Battle

I arrive at my mother’s house at nine in the morning to help her go through Grammy’s things. They’ve been locked away in the attic, and ignored, but my parents putting the house on the market to downsize means going through them, and getting rid of anything that isn’t sentimental.

We start with a box of pictures, of which I can’t let a single one go, and agree to keep, along with a box of her sashes and crowns from her beauty queen days.

My mother tears up when she gives me her wedding ring. I shake my head frantically, pushing her hand away. “No, Mom. I can’t.”

“Nonsense,” she says, placing the ring in my hand and folding my fingers closed around the cold metal band. “She’d want you to have it.”

I sniffle and return it to the ring box before putting it with the rest of the things I want to keep.

My mother can’t open the next box. I have trouble looking through it as well. It’s the box containing the police investigation from the accident that took my gram. I never looked at the documents before.

I read the report from Mrs. Vernon’s eye-witness account. She describes a tall man, with dark hair and blue eyes.

A police sketch of the suspect and of the vehicle Mrs. Vernon saw freezes me in place. The drawings shake in my hand as I struggle to wrap my brain around what I’m seeing. It can’t be, but the slicing pain in my heart refuses to let me deny what I saw.

“Are you okay, honey?” my mother asks.

“Yes,” I say, but I’m not okay. I’m hysterical on the inside and I need to get away. “Can we finish this later? I have somewhere I need to be.”

“Oh, um…of course.”

I take the report and the drawings in my arms. Without another word, I race to my car, and drop the papers on the passenger seat. I program Mrs. Vernon’s address into the GPS on my phone, and pray she still lives there. Or pray that she doesn’t. If she can’t confirm my suspicions then maybe my life won’t be ruined.

I’m trapped in a haze of confusion as I follow the directions to a small subdivision at the edge of town. I pull up in front of a white house with black shingles. Mums line the front porch. The cheerful shade of yellow clashes with the darkness of my agonizing suspicions.

With a deep breath for courage, I knock softly on Mrs. Vernon’s door. She greets me with a confused expression, her wrinkles deep around her eyes.

“Do you remember me?” I ask.

“Of course. Come inside, dear.”

I step into her house, and she closes the door.

“Do you want something to drink?”

“Oh, no thank you.” I breathe through the pressure threatening to collapse my lungs. “I wanted to ask you about what you saw the night my grandmother was killed.”

“Well, okay, but I already told the police everything I know.”

“I read in the police report that you would know the driver if you saw him again.”

“Oh, yes. That drunken-fool looked directly at me before he speed off. I’ll never forget his face.”

My hands shake as I hand her my phone with a picture of Battle. “Is this the man you saw?

Her horrified expression answers before she does, “Oh yes. That’s him all right.”

I feel the walls caving around me, and I have to ask again, “Are you absolutely positive this is him?”

“A hundred percent. It’s the eyes. They might be pretty, but this man is the devil inside.”

“Thank you,” I say on the verge of tears.

“How’d ya find him?”

“It’s a long story. Thank you for your time,” I choke out the words, rushing to the door to escape. My heart feels like it’s been ripped in two, and I don’t want to breakdown in front of her. I swing the door open and walk outside with her right behind me.

“I’m so glad you found him. You let me know if you need anything else. I’m willing to testify."