29. Martha
Martha
The house is quiet. I head upstairs to find Emmy curled up under the thick covers of her twin bed, watching YouTube. She presses pause and jumps up to sitting when I open the door.
“I’m sorry about all that,” I tell her and go to sit at her bedside. My voice is strained, hoarse now. I wonder if she’ll notice. I try to smile, the way Nicola might, but it feels tight and unnatural.
“I just don’t like those movies anymore. You understand, right?”
Emmy looks down. She nods and stares blankly out the window. Her hand trembles a little as she reaches for the covers on her bed and pulls them up slowly to her belly. “You know something?”
An exasperated sigh escapes me. “What?”
“You sound different.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your voice. You sound different.” The covers quiver ever so slightly, an imperceptible jitter that makes everything else seem impossibly still in the half-light of the room.
Emmy’s eyes are large, her scar bright and glistening, facing me.
I want so badly to lock her up somewhere where she isn’t a burden, isn’t asking questions.
Whatever she’s after, I can’t give it to her.
The shaking slows. Her hand reaches out, creating a long shadow on the wall beside her.
It touches mine, clammy, smooth like a little eel.
“I know it’s you again,” she says quietly. “You came back, didn’t you?”
I yank my hand from under hers. She may be flesh and blood, but she isn’t my flesh and blood. She’s Nicola’s. She’s Ben’s. If there were a way to just put her somewhere or make her behave for a little while, just while I get things done …
“Yes, it’s me. Don’t make a big deal out of this. You stay out of my way, and everything will be fine, okay?”
Her hand reaches out again and strokes the side of my face. I flinch from her, and she stares at me, wide-eyed. “It’s so weird,” she gawks. “You’re her, but you’re not her at all, are you?”
“That’s right. I’m not.”
“You’re Martha,” she breathes, a sigh of recognition.
“I am.”
Emmy closes her gaping mouth and swallows for the first time in what seems like a century. “So, where’s my mom now?”
“She’s safe.”
“From what?”
“No more questions! This is exactly what I’m talking about. You talk, and you talk, and you talk. Let’s get one thing straight. I’m in charge. I lead. You do what I say, and we won’t have any issues. Capiche?”
“Fine. I just want to know one thing.”
I can’t help it. I want to grab her little neck in my hands and squeeze.
I feel Nicola jam herself up inside me, her soul pressing against mine so hard I can barely speak.
She could emerge from the darkness at any moment.
I’m choked, but I breathe slow and deep until Nicola lets me go and the thought subsides. “What do you want to know, kid?”
“Why are you really working for the Redferns?”
My head tilts to the side. “You honestly want to know?”
“Yeah.”
The air is so still. I contemplate leaving the house, doing the whole thing from a motel.
But it’s so inconvenient, and the kid is a nuisance and too smart for a disappearing act.
She would call the police. Or that chick Nubia.
Besides, maybe she could be useful. “Well, it’s simple.
What do you do when someone ruins your life and gets away with it scot-free? ”
Emmy’s mouth opens slightly, her eyes alight.
I don’t have to say one freaking word because the idea was hers and hers all along.
The problem is, her mother let her go on thinking that retribution would be impossible, that there is no way to possibly level the playing field or rebalance the scales of justice.
But this is my game, and I always come out a winner.
“You get even?” Emmy asks.
“Fuck even,” I say with a laugh. “You bleed every last drop from them until they’re bone-cracking dry.”
The next morning, I charge Emmy with making breakfast. “How are they vegan if they are eggs?” I ask her.
“They’re not eggs. That’s the whole point. No chickens were harmed in the making of this breakfast.”
Scotch barks in agreement and gives me a little growl. I feel my eyes roll in my head. “That’s some weird shit.”
“Yeah, well, if you don’t want them, don’t eat them.” Emmy dumps a lump of yellow goo on my plate. “My mom likes my cooking.”
I smirk. “Yeah, sure she does.”
Emmy plops down onto the stool and gobbles up the vegan eggs and a piece of toast slathered with vegan butter. She chews, staring at me like I’m harboring a secret.
“So, you have this all figured out?” she asks.
“I don’t have it all figured out, Emmy.”
She’s chewing and staring at me still. “You’re lying.”
I slam my fist onto the counter, seeing if I can startle her into shutting herself up. “Leave it alone.”
“I want to help you.”
“Well, you can’t,” I tell her. “So, just forget about it.”
Emmy looks at me, a puzzled expression crossing her eyes. “Why do you think they’re the ones who did it, anyway?”
“I don’t think. I know.”
She sighs. “How do you know? Do you have evidence or something?”
“No.” I pause and grab her toast. I take a bite, contemplating whether to tell her. “I am going to get it, though.”
