Chapter 21
Nine Months Later
H e’s beautiful. The picture of innocence that should never know pain, or suffering, or hurt.
My baby is cradled in my arms as hospital machines buzz and beep around me. The midwife was ecstatic when I gave birth right on time: a solid nine months from when I became pregnant.
His name is Paul. I thought that was symbolic, since he came from a horrible background, a monstrous father, and became something new and beautiful from a terrible situation.
Out of everything that happened to me, to my sister, little Paul here changed everything for me.
I want to be better now.
I want to be a good person.
But that also means leaving my old life behind.
The police, of course, wanted to know what happened to Amelia. And I was honest… sort of.
I admitted that Jacob tortured her, but I failed to tell them who really killed her in the end. They didn’t pry, though; when they found all the graves out back by the barn, that was more than enough evidence for them to call it case closed. Not to mention Jacob’s death, indicating justice had been served.
They called it self-defense, what I did.
I’m not sure if I feel that way, though. I almost feel like it was darker than that, how I decided to kill him. How I wouldn’t stop slicing him with the knife.
No, I decide. No, it definitely went beyond self-defense.
But it doesn’t matter anymore.
Not the way I killed him.
Not how I reveled in killing my sister.
Not how I enjoyed cutting up the body of another.
None of it matters anymore, because all that means anything now is Paul. I want to be the mother he deserves, and that means putting aside that violence and hate.
I can only hope he doesn’t grow up like his father.