“Was this the beginning? Her not wanting Bethany to stay with you during the day?” He looks up at me, and I hate the calm way he asks the question. It is textbook psychology, the way my mother used to broach subjects, the way the postpartum shrink spoke when he asked if I ever thought about harming my child.
“No.” I scratch a dry spot on my forearm. “That wasn’t the beginning.” The beginning… I can’t even pinpoint it. It was always them against me. I believed in full disclosure when parenting my child. They believed in half-truths and sheltering. I believed that they were out to get me. They believed I was unfit, a terrible mother. Careless. Incompetent. My chest tightens. In some ways, they were right. I think of her, of her stiff posture and carefully chosen words, beside me on the couch. She still sides with him. He is dead, he was the cause of it all, and she still sides with him. Maybe I should have told her the truth, and let her sink her psychological teeth into that. Your son-in-law is a liar. I killed him.
“Helena?” Mark leans forward and I stand quickly, my hip colliding with the edge of the desk, my eyes flooding with tears. I barely make it to the office door before a sob wheezes out.
MARK
She is keeping something from him. It’s like reading one of her books. The clues are there. He just, for the life of him, can’t figure them out.
It’s maddening. He can deal with it in her books. The pages can turn faster, life can be put on hold as he furiously burns through the novel. At most, it takes a day, a day to find out everything. But, it’s been five weeks now. Five weeks where he has written as quickly as he can. Five weeks where he has wanted nothing more than to tie her in place and force her to tell him everything. He doesn’t know how much longer he can stand it.
He pushes to his feet and steps out into the hall. Following the sounds of her sobs, he stops at a closed door, the one at the end of the hall. Putting his hands against the wood, he lowers his ear to it and listens.
HELENA
I take short breaths, my nose running, the sleeve of my sweatshirt now smeared in yellow mucus, the sobs not stopping, not easing, each hiccupping inhale only pushing my hysteria further. I press my fingers to my eyes and fight to hold out the memories. I did it. I killed. I destroyed. I am the reason they are both gone and I’m alone. I did all of that. Not Simon, and his mountain of sins. Not my Mother, and her fucking judgments and opinions. I did. I should be in jail. I shouldn’t be in this house, in this bedroom, breathing in the scents and colors of my child. I sag, my arms buckling, my chest colliding with the door, and turn, sinking against the wood, and slowly sliding down its surface, my ankle painfully turning before I make it to the floor.
Had I been a terrible mother? I think I had been. I think I had been, and I think I’d known it, and I think I was almost happy that day. I think, when my arms were pumping, and I was sprinting through those neighborhoods, and thinking of Simon dying—I think I was fucking happy. Because yes, I would be the hero of this story. And yes, she would love me. And yes, they would all say that I was wonderful, and he was crazy, and we would live happily ever after.
I choke on a sob and lean back my head and scream.
MARK
The scream is one animals make as they die, one that comes from within and is filled with such despair that it drops you to your knees. A scream that makes you question every second left in life. The scream vibrates through the door, and he pulls at the locked knob, then bangs on it, calling out her name. She can’t be alone like this. She can’t make that sound and be okay. She can’t go through this, whatever this is, and survive.
“Helena!” He sinks to his knees and presses his ear to the floor, another scream radiating, the sound so wracked with emotion it almost feels tangible. It dies and there is a gasp, then a sob, then the rattle of something against the door, and it takes a minute to understand that it’s the shudder of shoulders against wood, of her body shaking as she breaks. He had wondered what it would take for her to come apart, he just hadn’t realized she was so close.
“Helena,” he whispers. “Please open the door.”
The rattle stops, and for almost a minute, there is only the soft sound of sobs. When she finally speaks, he has to strain to hear the words.
“I can’t do it.” She whispers. “I thought I could tell you, but I can’t.”
There is fear in those words, as if he will judge her. Guilt in her sob, as if she is ashamed. If she opens the door, what will her face show? He closes his eyes and searches for the right words, something to bridge the gap between them. Words had never been kind to him, not when they came from his mouth. It was only through writing, that he had been able to really speak his mind. He stiffens. “Then don’t tell me. Write it. Maybe this piece of the book… it needs to come from you.” Such a simple concept, painfully obvious once stated. Why had they ever planned on him telling that portion of the story? Everything was building to, everything was centered around an event so personal it should only come from her. Another writer could never describe how he felt when Ellen’s last breath wheezed out. Another writer could never describe the depth of emptiness, the hollow absence of life, that came when she passed. There were days he had looked at his daughter and hated her. There were moments, alone with a bottle, that he had caressed the trigger of his gun and contemplated ending it all. No one else could ever tell that story, unless they had lived that life. How was Helena’s any different? Why had they ever thought that he would have the ability to tell it—to take that piece of her heart and mold it into his words?
He stands, his knees creaking, his back flaring as he moves too quickly, long strides that take him to the office, his hands fumbling through her drawers and to the stack of notepads. He grabs one, along with a pencil and pen, and makes his way back to the door, no sound coming from the other side. From the thin opening at the bottom, he can see her shadow, her thin body tucked against the frame. He pushes the first notepad through, feeding the pen and pencil next, the shadow shifting against the light.
“I’m not doing it.” The words have a spine, and he wants to hug her for saying them, for coming out of that shell long enough to snarl.
“Just try.” The same words he said to Maggie on the morning of Ellen’s funeral. Just try. Just try to get dressed. Just try to eat. Just try to remember all of the good, all of her smiles, all of the memories. Just try to continue living. “Just whatever part is hardest for you to share.”
She says nothing. She doesn’t move, there is no sound. He sits back on his knees and eyes the pink end of the pencil’s eraser. It doesn’t move. Minutes pass, and after ten, he shifts his weight, settling against the wall, his feet stretched out in front of him. Surely, she will write. To put pen and paper in front of an artist is bait. She won’t be able to resist its draw. She won’t be able, with all of that ripping apart of her emotions, to stop its bleed onto the page.
If there is a story inside of her, it will come out. In their world, nothing else makes sense.
Then, her voice faint and muffled, she speaks.
“Would you trust me with your daughter?” I say the words quietly, my cheek resting against the door, my body now curled into a wilted ball against the wood.
“In what way?”
“Would you leave me alone with her?”
“Yes.” Mark sounds sure of himself, but then again, his daughter is nineteen. I’m a decrepit skeleton, barely about to lift up a dictionary. What harm could I do? Physically I am weak. Emotionally—she wouldn’t listen to anything I’d say.
Not like Bethany. Bethany was so fragile, so tiny. Her mind was so pliable, so easily influenced by Simon and me. Would Mark have trusted me with his daughter as a child? Probably not. I’m too cynical to even ask that question.