Live to Die

Her arm shifted under the weight of my hands. I’d fallen asleep at her bedside, holding on as if my grasp could keep her from death’s door.

I watched as her eyes raced beneath the veins of her paper-thin eyelids, brows furrowed in what looked like anguish. Was she in pain? Or just confused? How close was she to the end? As I reached to press the call button for assistance, her eyelids slowly rose and light filled the pools of her deep green irises.

“There’s my sweet, sweet angel cake” The words came slow and brittle as though she could crumble into a million pieces.

She’d named me Angela after herself. It was the name given to her by her birth mother until she was adopted and renamed Deborah, but most people knew her as “Blondie”. What most people didn't know was that Blondie had a daughter. She kept me from the limelight; told me she was protecting me, but I couldn't shake the feeling that she was hiding me for her own sole benefit. That didn’t stop me, however, from loving her more than anyone or anything. She was my idol. And although I despised sharing her with the world, I'd rather have her in secret than not at all.

She took my hand in hers, closed her eyes once more, and the heart monitor flat-lined.

I’d hardly heard a word the representative had said before he handed me a slender black box.

“Wait to open it until you get home. I’d secure it in a lockbox if I were you. Only take it out when you want to...use it.”

I felt the leather texture of its casing and with shaking hands, pressed it to my chest.

In a cold sweat, I raced down Broadway, the slender box in my white-knuckled grip. I reached the brownstone and sprang to the third step, skipping the first two and every other after until I made it to the landing. Rifling through the overstuffed bag slung from my shoulder, I grew impatient as the possibility of finding my keys grew more and more improbable.

“Fuck me” I cursed loudly.

I continued to dig through receipts, lip balm, and lozenges, convinced I’d left them on the representative’s desk, until I heard the familiar jangle. Taking a deep breath, I whispered “It’s going to be okay” and let myself in, greeted by the scent of sandalwood and the afterglow of a kindling fire.

As the door shut behind me, I dropped my bag to the floor, raised the box to eye level, and started to open it. I hesitated, feeling the resistance of the hinges, and let it snap closed before I could see what was inside. I didn’t try again for the next four hours.

After an anxious dinner, I forced myself to bed. Resting my head on my pillow, I stared at the box, which now sat on my nightstand, and reached to turn out the light.

The room went black. It was the first time I couldn’t see it. The first time I’d let it out of my sight. My breath became heavy. My mind began to race in the dark. I sat up, turned the light back on, and in one swift, mindless motion, picked up the box and opened it.

Staring back at me was a golden heart-shaped locket. The same one I wore as a child. I remembered pressing my face against the big glass case, begging my mom for the beautiful gold heart inside. I'd torn a picture of her from a magazine and folded it into the locket. I'd never heard my mom laugh as hard as she did when she discovered the wrinkled glamour shot wedged unceremoniously into the $500 necklace.

"I don't think a seven-year-old needs to be going around advertising that their mother is a sex symbol darling," she'd told me through tears of laughter. But she didn't remove it.

“I miss your laugh,” I said to the empty room as I pried open the 24-karat gold heart. A chill brushed against my face and traveled down my spine. There appeared to be a faint green light at the center of the open locket. I blinked vigorously. It was still there. Then came the voice.

“There’s my sweet Angel cake.”

I threw the necklace to the floor and let out a shrill scream. Pulling the covers up and over my nose, I stared through bulging eyes at the locket splayed on the plush cream carpet. “Hello?” I asked feebly.

Silence. Panting, I grasped the covers even tighter and tried again.

“Hello!”

Nothing. I relaxed my grip and with a watchful eye, slid out from under my covers and carried it back to bed with me.

“Is anybody there?” I whispered, calmly this time.

I took a slow inhale. Then the voice came again.

“Yes Angel it’s me, don’t be afraid.”

I felt my heart leap from my chest and my gut fall to the floor. Tears poured from my eyes and I burst into head-splitting laughter. I knew spirit channels existed. I'd heard of the "cutting-edge technology" on the news, but it's one thing to hear it, and quite another to experience it.

“Mom!”

“I’m here darling” Her voice was sweet and strong.

“Mom is that really you?! How?!”

“I arranged for you to have a channel when I first became ill–”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I cried, cutting her off.

“I didn’t want you to grieve for me twice in case it didn’t work. They don’t always do. I’m so glad it did. There’s so much I left unsaid.”

I spoke to my mother every night, asking questions I never dared ask while she was alive. I felt closer to her than I ever had before. She was my guardian, my light, and the only love I needed. But on the 27th day, she told me to stop.

“You can’t hide from the world, Angela. You need to get back to reality.”

