Confess to Me, page 18
She was sitting in bed. The nightlight glow illuminated her face, eyes open but glazed. Tears shiny on her cheeks.
“I’m here, Em.”
“I had a nightmare that a stranger broke my window and put his hand over my mouth and nose, and I died.”
“It’s only a bad dream. Momma’s here.” I tucked her teddy bear under her arm. I lay down beside her and wrapped my arm around her tummy. Her body was warm, her breathing was rhythmic.
I thought she’d fallen back asleep until she said, “Would you rather have me die or everyone in the whole world?”
I opened my eyes. She was staring at me. “Neither. I don’t want anyone to die.”
“But if you had to choose. Would you rather have me die or everyone?” She spoke calmly, but she was wide awake.
“Well, since I’m your momma, I never want you to die so I guess I’d pick you over everyone else.”
“You’d want Dad and Sawyer to die.”
“No. I’d want none of them to die. But it also doesn’t make sense that I’d want everyone in the whole world to die. It’s too tricky of a question.”
“You’d pick me over Sawyer.”
“I’m Sawyer’s momma too. I’d pick him too. I’d pick both of you.”
“But you’re not really his momma.”
“Well, he didn’t grow in me. And he has another momma. But I’m his momma too.”
“Do mommas always love their children?”
My heart ached. “Yes.”
“Do mommas love them even if the children are bad? Even if they lie or steal?”
“Mommas love them anyway,” I said, my eyes stinging. “Go to sleep.”
She closed her eyes and, moments later, she was snoring the soft snore of children. Their noses are so small, they can’t help but breathe noisily.
I walked into our room, my eyes quietly leaking because no, mommas didn’t always love their children. I was ready to tell Trevor everything.
That a man I’d bludgeoned knew where we lived, that someone had sent me texts, luring me back to Hunther, that someone else left a dead opossum on the front porch as a warning, that I was scared for our family, that I was obsessed with a townie girl, that decades ago my mom had confessed to killing a girl, and that Rodney probably did it. And I was ready to tell him what happened to Becky too.
Trevor was on his back, our billowy comforter bunched under his chin, covering his body, but stopping short above his ankles. His bare feet stuck straight up. His socks only covered his toes and draped flaccid onto the bed. He struck me as wholesome and cartoonish. Everything about Trevor was sweet, funny, and for my amusement. Even his snore seemed comical, a loud, phony snore that would make the kids laugh.
I didn’t want to wake him, not now, but I needed to tell him.
Things were happening. After all these years of being on my own and thinking I’d left it all behind, I heard my past rev its engine once, twice, the deep tone resonating through cool, dry air. Across a wide field of tall grain, some hulky engine kick-started. Old pistons were sparking, and gears were beginning to turn, shaking off flecks of rust, finding their grooves. My old life, hidden by thick, dusty crops, was coming for me.
47
I had been six years old. I woke abruptly in the hallway closet. Something had woken me. Thinking it was morning, I pushed open the bifold doors and walked downstairs to watch early morning cartoons, the shag-carpet feeling of the stairs comfy and pushing between my toes.
A quiet struggling noise. I stopped on the stairs, listening. Someone sniffing, crying into their pillow. Sounded like it was coming from the boys’ rooms. That couldn’t be right. I’d never heard Rodney or Shane cry before.
Maybe the smothered crying was coming from Mom’s room, in which case, I should get downstairs quickly. Mom was unpredictable. Sometimes a warm glowing ball of love coming down like Glinda the Good Witch; sometimes, the Wicked Witch, all bitterness and rage.
By the time I made it to the bottom stair, the small windows alongside the door caught my attention. Sunlight coming through was tinted a magical pink. The windows were streaked with paint. Holly must have been finger-painting. Oh, she’s gonna get in trouble for that.
Walking toward the TV room, I felt a gust of cool morning air and shivered. The back door was wide open, which was strange. I had always been the first one awake.
