“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, supportingmy 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. Icouldn’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.Youare 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 Ineedthat 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 backnow,” 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.”
