A work in progress
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Hollow, Pennsylvania is a dying town outside of Philadelphia. Settled by Quakers in 1682, it quickly became an industrial and business center, and even played an important the development of Declaration of Independence. It has since become a town of ten thousand cowards. The most popular currency is the food stamp, followed by the credit card. Most immigrants pass through Hollow, the stepchild of Philadelphia; they do its menial jobs during the day and are banished to the fringes of the city at night. Hollow has always been held at arms length, and never inherited the wealth of the city, though it is always exposed to its dangers. Rita lived in Hollow for thirteen years.
The summer before Rita went into third grade, she lived in a beautiful three story house in Hollow. Everyday she rode her bike up Orchard Avenue, often with her four your old sister trailing after her. It could have been like any summer before it, but the beautiful house was lit with candles when the sun finally went down near midnight.
The house had belonged to her grandparents, who had moved south and left the house to her father. He thought they had owned it, but it was in foreclosure. Rita’s father spent all of the family’s money trying to pay the mortgage, and so they couldn’t afford water or electricity. Once, when she had a band concert at school, she took the bus to her cousin’s house to shower beforehand.
On one particularly mild summer day, Rita’s father told her to baby-sit her little sister. She rode off on her huffy with several other neighborhood children to an abandoned garage a few blocks away. There was a bunch of batteries on the ground that she and the other children threw at the garage. Rita hung out with bad kids, or at least that was what her father said.
“Boys are bad. All they want is to get inside you.”
Rita didn’t think boys were bad, but when her father found her in that garage, he took her bike away for a week. When Rita realized what is was like when she couldn’t escape, she never took a chance like that again. Rita couldn’t lose her bike.

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The sun was misleading; earlier, looking out the window Rita felt it must be warm, she could practically feel the buttery rays on her face. Now she stood by a gaping hole in the dirt, alternately rubbing one with the other, shifting from one foot to another as if she were a toddler in need of the restroom.
It was fitting that the bitter winds chose this February day to do their worst. In the hole in front of Rita was a coffin that contained the remains of her father. Rita thought of the men who must’ve dug through the frozen ground to create the plot; sweating under their many layers of winter clothing yet their hands dully aching with cold. It was too much effort, she thought. Too much for him.
As the pastor finished his eulogy, teeth chattering, Rita reached down and picked up her daughter, who nose was running disgustingly over her lips and chin, and freezing there. Her face was blank, as if in an attempt to keep warm; her body had shut down all non-essential systems. She burrowed her face into the front of her mother’s pea coat; all that could be seen was a puff of curly brown hair, and legs dangling below her mother’s waist. Her name was Amy.
The small crowd hurried through the bare trees towards the row of cars parked nearby. Rita lingered for a moment, looking at the shellacked top of the coffin: no one had thrown any flowers on top. Rita’s tears froze on her face, leaving white salt trails on her cheeks like the white winter road.