The birds were noisy early in the morning. I couldn’t name them, but I was familiar with their songs and with the woodpeckers’ drilling. Pink, orange, and yellow leaves were everywhere in the grass, drawing me outdoors to collect them. Harsh morning rays of sun lit the yard, highlighting dew clinging to leaves and grass. I hated the feeling on my bare feet, the cold, wet, poking grass. The fallen leaves clinging to my skin. I reached down and picked one up. Yellow with red veins and an orange glow at the edges like a halo.
A branch creaked once, twice. The noise drew my attention across the yard.
Hanging from our gorgeous fiery maple, the source of all these stunning leaves, was Becky’s body.
48
TREVOR
I drove in the dark along a two-lane road, my window down. I was sleepy, and the crisp predawn air was keeping me awake. I had an early meeting. My boss knew I was coming from Wisconsin—scheduling an early meeting was a dick move.
Ahead in the road, two glowing eyes. I slammed my brakes. Adrenaline burst through me as my tires squealed and tried to grip the road.
Deer.
My car stopped. Acrid smells of burnt rubber and hot brake pads infused air. I switched on my brights.
Not a deer.
A cow stood in the middle of the road, its eyes staring dumbly at me.
My pulse beat in my forehead, the beginning of an early morning headache. Stupid cow. Irritation prickled up my neck. I had a sudden urge, a rage, to clip its back legs.
I could do it too. There were no cars on the road now in either direction as far as the eye could see. My foot remained on the brake, but itched to shove the gas pedal.
As a teen, if I saw anything in the road—a duck, a turtle, a deer—I stepped on the gas and tried to smash it. That need to tear an animal apart, tear myself apart, had pulsed inside me. It had been primal. Like being in the throes of sex, nearing orgasm when the mind went offline. No thinking. Only need. A need for release.
Bloodlust.
That urge, bloodlust, had gripped me too many times during my teenage years. Now it dragged up a memory: the feeling of my knees in wet grass, a half-filled bucket before me, the weight of my grandfather’s hunting knife sheathed in my belt, and the dark biting night around me. The bucket stinking of animal and iron and skin. Its warm liquid steaming in the cold.
I had plunged my hands into the bucket and loved the feeling. Blood.
My clothes had been filthy and damp. I’d stunk like a pig, my tongue stale and meaty in my mouth.
Bloodlust.
I blinked. The cow was walking slowly toward the side of the road. Still no cars on the road. I could hit it, but the urge had passed. I crept the car forward, honked. The cow made it safely into tall grass.
My dress shirt was damp at the back, clinging to my skin. Why had I been so out of control as a teenager? I’d had this desire to drive too fast with my headlights off; to run through the woods in full dark, no worry of tripping on a root or impaling my eye on a branch; to tear things apart.
What the fuck had been wrong with me?
49
HEATHER
With Emily and Sawyer at school, I backed out of the driveway. As I drove down Winding Way, a silver Infiniti passed me.
I stopped in the road and peered over my shoulder.
The Infiniti pulled to the curb in front of my house. Desiree’s boyfriend’s brother got out of his car. Brandon. He rang the bell. Stood on the curb with his hands in his pockets like he was just a nice guy.
What did he want?
As he walked back to his car, I drove away.
I told myself I was headed to the grocery store right up until I found myself parked in front of Holly’s driveway.
The front door was open. The hallway beyond the screen was dark. I knocked, and her dog went wild, his nails scraping and sliding across the floor. He bumped his nose against the screen, and I startled when the screen door opened an inch before slamming shut on his nose.
“Diesel. Get back here, you big goddamn baby.” Diesel was a rottweiler. Holly shuffled down the hall, said, “He’s super sweet. Come on in.”
When I hesitated, she opened the screen as if we were friends, as if we were family, we were, and let the dog go after me. I pushed the dog away and followed her into her kitchen.
Her house was dingy, but smelled good. Freshly brewed coffee, the rich, silky stuff.
“Your timing’s perfect, for once,” she said. “I just made coffee. I splurged and got Starbucks beans. Diesel, go lay down.” He listened, curling up in an oversized bed.
“Take a load off,” she said, nodding at the kitchen table and shoving aside a pile of envelopes, bills, magazines. She picked up a carafe and poured into mugs. “You said you just moved here, you had to be here for your dying mother-in-law. Where do you usually call home?”
