The earliest memory Lydia DiMarco was of a certain day when she was two. It was like all other days; around nine, Mommy would set Lydia into her high chair and pour her apple juice and Cheerios into a sippy cup and bowl. Then Mommy would make some instant grits and sit in her favorite recliner in front of the TV and begin watching Days of Our Lives. Lydia would watch rays of sunshine dawn on her Mommy's golden hair and gray eyes, and imitate every movement she made. After the soaps were over, Mommy would take Lydia into the combined laundry/toy room and play Barbies, color a picture, or read a book. The possibilities of fun were endless.
Months later, Mommy couldn't do as many things. Mommy spent hours in the bathroom while Lydia played, alone, with her blocks. Mommy started taking Lydia to day care. Then Mommy disappeared. Everyone was sad but Lydia never realized why. Mommy had to be around.
* * * * * * * * * *
A social worker named Connie Davis, age forty-three, was sent to pick up the newly orphaned Lydia DiMarco from her former home and take her to her grandparents' house in Sweetville, Pennsylvania.
Having gotten to the office late and a date gone awry with her husband the night before, Connie was in a cranky mood. Her ruby red lipstick was smeared, the part of curly, black hair uneven, and the back of her stiletto was grinding into her heel. She pushed on the gas pedal and sped past a green SUV on the interstate. A bearded man was driving the gas glugger, and he Connie a nice view of his middle finger. She cursed, sneered, and turned her head as far away from the man as possible without looking away from the road.
Mornings...she hated them, and evidenced by the bearded man's response, the human population also agreed.
The Chicago traffic was terrible that Tuesday, clogging up every inch of pavement in sight. This was why the 'L' sounded appealing, but you couldn't exactly ride it to Pennsylvania, could you?
She glanced back at the address the agency had given her, and looked back at the road, her upper lip curling in disgust. Wrong directions.
Could this day get any more worse?
Connie beat her iron fists against the steering wheel.
Her eyes became moist and she pulled over towards the curb cautiously. Leaning her head on the wheel again, she let out a whimper worthy of a baby and began to weep over the wailing of a thousand engines.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Adam Johnson. An ordinary name for an ordinary man, Adam thought, taking a swig from his black bottle of whiskey. The harsh liquid used to burn his lungs, but now it felt like Nova-cane, gently numbing every emotion and sense he had until he was Adam Johnson: breathing person.
Sitting in the break room of a Dick's Sporting Goods, a new attempt at trying to do something profitable, was all he seemed to be doing after he got the job. Occasionally, he would saunter to his Camping and Outdoors area to help customers, but no one ever adventured there. Who goes camping in New Jersey, of all places sensible to enjoy nature. Adam had only resided in New Jersey for five months, but he didn't even think the state had much nature. Just a lot of cute little suburban towns sitting under smog-filled skies.
A number of employees had stared at him suspiciously during their break hours, but hadn't bothered to check the contents of his bottle. Surely he would get fired if someone knew, but over the thirty-two years of his life he learned quite a few things about himself. His looks made him seem unapproachable, so eventually he claimed that status as his. He wasn't ugly though; women would sometimes casually flirt with him, but was he the best person to be working at a customer service desk? Probably not.
His dark green eyes looked like they were hiding secrets, his irises glistening like polished silver nickels. All-hearing ears stuck out behind tufts of caramel locks, and scruffy facial hair covered the sides of his cheeks and chin.
He stared around the break room, examining all the Kit-Kats and Mars Bars stocked in the vending machine, gazing at the white fridge/freezer and the puny sink next to it. The walls surrounding Adam were bare, since the company that built the store hadn't bothered to put more than a layer of primer on them.
After a moment of slow thought, he was suddenly aware of the pack of Marlboro’s in the breast pocket of his shirt. He wanted a smoke, oh so badly, but unlike his two week stint at a K.F.C. In downtown Trenton, he wasn't going to get caught in the act. He dismissively erased the thought from his mind and took another sip of his liquor.
As the whiskey ran down his throat again, he was suddenly absorbed in a reverie, reminded of a moment more than three years prior.
A beautiful, lanky blonde who would always come in the the coffee shop he was working at, Cafe Vert, in Schaumburg, Illinois.
The look on the blonde's face when he asked her out.
The tinge on her cheeks after drinking six shooters in thirty minutes.
Adam flinched as the last memory dragged on in his cranium.
The blonde sitting in the front seat of his uncle's Lincoln town car, holding a pregnancy test between two shaking fingers, tears making dark mascara smudges around her sullen gray eyes.
Adam leaned his head back towards the annoying, fluorescent lights and squeezed his eyes shut tight. All these memories, these remnants of his past, were what he was sure was making him a failure – or what made him an even bigger failure.
