Then he turned over the first photo. It faced me. A smiling seven-year-old boy, awkwardly posed, wearing a pressed collared shirt, stared up at me. An unease started gnawing through my ribs. I remembered that very school picture day so well because my big sister, Ellie, couldn’t decide what to do with her hair for her own school picture. As I looked at the backs of the other three hidden photos, the gnawing gave way to an educated guess. If they were like the first, they were each of a different person. And I knew these four people had at least two things in common. One, they were all dead. And two, they all died within arm’s reach of me.
To be clear, I’m not a sociopath. I’ve studied myself. I’ve felt empathy and sympathy. I’ve had long-lasting friendships and relationships. I’ve laughed so much so often that my obliques get sore like I’ve been rowing a boat. And I’ve cried too. At normal things like breakups, goodbyes, and manipulative commercials about cars with safe airbags. I’ve felt compassion. For the homeless. For the starving. For the lost. I’m also extremely kind to animals. Even as a young child, I boycotted the evil elephant-using circus every year when it rumbled into town. To put it simply, I respected life. But Keith Jackson didn’t know this. He stared me down, wanting to believe the worst of me, waiting for me to break.
After a pause long enough to make most people uncomfortable, the detective laid into me. He started by leaning back, away from the photos, a show of calm strength. He said, “I’ve been on the force twenty years. Before that I was in the army. And no one has ever died in front of me. Not one person. Soldier. Civilian. Cop. Criminal. Not a one. Sure, I’ve rushed junkies to the hospital while they overdosed. I’ve hauled my fair share of people with gunshot wounds into ambulances. And of course, when I’m called in to investigate a homicide, I’ll see a corpse or two. But never has anyone had a freak accident and died while in the same room as me. Even my ninety-year-old grandma gracefully passed away when I was out of the house.
“But you. You have four dead people in your midst. At least. That I know about for sure. And one of them is your husband.” He punched the word husband, to make sure it hit hard, in the air. I felt it. But did not flinch. He leaned forward, his broad shoulders hulking in, just a little. “How do you explain that, Ms. Simon?”
It was a valid question. And as I decided how I might respond to him, my mind raced back and all the details of my life that led me to this exact moment came to the surface. It was like Remembrance of Things Past, but instead of waxing poetic about my life while drinking a cup of tea, I had a cup of tap water. Which I was sure was given to me to acquire my DNA and fingerprints without a warrant. Before I answered him, I took a long sip, knowing my DNA and fingerprints were not going to help this homicide detective one way or the other anyway.
CHAPTER 3
ELLIE
The boy in the photo, the boy I murdered, was named Duncan Reese. He was a bratty only child governed by the assumption that there was a limited amount of happiness in the world. So if some other kid was happy, it zapped Duncan of his own joy. Because of this toxic belief, he took it upon himself to sabotage the merriment of others. Joshua got a new bike. Duncan smashed it with a baseball bat. Vicky was chosen to play a piano solo for the back-to-school assembly. Duncan “mistakenly” broke the school’s piano while “horsing around” in the auditorium that morning. To celebrate his birthday, Griffin brought in chocolate chip cupcakes for everyone in his class. Duncan, not in Griffin’s class, decided if he couldn’t enjoy one, no one should. Claiming it was unfair, he flung the cheery red-and-orange-polka-dotted box into the school hallway, ruining all twelve cupcakes inside.
I was too young to be on Duncan’s radar, and although I was energetic and spirited, I rarely exuded actual happiness, so he never tormented me. It was my older sister, Ellie, who was his favorite target. Also seven, she was in his grade. They had known each other since prekindergarten, and each year the systematic bullying got worse. Ellie had ringlets of curly sunset-colored hair and big green eyes. Traits of beauty later in life, but in childhood, fodder for teasing. Lizard Eyes and Snake Head were her usual nicknames. Whatever. She didn’t lose sleep over it, especially since even crueler names existed for other kids in school. But Duncan took the teasing and added viciousness. He would often block her path in doorways, trip her on stairs, and drop insects he caught and trapped into her lap in class so she would jump up, screaming, and look like a fool. He constantly threatened that he was going to hold her down and cut off each crimson curl, one by one. Or maybe, if he felt like it, yank them out instead. One day during a fire drill, he made good on his promise and actually ripped out an entire lock, leaving a bloody bald spot on her porcelain scalp.
Duncan swore it was an accident. He got off with a casual warning to play more gently, especially with girls. Victim-blaming starts young. It somehow became my sister’s fault for being too delicate. Too breakable.
After that, I started to worry. She was not just my sister; she was also my best friend, my safe place, my idol, and my god. She was my prize possession. Ellie was, and still is, my favorite thing in the whole wide world. I feared Duncan would break her to the point of no repair. Ruin her forever. Because of Duncan, she was ashamed of her fiery hair, she rarely smiled, and she stopped playing dress-up and pretend with me altogether. She started to hate school, looked over her shoulder constantly, refused to use public bathrooms, and now had nightmares. Duncan was infecting even her most private moments. Her dreams. I could hear her through the walls, yelping in her sleep. Our bedrooms were connected by a bathroom that we shared, and her pitiful cries echoed across the black and white Art Deco tiles. Our parents’ bedroom was far away, on the other side of the kitchen. So no one but me could hear Ellie’s whimpering.
Years of therapy have taught me not to use the word should. It’s empty and pointless. But fuck it. My parents should have taken more action against the bullying. The teachers should have protected Ellie and stopped it. The principal should have kicked Duncan out of school long before things got so bad. But none of them really saw it the way I did. Like Duncan’s parents on the shore, they were all too wrapped up in their own lives to notice Ellie’s confidence and sparkle fading away. Because to a great degree Ellie was my life, I was the one to clearly notice her descent into wishing to be invisible.
Before Duncan accelerated his engine of persecution, Ellie was vivacious, effervescent, kind, and giving. But not cloyingly sweet or desperate to make friends. She had her own strong opinions, one being that poems should have to rhyme. But she was open to listening to others, and if anyone needed a fourth for box ball, even if she wasn’t totally in the mood, she would jump in. She made any room she was in more appealing, always fun yet never frantic. Like a perfectly balanced scented candle. The opposite of Duncan, she believed joy was limitless, not a commodity to be stolen. The more others felt happiness, the more she felt it. So she tried to spread it around, multiply it until it filled the whole world. She smiled at the elderly who were so often ignored; she made nondenominational holiday cards for everyone on our block, including the grumpy divorced lady on the corner. She chatted with the school bus driver so he wouldn’t feel left out of the conversations going on in the back.