The Unrepentant, page 9
Chapter Twenty-Five
“The bedroom in the attic is yours,” Raúl, Charlotte’s uncle, told her. “Got a bathroom down the hall, and there’s a TV on the dresser. Doesn’t get cable, but I figure you should be studying, right? Your mom let you watch a lot of TV?”
Charlotte shook her head. She was still holding her suitcase and wanted to set it down but doing that would feel like acceptance. And she wasn’t ready to call this place home.
“Shame about Olivia,” Raúl said. “Not that she and I talked much.”
Charlotte nodded, felt a rock in her throat at her mother’s name.
“At least you weren’t the one to find her, right? That would have been worse.”
Another nod.
Raúl studied her face. He wasn’t much taller than she was, but he was stocky, with rolls of muscles on the verge of relaxing into fat. “They say there’s no pain with an aneurysm. Just like a snap of the fingers. She didn’t suffer.”
“Okay.”
“Like I said, you should thank God you didn’t find her. Because that would have—”
“Will you please stop talking?”
Raúl seemed startled. “Well, shit, Carlota. Just trying to help.”
“You’re not helping.”
Raúl’s expression darkened, and he brushed his curly dark hair out of his face. “You got Olivia’s ungratefulness. I could see that right away. She didn’t have any patience. Never listened when someone tried to do something for her. You’re just like her.”
Charlotte held her tongue. She liked the comparison.
“And you don’t have any other family up here,” Raúl went on. “It’s just me. You understand that, right?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s yes, not yeah. I’m not taking shit from some fifteen-year-old girl.”
She’d moved from her mom’s house in Long Beach to her uncle’s in San Diego, and the two cities might as well have been on other sides of the country. Olivia’s death had distanced Charlotte from her friends. None of them understood her withdrawal or could relate. She’d felt alone in Long Beach.
San Diego wasn’t much better. Raúl drank heavily on the weekends, and Charlotte would stay in her room when his voice rose, and he started knocking things over. She’d hear glass clink and the television would stay on the same channel for too long and her uncle would grow too loud. She’d read until his voice died down, until she could emerge from her bedroom and find him passed out on the couch or floor. Then Charlotte would sleep.
It took a month, but Charlotte noticed a change in him, and a change in herself. They both seemed to realize the permanence in their situation, that Charlotte had nowhere else to go. It happened when Raúl asked if she wanted to tag along to his mixed martial arts class. His day job was a security guard for an office building downtown, but he taught mixed martial arts several nights a week.
She didn’t have much interest in the sport, even though she’d watched a couple of fights on television with Raúl. But she thought the class might be a good place to make new friends, and she was curious to see Raúl in charge of something. The gym was in a small narrow strip mall, and it smelled musty, of men and sweat. There were a dozen people in the class, most in their twenties and thirties, and only two were women. Charlotte felt uncomfortable in the judo gi Raúl had loaned her. The pants were tight around her waist and loose at the ankles, and the heavy white jacket was stiff. She stood in the corner, trying not to be conspicuous, stretching her arms to loosen the jacket.
“Line up!”
Charlotte was startled at how deep Raúl’s voice was when he emerged from the back office, wearing a worn gi loosely tied over his waist. Something about him was different. His appearance hadn’t changed—curly long black hair, a hanging belly, not an inch over five-foot-five. But now he had presence. She followed the other students as they scrambled into two rows. Raúl stood in front of them, his expression stern.
“Today is going to be devoted to ground. Chokes and submissions. Let’s stretch out.”
The class’s obedience surprised Charlotte. She was used to arguing with Raúl, but now she saw him through their eyes, and Charlotte realized there was a side of him she hadn’t grasped. He walked up and down the rows of students, adjusting their stretches, once or twice exchanging pleasantries.
After stretching, Raúl had every student in the class partner up. Charlotte wanted to approach one of the women, but they had paired up with each other immediately. Another student, who looked to be in his early twenties, asked if he could work with her. She nodded.
“I’ll show you how to do it,” he said. “Then you can try it on me.”
“Okay.”
“Sit down with your back to me,” he told her, and pointed to a pair of students in front of them. “Like he’s doing.”
Charlotte did, and she felt him behind her, his chest pressing against her back. Then his arm wrapped around her chin and slipped beneath it, over her neck.
“Tap when you can’t breathe,” he said.
His forearm pressed into her windpipe and Charlotte’s breathing turned coarse, but she could still breathe. Barely.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.” The word came out a grunt.
“Try this, Eric,” Raúl said. Charlotte hadn’t realized he was near them. Raúl guided Eric’s arm up, lifted her chin.
“Now press back,” Raúl told him. “Up and back, lightly.”
The effect was immediate. Charlotte’s air was gone. Her arms flailed, her legs kicked. The room turned dark.
She looked up into a circle of faces peering down. Raúl was closest to her.
“You have to tap your opponent on the arm,” he told her. “Otherwise they think you’re struggling to get away, not giving up. Understand?”
“Did I pass out?”
