Chapter 4

Jeni

I said goodbye to my last client, a cute little six-year-old girl who always drew me a picture during our sessions. Clutching the lovely crayon drawing of a rainbow in one hand and my cell phone in the other, I slung my well-worn Coach backpack over my shoulder and headed for my car.

The Coach bag had been a gift from my mom. It was an expensive gift to give an eleven-year-old, but it was meant to be my “adventure bag” and it was supposed to last a lifetime of adventure. Well, thirteen years later, it was still going strong.

I texted Lydia to let her know I was on my way, for which I got a foreboding text with warnings of imminent danger in return. A storm was on the horizon. I could see it, but I assured her I’d make it up the mountain in time and we’d all have some hot cocoa when I got there.

Storms didn’t scare me, I’d been up and down that mountain a hundred times, besides nothing really frightened me anymore. I dared life to throw me something I couldn’t handle. After losing my mom, I lost my fear of anything. Even the boogie man wearing a clown suit and carrying an ax wouldn’t phase me. A little snow wasn’t scary.

I’d made it to the base of the mountain pretty quickly since I was leaving in the middle of the day. I could see the dark storm clouds gathering in the distance, so I made sure to gas up my car.

Usually, I liked to go the bakery at the base of the mountain and pick up fresh baked goodies, but I had contraband. I was already winning, no need to risk being caught on the mountain in the storm.

The drive was tedious but familiar. The cabin had always been in our family. We’d fly out to from California to Minnesota and make this trek every Christmas until Mom was killed; then we didn’t go back. If our grandparents wanted to see us, they’d have to come to California, which never happened. When I was fourteen my father’s parents weren’t doing so well. They lived in Minneapolis where my mom and dad met and both of them got sick around the same time with different ailments. My father had to move home to care for them so that’s when we made Minnesota our home.

As soon as they died, he found someone new on Match.com and they moved to Florida, but I stayed in Minnesota to be near my mom’s family. My mom was a third-grade school teacher. She loved teaching, it was her passion. She always told me to believe in something greater than myself and for her, that was teaching.

She used to say, “Imogen,” which always made me cringe because I hated my full name, “Being your mommy is the best thing I’ve ever done with my life and being a teacher, is my superpower. I want to be the best I can at the thing I love almost as much as I love you and your father.”

This was how she started her explanation of why we lived in one of the roughest neighborhoods in Los Angeles when we still lived in California. She believed that in order to really serve the community as a teacher, she had to be where she was most needed, which was apparently right in the hood.

She was right though, people in the community knew her and appreciated what she was doing for their children and it was actually a pretty nice place to grow up. Poor people bonded together and took care of one other. I was happy when our family was included in things that were going on around us. We’d be invited to barbecues and birthday parties; people were always making stuff and bringing it over. If I think back on it, most of my memories of living in Los Angeles were fond ones.

My dad hated it but loved my mom enough to tolerate where she wanted us to live. Neither of them had to commute very far for work and I got to go to the school where my mom taught, so we’d walk together every morning. I enjoyed our morning talks, we would banter about the state of the world, or voice our hopes and dreams. I loved my mother, she was the best person on the planet. I cared for my dad too, but my mom was inarguably the better human on all fronts.

I hate to admit it, but I was terribly spoiled. I think my parents wanted to make up for the fact that I didn’t have a sibling to play with. I had lots of friends in the neighborhood, but I think some of the other kids were jealous of the attention my parents gave me.

It didn’t help that I was also a beautiful child. I didn’t care that I was beautiful, I wasn’t conceited, but I had my mom’s good looks and my father’s strong, sculpted profile. Being a mix of both of them, I was lucky enough to get all the good genes. Dad used to say he didn’t need another kiddo because I turned out perfect. The fact was they couldn’t have another child for a reason they never discussed with me.

Because I was so loved and adored, I was also smothered. They never really allowed me to do anything or go anywhere. I used to get bored all the time. I wanted excitement and adventure in my life but my parents were strict and didn’t want anything happening to their precious little girl. My friends talked about failing grades and family dramas, but I just didn’t have any of that, so I took to climbing walls and trees for excitement.

