Chapter Eighteen #4
“Hello, Mrs. Finley,” I rasped. “I’m not sure if you know who I am—”
“Soo Min Kim.” She spat the name. “I know exactly who you are. I repeat, what the fuck do you want?”
“To talk. We’re long overdue for a conversation, Mrs. Finley.”
“Oh?” She raised a brow that was darker than the hair on her head. “Are we?”
“We are,” I said, voice firm but polite. “You believe so too, or you wouldn’t have come to my house Friday night.”
Her face shuttered closed. Of all the things she was prepared for me to say, I don’t think she was ready for that one.
“Come in.”
Looking back at Alex, I gave him a little thumbs-up, then stepped over the threshold.
The living room was small and cluttered. The couches, coffee table, end tables, and entertainment center were all too big for the space. A space made smaller by all the random gifts and knickknacks one accumulates over a long life.
I made to sit down but Mrs. Finley didn’t stop. She passed through the entrance off the living room, so I followed her—winding up in the kitchen.
Just like the living room, the kitchen was cluttered. Dirty pots and pans covered the stove and filled the sinks. Stacks of letters covered the kitchen island, and all of the available counter space was taken up by appliances, and pills. So many pill bottles that I stopped counting at fifteen.
Mrs. Finley crossed to the kettle and flicked it on. Her back was to me as she busied herself getting cups, tea bags, sugar, and spoons. I took that chance to sit down at the island.
“Say what you came to say,” she snapped.
“Oh, right.” I sat up straight, sucking in a deep breath. “I’m actually not sure how to begin, but here goes... You may or may not know that something horrible happened last Friday night. My mother was murdered and—”
“What’s so horrible about that?”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” She turned around, slapping me with a glare that almost knocked me off the seat. “What’s so horrible about that rancid bitch getting exactly what she deserved?”
I gaped at her. “What the hell? Why would you say that? My mother wasn’t responsible for what her daughter did.”
“Yeah, and that’s exactly what she said to the judge.
” She slammed the mug down, chipping the bottom.
“Is that why you’ve come here? To tell me once again that since there’s no proof of parental neglect or a documented pattern of behavior that said parent failed to address, parental liability cannot be proven, and therefore your mother wasn’t at fault and had no obligation to pay. ”
“What?” My mind was in knots trying to follow this conversation. “What are you talking about?”
“What else would I be talking about!” she screamed, blowing me back.
“What else is there to talk about! For ten years, it’s been the same conversation, the same argument, the same fight, and a world that doesn’t listen!
That doesn’t care! That doesn’t help!” Her eyes bugged out of her head.
“Lord knows, I wanted to talk about something else for once—for one day! Well, I got my wish!” She burst into a hysterical, shrieking laugh that chased a chill up my spine.
“Now everyone can talk about something else, because Dana Finley is finally going to shut up!”
My eyes were huge. I was leaning back so far on my seat, one slight breeze and I’d topple off. “Mrs. Finley, I’m so sorry, but I truly don’t understand. Are you— Are you talking about the lawsuit from ten years ago?”
Her glare intensified—lips peeling back from her teeth.
“But I don’t understand,” I repeated. “Why would you be upset about that? My mother paid you.”
“Excuse me? Is that your new tactic?” she cried, disbelief coloring her tone. “Screaming at me that I was a worthless leech who wouldn’t get a cent out of you or your family wasn’t enough. Now you’re pretending we live in your delusional fantasy land!”
I could only gape at her, horrible understanding dawning. “She... never paid you.” My lips were numb. “My mother never paid the lawsuit. So, all this time...” I looked around the kitchen, then looked at her. “You’ve hated her.”
If possible, her snarl became even more feral.
“Why shouldn’t I hate her? Why shouldn’t I hate the woman who stood up in court and argued that plastic screws or no, the trapdoor wouldn’t have given way if my son weren’t morbidly obese!
If I had done my job as a mother, kept him close and healthy, he wouldn’t have almost died from being too heavy for the floor to carry him.
“Why shouldn’t I hate the beast who claimed I was only using her to profit off my child’s misery?
Who claimed if my vendetta was truly about holding the guilty party responsible, I’d have sued your sister, Sarah Kim,” she spat.
“Well, fat chance of that when she disappeared! Shipped her back off to China—”
“Korea,” I sliced in automatically.
“—where she could hide away in another McMansion, pretending nothing ever happened, while me and Colin had nothing!” She thumped her chest, the pound resounding like her booming voice.
“Your mother blamed everything and everyone else except herself... for raising two spoiled cunts who should’ve been strangled by their umbilical cords and shat into a toilet upon birth. ”
I pressed my lips tightly together, breathing slow through my nose. She was trying to provoke me. If she really hated and wanted nothing to do with me, she wouldn’t have let me through the door.
Was all of this deliberate? Was she trying to provoke me into striking first so that she’d have an excuse to kill me like she killed—
“Is that why you did it?” I asked. “Is that why you killed my mother?”
Her eyes glittered. “Why shouldn’t I have killed her?
She deserved to die. All of you—throwing that tacky, obscene party—celebrating while my Colin—my Colin—” Finley’s lips trembled.
“Dying peacefully on a cloud of morphine was too good for the whore who spat you out. Justice demanded she suffer, so I put it right.”
I was shaking. My whole body rattled so hard my teeth chattered. “And Mrs. Prado?”
Mrs. Finley frowned. “What?”
“Why Mrs. Prado?” I demanded. “Why did you kill her?”
“Why— Why not?” She shrugged, lips twisting. “It was her own fault—that Prado woman. She shouldn’t have gotten in my way.”
