THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY

PART IV

Bigger! Longer! Uncut! This is the chapter where everything begins to take shape.

Plot based on a true story

Less than a week later, Carlos Rivera was once again out past three in the morning.

Once again, Mary worried. Not as much as the first time.

Mary figured—make that hoped and prayed—that Carlos was just out doing whatever he was doing a few nights earlier.

While, in the back of her mind, she still wondered if he was, well, a bloody mess of death stuck in a ditch somewhere, she knew that he could easily just be out drinking or snorting something with his friends (none of whom, luckily, she had ever met).

So, even though she still felt nauseous about the fact that her husband wasn't home at twenty to four, she felt strangely confident that, if anything, he was just getting high on something.

Then the phone call came.

Mary hadn't been expecting it. She knew it just had to be bad news.

In regular circumstances, Carlos wouldn't call Mary if he was late. He would just show up, request 'fantastic sex', and be done with it.

So, when Mary picked up the phone, she did it with dread and apprehension filling every part of her body.

"Hello?"

Silence, at first.

Then...

"Mary, I'm in deep shit."

It was Carlos.

"I'm in... well, I'm in jail."

It was Carlos, in jail.

"They got me for exposing myself to some girl—I didn't even do it, man. I swear."

It was Carlos, in jail for exposing himself.

Mary was stunned, of course.

She would have put down good money that if Carlos had ever gone to jail, it would have been for some kind of drug-related crime.

Exposing himself?

This was new.

"You've got to get me out of here."

Silence.

"Mary?"

"I'm here."

"You've got to get me out of here." Carlos reiterated.

Mary nodded, not necessarily to Carlos, because he couldn't see her. She couldn't help but think 'kill me now, Lord, please...', yet she still managed to grab control of the situation.

She got information on where Carlos was, how to contact him again, and how much money she would need to shell out for bail.

Of course, she had no money—not to mention any transportation—so she knew it would take awhile to bust her hubby out of the big house.

It was like this: She was already facing an unhittable pitcher in the World Series. And, if that wasn't enough, he comes out, and throws half a broken bat at her out of nowhere. In other words, things were already bad. Now they were worse. Surreal, almost.

Mary expected this, though. It was a surprise, but she expected it.

Strange, she thought.

Mary did not sleep that night. She spent the rest of the early morning, wondering what she would do. She was living in her parents' house, with a young son she could barely take care of and a husband in jail. She briefly wondered what an entire bottle of pills tasted like, but shook that thought from her head when confronted with the image of her baby boy.

In order to get Carlos out of jail, Mary would need money. She would need, at the very, very least, ten dollars so she could get a taxi ride up to the prison. Then, she would need bail money. Or, she could contact one of her family members and get a ride, but...

...the very thought of one of her family members finding out that Carlos was in jail was almost as bad as finding out Carlos was in jail in the first place. That couldn't happen. There was no Camden she could trust.

Of course, if she didn't let off some steam, there was every possibility that her residence would turn into the scene of a grizzly suicide, complete with television news reporters. Mary knew she had to do something.

She knew she had to call someone.

So, she—against her better judgment—picked up the phone.

And—against her better judgment—dialed up Lucy Kinkirk's number.

It was a quarter to six, just a few hours after she initially learned the news. Mary felt like she had known for much longer than a couple of hours. Then again, time tends to drag on for those hit with shocking news.

Lucy had been asleep, of course. Her husband was already off to work. She didn't have to worry about waking up at four in the morning, what with being a stay-at-home mom. Kevin told her that constantly, making sure Lucy knew what she was doing was small in comparison to his line of work.

The sound of the phone broke Lucy from her slumber. She was surprised and angered that someone would be calling her so early in the morning. In the quick moment before she picked up the phone, she wondered if something might have happened to Kevin. That thought brought unwanted excitement to the young mother.

Lucy picked up the phone.

"Hello?" She asked, cringing at her ability to taste her own morning breath.

"Lucy?"

"Mary?"

There were a few moments of dead air before Mary began to speak.

"I'm in trouble, Lucy."