Chapter 9 #2
He loved—or used to—my mother so much, that much I knew.
In her rare moments of lucidity, she used to tell me about how they met and about how romantic he used to be.
She was everything he had after he lost his parents and his two brothers in a fire.
They were there for each other at every step of their life.
They were happy. Until Mom had me. Until I was born.
My dad walked toward her, lowering himself on his knees. With a sigh, he threaded a hand over his bald head, looking at her with a tilt of his head.
“All I think about is killing the two of you.” He laughed in a sad, sarcastic way.
At that, I inched closer, my heart galloping. Was this what he thought about every time he was strangling her? Didn’t he realize she wasn’t hurting because she was rarely here? She had no idea what was happening outside her head.
“I don’t see a way out of this, Mary. Come back, please,” he whispered, placing a hand on her cheek.
She didn’t even flinch, she just kept whispering. “They are going to take her. They are going to take her.”
My father flipped, as if someone had pressed a button to activate a bomb. “No one is going to take her!” he screamed, his raw voice breaking. “No one!”
He stood up, and I walked to him, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Dad.”
“Shut up! Just shut the fuck up!” he shouted before he stormed out of the room.
A relieved whoosh parted my lips, and I leaned down, caressing my mom’s hair before sitting next to her, supporting my head on her shoulder. “It’s okay,” I whispered, even though she didn’t hear me.
“They are coming. They are coming.” I tried to stop her from swaying, but she fought my grip, so I let her do what she had to do. Sometimes, she would allow me to embrace her, and her frightened words would soften, but at other moments, she would persist until she had repeated them sufficiently.
I didn’t know when she started, but what I knew was that if it was a good day, she stopped at 233. On a bad day . . . she repeated the same words 721 times. Always the same numbers. I found solace in counting, knowing her state of mind would subside soon, and it became a part of me.
My eyes lowered as I checked my hands one more time for the evidence of blood. It was almost like I could feel the scratches, but they were nowhere to be seen. My hands weren’t blurry either. This wasn’t a dream. That nightmare was.
Loud footsteps sounded in the house, and I wondered if my dad was leaving for another beer. I hoped so. I hoped he would not come back until morning and that he was going to be too tired to watch me sleep. It suddenly made sense why he was always looking at me.
At first, I thought it was because . . . well, I assumed he might do some things to me. But now I knew it wasn’t that. He was considering whether or not to kill me in my sleep.
He showed up in front of the door, his dirty shirt open. His eyes moved from me to my mother.
I sighed. “Leave, Dad.”
He didn’t listen to me. He walked into the room and approached, stopping two steps from us. “It’s all your fault.”
My fists were clenched and my jaw set tight. I wanted to lash out at him, to scratch that ugly and psychotic look off his face, throw him out and tell him never to come back. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not with what I knew now. He’d kill us, and he’d do it without much of a struggle.
I nodded as I always did. I knew better than to put up a fight with him. “I know.”
“You’re the reason she’s like this. You are the reason I lost her.” He pointed a finger at me. “I can’t go on like this. Don’t you see what you’re doing to me?” Sweat dripped from his thick eyebrows, and when he wiped his forehead with his other hand, I stilled, my eyes rounding in shock.
He was holding a knife. The same knife I used to make dinner with every night. Dad shook his head, wiping the corner of his mouth as he opened it.
My arm moved to grip my mother tighter, as if that would do anything to help if he decided to attack. My teeth gnashed as I battled with myself to keep quiet, to not feed the fire igniting inside of him.
“I feel like I’m going crazy,” he told me, pacing the room with his hands on top of his head, one of them holding the knife. “Is this the answer? I don’t know. That’s the fucking problem!” he yelled, his attention now on us.
“I don’t know.” My dad shrugged. “I hear these voices in my head, and they tell me to kill both of you.” He pointed at each of us. “And the pain will go away, and I need that pain to go away, Charisma.”
“You don’t want to kill her,” I said. “You love her, Dad.” I pushed onto my palm, slowly getting up and placing a hand in front of him. I needed to put distance between him and her. “She’s the love of your life, remember?” I added with a smile, but I knew it was trembling.
His eyes softened. “I do.” He nodded, but not long after, the darkness returned in his eyes. “All I think about is blood. I can’t control it.”
I stepped closer. “It’s okay, Dad. I’ll help you.”
He let me come near him; deep, gut-wrenching disgust swam through me at the proximity.
“They are coming,” my mother breathed.
Like a trigger, he pushed me aside at the sound of the words and lunged for my mother. He gripped her neck in his free hand, raising her to her feet and holding the knife against my mom’s throat.
“Come back, Mary. Come back now,” he screamed, but my mother offered him nothing in return. “Come back!”
“Dad, don’t do this,” I pleaded, my voice breaking. “Please, don’t. You love her.”
My father looked at me over his shoulder with a sad look in his eyes. “I do love her. That’s why I have to do it.”
Panic seized me, stopping my bones from moving.
I was frozen as I watched my mother’s frowning face, not even aware of what was happening.
I had no idea what to do. I didn’t stand a chance of winning a fight with him.
He was at least twice as big as me. I looked around the room, hoping to find a weapon against him, but I knew there was no point. We kept this room clear for a reason.
I tried to move, but my legs wouldn’t obey my mind’s orders.
My hands were shaking, a knot beginning in my throat.
A prickling sensation crawled up my spine, an icy whisper against my skin that promised something unseen.
The air thickened, heavy with an unspoken dread that settled in my chest, making each breath a shallow, desperate gasp.
