Somehow, mercy seemed to have cut almost everything else from her life. She'd arrive home from the hospital and ignore the flashing light on her answerphone. The birds on her balcony would call for her attention, but now there were fewer than there used to be; she hadn't bothered to fill their water and feeder for weeks. They'd covered the deck with shit in protest. She'd go straight to the fridge and eat standing there, whatever was in front of her. Cold. Sometimes she'd make her way into the lounge room and take off her shoes, head for the bar, but, more often than not, she'd instead just grab her keys again and head out.
She knew it was a compulsion now. She couldn't rest at night unless she'd been to one of their houses. The feeling of impotence that had been growing like a parasite inside her for years was diminishing. She could reach out and hurt them any time she wanted. The hunters became the hunted.
When she'd left work she hadn't even bothered to go home. She'd brought everything she would need when she left the house that morning.
She pulled into a big all-hours convenience store and bought a jumbo bag of cheese Twisties, some chocolate and Coke. Sometimes she had to wait a few hours before they got home. A queue had formed in the service station. A sign pronounced a record lottery draw this week; the people ahead of her were all stocking up on tickets. Their motivation seemed alien to her.
Looking at two women about her age in the queue ahead of her, she wondered suddenly how the hell it had come to this. How had she ever become so lost? She thought again about going to the police, but images of what had happened to kids, to her, what was happening to someone right now, interrupted her thoughts again. Asleep or awake, her mind was filled with little else.
Last time she'd tried to have dinner with friends it had been a disaster. As soon as their kids were in bed, she'd started in on her second bottle of red and her stories of horror. Trying to tell her friends, to convince them, that their children weren't safe, to teach them what to watch out for, how often to check their kids' rooms for evidence that someone was grooming them for abuse: she wanted to keep them vigilant. When they'd tried to change the subject, she'd become belligerent, loud, unconcerned if the children awoke – they should be hearing this too. When she broke down in mortified but unstoppable sobs, they'd driven her home, and had not called since. Not that she blamed them, and not that she cared, frankly. People didn't understand, and there were other things she needed to do.
Throwing a bulging bag into her passenger seat, Mercy got back into her car, lit a cigarette and drove with purpose into the deepening evening.