His face broke into a grin, although everyone else stayed tense. “You did,” he confirmed. “But you’ll be okay. Go take a break.”
Charlotte stood, rubbing her neck.
“I’m sorry,” Eric told her, frightened. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
Charlotte nodded. “Just surprised.”
She sat to the side of the class and watched the others grapple. She couldn’t believe how easily she’d been knocked unconscious. But she wasn’t frightened. Instead, the experience thrilled her. She watched the other students with renewed interest.
After about ten minutes, she rejoined the class.
Mixed martial arts happily overwhelmed Charlotte. The sport was exhausting and challenging, but something about the struggle resonated in her. Charlotte loved perfecting grappling techniques, the minutiae behind a slight adjustment that turned a firm hold excruciating, the feeling of an opponent frantically tapping her arm. She didn’t like the kickboxing portion as much; Charlotte had the speed to avoid fists and land her own punches, but not the strength to hit hard. She knew it was because she punched the way she applied a choke or arm bar, steadily, like a powerful storm gathering speed.
After a few months, she was considered one of the best in the room, and even helped Raúl coach the other students. She still didn’t have close friends, and memories of her mother hit her like a knife in her neck, but mixed martial arts made her happy.
And it brought her closer to Raúl, which was something she needed. They were never as close as Charlotte and her mother had been, and he still drank on the weekends, but a relationship grew. Raúl had fought MMA as an amateur a dozen times in Mexico, and Charlotte was captivated by his stories. She had no desire to compete, but an admiration for those who did.
But even with this new passion, she was still lonely.
Her high school was starkly divided into cliques, and often those cliques were racial. She’d lived all her life in the United States and, because of Olivia’s hopes to master English and assimilate, Latin culture had always been kept an arm’s length away. And Charlotte’s darker skin color automatically excluded her from the white kids. This hadn’t been a problem in Long Beach because Charlotte and her friends had been too young to care. Now she was in a different school and it might as well have been a different world. She was a good student and kept to herself, but she fervently wished that her mother was still alive. That she was sitting next to her on that apartment building roof, looking out over the water and the city.
Charlotte had been living with Raúl for about a year before he climbed into her bed.
She was startled awake by the motion of the bed shifting. She sat up and saw her uncle lying next to her, fists over his eyes. He wore boxers and a T-shirt. She felt uncomfortable in her soft flannel shorts.
“You get lonely, Carlota?”
“What?”
Raúl moved his fists and looked at her with wide, soulful eyes. “Loneliness. Does it ever get to you? Come on, I’m just trying to talk.”
“Sometimes I miss my mom.”
“I miss my daughter.”
“You haven’t seen her at all since the divorce?”
He shakes his head. “We used to lie here at night before they left.”
“Sometimes I’d fall asleep on my mom’s bed,” Charlotte offered. “We’d be talking, and I’d wake up the next day in her bed.” She smiled. “I’d be confused when I woke up. She and I both.”
“Can I lie here with you?”
Raúl came back the next night, and soon they were going to bed together. Sometimes Charlotte would wake and find him holding her. Sometimes his hand was under her shirt, touching her stomach, her breasts. Once he guided her hand into his shorts.
Charlotte knew it wasn’t right. The next night, she wouldn’t let him touch her.
“What’s wrong?”
“We shouldn’t do this.”
“It just feels nice to be with you. Makes me feel better. Look, I haven’t had as much to drink because of you.”
Charlotte didn’t say anything.
“Can’t we just lie here?”
But a few nights later, he moved her hand again.
She stopped him, but he begged her until she relented.
Completely.
Most nights Raúl was gentle, guiding her, telling her what to do. Some nights he was too drunk to tell her anything, and those nights he was rough and clumsy and hurt her.
But it’s not that bad, Charlotte would think. She and Raúl went to movies, dinners, shopping, mixed martial arts. He took her shooting, off-roading, fishing.
She sometimes wondered if they were dating.
Sometimes other kids made fun of her, told her she and Raúl were too close, and that stung.
After almost two years of this Charlotte told him she was leaving.
“Yeah?”
“When I graduate. I’m moving out.”
“Why’s that?”
She never liked it when Raúl only answered in one to two-word sentences, when he kept his emotions hidden.
But she’d anticipated it, practiced what she was going to say.
“I need to live my own life.”
He put his foot on the edge of the kitchen table, leaned back in the chair he was sitting in. Drank from his beer.
“Going to break my heart.”
She heard the sadness in his words. And it did hurt.
That night the bedroom door slammed open and he stumbled in. Charlotte sat up and his hand was on her chin, forcing her down. He grabbed the waistband of her pajamas and his other hand tried to disappear inside her.
He left her shaking on the floor.
She stayed that way for hours.
Then she stood.
Raúl was in the kitchen the next morning when she walked up to him, shirtless, braless, and pressed a knife into his hand.
“Do it,” she told him.
He took the knife from her, held it dumbly, and took a step back. Charlotte had seen her uncle as imposing but now, with uncertainty clouding his face, he was different, slight.
