“Where were you last night?”

Mary, scared and uncomfortable, ignored the question.  She looked at the mirror on the wall, wondering who was behind it.  She had never been in an interrogation room, but she had seen enough cop shows to know somebody was listening on the other side.

“Where were you last night?” the detective asked again, slower, so Mary picked up every word.

“Why do you keep calling me, Mary?” she asked, wrapping her left arm around her chest, trying to find some comfort, understanding.   Her right hand sat awkwardly handcuffed to the chair.

When the police found her car on the side of the road, wrapped around a tree, all she was wearing was a bath robe.  She was unconscious, with multiple face and head wounds.  When she finally woke she was unable to explain the gun on the seat beside her, or her dead husband back at home.

The detective rolled his eyes, growing impatient.  “Look lady, your name is Mary.  It says so right here on your licence,” he said, holding up her wallet.

Mary?  Mary?  Is that my wallet?  What am I doing here?  

“I told you I don’t know what happened last night, or where I was,” Mary answered, tears welling in her eyes.  “I just want to go home.”

“Do you know where your home is?”

Mary’s eyes were searching.  She could feel the answer, but it wouldn’t finalize in her mind or come out of her mouth.

“No,” she said, sobbing.

The detective threw up his hands.  There was a buzz at the door and it opened.  A woman came in and sat down across from Mary.

“Mary, I am Doctor Thompson,” she said, handing Mary some tissues.

Mary took them, cautiously, and began wiping her cheeks.  “I already saw the doctor.”

“I’m a different kind of doctor.   You have been through quite a traumatic experience; I want to help.”

Mary pointed at the mirror with her free hand, still holding the tissues, “They keep saying my name is Mary and that I killed my husband.  But…but.”  She searched for the words.  She could not remember, but she did not want it to be true.

Doctor Thompson opened up an envelope and slid some pictures across the table, lining them up so Mary could see.  “Do you recognize the woman in these pictures?”

Mary leaned over and looked at the three pictures on the table.  The woman in the pictures was wearing a white gown and looked like she had been beaten.  Gashes over her eyes, swollen lip, and bruises on her throat and cheeks.

Mary looked up into the mirror and ran her hand across her face.  She had bruises and cuts, but they were different than the ones in the pictures.  But there was no mistaken.

“This looks like me,” she said, puzzled.  “But these weren’t taken last night.”

Doctor Thompson removed the pictures and said, “No, Mary, these were taken six months ago, after you made a call to 9-1-1.  Do you remember that?”

A trigger fired in Mary’s brain and a flood of pictures ran through her minds eye.  Not everything, but most everything, came back, including all the feelings and emotions.

The hurt.

The fear.

The promises.  The broken promises.

And ultimately, the revenge.

The one thing that did not come back, this time, was the guilt.

Mary situated herself in the chair and said, trying to look confused, “No, I don’t remember that.”

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First sentence of this story submitted by Lana K. It received the most votes for sentences submitted the week of September 24, 2012.  

Please leave comments below on if you liked the direction I took the story, or if you would have personally went a different way.  I would love to know!