THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY
PART IX
Rated PG-13 for language, death, and irrational rage. But really, it's not as bad as it sounds.
Lucy was confused.
What was Mary talking about?
Why had she hung up on her?
She just couldn't figure it out.
She knew she hadn't told anyone that Carlos was in the slammer—especially not Annie...
Lucy sighed to herself. She was at a crossroads. She had been calling Mary to let her know she was on her way to the jailhouse. But after the cold reception she had just received, Lucy wondered if she even wanted to help anymore.
Honestly.
Who did Mary think she was?
Accusing Lucy of such terrible things! Especially considering that Lucy didn't have to help or pester her husband about accompanying her to the jailhouse.
Lucy was offended.
Righteously indignant.
Pissed!
It wasn't until after several minutes of stewing in her anger that Lucy wondered: "Hey! How did Annie find out, anyway?"
Through a surprisingly long and slow process of elimination, Lucy realized that Ruthie must have found out somehow when she came over to baby-sit.
But how?
Lucy remembered writing down a checklist of things she needed to get Carlos out of jail. Then, she remembered putting the paper down on the table and... eventually leaving the house... Ruthie must have found it, and...
"That little bitch!"
"What's wrong, Kevin?"
Lucy turned to her husband, who had just stormed into the house.
"Nothing that concerns you." He said, bitterly. Obviously, Kevin was annoyed. Lucy didn't like it when Kevin was annoyed.
His annoyance usually turned into anger.
And his anger usually turned into another boating accident for Lucy.
Lucy could tell that Kevin was headed for anger mode. She had already asked him to help her bail Carlos out. (Of course, for Kevin to agree, there had to be incentives involved. We won't go into that.)
Lucy certainly didn't want to get in a car with Angry Kevin. Angry Kevin became incensed at every little thing, and usually searched for things to be angry about as well. Lucy, at the expense of Mary, decided that putting off the trip to the jail would be the best thing to do.
"Honey? Why don't we just wait a bit before we—"
"We're going now."
"Okay."
Power.
It's a good thing.
With it, you can intimidate people. You can make people do whatever you want, whenever you want, for whatever reason you want.
Annie Camden had power over her daughter. She had relinquished it when Mary weaseled her way out of her grasp. But now, she had it again.
And she was loving it.
Annie and Ruthie returned their home, after paying a visit to Mary and making a pitstop at the emergency room. Ruthie had a nice little case of whiplash (i.e., a sprained neck) from her minor accident earlier in the day.
Annie, of course, was quite satisfied with herself. She had delivered her daughter a proverbial beat down. Complete with tears.
The Camden matriarch felt good about herself, and decided to call up El Diablo on an impromptu house call.
The salsa-dancing instructor arrived, happy to get an extra lesson in with Annie. Not necessarily for the dancing. Unscheduled visits meant an extra fifty dollars, in addition to his usual pay.
While Annie danced away, Ruthie dealt with a pain in her neck.
She knew what it was, but that didn't make it better. Annie was to have Eric pick up Ruthie's prescription, but she was either too busy with El Diablo to care, or she had just forgotten.
Ruthie sighed to herself. Not that she cared, but it certainly rubbed her the wrong way that Annie wouldn't just call up Eric right away and tell him about the prescription.
While Ruthie thought about this slight slight, a white blur began to approach her.
Ruthie couldn't figure out what it was, at first. But, after a moment or two, she knew.
It was Happy, the family dog.
Named for Annie's feelings after Glenoak's first gay couple was forced to move out of town, Happy gleefully trotted over to Ruthie.
Ruthie thought none of this at first, until...
Wait a second... Happy's dead.
Ruthie jolted upright. She had been imagining things. Silently, the youngest Camden Daughter wondered if her neck injury was more serious than just whiplash.
She rarely had hallucinations. And when she did, they were of a different, more macabre kind.
Jolting upright hadn't been such a bright idea. Ruthie's neck began to hurt again.
The girl grimaced as she fell back, flat on her bed. She looked out of the corner of her eye at the window. It was beginning to rain in Glenoak.
Growing up, Ruthie had been told by her mother that rain was God's tears. As a tot, Ruthie always wondered how she could make God cry.
So, she would do experiments, such as slicing the ponytail off of one of her classmates at preschool. Or, playfully jamming a fork into her babysitter's thigh. Once, she even dared one of her little friends to play with a match... and she laughed as she watched the results.
It didn't rain when Ruthie did those things.
Yet, on this day, 'God's tears' flowed freely.
Ruthie thought about this for a moment. She knew she was probably reading too much into the presence of rain in Glenoak, but... for one brief, shining moment, she wondered if maybe—just maybe—what she did was wrong.
Then she laughed at the thought, and returned to worrying about her sprained neck.