Thirty-Five

Daniel was excited. Beatrice was supposed to be returning home to him from Africa. He missed her more than ever. It had been five weeks since he had last seen her, and he couldn’t wait to wrap his arms around his lovely woman and hold her forever. Not hearing from her, their only communication letters via snail mail, was a struggle. The wait was no more. Today was the day.

He ran around his small shotgun home cleaning up. He washed dishes, swept every inch of the house, did laundry, and spruced the place up a little by painting the walls. He placed a bouquet of store-bought flowers in a homemade coffee-can vase and cooked a meal of catfish, rice and peas, and cornbread for her. She would be hungry returning from her long trip.

It was almost 7 p.m., and her bus would arrive in less than a half hour. In the last letter he had received from Beatrice, she informed him that she would be home a week before the Christmas holidays.

Daniel took one last look at his place, and everything looked orderly. He wasn’t exactly a neat freak, which drove Beatrice crazy, but he’d managed to do his best. He knew she would be happy with how it turned out.

He hurried out the door and jumped into his Civic. The ride to Charlotte wasn’t far, but he didn’t want to be late. He wanted to be right there when her bus pulled into the station.

Daniel arrived in time to see the bus Beatrice was scheduled to be pull in, but she wasn’t on it. Maybe she missed it, he thought.

The next bus came and still no Beatrice.

Two hours went by.

He started to worry. He attempted to call her cell phone numerous times, but it kept going to voicemail. By the fourth hour of waiting at the bus station, he was almost into a full-blown panic. It was time to notify the police.

The officer advised him that they couldn’t file a missing-person report on his girlfriend until twenty-four hours had passed. Daniel became frantic. He tried not to think the worst, but he couldn’t help it.

“Where is she!” he exclaimed, wandering about nervously.

He knew something was wrong. He could feel it. Beatrice would never have stood him up like this. She was always punctual with her arrival.

When he climbed into his car, he couldn’t control the tears trickling down his face. He couldn’t go anywhere at the moment. He felt paralyzed with worry. Something was definitely wrong. He could feel it.

...

Cristal knew it had to be done. Walking away from Daniel was a hard choice, one of the hardest she had to make. She had wrestled with her options. She could either walk away and never look back, or snatch him up, tell him the truth about who she really was, and hope that he’d forgive her and give up his life as he knew it to live out his years with her on the run.

But she just couldn’t be that selfish. To save his life, she had to leave. She had chosen the life she was in. If she had to do it all over again, she would have never walked into that white church with the steeple. At the time she didn’t think she had options. She was young and naïve, and her future seemed bleak.

After meeting Daniel and falling in love with him, Cristal realized that all she had to do was work hard, stay focused, and she could have made any dream she had come true.

She was an hour away from Seattle two transfers later. The trip was a smooth one. She sat alone in the seat, peering out the window. On both sides of the highway an immense wasteland stretched for miles into the horizon. Everything looked desolate and stagnant. The bus roared up the highway. It was the only sound for miles around.

As the bus pulled into the Seattle, she felt a little relief mixed with uncertainty. It was going to be her first time in the city.

Cristal stepped of the Greyhound clutching her duffel bag of guns and money, and instantly took notice of her surroundings. The bus station wasn’t anything like New York’s or Boston’s; it was busy, but the crowd seemed to be fading fast, whereas in the bigger cities, the people coming and going seemed perpetual.

With her new identity and enough money to last, Cristal wondered how long this would be her home. Seattle had a magnificent setting, with the snowy peak of Mount Rainier in the distance, a modern skyline of glass skyscrapers, a friendly charm, and plenty of fun coffeehouses, good restaurants, and engaging clubs.

She planned on staying away from it all.