-smiled and nodded her head as though saying thank-you for the update.

She activated her cell phone. It was 4:50 AM, and she was suddenly hungry. As she knew Molly was although she was still in a deep sleep, ear buds in, as though she hadn’t heard the blaring intercom.

Millie affixed her own ear buds, activated an Art Pepper playlist, and reclined her chair. She wanted to complete the journey she’d started over an hour ago.

In January 2010, certified as a paralegal by the North Carolina Bar Association, Millie was contacted by a legal recruiting firm based in Chicago. A week later—over the objection of her father who wanted Molly and Millie to return to Sanford and work with him—Millie flew to the windy city and interviewed with three law firms. By far her first choice was Quinn Law Offices but they didn’t extend an offer. With some hesitation, she settled on Winston and Strawn, the oldest firm in Chicago.

It was at a deposition a year later that Millie and Matthew Quinn met for the second time. Her professionalism and graceful assistance during the next hour prompted his phone call the next day. Three weeks later, Millie moved to the seventeen floor of Grant Thornton Tower and became a paralegal apprentice for the man who would become her number one fan and supporter.

For the next five years, all had gone as perfect as Millie could have wished or imagined, including the 2013 purchase of a cozy home on S. Princeton Avenue, and Molly’s exceptional adjustment and ongoing thriving at Harvard Elementary School.

Life was near perfect for the hardworking, hard-playing mother-daughter team until Millie met Colton Lee Atwood. Even after he moved in, life remained good. For the first year. Then, all hell broke loose.

“Greyhound Bus welcomes you to Pittsburgh. We’ll have an hour layover. Plenty of time for a good breakfast,” the bus driver’s deep voice resonated over the intercom.

Something was up. No lights downstairs, upstairs, anywhere. The front porch light was always on when he returned from work on Friday nights, even if Millie and Molly were gone on a jog or a walk. Colton turned off S. Princeton into his driveway. Hadn’t he promised Millie they’d go out tonight?

He parked and walked up the stairs. The front door was locked. It shouldn’t be. Both of them knew he didn’t like fiddling with keys. Where’s Molly? Hadn’t he called Millie at work and left a message with Catherine that he wanted Molly to go out with them tonight?

Inside, he flipped on the overhead light and walked to the kitchen for a beer. He closed the refrigerator and saw a note laying on the table. There was one sheet of paper ripped from a spiral bound notebook. Colton pulled back his chair and sat. It was Millie’s writing. He glanced at the back side. It was blank but there were two airline tickets underneath.

The flight was today. O’Hare to Houston, with a 4:00 PM arrival. He downed half his Bud, and read the note. Twice. It wasn’t a surprise Millie and Molly had fled. The surprise was that it had taken them so long to leave. The other two women he’d lived with hadn’t lasted a year.

Colton finished his beer, slung the bottle toward the sink, and grabbed another. He drawled out a deep burp and yelled, “you fucking bitch.” An equally loud laugh erupted. “Stupid, stupid. You think I’m buying what you’re selling, that you and Molly have gone to Houston?” He picked up one of the tickets and looked again. Maybe she’s trying that reverse psychology trick on me.

The only thing that bothered him was not knowing how to reach her. Without her testimony the DA had him over a barrel, a barrel shaped like an eight by eight jail cell.

Six months ago Colton and Sandy, his best bud, met two gorgeous University of Chicago sophomores at Mitchell’s Tap, their favorite hangout. Two games of darts and a half-hour of dancing had led to a few drinks but unequal desires. Ellen and Gina’s excuse for leaving was they had to study. Colton’s temper flared. Hell, it was Friday night. Who studies on Friday night? He figured the girls had played them, just wanted to flirt and enjoy some free drinks. It’s our age, Sandy had offered. “At least fifteen years older.” The two young lasses had left without a mere thank you. Rejection was something neither man could manage.

After quickly dismissing the thought of more darts, Colton and Sandy had tailed Ellen and Gina outside to the parking lot and on to an older house on South Morgan Street. There, inside, the women refused to come to the door. They obviously didn’t understand the two men standing on their porch would not be so easily deterred.

An hour later, the men returned donning ski masks and wielding a crowbar. The rear door was easily breached. The women resisted at first but soon surrendered, doing what they were told, hoping they’d live to see Monday morning classes.

Before the night was over, Colton and Sandy had taken everything they came for. The sixteen hundred cash was a bonus but cost Ellen a finger. To start with. Shortly before dawn, a distant siren and a ringing land line scared them off, but not before tying the women up, dousing the place with five gallons of gasoline Colton kept in the bed of his truck, and tossing lite matches in both bedrooms. After retrieving his truck from Mitchell’s Tap, Colton had driven home and awakened a sleeping Millie. Molly was at Alisha’s for a sleepover.

At first, Millie didn’t ask a question, just wondered silently why Colton was so disheveled with two scratches on his fact. “I may need you to provide an alibi.” Millie refused to tell anyone that he’d returned from Mitchell’s at 10:30 PM. She changed her mind when Colton threatened Molly.

Two weeks ago, the DA had secured an indictment against him and Sandy for burglary, robbery, rape, sodomy, false imprisonment, and arson. Colton’s defense attorney and investigator had subsequently learned that somehow Gina had managed to escape the burning house, but had hid out for nearly a week before approaching the police. No doubt, Gina was the DA’s key witness and was saying it had to be the two men she and Ellen had partied with at Mitchell’s earlier that night. City detectives had no trouble identifying Colton Lee Atwood and J. Sanford Brown. Unfortunately for the DA, there was no physical evidence Colton and Sandy were the perpetrators.

Colton tossed the second beer bottle in the sink and grabbed two more. He’d been in trouble before but nothing like this. At least he could be thankful he’d worn a condom when he’d fucked the tight-bodied Gina. But, he knew her testimony would be enough to put him and Sandy into the lion’s den of a trial, and without Millie’s alibi, the two of them could spend the rest of their lives in prison.

Colton swore he’d find Molly and Millie. If she refused to fully cooperate, he’d kidnap Molly and hold her until Millie lied that he was at home before 11:00 PM and stayed there all night. Colton knew Molly was the key to his freedom. The sweet, sexually maturing little girl was Millie’s weakness. She wouldn’t dare hesitate to protect the most important person in her world.