Chapter 2 Red Hands
Red Hands
She becomes true when the skin peels back. When terror erases pretense. When the screaming stops and something small and honest crawls out from behind her eyes.
I watch her become.
Four hours, twenty-three minutes of preparation. Of listening to her lies, her bargaining. Four hours, twenty-three minutes of waiting for her to understand that her fear is the only honest thing she has ever made.
The storm rages around us. Wind rattles broken windows. She no longer makes sounds.
Rebecca Morrison. This is what her driver’s license says. But two years ago, she was Becky Williams. Before that, Rebecca Lynn Harris. Three names. Three failed attempts at becoming someone else.
Three layers I had to cut through.
Her hair is still soft when I touch it. Cooling, but not cold. The body holds warmth like a secret, reluctant to surrender it even after the soul departs.
She was thirty-two years old. She came to Wichita to escape a man who hurt her in Michigan.
She changed her name, her hair color, built a life selling homemade soap at the farmer’s market and slinging coffee at one of the diners.
Smiled too wide. Laughed too loud. Never let anyone see inside her apartment.
I found the pills she hid inside her laundry hamper. I found remnants of the wedding photos she burned in the fireplace. I found the false name. The false life.
“Rebecca,” I whisper, arranging her hands. “I know your name was a lie. But now you are true.”
The floor is wet with rain that blows through the missing window glass, forming small pools that reflect nothing. I do not mind the rain.
I place her carefully, knees drawn up like a child’s beneath her, kneeling in submission. Hands at her throat, as if she is gasping for truth, with a fresh coat of nail polish. It takes time. Positioning matters. The story must be clear for those who come after.
When I am finished, I take a single strand of her hair. Long, dyed blonde over brown roots. The duality of her—visible even in a single strand. I place it in a small glass vial and seal it.
“You were more than the lies you told,” I tell her. “You were more than the mask you wore. Now everyone will see.”
After death, faces settle into something closer to honesty. The social muscles relax. The performance ends. In her stillness, she has found a truth she spent months running from.
Nothing is wasted. Not pain. Not fear. Not the journey to revelation.
I remove more red paint from my bag. The color matters, and red is honest. Red is the color beneath all our skins.
On the peeling wallpaper, next to my false handprint already there, I write:
THE TRUTH IS LOUDER THAN HER VOICE.
The words drip slightly, perfectly. When they find her, they will understand that her silence speaks more clearly than her life ever did.
From my coat pocket, I withdraw a mirror.
Small, antique, silver-backed. I break it against the edge of a rotting windowsill.
The crack divides the reflection into fragments—truer than the whole ever was.
I place it in front of her so she can truly see herself, catching the last of her image in its broken surface.
Last, the rose. Black stem from burning, the petals still red. A symbol of something that grows from ruined soil. I place it between her fingers.
“Sleep now,” I say, though she is beyond sleep. “You are finally seen.”
I gather my things methodically. Nothing left behind except what is meant to be found. I check my hands, my clothes. The storm has been a blessing—rain washing away footprints, wind scattering evidence. Nature collaborates in revelation.
As I step onto the porch, the rain hits my face. Cold, clean, and washing. I breathe in the scent of dry earth receiving water. Rebirth through destruction. This is the world’s oldest story.
I walk away from the house. No need to hurry, since in this city, abandoned buildings keep their secrets. Days may pass before someone ventures inside. By then, the transformation will be complete.
Headlights cut through the downpour, moving past the diner. It’s a dark-blue or black sedan, its windows fogged against the cold. It moves slowly, as though the driver, a woman, is looking for something.
One bumper sticker on the car reads Tell the voices in your head I said hi, and instead of the original sticker that reads Made in USA, she marked it up with black Sharpie to read dead inSIDE.
I smile, not with humor but with recognition. Like finding the first piece of a complex puzzle. Like an artist receiving inspiration from their muse.
I decide to follow, swiftly enough but without drawing attention, staying within the shelter of buildings and shadows. The car makes a slow right turn onto Lakeview Drive where there is no lake, only old houses where newcomers often buy up cheap property.
The driver parks in front of number seventeen, a house I’ve been to before. The porch light is burned out. The garden is overtaken by weeds. The mailbox tilts at an unnatural angle.
When she steps out of the car, I see the careful way she moves and the tension in her shoulders. The way she cautiously checks the street.
She is carrying something heavy inside her. I can see it in her posture, the slight forward curve of her spine, as if protecting a wound. A realtor-looking woman arrives shortly after her, and they both disappear inside. Shortly after, the realtor flees.
I stand in the rain, watching and waiting. A shadow passes behind curtains while the woman checks the locks, securing her territory.
She is someone who believes in locks. In barriers. In keeping things out.
Or perhaps in keeping something in.
There will be time. There is always time for truth to emerge.
For a second, she peers out a second-floor window, and it’s then that I can see the true weight she carries. The secret she holds. The past that follows her like a faithful dog.
They are called survivors, but all of them wear masks.
If she’s anything like the others, she will break so beautifully.