There was only furniture, and their edges were rounded so my mom wouldn’t hurt herself. There’s nothing I could use to stop him.
I couldn’t stay here and do nothing. I had to do something. Anything. I needed to calm down and think.
I closed my eyes for a moment, counting to three before I spoke and tried again.
One.
Two.
Three.
“Please, Dad,” I asked of him, dropping on my knees and tugging at the material of his worn jeans. When he ignored it, still vibrating with fury, I crawled to his hand, gripping his biceps with my palms.
There was nothing in this world I hated more than these encounters with my father. I doubted my pleading was going to work, but I had to try. I was going to do anything to set my mother free.
“Let go of me,” he warned, reaching forward and fighting to escape my grasp.
“They are coming. They are coming. They are coming.” My mother’s voice got louder.
“Shut up,” Dad screamed at her, squeezing his eyes shut as he continued to try to escape my grip.
“They are coming!” This time, my mother shouted from the top of her lungs. I’d never heard her scream before.
My dad’s hands slipped through my fingers, and I knew if I did nothing, he was going to kill her. I jumped on his back, scratching his face with my nails.
He groaned, falling back a few steps. “You stupid whore!” he spat, trying to lash at me with his knife. I managed to escape the first time, dodging it by an inch, but then he stuck the knife into my arm, and I let out a scream of agony, dropping from his back onto the floor.
My eyes squeezed shut as a searing pain shot through me, the coppery tang of blood filling my nostrils as I pressed my hand against the gushing wound.
The pain was like nothing I’ve felt before, clouding my thoughts and vision.
Dad took one last look at me, not bothering to take the knife out before turning around to finish what he started.
My muscles tightened instinctively around the knife, a deep burning ache pulsing with each heartbeat thumping inside my chest. Time slowed for a fleeting moment, my blood dropping on the ground like a siren song—drip, drip, drip—and I dared to look just under my shoulder where the pointed end of the knife threatened to slice through that last layer of skin.
On the other end, I could only see the handle glued to my skin.
There was blood everywhere. On the floor, on my shoes, on my shirt and—
With a held breath, I took the knife out, its clinking sound fading between my shuddered breaths as it landed on the floor.
A sharp, guttural scream tore through my throat.
It was almost animalistic. Even my eyes widened, my body trembling and convulsing under the raw and ragged scream.
More of the crimson liquid splashed on the floor—on my face—and I gulped as my father barely threw me a glance, placing both of his arms on my mother’s neck.
I acted on instinct, the pain suddenly gone, with only one thought in mind—stop him, kill him if that saves her.
I placed my foot in front of him, causing him to stumble and fall.
In a rush of adrenaline, I got up and reached for the knife, but I made an error.
Something I didn’t calculate. I gripped the knife with my right hand—the arm he stabbed.
He must’ve hit a nerve because as soon as I laid my hand on it, the knife clinked on the floor once again.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I dropped on my knees, plunging down to grab it, but before I could, my father placed a foot on my wrist, stepping on it with all of his weight.
A scream erupted from my throat as tears prickled in my eyes, a loud crack filling the room.
My vision got blurry as his cold hands took hold of my body, flipping me on my back.
The last thing I saw before he drove the knife right through my heart was his unblinking eyes with no ounce of remorse in them.
Surprisingly, nothing hurt. I was just . . . numb.
Along with his heavy steps, I heard my own breathing, just before coughing on blood and spitting it on the floor. My head spun, but I forced it to turn in slow arcs, my eyes scanning for a point of focus.
What am I searching for? Where am I?
The world grew silent, and all I could see was vast, unending black. Was this how it felt to die? They said there was a light at the end of all of this darkness, but no matter how hard I squinted my eyes, there was no sign of it.
Was my mother alive?
My mother.
A groan slipped past my lips, and I was back in that haunted room.
My mom. My dad was going to kill her.
The room spun, but I pushed myself to lift my head a bit, the ache in my chest a background noise as I looked to check on her.
To make sure she was okay. Yet, the first thing my vision focused on was the knife resting in my heart.
My fingers flinched almost imperceptibly, and the metallic scent of blood filled my nostrils.
My clothes were wet, clinging to me like a second skin, with no doubt a pool of blood hiding underneath me.
I forced myself to look away, only to find my mother in the corner of the room, covered in her own gore.
“Mom!” I screamed, but the sound came out more like a whisper.
He killed her. He killed her. It was over, she was gone.
A wave of nausea washed over me, a cold sweat prickling my skin.
My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat against the silence.
The world seemed to tilt, the edges of my vision blurring as a raw, consuming grief threatened to drown me.
My muscles were rigid, locked in place by the shock and the terrible weight of regret, and a metallic taste filled my mouth, the phantom tang of blood.
Because of a dumb mistake, she was gone. If I had taken the knife with my left hand, I could’ve ended this. Instead of her, it would be him lying on the floor dead.
It was all my fault. I stole her chance at living when she birthed me, and now I was the reason she died.
My mother, my best friend, was dead.
I wished she knew how much I loved her. I wished she knew the passion she gave me, that I read every day and thanked her for it every moment of my existence.
I wished she knew how sorry I felt for not being able to save her, for not being enough.
I wished she knew this ending was better than seeing her dead and having to live with myself after.
I wished . . . I wished she had never given birth to me, only to end up like this because of me.
I let my head fall on the floor, refusing to remember her this way in my last moments. So, instead, I focused on the window we’d often look out, where the birds were singing and the sun was streaming inside the room—
Wait.
It was sunny outside.
My dad was never home during the day.