“So you don’t know for sure.”
“I am 99.99999 percent sure, Emmy.”
“Well, if that’s true, I want to help you get them.”
“You want to help me ‘get them’?” I ask with dramatic effect.
“Yeah. If they did it, I think the Redferns should go to jail. That’s the right thing, isn’t it?”
My eyes roam over her as I stand from the breakfast stool. “Listen, this isn’t a Marvel movie. I’m not your superhero, and you’re not my sidekick. We’re not in this together. We are not making them go to jail. That’s not how this works.”
Emmy stands from the stool. She stares me down. “Yes, it is.”
My breath quickens. I feel that same anger lurking. This is the soul that pushed me into the dark fifteen years ago and sent me away for nine long months. Now she’s giving orders once again. Who does she think she is? “What the fuck did you say to me?”
“I said ‘Yes. It. Is.’ It is how it works. If you figure out that they did it, we can tell the police, and they will arrest them.” Her chest rises and falls.
“Emmy, did it ever cross your mind that for obvious reasons we can’t involve the police?”
A look of confusion clouds her eyes. “Wait. What? No police? Martha, that’s insane. What are you going to do then?”
“I have my own ways of getting even. That’s all you need to know.”
Again, her breathing grows heavy. “Does my mom know about this?”
“Honey, this is why your mom called me, okay? Now leave it alone.”
She shakes her head, her brow furrowed with concern. “This doesn’t feel right. My mom isn’t like this.”
“Perhaps you don’t know your mom as well as you think you do.”
“I know my mom, Martha.”
“Do you? Do you really?” I lean forward. “Because I was there with her long before you were even born. Did you know that?”
Nicola comes toward me from within, her arms and legs scratching at me, a deep caterwauling in my throat wanting to come out. I suppress it and swallow.
When Nicola got pregnant, I went away for nine whole months. It was really very stifling, all those souls in one body. How selfish of her, though. Casting me out to bring in someone else for a term. Being forced into the darkest of places can be torture. What do you call that? I call it exile.
Until the moment Emmy showed up, I thought I was everything to her. But it was different, she said, having someone she could actually touch and feel growing inside her. A real person, a real body with a life of her own.
Having children is like having a God complex.
I brought you into this world, and I can take you out again.
That sort of thing. Nicola’s father used to say that to her when she was little.
He had a God complex, too. I think that’s why he didn’t like it when I made him realize he didn’t have any of God inside him.
He was just a man who had let Nicola down in all sorts of ways.
I tried to shield her, and yes, there were times when I tried to take him from her, but she wouldn’t let me.
I see him now in that basement and shake away the thought.
“Now stop asking questions and let me do my job.”
“This is my life, too,” Emmy protests, her voice rising. “I get to have a say.”
“Not on this you don’t.”
Her breathing quickens once more; her chest rises up and down. I think I even notice her hands shaking.
Emmy’s eyes are full, her nostrils flared.
“They killed my dad. They did this to me,” she says, twitching her head to the side and pointing to her scar.
“They took my mom and turned her into some crazy person. Our lives weren’t perfect before, but at least we were normal.
We were fine. They ruined everything, and they got away with it!
” she screams. “You think I’m going to stand here while you do nothing? ”
“Emmy, that’s not the plan. Calm down, okay?”
“Did you know it was broad daylight? We were in a crosswalk! Now my father is dead because of him. Dead, Martha!”
Emmy’s sobs echo through the kitchen. Scotch cowers under the counter and begins to whimper. I know Nicola can hear them, and she’s close now. Too close.
“Okay. Fine!” I concede. “You can help.”
Emmy tears up, then wipes her fist across her eyes.
“You know what this means?”
“I think so,” she says, her breath shallow.
“I can do it if you can …”
She nods, her face trained on the floor. “Just make sure you don’t hurt her.”
I’m inches from her, my hands on her small, round shoulders. Her breath smells like toast and salty butter. Her eyes are sad but resolute because she thinks she knows what she is doing.
But she doesn’t. Not really.
I’ve been where Nicola is going. The deep well of darkness we’re sending her to was my home for nine months once.
Emmy doesn’t understand. How could she? The point is, I have to pretend like sending Nicola there won’t destroy her a little bit.
But the dark, ugly places where terror lurks and memories get banished will chip away at her, and over time, she’ll start to forget what it’s like to live in the light.
The truth is, I don’t know what will happen to her, if she will ever be able to come back.
Sacrifices must be made. One must suffer for the good of the many.
But haven’t I suffered enough?
I put on my smile, look confidently into Emmy’s eyes, and tell her, “Of course I won’t hurt your mother, Emmy. She will always be safe with me.”