Beating delusion

Margaret Renton watched as her son, Sunday, reached over towards his sister, Tuesday, as she passed him the soda that they were sharing; neither looking at one another. Anyone who truly observed their interactions would become aware of how connected they were; oddly so. Even to her, they sometimes seemed freakish in their co- existence.

They finished each others sentences, and moved in mirror to one another. They very seldom could be found to be more than a few feet from each other. Even at the age of fourteen, where they should have more than hit the point of separation because they were boy and girl, they still maintained physical contact, often linking arms or simply sitting beside each other.

When they ate, they reached over into one another's plates. The two never actually spoke to each other, but never failed to know what the other needed or wanted. To an outside observer, her children would simply seem to be close siblings. Both blond and blue eyed, long in limb and lean of frame, their twin-hood obvious. Their interactions proclaimed them close, but she, as their mother, often worried about how close they were. She blamed herself for how they depended on one another.

The first twelve years of their lives had been a bad TV drama. Their father, an abusive controlling man to her. The twins, although witnessing it all, had been spared the physical attacks, or so she liked to think. She on the other hand, had been black and blue physically and mentally, turning to 'mother's little helpers' and booze to cope. She ignored Sunday and Tuesday, leaving them to their own devices, and the care of the ever-changing young and well endowed house keepers hired by her husband.

She had finally woken one morning to find both children battered and bruised from a beating, cleaning up one-another's wounds. She had not been awake to receive the beating. Ron, frustrated by not being able to gain the look and sounds of fear from her drunken, passed out body, had turned on the kids. She had always been the recipient of his rages; he had never gone after the children before. This was is what she told herself over and over. As far as Ron was concerned, they were only to be brought out and put on display when his social climb up the company ladder required their presence. The same reason he never hit her in the face. But, he had hit the children that night.

Both Sunday and Tuesday had split lips, black eyes and bruised finger prints around their necks. Her guilt spurred her need to disappear into a drunken coma, but the look of utter contempt in her children's eyes left her breathless with guilt. She might have simply popped a pill, swallowed with whiskey, and gone back to the oblivion; but the look they had given her made her realize that she was allowing the misery to spread, that her fate was to be her children's.

That she allowed it all, and once he had hit them, she was sure that he would continue, that it would be a new thrill to subjugate and demean them. Twist them, and contort them like he had been doing to her for years. Somewhere in her muddled brain she objected to that, and found the courage to take action. It took a month, but she weaned herself off the pills, and cut the booze down to one glass of whiskey just before Ron came home, the liquid courage necessary to deflect him from the kids. In that month, she collected and squirreled away money and sold jewels 'til she had enough to get them away.

She foolishly hoped her husband would not bother looking for them, but he did. He found them in New Jersey six months later. Luck had been with her and the kids when the kids had spotted Ron at their school office, and they had left, running straight to her. From Jersey, she had packed them off to Miami where he found them again. This time he had actually managed to enter their apartment, and they found him waiting in the living room for them.

Sunday and Tuesday were the only reason they had gotten away. The children had waited until he began to rant, gearing up to swing and turning his back on them. They knocked him down, Tuesday taking out his legs by running straight for the back of his knees, she had flipped him on to his back, knocking the wind out of him the moment he landed. Sunday had kicked him in three quick hard thrusts of his booted feet to the side of his head, knocking him unconscious.

Margaret had watched in stupefied amazement as her children had gone around the house pulling out bags from their room. Sunday had collected her purse keys and phone. Tuesday grabbed jackets, and monitoring Ron's prone form for signs of life. All this was done in silence until they had said, "Mom, time to go" in unison.

They had gathered her and propelled her out the door to their car, loaded all the bags, and Tuesday had slid behind the wheel and driven them to a second hand car lot.

"Mom we need to sell this car."