I nodded slow. “How did you get into my home and upstairs unseen?”
“What the fuck does that matter?” she barked, eyes flashing. “I did it. Who cares how?”
“Okay, fine.” My voice was nothing but a thin croak. “If I could ask just one more question then—why now? It sounds like you’ve hated my mother for ten years. Why kill her now?”
Mrs. Finley laughed. It was a terrible sound. “Why wait until she was a broken, wasted, shell of herself? Why wait until she was a leech and burden, relying on others to eat, wash, and shit? Why wait until she was scared and hopeless with nothing to look forward to?
“Why wait until I could stand over her, look her in the eyes, and see the moment she realizes I have all the power, and there’s not a damn thing she could do about it?” She laughed that horrid laugh again. “I see why only your sister got into Titan Prep. You’re definitely the stupid one.”
I was quiet for a long time. So long, my bag started buzzing. It was likely Alex calling to check up on me and see what was taking so long.
I reached into my bag, pushed aside Sue’s buzzing phone, and closed on mine. I turned the recorder off.
“You’ve been very honest with me, Mrs. Finley, and although you might not think this is sincere, I truly appreciate that.”
Her eyes narrowed to slits. No, she did not think I was sincere.
“Honesty is everything,” I heard myself say. “We all deserve it—you more than anyone.”
“What the hell are you blathering about?”
“That’s why I’ve come here,” I went on like she hadn’t spoken. “To do something I should’ve done a long time ago—tell you the truth. And it starts with this: Sarah never touched the trapdoor—”
“You—!”
“Sue did it,” I sliced in, halting her mid-shout.
“Sue snuck into the school, replaced the screws with cheap plastic destined to give way, and then she snuck away and let gravity and security cameras do the rest. She did this,” I stressed, “and I know this because I’m not Soo Min. I’m Sarang. I’m Sarah.”
Mrs. Finley didn’t move. She didn’t shout. She didn’t blink. She didn’t even look at me. Her eyes glazed out of focus like she couldn’t see me anymore.
Starting from the beginning, I told her almost everything.
How Sue and I started to hate each other by eight years old, and it only got worse from there.
I shared the lies, the gaslighting, the sabotage, and her endless campaign to make my life hell.
I told her about Sue’s seething jealousy when I got into Titan Prep and then into Yale.
Then I told her how it all culminated into Sue framing me for pranking Colin, which resulted in my mother throwing me out.
Towards the end is where I fudged it a bit.
“Sue ran off and abandoned her child and husbands, so I stepped up,” I said.
“I came back to be there for them and to be there... for my mother. I want to put right what went wrong.” I climbed down off the stool, hitching my bag up my shoulder.
“It’s too late for you now. You’re going to prison for what you did to Mrs. Prado and my mother, but I want you to know, Colin will be taken care of.
“Every cent my mother and sister should’ve given to him will go to him now.
No matter how long it takes me, or what it costs—his care will be paid in full for the rest of his life.
” Gaze drifting, I fixed on the picture of the sweet, smiling little boy holding up his first-place ribbon for the science fair.
“I’m sorry it took so long, Mrs. Finley.
Sorry for you, for Colin, for me, for Mrs. Prado, and for my mother.
The act of one jealous, mean girl shattered so many lives that day and for that. .. I’m just sorry.”
Turning my back, I walked away.
“Sorry?” came a trembling voice. “You’re... sorry?”
I didn’t slow or turn back. There was nothing else to say and no more time to waste. I needed to get this recording to Officer Cop-A-Feel and get my best friend out of prison.
“You’re SORRY!?”
Crash!
A mug hit the wall to the right of me, exploding in a shower of razor-tipped ceramic shards.
“Ahh!” I screamed, throwing my hands over my head and face.
Thunderous footsteps came up on me so fast, I didn’t have time to turn around.
“What good is your sorry?” she shrieked. “What do your promises matter now! He’s dead!”
Shock struck me through the chest. What?
“Because of you and your stupid sibling rivalry, my son lost everything!”
Something fell over my eyes, and wrapped around my throat.
“Eurgh!”
“His body, his future, his life—everything!” She wrenched the dishcloth tighter, popping my eyes and tongue out of my skull. “Where were you?! The whole time— The whole time!” she screamed, thrashing me around. “The person responsible was right there, and I didn’t know because of you!”
Blood rushed to my face—trapping in bursting blood vessels as air trapped in my burning lungs. I clawed at the cloth, my nails bending and breaking under the assault.
“Because of you, we had nothing! No money to pay for Colin’s care! Because of—!”
My fist flew up, striking something that crunched against my bones.
“Ah!”
Mrs. Finley flew back, loosening her grip.
I didn’t waste a second.
“H-help!” I scrambled across the floor, crawling through the hall into the living room. The doorknob loomed only six feet from my grasping fingertips. “Hel—!”
A heavy mass dropped on me, bouncing my skull off the hardwood.
“Where were your promises last week, you narcissistic bitch!” Knees crunched my spine, pinning me to the floor as the dish towel found my neck again. “It’s too late!”
I garbled and gasped, black spots popping in my vision. One of the shadows moved and I strained to look away—my hands pounding and slamming the floor trying to buck her off.
Alex?
Alex stood at the window, peering through the glass.
“Al— Ag!” I called for him, reaching through the bleeding darkness. Alex, help me!
“Just die!” Mrs. Finley wrenched my head back and forth, bouncing it off the floor—bloodying my forehead as my body desperately screamed for air.
And Alex didn’t move.
HELP!
He didn’t twitch. He didn’t call for help. He didn’t shout. He didn’t tap the glass.
As consciousness fled, Alex stood there... and watched me die.