I liked dangling from things and testing my strength. I started rock climbing when I was about eight-years-old scrambling around small rock clusters with my dad when we’d visit the cabin. I was surprised he let me climb with him, but it was an excuse to get us out of the house as Gramps had been unpleasant even then. I took a few courses in rock climbing and became a pretty good mountaineer. I found it relaxing, which most people thought was insane.

But unlike other, perhaps more sane people, climbing rocks and being on the verge of a possible plunge into oblivion, was very exciting for me. I felt alive when I climbed.

Later, when my mom died, I vowed nothing would ever scare me. However, that was a lie. There was something that haunted me, even in my sleep. I remembered it so vividly, I felt like I was there, again and again, every time I had the same nightmare. I was an eleven-year-old girl on the way to school with her mother when the monsters came.

On the day my mom died, I was walking along the brick wall that separated my elementary school from the sidewalk and ran the perimeter of the campus. I was absolutely not heeding any of my mother’s cautioning.

“Imogen, get down from there, honey. It’s too high, you’re gonna fall and crack your head,” she’d caution me with only a tinge of worry lacing her voice.

I’d tight-roped the campus wall so many times without incident that I think she only cautioned me because she had to. I liked to mess with her, it was mostly just joking around, and she knew it. Truthfully, the absolute worst thing that could’ve happened was I’d fall and break something. We both just silently prayed it wouldn’t be my skull.

I teased my mom, teetering back and forth on the wall, testing her patience every once in a while, throwing in a ‘whoa, whoa’ to get a rise out of her. I loved watching her pretty face turn playfully cross. “Imogen,” she’d say in a disdainful tone, “you are gonna be the death of me one day.”

Suddenly the sound of shots and screeching tires could be heard in the distance. They came from somewhere over on the other street. I think she was trying to comfort me, but the look in her eyes was sheer terror.

“Sometimes, I wish we lived in a better neighborhood. Now please get down. It’s probably just a car backfiring, but I don’t want you to be an easy target,” she smiled when she saw my horrified expression. “I’m sure it’s just a car, silly,” she added with a twinkle of disbelief in her eyes.

I was about to jump off the wall, but I was too freaked out to move. A late model car, something dull and loud with jamming deep base music rounded the street shooting at two men running on foot. One of the men, tearing down the opposite side of the street, shot back at the car before he went down. I was so shocked, I saw a man GET SHOT! I was in so much disbelief at the time, I think I must have gone a little catatonic.

“Mom, they just shot that guy!” I screamed as I finally came to and jumped off the wall to see my mother sink to the ground in a pool of blood of her own blood.

The guy who had shot at the car missed and hit my mom instead.

She stared at me, her beautiful blue eyes sparkling in the sunlight as she died in my arms. The bullet went right through her lungs, she couldn’t speak, but her eyes said all she needed to say. They said, ‘I love you and I’m sorry I’m leaving you.” I’m glad I told her I loved her over and over again. I’m glad I was still saying it when cops pried her body out of my arms, and in my heart, I was still saying it, thirteen years later.

Later, I found out they were shooting at each other because one of the guys was in a rival gang and they’d killed someone the night before. It was all so senseless, so much death for nothing. The neighborhood tried to console us with dinners and memorials for my mom, but in the end, we had to leave. Without her, we didn’t belong there, so we went home to a place I’d never been. I watched the snow-covered trees get taller and denser as I made my way up the mountain and reassured myself that nothing would ever scare me again as much as that day. Nothing in this world would ever compare to the day my mother died in my arms, killed by stupid monsters who didn’t know they’d just destroyed the best person in the world.

When I pulled up the driveway of the cabin, Lydia came out into the deep snow with just her house dress and a shawl wrapped around her shoulders. “I am so glad you got here in time, dear,” she said with her big arms spread wide, scooping me up into a robust hug. “Let’s get you inside where it’s warm.” She rubbed her hands up and down my arms as she shuffled me into the cabin. “Do you have any other luggage?”

“Nope, just what’s on my back,” I told her as I walked into the toasty warm cabin that smelled like burning logs and cinnamon.

“Where’s my candy?” was all I got outta Gramps.