THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY

PART X

PG-13 for references to Glenoak

Based on a true story

The rain fell heavily, pounding the road that Lucy and Kevin Kinkirk were driving on.

Kevin was angry.

When he was angry, he drove fast. Very fast. So fast, he usually broke the speed limit. Of course, he had no worries about the law. He was a policeman, after all.

Lucy didn't like this. Her child was in the backseat, sleeping, and her husband was speeding away on a wet road.

She was petrified of the prospect of having to ask Kevin to slow down, but she knew she had to anyway.

"Any chance you could slow down, honey?"

"Do you want to drive the car, Lucy?"

"I wasn't—"

"Then hush."

Kevin sped up even more, while Lucy silently prayed that she and her child would get to the jail in one piece.

Meanwhile, Mary Camden-Rivera pondered. Thought.

Wouldn't it be nice to get away? To leave this mess of a life and start all over?

Needless to say, Mary couldn't just up and leave.

Or could she?

What did she have to hold on to?

An irresponsible husband who was in jail at that very moment? A home she couldn't feel comfortable in because her mother was letting her stay there? A host of bad memories that flooded her mind every time she looked around the house?

Mary needed to leave!

Needed to get out of that house. Needed to get out of Glenoak. Needed to get far away from Annie and Carlos.

She could take Charles with her. She could move. Far away. Maybe to Ohio. Ohio always sounded good to her...

She could get a job. A good job—a reasonable job that she could hold down for an extended period of time—unlike her stint as a firefighter or the one as a flight attendant.

Housing?

BANG! Problem.

She couldn't just move to Ohio with no place to stay.

Maybe a shelter until she could get on her feet...

But no. She couldn't have Charles living in a shelter... and besides, what would she do with him when she went to work? It was bad enough to have Charles living in a shelter, but to leave him there while she went to work was not going to happen.

And not only that, but, how would she get to Ohio in the first place?

She had no car. No money for a potential flight or bus trip.

She couldn't just walk to America's heartland—that was insane.

It was clear. Mary Camden was stranded. Stranded in Glenoak, stranded in her mother's house.

She had one more last-gasp idea of getting a job in the city and raising enough money to move eventually, but...

She would need transportation. Transportation and someone to watch Charles.

Transportation was out of the question, considering Carlos' legal situation and the rules her mother had set earlier that afternoon.

If Mary was to be living under Annie's roof, she wouldn't even be able to have Carlos at the house. The idea that Carlos would pick her up on his way to work was almost ludicrous. Mary knew Carlos would leave her once she 'kicked him out', so to speak.

And she would have to kick him out.

Mary knew—and she had a gut feeling that she wasn't just 'paranoid'—that Annie had people—neighbors—watching her. Not that this was such a hard thing to do, keeping tabs on someone in Glenoak.

If Mary still had Carlos living with her, people would notice and tell Annie. And Annie would kick Mary and her three-year-old son out onto the street.

Mary didn't need that. Especially not for Charles.

All of this essentially meant that Mary was completely and totally stuck.

She had no transportation, which meant she couldn't get a job, which meant she couldn't make any money, which meant she couldn't get out of her mother's house.

This realization made Mary very, very suicidal.

Of course, Mary could always ask for help from one of her family members. She could always ask for a helping hand from the likes of Simon or Matt.

But the very idea of having to ask one of her siblings for money or any other assistance made Mary feel like putting her fingers through a meat grinder.

Mary had already swallowed most of her pride by moving into her mother's house. She didn't want to use up the remaining drops of it by begging for money from her own family.

Especially after Lucy betrayed her earlier...

Speaking of Lucy, the young wife and mother was currently thanking the Lord for allowing her to get to the jail without getting killed.

Kevin had driven like a maniac all the way to the penitentiary, and had satisfied his anger.

Now, came bailing Carlos out of jail.

Lucy hadn't seen Carlos in quite awhile, and was surprised by his appearance.

He was... less than handsome. Of course, this may have had to do with the fact that he had been in jail overnight. But, nevertheless.

Kevin handled paying bail. It was hard for the policeman to do, considering his hatred of criminals, but he knew there was a great reward waiting for him. Not surprisingly, Kevin's 'great reward' was Lucy's 'harsh sentence'.

She wasn't looking forward to fulfilling her end of the deal she made with her husband.

That aside, she was happy to see Carlos make those first steps out of his jail cell, partly due to the fact that Mary would be forever indebted to her. Or, at least, Lucy thought so.

Carlos said the obligatory 'thank you's to Kevin, and then didn't speak a single word on the way to his residence. Neither did Lucy, for that matter. Kevin said a few things, but not to the inhabitants of his car. A driver had cut him off, causing the cop to spout several obscenities and a few racial epithets.

Lucy had grown used to Kevin's road rage. It was a staple of her driving experience. One thing Lucy was not used to was the idea of an accused criminal sitting next to her child. She had asked Kevin for permission to sit in the back with her son while Carlos sat in the front, but she was denied.

This forced Lucy to constantly stare into the vanity mirror, getting a good look of what was going on in the backseat.

Much to Lucy's ease, Carlos stayed virtually frozen for the ride, and didn't so much as look at her child.

Mary's heart nearly stopped at the sound of a car pulling into the driveway. She hoped against hope that she wasn't setting herself up for a let down, and went to the nearest window.

At the sight of Carlos stepping out of Lucy's car, Mary was extremely relieved. Not overjoyed, but relieved.

One of her problems had been solved... for the time being.

That only meant, though, that another problem would come up very, very quickly.

Now that Carlos was back from the slammer, Mary would have to tell him about the meeting she and he were to have with her parents the next day. A meeting that would very likely end up with Carlos being told he had to leave.