Her children had created an escape plan that included a second vehicle in someone else's name, and a place to live in Oregon, all under the name of a Mrs. Linda Benetton. A new name that came with social security. They had been clear for the last year, but with the money she had managed to take coming to its end, she had gone and started looking for work as Linda Benetton. She had had no credentials, and the best she could find was a low paying job as a receptionist in a real estate office.

Unfortunately for her, the office had been robbed the month before, and the police unbeknown to her had run all finger prints, and now they were found. Ron had the law backing him. He had reported her for kidnapping his children.

By fluke or luck, she had been in the building laundry room when the cops had come to arrest her for parental kidnapping. Her land lady, a women of sixty odd years, had played dumb and told them that most days she and the children were not home until late in the evening. The officers had left, leaving one officer parked out front of the building.

Evelyn, her landlady, had come huffing and puffing into the laundry room to tell her. Evelyn was not aware of what had transpired in the past, but she was of a mind set that if a mother ran away with her children, there must be a good reason. Evelyn had helped her get by the unie posted just out side the building, distracting the officer with a thermos of coffee and some busy-body questions, allowing Margaret to escape and collect the kids from the library where they had been. Now they sat in a park, and Margaret needed to make a few decisions, there was no possible way they could continue to run.

She was a wanted woman. Wherever she took them they would eventually be found. As the kids were minors, she was sure that they would be placed in the custody of their father, who had money, a law firm and political backing. While she would be the drunken addict who had stolen and kidnapped their children.

Margaret knew without a doubt now that Ron would not stop. His words before the children had knocked him out, still rang in her ears most nights in her nightmares.

"You stupid whore. You're mine. They're mine, and the only way any of you get to leave is when I choke the life out of you, and I bury you all in side by side graves."

Margaret felt the panic setting in. She knew that the kids had a plan in place for them to run, but as she saw it, she would always be the weak link. She had no way to hide now that she had a federal warrant for her arrest. She was bound to get them caught eventually, placing the kids back in Ron's control, and that was not going to happen. They had four years to be free and clear of their father's control. All she had to do was figure out how to keep them out of his hands for that long.

At fourteen, both of her children appeared older due to the fact that they were tall. Tuesday five foot six, and Sunday six foot. Tuesday was turning into a beauty, and in the last year had developed the beginning curves of womanhood. Sunday had shot up in height, and was slowly widening to his length. His shoulders broadening, and muscle mass increasing.

The first time Ron had found them was because Margaret had taken Tuesday to the hospital with a high fever, and used their real names. Even though Sunday had told her that they needed to stay clear, that he had the means to hide who they were from the hospital, that that they could not go in as themselves, that he could go and get Tuesday a fake ID or even find her a doc who would ask no questions, so long as they paid in cash. But she had spent most of the money on things that in the long run did not really matter, and had to be left behind when they ran: Dishes, furniture, rent paid in advance, clothing and two cars.

The whole time the twins had told her to not bother, but she needed to feel like she was living a normal life, and providing them with one to help her feel like she was making up for past mistakes. The reality was that the twins understood better than she did how they would have to proceed. After all, they had worked out how they had been found.

Their response was to simply gain and accumulate as much information and money as they might all need. Having three routes of escape, and money in various places, they pursued avenues she had no idea existed, so that they would always have the skills and connections, so that they did not have to risk being found.

Sunday and Tuesday determined that they had to be capable of defending each other, if ever the need arose again. They had joined a youth group boxing program. They had learned skills, learned to keep themselves safe. It was the twins who knew how to survive on the fringe. In the last two years they had taught themselves; from driving, to forging documents, down to hacking into data bases, and playing pool well enough to hustle. They fixed and repaired anything that they could lay their hands on for resale, bolstering their income. Cars, computers, lawn mowers and tools, they both became obsessive about knowing how things worked.

Margaret knew what she had to do; she had placed her children in this position by lying down and tolerating all the abuse from Ron, never once fighting back. She had soaked her misery in whiskey and drugs, and left her defenceless children to survive essentially on their own. She knew it was time to pay them back for that lapse in motherhood. She was going to turn herself in, and allow the twins the chance to make it on their own.