“Carlota, what are you doing?”
Charlotte took his hand, pressed the blade of the knife between her bare breasts.
“Push it in.”
He didn’t move.
Her hand over his, she drove the tip of the blade into her skin. A drop of blood ran down her stomach.
“Come on.”
She dug the knife deeper but didn’t make a sound. And didn’t look away from her uncle’s face.
His eyes widened.
Charlotte left him standing there. She walked into her bedroom, dressed, and grabbed the bag she’d packed that morning.
She didn’t see her uncle when she left.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Will and Frank had visited a dozen women’s shelters the day before with no luck. Even when they were allowed in, some sort of security—a locked door, a guard, a curious receptionist—prevented them from going in farther.
They sat in Frank’s car, eating fast food, trying to figure out their next step.
Frank speaks through a mouthful of hamburger. “We can’t keep checking those places. I’m pretty sure we’re on some sort of watch list by now.”
Will dips a fry in ketchup and downs it. “We should try something else. And tell Dave we can cross the shelters off the list.”
“Right. Well, technically, she could be at any of the ones we went to. We have no proof.”
“Let’s not tell Dave that.”
“He’s not our parent or teacher…or anything. We don’t have to lie to him.”
“I don’t like making him mad.”
“Yeah, me neither.” Frank washes down his hamburger with a mouthful of Coke. He snaps his fingers. “We’re idiots!”
“Why?”
“She has to eat, doesn’t she? Why don’t we just watch restaur…never mind. Thought about it as I was saying it.”
“You mean,” Will says, “you don’t think we should try and keep an eye on every restaurant in the area?”
“Shut up.”
“Maybe she’ll make a reservation at The Rib Joint. Let’s ask Seth.”
Frank bristles. “I don’t see you with anything to offer.”
“Well, look, we know where she was last. The woods where the body and van were.”
“So?”
Will finishes off his fries. “Maybe she’s still around there. I don’t think she hopped on a plane or anything. And don’t criminals return to the scene of the crime?”
“Yeah, but Tyson was the criminal.”
“Oh, right.”
“Seth and Dave are hitting train and bus stations again. Let’s see if they come up with anything.” Frank reclines his seat, pulls out a joint from the glove compartment. “I don’t feel like working today anyway.”
Will nods, inclined to agree with his brother.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Neither Mace, Eve, or Dory have moved since Charlotte started speaking.
Charlotte doesn’t notice.
She’s lost in her past.
Charlotte thought about heading back to Long Beach, but she didn’t want Raúl to find her. She picked Tucson. She liked the idea of another state.
Hitchhiking took her a day and a half. Much of that was because of her determination not to accept rides from cars only occupied by men. And a lot of the women she saw, in the cars that zipped past, were with families, and Charlotte rightly assumed a family would be less likely to pick up a hitchhiker.
She walked on the side of the road, her backpack bumping her, eyeing cars as they approached, trying to determine if she should stick out her thumb. Finally, a car driven by two college girls pulled over. They let her in and asked a few questions, and then talked with each other so much that Charlotte wondered if they remembered she was in the backseat. They dropped her off a rest stop, and she thought about trying to find a hotel, but the day had been exhausting. She decided to sleep there.
It was more of a tiny shopping center than a truck stop, complete with a Subway, some type of frozen yogurt stand, stores selling magazines and cheap souvenirs, and mounted TVs showing cable news or sports. Charlotte ate McDonalds, bought a People magazine, found an empty bench, and read. She didn’t follow celebrities that closely, but she knew them, and liked seeing their easy happiness and matter-of-fact wealth. The magazine was more engaging than she expected and, when she finished it, Charlotte was surprised at how late it was.
Other people were sleeping on benches; she did the same. She stretched out on the wooden slats and waited for sleep. It didn’t come. She lay on the bench, counted sheep, quietly recited a lullaby, re-read the magazine.
Nothing worked.
The bench hurt her back. And there were too many people around. Charlotte couldn’t stop looking at them, marking where they slept, wondering if they would move near her once her eyes closed.
The night was painfully slipping away.
She had to pee, so she took her backpack and headed to the restroom. She wasn’t that worried about keeping her bench. It couldn’t be much more comfortable than the floor.
The restroom was empty. A long row of sinks were on one side, stalls on the other. She walked into a large handicapped stall, locked it, and hung her backpack on the hook behind the door. She tore off some toilet paper and wiped down the seat, then covered it with more toilet paper.
She peed, flushed, stood, and fastened her pants. Then she sat back down.
Charlotte couldn’t explain why, but she felt more comfortable in this small restroom stall than she did outside. She stretched her legs, closed her eyes.
Something nudged her foot.
Charlotte’s eyes opened. She’d been asleep, no idea for how long.
She looked down and saw a man’s head in the space between the bottom of the door and the floor, staring up at her.
She inhaled sharply and drew her legs back.
“Hi,” he said.
Charlotte didn’t know what to do.
“Hi,” he said again. “Let me in.”
“What? No.”
