Ree
Email from[emailprotected]:
You were bought with a price. You are not your own.
Lilly and Jackare the true pure lights shining bright in my world. They twirl and laugh in the yard as I sit and watch at the patio table, a warm meal already in their bellies. I stopped off at the Hungry Burger on the way home, drive–thru. There will be no warm meal waiting for Bram—Peter, whoever the hell he might be. I’m hurt and I’m comfortable nurturing my anger.
My hand moves absentmindedly to my belly. Could I have a new life brewing in my belly the same way that Simone did just moments before her life fell apart? I wonder if she ever told him? Even if she did, he might not remember it. He confessed that everything after the kids died felt like a nightmare, a waking living hell and his mind didn’t work the same after that.
He couldn’t remember the days of the week, and whether or not he had remembered to eat was a question mark. Everything was happening and nothing would stick. A part of me wants to disavow Simone’s news clipping and what it might mean. Dismiss it as evidence of a paranoid woman who lost her mind after her children were taken so horrifically from her. I can’t imagine the horror. One minute they are playing, laughing, filling the air with their happy-go-lucky squeals, and the next dead silence. Twin bodies lying motionless, facedown, asleep like dolls. Only God knows what happened. I’ve read reports. I’ve read everything about them. After Bram and I met that first night, I went home and did my due diligence, combed through a plethora of archived information on the Internet. I Googled the shit out of them. Early on, the armchair sleuths determined that one of the twins lost his or her footing, maybe he or she had gotten a cramp and panicked, and the other drowned in an effort to help. They say that’s common, a drowning man often takes down his rescuer. Unless you have a floatation device to help them, you will become one. As terrible as it would be not to help the one begging for mercy, you have to go into the situation knowing it might just be your last day yet. They think it was Henry who was in trouble. Maybe asthma, maybe it was a game gone wrong, sibling rivalry, demonic possession. The Internet was rife with all kinds of theories. But I did think of Simone, even on that first day that I met Bram. How colorful and perfect her life was up until that fated moment. You could scroll through her social media and feel you really knew her when you were done. So cheery. Such an unmatched zest for life. She was living her best life with her best children, and the man she thought was her best husband until one tragedy begot the next. Terror upon terror. She was Job from the Bible, only she didn’t get the happy ending. She got the hammer.
“Mommy!” Lilly comes over shrieking. “Jack won’t share with me.” She smacks her lips in a cute frenetic way that makes the sound of bubbles rising from under water, and my muscles freeze. Isla and Henry flash through my mind.
“Jack? Share or no video games.” It’s a lie, though. I’ll need to keep them occupied tonight. Once Bram comes home, we have plenty of things to discuss.
Lilly speeds off and I’m left ruminating once again, the dizzy carousel of those haunting words. Three homeless prostitutes dead in New York during the same time frame Peter was stepping out on Simone. All of them with one of their fingers missing, same finger, pinky. Just like the woman that I found at the fundraiser that night. Just like the woman I heard about staying at the same hotel as Bram. Fingers as trophies for a madman.
“Knock, knock!” The cheerful cry of a female catches me off guard from behind.
My head turns so fast, breaking my neck is a real possibility, and I freeze solid once I spot her. All I see is red.
My mother, the newfound skeleton, is attempting to make a debut in my own backyard. I’m moved to snap her neck and dig a shallow grave to commemorate the event. If it weren’t for the kids, I might have.
“Get out,” my voice is low and guttural, the growl of a demon.
“Now,now.” Her face configures into a painful looking grimace. She’s lost so much weight there’s nothing but loose skin everywhere you look. Maybe that’s why she’s back. She’d like to reinstate our old act—perhaps with my own children so she can get the money to snip her skin off. She has always been a waste of skin. I say they take it all off. Let her walk around this planet like the monster she is.
She falls into the seat next to me, and my adrenaline hits new heights. It’s as if I’ve stepped out of my body. My own vocal cords betray me with their inability to perform. Can’t breathe.