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“I don’t even understand why you went.” Jordan was speaking to her before she even closed the front door. Amy was asleep against her shoulder. “He finally died. You should be celebrating!” Jordan continued to talk but lowered his volume as Amy shifted in her sleep. “Fuckin’ bastard.”
Rita had cried the whole ride home, and had dried her face when she pulled into the driveway. She sat in the car, looking at the new home in front of her and wishing her father could have seen how well she had done for herself. “I have everything you couldn’t give me,” she thought. Not that she blamed him; her father had faced trials, her father was a man whose life had consisted of overcoming obstacles.
“You don’t understand,” was all she bothered to say to Jordan. Rita’s voice was toneless; a quality she had practiced to elicit a non-violent response. She laid Amy on the couch, removed her gloves and walked over to the fireplace. She hoped her deliberate, silent actions would communicate her desire to be left alone. Unfortunately, Jordan was not a sensitive man.
Jordan moved to the couch where Amy lay and looked down with contempt. “She looks just like him, except for the curly hair. You’d swear it was him who raped you in the first place.” Jordan paused in anticipation of some defense, but Rita made none.He goaded her further; “Maybe you wanted it. You kept the baby, it looks like you wanted it.” Rita could feel Jordan’s eyes on her as she warmed herself by the fire.
When she sensed that she was getting angry, and her throat began to tight and her heart started to pound, Rita reminded herself that she was lucky any man wanted her after she had borne a rapist’s child.
She watched as the fire consumed a log, creating fire black veins in the wood as it burned. It was as if the log were a vampire, dying one life and beginning another in a darker shade. As she recited her list of faults, she felt her anger recede from her throat down into her stomach, and it was reduced to a tinge of nausea so minor that she eventually forgot all about it. And rightly so; she had no cause to be angry.
She put Amy to bed and cried herself to sleep.
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Rita began to dream immediately. In her dream she was in the water, under a pier and shivering. The water was only waist deep, but she felt an impending sense of danger: someone was trying to find her and she was hiding. Further out in the water, she saw Amy floating a child’s blow-up toy. “Amy!” she tried to scream, “Amy!”, but all that came out were tiny squeaks, on the pier above her, she her footsteps. She knew whoever was there could see Amy, but they were not rushing out to save her- she was drifting further away. Rita heard the owner’s of the footsteps begin to speak.
She woke up, and she recognized immediately Jordan’s voice in the next room; he was speaking quietly and evenly. All the blankets were on his side of the bed. Rita yawned and pulled on her modest black bathrobe. She walked sleepily to the door of Jordan’s study, and stopped at the door, which was slightly ajar. She could see Jordan from behind; he was half dressed and pulling on his shoes.
"No, I didn't think....no!" Jordan stopped abruptly and slammed down his shoe. "I'll get it...yeah, by tomorrow. Ok, I understand." Jordan clicked off the portable phone and pulled a shirt over his head.
"Jordan?" she stepped into the room, but did not move towards him. "What’s wrong?"
Jordan looked up; his face contorted with anger; a bit of sweat glimmered on his forehead. In one movement, he was inches from Rita's face- so close she feel the heat of his body.
"How much did you hear?" Rita's bewildered look communicated that she hadn't heard enough to understand his threatening tone. He seemed to be relieved, but he said, "Go back to bed. I'll be back soon." Rita opened her mouth to speak but thought better of it, and Jordan was moving towards the living room and out the front door.
As soon she saw Jordan's car pull away, Rita went to the study to check the caller ID. The number didn't look familiar; Rita picked up the phone. The receiver was still sweaty and warm. She took a deep breath and dialed the number.

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When Jordan returned to his home early that morning, he did not find Rita. Jordan stalked through each room, calling her name, and muttering obscenities. "How am I going to tell her I'm leaving her if she's not here, stupid bitch." Jordan walked into Amy's room, and saw that she was still asleep. It was then he realized something was wrong.
The last room Jordan searched was the bedroom. On the night table, a pack of his cigarettes weighed down a note written in green crayon.

you didnt come up with the money, but we collected payment. to get her back, give us the cash.

Jordan sat down on the bed, overcome not so much by fear as by complete surprise: he hadn't thought the loan sharks knew about his relationship with Rita. However, now that he thought about the way things had played out, he was disappointed that he hadn't thought of it sooner.
"Its perfect!" he whispered to himself. He moved quickly, filling a small bag with clothes and the money he had collected the night before.
When he drove away, he din't think he would ever come back.
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Rita wondered how much longer she could wait. She sat on a pew in the back row of a local church, and her feet barely touched the shiny hardwood beneath her. She wore blue, furry slippers.
When she left the house without her coat hours ago, she did not know where should would go, and she did not know what she was running from. When she dialed the number on her caller ID, she did not know she would learn something that would allow her to feel anger.
"Jordan owes us a lot of money. Seems he's got a gamblin' problem." The man on the other end of the line spoke as if he were her best friend; not a trace of anger was in his voice, yet she could sense he would not rest until his money was repaid.
Rita walked through the night; she was several blocks away from home before she began to feel the cold, and she fell into the first open door she found. It had been hours since that happened.
And now she thought of Amy.
Rita was an athiest. No one would ever know she hid in a church, and if anyone knew, they would never guess she knelt in prayer before she started running home to her daughter.





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