She knew that they would be able to hide from Ron. She was the one that always seemed needing to be taken care of by them, in all honesty. Other than getting the initial funds to run, she had very little to do with their continued freedom. The twins had taken over from the first time Ron had found them, and only through her own mistakes had they been found.

"Tuesday, Sunday we need to talk, I have something to tell you." Margaret watched as both climbed down from the play set they had been sitting at, and headed her way.

Their movements were synchronized and fluid as they approached. She caught Tuesday's eyes, the girl on the best of days said little to her. She often felt as if she was an intruder to her children, they rarely showed signs of affection towards her, but on occasion she would feel as if they wanted to reach for her. But her guilt and own hang-ups blocked her from reaching out.

She was the problem in her own head, she was a bad mother, not fit to be loved for what she had allowed them to be subjected to through her cowardice. All that crap just built a wall that neither she nor the twins was capable of tearing down. If anything, the more her children became assured in their own skills and one-another, the thicker and wider the wall became in Margaret's own head.

Tuesday opened her hand, and Sunday slid his hand in hers as they stopped just in front of the park bench she was seated on.

"We have it all covered, Mom" Tuesday said.

"Washington, Texas or Utah?" Sunday said.

"Were do you want to go? "They both said in unison.

"How?" Margaret was a little stunned that they already seemed to know that they had been found. "It doesn't matter... this time is different he's using the law, there's a federal warrant for my arrest: parental kidnapping."

Margaret hoped they would understand what she was about to say, that it would be the right choice. If she thought for one moment that Ron could be proven abusive, she would take her chances and go to the law, but she didn't think she would get the chance. Her best bet was to run as far from the kids as possible, let them hide for the next four years, so that they could not be placed in the care of their father. She knew with every breath she took, that if she stayed at their side she would get them caught.

"I... I. know that I let you guys down for all of your life, that I was selfish, but now I need to be smart. I need you guys to stay clear of Ron for the next four years. If I try and stick with you he'll find us, and he has the money and influence to keep you both, and I won't be there t..to, well I just won't be there. So I need you guys to hide and stay safe."

"No" both said in unison.

"Look, you're the ones who have kept us in the clear for the last few years, you're both so good at it …...and I'm going to lead them away towards Florida in a few days. I'll let myself get caught. I'll have no idea where you are. Hopefully that will distract your father, make him focus on me for a few days to try and get me to tell them where you are. I should be OK, I'll be in jail, but at least Ron won't be able to get to me. You two need to keep safe for the next four years. In four years you'll be eighteen."

"So we're just supposed to let you rot in jail?" Again, both spoke in unison.

"Yes! I need to know you guys will be safe! If I'm around, I'm gonna fuck it up somehow, it's what I do always. So please just run! I don't need to know where to. Just make sure he can't find you." Margaret grabbed her bag.

"Sun, Twozy, I love you. I wish I had been better at being a mother to you both, but the best thing I can do now is to keep away from you. You two don't need to worry about caring for me. Go and keep each other safe."

As she looked at them both, she saw resolve form in her son's eyes. He went to step forward and reach for his mother, but Tuesday reached up to Sunday, gripping his arm in both of her hands pulling him back. He turned, and her head shook when both turned back to look at her, they both held the same gaze of disinterested acceptance.

"She's right, we are better off on our own. Same as we always have been Dayz."

Tuesday's voice held no malice in it, and that in itself broke Margaret's heart. Her daughter couldn't even muster anger towards her. The flat tone told her that she would never be loved even by her own offspring.

That was the last time she saw them. A week later in Miami, she had gotten herself caught good and drunk and high, and created a scene in a bar, getting herself arrested. She was questioned over and over by the police and the D.A.. Ron had even managed to get an interview with her, so that he could try and appeal to her, but Margaret simply said over and over.

"I don't know."