KAREN
One can travel dangerous roads to hide their secret. And then there are the pitch-black depths that parents are willing to go to save their child.
I watched through the windows as the flames inside my bar crept up to Dougie’s body and wondered if I’d hit the darkest bottom.
I’d already removed the weapon from the scene.
I’d already gotten the girls away. Dougie’s body burning in the flames would certainly remove any other evidence and solve some of the problems.
Moving his body like I’d planned to was one thing. He’d have still been found almost right away. Letting him burn? That made my toes curl.
Was I willing to watch him burn?
The answer was no.
I was a parent. As a parent, watching someone’s child being mutilated by a fire would make me a monster, if only in my own eyes.
I ran to the back of the bar, unlocked the door, but as soon as I swung it open, clouds of smoke wafted into my face, making me cough. That was a no-go.
I ran to the front door, unlocked it, and was inside when I heard the sirens in the distance.
I was late, too late to hide the evidence, but I could muddle it.
I ran up to Dougie’s body, grabbed him by the feet, and started dragging him toward the front door.
Don’t underestimate the woman who’s lifted beer kegs for half of her life.
Dougie was a big guy, but I couldn’t waste time.
I had to get him out before this place blew up, and that would be in minutes, as soon as the fire burned through the gas lines.
Heat blasted in my face as I dragged Dougie out, the red trail of blood leading from him to the flames blazing around the bar counter. Sweat trickled in my eyes, blinding me.
The sirens were right outside the bar now, suddenly a cacophony of voices, shouts, screams. Someone right behind me pushed me away, and the two firefighters picked up Dougie and carried him out. Another one shouted something in my face and pushed me out of the building into the chilly summer night.
“He’s not breathing!” someone shouted.
No, he wasn’t. Hadn’t been for a while.
“Bring the defibrillator!”
That won’t help, I wanted to tell them, but I said nothing. I stood speechless, my heart aching for the tragedy that had happened tonight. For Dougie and so many more affected. Those who didn’t know it yet.
Someone led me to the ambulance, asked me questions, and checked my vitals.
“Did I get him out in time?” I asked the most devastating lie of my life, knowing the even more terrifying truth.
“K! Karen! What happened?” Steve was running in my direction.
My eyes shifted to the blue and red lights of the police cars, the ambulance, the firemen rushing forward, ready to extinguish the flames and save my bar.
They didn’t know that what needed to be saved was long gone.
Dougie, my girls’ innocence, peace, and friendships.
There was so much light around, so much noise, and yet, this moment felt pitch-black and judgmentally silent.
“K, look at me.” I looked up at Steve, appreciating his concern. “What happened?”
“I was going to the truck stop to get milk for the morning,” I said, the story forming as I said it. “Saw the flames inside my bar. Pulled over. Saw a shadow inside. Thought there was a break-in. There was Dougie, passed out on the floor. Is he okay?”
I met Steve’s eyes, and to this day, I’m not sure what he thought.
Him, Donna, and I, we’d always kept each other’s secrets.
Just not this one. He knew something had gone wrong tonight.
He didn’t know what. And I saw it in his eyes.
Disappointment? Judgment? Contempt? He wouldn’t take bull from me. That night, he did.
He shook his head. He took my statement. He let me go home.
That night, Donna and I barely spoke. She’d driven thirty miles out of town and dropped the hammer in the river.
She’d lit up a fire on the bank and burned our girls’ bloodied clothes.
“A Sacred Burn,” she said, though it was the first time she’d done it on her own, and it wasn’t a happy one.
We sat with the girls in the bedroom and talked until morning, figuring out the story.
The next day, all hell broke loose. The police, the Hartzels, questions, insurance calls.
Amid all that, I couldn’t forget what Donna said. “This is on Alysha.”
She had no right. We’d never pointed fingers until that night.
Derek Sickler was still nowhere to be found, but I knew he hadn’t left town right away. He’d had to have the final say, hit low, with a gut punch.
I was outside my house the next day, getting in my car, when I saw him drive by. His Ford slowed down as it passed my house, and I saw his smug face, staring right at me. I swear on my mother’s grave, he was smiling. Slowly, he raised his hand and waved at me.
Before I knew it, he gunned the engine and was gone.
A day later, Steve knocked on my door, two men in civilian clothes with him.
“These are the fire investigators,” he said grimly. “They say it was arson. They claim insurance fraud. Sorry, K.”
He hadn’t called before coming here, hadn’t alerted me. He would’ve, I know. He would’ve moved mountains for me. This must’ve been a surprise even to him.
In the shed behind my house, they found the slightly charred-at-the-nozzle canisters of gas. That was insurance fraud, indeed. It wouldn’t be that bad if that were how I’d done it. If I’d done it. But I hadn’t. And I never kept those things at the house. Those canisters belonged in the bar.
Derek had started this mess, ruined my family, and put me in prison for almost a year for insurance fraud. And then some.
I wish I’d run him over with a car when I met him. I wish Dougie had broken his bones the first day he’d shown up in town. At least then, Dougie would’ve been alive and so would my Alysha. Because no doubt in my mind, Derek Sickler was the cause of what she did years later.
There are so many ways we rewind the time to before the tragedies, create alternative scenarios, reworking the past, pushing the narrative in different directions, only to come back to the present and face the same scenario.
I’ve done plenty of that.
And now, here we are. In the grimmest way, I have a devastating feeling that history is repeating itself.