“We live in Chicago.”
She put a mini ceramic pitcher filled with cream on the table along with a two-pound bag of sugar. She sat across from me, spooned sugar into her coffee, and sighed like life was a huge pain in the ass. “So your husband’s from here too? What are the odds of that?” she said, lifting her eyebrows.
Not that rare. We met in Chicago, which is only a couple hours from Hunther. I had to admit though, once I found out he was from Hunther, it made him seem a bit magical. I hadn’t remembered my early childhood in Hunther—it had a fuzzy, fairytale quality in my mind, more of the Grimms’ version, shadowy and gruesome—and I’d wondered if Trevor could shed light on it. If he’d heard of one of my sisters or brothers. No, he’d said he’d never known them. He was Rodney’s age, but didn’t remember Rodney. I wasn’t surprised. Rodney was brooding and cruel in my memory. A loner. If Rodney had a crowd at all, it would have been the rough one. Trevor had said Rodney must have gone to the other high school, Hunther South.
Holly’s implication was marinated in suspicion. Which was odd because how would that plot go? Trevor knew my parents were alcoholics, found me in Chicago so he could… love me and make me feel safe? Ooh, that’s one devious motherfucker.
Then again, everything out of her mouth was whet with suspicion. Understandable. You cut ties with the family, haven’t seen her for twenty years, and now here you are, visiting her house for the second time in forty-eight hours. She had twenty years of suspicion stored up inside, earning interest.
“Hunther’s small, but it’s not that small,” I said. “And, the older I get, the more often I find myself saying ‘small world.’”
“Hm,” she said and sipped her coffee. “Do you work?”
I nodded. “I do blood draws at a testing center in Chicago. I’m not working while we’re here. My manager, well, we get along, and my job is waiting for me. I miss it.”
I did. I missed the routine of knowing exactly what I was supposed to do with my time. I missed the clean, harsh smell of isopropanol, the stretch of rubber band around flesh, touching a stranger’s skin, and the precision and fine tip of a needle.
“Cream or sugar?” she said, pointing to the pitcher and sugar bag on the table.
“I’m good.” I sipped. “The rumor about Mom killing Dawn Young, it was all news to me. But, you knew? When we lived here, you knew?”
“Vaguely. I mean, I was eleven. I guess I’d always assumed they were questioning her because she drove Dawn to work. I assumed there’d been a misunderstanding.”
“Did you know Dawn?” I wasn’t sure why I was asking.
“No, but I watched her paint a few times during Mom’s garage art classes. Remember those?”
“Sip and paint.” I nodded.
“You’re right,” she said and laughed. “Too bad it wasn’t a big money maker back then like it is now. She was good at that. She was funny and wild. She made those women laugh.”
I’d heard laughter coming from the garage. I guess I’d never assumed my mom was the cause.
Holly’s eyes grew misty. “Mom was generous with Dawn. Lent her scarfs, jewelry, shoes. Never had her pay for art class or her supplies.”
I didn’t remember Mom as generous. It was strange, these two versions of her. Having this conversation with my sister was strange too. It wasn’t quite pleasant, but it was comfortable. Like that old pair of shabby, smelly slippers that you kind of wanted to throw out, but you couldn’t bring yourself to pitch them because they were so cozy. I wasn’t worried about annoying Holly or pissing her off, which was kind of nice. I could see myself lingering here, revisiting memories, our conversation chasing tails for hours. Brief laughs followed by stretches of casual disagreement. The thought exhausted me.
Say what’s on your mind so you don’t have to come back if you don’t want to.
“I think Rodney killed Dawn, and Mom confessed to cover for him.”
“What?” she said, flinching as if I’d slapped her. “No way, Heather.” She shook her head. “Rodney couldn’t hurt a fly. He was so gentle.”
“Rodney was scary.”
“What?” She laughed. “Rodney was sensitive.”
“After we moved,” I said, “Rodney went to the doctor for regular blood tests. Do you remember that?”
