Page 14 of House of Sin
I tried to shove past the first group of men, my body crashing into theirs with all the force I could muster. They stumbled back, but they didn’t give way. I pushed harder, my hands outstretched as I fought my way toward the second group. “John! Ray!” I screamed, my voice hoarse and raw, but it wasn’t enough. The men were all around me now, their hands gripping my arms, holding me back, their voices muffled by the pounding of blood in my ears. “Please!” I begged, but they didn’t let me go.
I kicked and clawed, my feet finding purchase on the dirt road as I tried to break free. I felt the heat of tears behind my eyes, the sting of salt as they slid down my cheeks. “Please! I have to get to them! Let me through!” My voice was breaking now, cracking under the grip of terror that was choking me.
The men held me tight, their grasp unyielding.
“John! Ray!” My screams fractured the air as my body shook and my legs gave out beneath me before I collapsed to the ground.
The earth rose up to meet me, hard and unfeeling, as I choked on dust. On despair. My fingers dug into the dirt, but there was nothing to hold onto. Nothing to bring them back. The world around me fell into a muted, distant blur, and I was left with only the crushing weight of my loss. I was a mother trying to outrun her fate. I had lost everything.
Ray’s tiny hands would never wrap around mine again. I would never get to hear him say “Love you most,” with that quiet confidence like he was daring the universe to argue after I told him that I loved him more. I’d never get to see who he might have become or if he would have looked just like his father when he gotto be his age. And John . . . I would never again find shelter in his arms, never again feel the hush of the world when he looked at me like I was the only light left in it. There would be no growing old together, no silver-haired mornings or quiet, wrinkled hands brushing mine. The man I ached for with every breath, the father of my child, the fire in my blood, was now gone.
The sting of the truth slammed into me all at once, engulfing, unrelenting. The mountain had taken them both. The earth had swallowed them whole. And there was nothing I could do. The men around me had fallen silent now. Some bowed their heads, others turned away, unable to bear witness to the unraveling of a mother’s heart. A gentle hand touched my shoulder, but I didn’t look to see who it belonged to, it didn’t matter. No human hand could reach me now, not where I’d gone. I was underwater. Drowning in grief. Suspended in this new reality where nothing would ever be the same again.
I stared at the entrance to the mine, at the black hole that had swallowed everyone I loved. A gaping mouth in the earth, as if hell itself had opened wide and taken them. I used to believe the mountain wasalive—majestic, eternal, almost holy. Now, it was a grave. And I hated it for that. My fists clenched against the dirt, and I let my head drop until my forehead touched the ground. A silent offering to whatever gods were listening, or maybe just surrender. I whispered their names again, this time in reverence. Like a prayer. A lullaby I hoped might carry through the rubble and reach them somehow. A final goodbye.
Ray.
John.
I don’t know how long I stayed there. Minutes? Hours? The world had lost all sense of time. The sky was darkening, and somewhere in the distance, the church bell began to ring. One for each soul they knew was lost.
One toll. Two. Three.
And then more.
And more.
Until the sound of the bell cracked something inside me I didn’t know couldstill break.
And even though I thought the universe could take no more from me, she would rear her ugly head and prove just howwrong I was.
8
SOME MEN PAY IN COIN, THE FOOLISH ONES PAY IN BREATH
One of the quiet joys of owning my own business is choosing the hours. We don’t open our doors to customers until late afternoon, giving Nell and I time to clean and stock the place. It’s one of the few times of the day when I feel like theworld slows down just enough for me to breathe. The rest of the time, it’s a blur of bodies, money, and pleasure; an endless parade of raw, needy energy.
“Good morning, sweets,” I call out to Nell as she walks through the front door. The rhythmic clicking of her heels across the floor is oddly comforting, a signal that another day is about to begin.
“Mornin’,” she says with a tired but warm smile. She looks like sleep barely touched her—just like me. I glance at her from behind the bar, still focused on the whiskey glasses I’m washing, the scent of soap mixing with the burn of alcohol. I meet her eyes for a moment and know she feels it too—that bone-deep weariness, the kind that clings to you when you live a life that’s always one breath ahead of empty.
“Did you get much sleep last night?” She asks while moving through the brothel, already knowing what my response will be.
“Not much, no,” I reply, keeping it light. No use trading tired stories. If I were to ask her that question, I know the answer would be the same as mine. “The sheets are hanging in the back,” I say, nudging the conversation forward. “They should be dry by now.Could you do a quick run-through of the rooms upstairs for the girls and make sure they’re fully stocked on supplies?”
As she nods and moves toward the stairs, I spot the bundle of newspapers she’s brought in and left on the counter—editions from New York, Chicago, San Francisco. They’re always a few days behind, sometimes weeks, but they’re a little indulgence I allow myself: headlines from far-off places, stories of lives I’ll never live.
Most mornings I read through them before I touch a bottle or mop, grounding myself in someone else’s chaos before diving into my own. But today, I’d come in later than usual, worn thin and slow-moving, so I hadn’t had the chance.
“Mind putting those in my office drawer, Nell?” I ask, nodding toward the stack.
She reaches for them, and as she folds the top one in half, I catch a flash of bold type—SHOCKING SCANDAL—hovering above a blurred photograph of a gentleman in what looks like evening wear, mid-stride or mid-shame, it’s hard to tell.
My eyebrows lift, and I smile to myself. “I do love a good scandal,” I utter under my breath, more to the room than to her. “Remind me to read that later.”
She doesn’t look back, just chuckles softly and disappears upstairs.
By four o' clock, our tasks are done, and the girls start trickling in for what we half-jokingly call our pre-fuck ritual. This sacred rhythm we’ve carved into the bones of The Oily Cat feels like something holy. A final exhale. Our last little moment of sisterhood before the lights dim and the real performance begins.