“I’m in reality. I go to work. I go outside. I see people.”

“You aren’t building a life for yourself. You’re not living new experiences, falling in love, going after what you want.”

“I just want to be here with you.”

“Angel Cake I will always be here for you, but I won’t let you die along with me. I don’t have to answer your call, you know. And I won’t until you get out there and start living.”

“No, mom please!”

My phone lit up next to me. Jennifer was calling again. I hadn’t answered anyone’s texts or calls since my mother’s funeral.

“I’d get that if I were you”

“Mom, stop!” I screamed into the locket.

“Goodbye darling. Speak soon.”

“You can’t do this!”

She didn’t respond. How could she do this to me? How could she take back this gift? Remembering what she’d said, I picked up my phone and tapped Jennifer’s name. As it rang, I stared at myself in the mirror. I looked like a ghost. Pretty, but lifeless. I grabbed the blush from my makeup bag as Jennifer answered the phone.

“Angela! Where have you been, I’ve been trying to reach you!”

“I know I’m sorry. I’ve been having a really hard time…”

“Of course you have. I’m so sorry. I love you and we all really miss you. I wanted to tell you we’re all going to the Raven Tavern tonight. If you’re up to it, you should meet us.”

I fastened the necklace around my neck and cupped the quiet locket in my hand, “I’ll be there.”

I opened my eyes and the light cracked my head in two. First came the pain. Then the vomit. And finally, the fear. I wiped my face with one hand and reached for the locket with the other. It was gone.

I shot up in a dizzy panic. I was alone in a room I’d never seen before. Smooth jazz played from a digital alarm clock that read 10:00 am. The curtains matched the bedding and looked like they hadn’t been updated since 1980. This must be a motel room.

I scanned the room with a small glimmer of hope that I’d spot a glimmer of gold. Nothing. I tore through the sheets. Nothing. I tore through the drawers. Nothing. I tore through every square inch of that horrific room and the locket was nowhere to be found.

Ten hours, five hundred questions, and one rape kit later, I was sitting in a 9x7 room as two detectives ran through surveillance footage from inside the Raven Tavern and outside of the Traveller’s Inn. They analyzed my behavior with a clear tone of contempt, explaining that I appeared to have “willingly” and “happily” left with the man they identified as Hayden Wofford.

The rape kit results came back negative but not that nor the IV drip they administered quelled the anxiety that coursed through my veins. I lost my mother. All over again.

I waited across the street until Hayden Wofford left the building. It was incredible how easy it was to find someone’s address online. Incredibly unsettling.

With Hayden out of sight, I made a run for the alley. I’d surveyed the area earlier that morning and had found a fire escape leading to every back window of the narrow Manhattan building. His unit was 502. I climbed the five flights and avoided looking down.

The window didn’t break as easily as I’d imagined. Movies and their prop sugar glass didn’t prepare me for the force it took to shatter the real thing. Once I made a decent crack, I delicately pushed away shard after shard, protected by the sounds of the city and the blanket of darkness.

His place was nicer than I’d imagined. Modern furniture, updated appliances. Not what I’d expected from a thief. I had no problem, however, tearing through it like a bulldozer after what he’d put me through. And what he’d taken from me.

Furniture upturned, clothes thrown, counters cleared. Just as I’d done in the motel room. And again, nothing. I returned a chair to its upright position, slumped myself into the cushions, and wept. That’s when I heard a low hum of distant murmuring.

I followed what sounded like a thousand echoes coming from the far end of the windowless living room. I pressed my ear to the wall and the murmurs amplified. There was something or someone on the other side.

Pushing aside a large tapestry, I discovered a clear crack in the surface; a crude outline of a door. Without hesitation, I threw all my weight against the wall and it flew open to reveal the rest of the living room.

Lining the perimeter were desks draped in black velvet. Atop the desks, were glass cases, lit up and locked up; a random assortment of items inside. A record, a ring, a velvet slipper, among other things. Dozens of...things. Below each one was a label with a name and a price. Hugh Hefner $2,000,000,000. Kobe Bryant $52,000,000,000. Michael Jackson $80,000,000,000. I grew faint as the murmurs grew louder, searching through the handwritten names of dead icons. And then there she was...Blondie.

I smashed the case and ripped the necklace from its stand. A loud, incessant beeping sound went off in the room. Holding the golden heart to my own, I rushed to the back window, tearing my flesh against shards of glass but I felt no pain. I was almost to safety. Almost back with my mother. I’d nearly made it through to the landing when a man’s voice came from behind me.

“Don’t move or I’ll shoot”

I pressed on. Then everything went black.