She nodded and said, tenderly, “He had migraines. Sometimes he’d have to go sit in a dark room.”
“Don’t you remember Rodney and those dead opossums?”
She flinched again. “What? No. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Everything was upside down here. I was losing patience, getting pissed off.
From the next room, a voice called, “Holly?”
“I’ll be there in a minute, Bruce,” she said loud enough for him to hear.
“You said you came here to help Mom,” I said. “You wanted to show me something.”
She sighed, annoyed as well. Stood and went to her refrigerator, grabbed an envelope stuck under a magnet, put it in front of me. The envelope had been torn open. It was addressed to our mom; the return address was Minnesota.
“After Mom’s funeral, I brought all her boxes, all her crap, to my house. Well, I started going through her stuff and came across this.”
I opened the envelope and flattened the paper. A letter. It was worn thin. It had been folded and handled many times.
Melinda,
Step 9 here. You’re probably familiar. For you, it was AA. For me, NA.
I stopped reading and raised my eyes to Holly’s. “What’s NA?”
She dropped her head an inch, stared at me, stone-eyed like I was stupid. “Narcotics Anonymous,” she said.
“Oh,” I said, and started the letter from the top.
Melinda,
Step 9 here. You’re probably familiar. For you, it was AA. For me, NA. Potato potahto, addiction is fueled by the desperate need to escape emotional pain. Mostly bullshit, these steps. God this, God that, Ask Him to remove our character defects. Trust in God because you’re pathetic and not capable like you’ve always suspected. Anyway, if God’s steering the boat, why’d He sink my boat in the first place? And if He messed me up so bad that I had to get hooked on drugs, why would He help me now?
I’m guessing the religious stuff makes you cringe too. I go along with it though for the meetings, hearing other people’s stories, what rituals help them. That has been useful.
Anyway, Step 9. Make amends to people we’ve harmed except when it would injure them or others. I’m stuck on this. Me writing this letter pretty much guarantees someone will be injured. It might be you. But what I feel that’s more important than even maybe putting you in danger is this: someone owes you an apology. I am sorry for what happened to you. There. The thing is, and here’s the Pandora’s box I’m leaving on your doorstep. Watch at your own risk. I’ve made copies of the videos.
I should have contacted you earlier, I know.
Basically, this is an apology and an invitation to more trouble. Pretty shitty, I know. I’ve been told I’m cold more than once in my life.
-Sin
“I don’t understand,” I said, my heart feeling fluttery, fragile as a butterfly’s wing. “I don’t understand a single word. And why is it signed Sin?”
“I have no idea,” she said. “This letter was dated a month before Mom was murdered. I didn’t find any videos or flash drives in her apartment. Whatever was on these videos, someone killed her for it.”
“That’s just… crazy.”
“Is it?”
“Yes,” I blurted. “Very crazy.” Even after the texts I’d received, I wasn’t completely sold on the idea that my mom was targeted, that it hadn’t been a robbery gone wrong.
“Mom didn’t live in the city,” Holly said as if she’d read my mind. “She didn’t have much, and whoever broke into her apartment had to know that. She had a damaging or scandalous video of something. Whoever broke in, they took it, and they killed her.”
The recent break-ins came to mind.
Holly gulped her coffee. “The police responded like you did. They thought I was crazy.” Her mouth twitched into a frown. “I just wish I’d asked Mom about what happened back then. I was little when we moved away from Hunther, and I never brought it up because it, well, it was such a painful time for Mom. It was like bam, bam, one thing after the next. Dawn died, Mom was gone for four or five weeks, she came back, then Becky died. I don’t recall much about Mom being gone. Just that Dad farmed us all out. I stayed with Chrissy’s family. Shane stayed with Kirk, his friend from baseball. Rodney stayed with Dad. You went to someone’s house too, though I’m not sure where you went.”
I was with Mom. And Claire and Donnie. At the head doctor’s house.
Even if I didn’t remember being with Mom, even if I barely remembered the girl and boy, I was happy to hold a puzzle piece.
Holly said, “Becky stayed with Gal and Gary Kender. You know, our next-door neighbors?”