“You know, funny little story.” She leans forward a bit as her eyes inspect the children. “Your Lilly is just as scrappy as you were. Looks as if someone rewound time about twenty years.” Her tongue clicks against the roof of her mouth. “That Jack is all Bram. But that’s not his real name, now is it?”
A chill runs through me. So many options on how to dispose of her body, so little time to analyze the situation.
I will kill my mother. I already know this. And then I will either frame my sister for it as punishment for hauling this witch back into our midst or I’ll do away with her, too.
One of the many therapists I saw in the aftermath of my mother’s original destruction suggested that I rid my life of toxic people. I think it’s high time I take her advice.
“Aw, come on, Aubree girl.”
A shiver runs through me when she calls me by that name. Aubree girl. I was her Aubree girl when she needed me to take those questionable meds. When she was holding my hair back while I puked my scant dinner into the toilet. While I wrung out my insides from the insane diarrhea she inflicted on me. I was her Aubree girl when she placed my feeble body in that wheelchair and paraded me around her coworkers, the local churches, anyone with a pocket.
“You know”— her hot pink nails claw at the table a moment, but her gaze remains pinned on the kids—“you were, and still are, my favorite. I don’t know why, but Lena never could stand up in the same light. She was lost in your shadow, even in my own eyes. What a terrible thing for a mother to admit.” A dull laugh pumps from her. “But it’s us, alone. We can share secrets. So tell me, did he kill her? The wife. Simone, was it? How painful to have a hammer pounded over you. Rumor has it, they found bits and pieces of her sprayed all over that house. Read all about it as soon as Lena told me who he was.”
My stomach churns. Bile burns the back of my throat at the thought of Lena and my mother discussing my husband,Simone. Simone feels sacred to me, especially after reading her private thoughts, knowing her innermost secrets. Lena is officially dead to me. Simone is my new sister. A dead one, too. I seem to be collecting corpses these days, and soon enough my mother will up the number.
“You know what I don’t get?” Her eyes dart in my direction briefly, and that fire brewing in my belly stokes ten times hotter. “Why in the world would you let that chicken girl get some alone time with your Peter? Anyone with eyes can see she’s got the hots for him. Don’t tell me I raised a fool. Aubree girl, you can see it, too. She told me all about those appointments they have in his office. His hands touching her mouth, stroking her tongue like he means it. You know what she said? She said she ran into him downtown and they had drinks one night. Imagine that! Your Peter and chicken woman. Now I don’t know what happened next, but she made it sound like she had a fantastic time.” She shakes her head, and Lilly looks over at the two of us with caution, inspecting this woman by my side as if she might be trouble. Lilly has always been a perceptive child.
My mother chortles before taking a breath. “Said she’s filing for a legal separation from her husband. He doesn’t understand her. He doesn’t get the obsession with the birds. She’s had enough. But, of course, that frees up space in her social calendar. I suspect there will be plenty more bar crawls in her future. Maybe Peter’s, too? You never know with this kind of thing. Most marriages don’t make it. It’s just a matter of time.” She gets up and waves to Lilly who’s stopped all movement, looking at us with her thumb pressed to her lips. “Good to see you!” she cheers her way, and Lilly offers a shy smile back. Jack is too busy digging a ditch and running one of Bram’s old Hot Wheels through it.
And then she is gone.
A cool breeze washes her away, and it’s only then I realize I’m soaked in sweat.
My nails are embedded in my palms, a prickling of blood in their wake.
Lilly runs over. Her tiny nose is wrinkled with curiosity. “Mommy, who was that?”
“That was a very bad woman.”
“Bad woman?”
“That’s right, Lilly. If she ever comes near you—run.”
I’d do the same, but it’s a little hard to kill someone when they’re not in your grasp.
Now, how to do it. What a wonderful project my mother has given me.
Death waits for you, Mother.
And only then will I truly live.
