I was preoccupied with attributing blame at the time. Whose fault was this? The question tormented me. Was it Rob’s fault, for dying? It made me think of him as a bad father. Troubled, I weighed up my own role in Imogen’s life and took the resulting guilt like punishment.
I vowed to make things up to her, to make her life better.
Not once did it occur to me that she might be lying and casting herself as a victim in order to manipulate me. And not just me.
But I can’t focus on this too much now. It’s too destabilizing. I’m afraid it’ll nudge me off the path I need to be on. Too much isgoing wrong as it is. For now, I need to process the fact that I have her with me when I didn’t expect to.
Tonight was supposed to be about making final preparations for tomorrow. And for recovering. The work of murder is many things, endlessly discussed in literature and philosophy, involving ethical and moral concerns, affairs of the heart, revenge. But the prosaic is rarely delved into. Murder, the disposal of bodies, is also exhausting. I need to batten down the hatches tonight, and rest.
But there’s no reason I can’t do that with Imogen here.
Before she went for a bath, she was obsessively checking her phone, hunched over it as if it was the answer to everything. In fact, she’s been like that since I collected her. More than usual, I’d say.
Now that I understand that she lied to me to get broken out of camp, I also have a hunch that she might have plans for tonight that don’t involve me. And she still has the cash I gave her.
The smell of bath oil trails Imogen into the room. She looks nice. Her face is flushed. Without a word she settles onto the sofa opposite me and lays her phone, a nail file, and polish out on the coffee table. She gets to work.
Upstairs, she’s left the bathmat crumpled on the floor, a Rorschach blot of damp in the middle of it, a partial wet footprint severed by its edge. I piss. Savor the relief. Wash my hands.
The steamed-up bathroom mirror paralyzes me momentarily, the opaque white sheen on it reminding me of a frosty coating, and I think of the flesh in the freezer, and of ice crystals forming within it. I scrub at the condensation with my hand and a bout of violent retching brings me to my knees over the toilet bowl. It’s painful and unproductive. My stomach is empty. Just some bile emerges, sticky swags of it.
I clean myself up and take a moment to lie on the floor. The tiles are cool. I bury my face in the bathmat, in the damp traces of Imogen, the one I’m doing all this for.
The doorbell rings. Shrill. One blast, two. An insolent third.
I get up, panic driving hasty movements, and watch from the top of the stairs as Imogen darts across the hall and opens the door.
To Jemma. Her friend. I guess Imogen invited her here after all. I wish she’d told me. They greet each other with the enthusiasm of puppies. When Jemma sees me, she composes herself and smiles sweetly. She and I both know that no one considers her a good friend for Imogen. Jemma is too wayward. Perhaps the self-harm deception was her idea.
I paste myself against the landing wall as they dash upstairs together and the door to Imogen’s room slams shut like an insult. I hear giggling.
Jemma is a problem I have to solve. I cannot have her here tonight. I thought I could cope with it, but I can’t. It’s one thing too many. She hypes Imogen up, brings out the selfish in her. I’m craving peace. And now I have another thing to raise with Imogen: don’t invite friends around without double-checking that it’s okay. Parenting is hard.
I should be relaxing, and I try, while they’re upstairs, because I need a clear mind to think what to do about Jemma, but I’m so fired up now that I google Dark Fell Barn on my laptop, combing through the website like I haven’t done that a thousand times before, trying to imagine Jayne, Ruth, and Emily within it, players on my stage.
Which room are they in? How are they feeling? Are they driving each other crazy yet, trying to figure out if the letter’s a real threat, or not?
Thinking about their men? Wondering who the victim is?
All our lives are going to be so different from now on. They have no idea.
I shut my laptop and notice that Imogen has left her phone on the table. What a bonus. Something going right at last. I pick it up, make sure it’s on silent, and slip it into my pocket. If I separate herfrom it for a while, at least she won’t be able to do anything else behind my back. I find a home for it deep in a kitchen cupboard.
“Hey,” Imogen says. I snatch my arm out of the cupboard. Imogen and Jemma are standing together in the kitchen doorway like a pair of twins.
“We’re going out,” Imogen states. Jemma gives me that smile again.
If Imogen goes out, I’ll have to be anxious about what she’s doing and who she’s with. I’ll have to wait up for her to get home. I won’t be able to rest.
“I’m sorry, but absolutely not. I collected you from camp because you were distressed, Imogen. What is this you’re going out to? A party?”
Jemma puts on her poker face, but a twitch of her lips gives her away and tells me I’m right. Imogen looks embarrassed for a moment before gathering some outrage. The bravado of the young exhausts me sometimes. What they don’t know is a lot.
“You’ve got no right to stop me,” Imogen states, defiance in her stance and her expression.
“I have every right.”
“You’re not my mother!”
