And I know why.
All my life I’d only heard him referred to as Pat.
But his real name is Patrick.
Patrick McDeere.
It didn’t occur to me that the second half of his name could also be turned into a different nickname.
Ricky.
Ricky sat in one of the leather chairs next to the fireplace. My father stood beside the other one, his back toward the door. Neither one of them noticed me as I crept into the room, the glinting knife in my grip leading the way. They only became aware of my presence once I said, “Where’s my baby?”
“It’s gone, Virginia,” my father said with his back still to me, as if I wasn’t even worth the effort of turning around.
“Bring him back.”
“It’s too late for that, my darling.”
“Don’t call me that!” I snapped, my hand tightening around the knife. “Don’t you dare call me that ever again! Now tell me what happened to my son.”
“Miss Baker took him. She won’t be returning.”
“What do you mean?”
“That she’s gone for good.” My father said it like it was the most reasonable thing in the world. “She agreed to leave Hope’s End with the child, find it a good home, and never speak of the incident again.”
A hot and stinging jolt of pain went through me. It was, I realized, the pain of betrayal. I felt so stupid then. So utterly foolish that I had deemed Miss Baker worthy of trust when all she truly cared about was herself.
“For how much?” I said, for I knew there was a price.
“Not as much as Patrick here.” My father looked at Ricky. “I did get the name right, didn’t I? Patrick McDeere?”
Ricky swallowed hard and nodded.
“For fifty thousand dollars, Mr. McDeere will leave, never return, and never speak of his bastard child. Isn’t that right, son?”
“Yes, sir,” Ricky mumbled, refusing to look at me.
“You made him agree to this,” I said to my father. To Ricky, I added, “Tell him no.”
At last, my father turned around, his gaze bouncing from one part of me to another. My crestfallen face first, then to my hand, where the knife remained.
“Now, look here, Virginia,” my father said as he continued to stare at the knife. “There’s no need for that.”
I kept my own gaze on Ricky. “Tell him! Tell him you love me and that we’re going to run away and find our baby and have a happy family.”
“But he doesn’t want that,” my father said. “Do you, son?”
“You’re lying.” I turned to Ricky. “Tell me he’s lying!”
Ricky’s gaze also skipped about. To the unlit fireplace, to his hands, to the zebra rug under his feet. Anywhere but at me.
“It’s true, Ginny,” he mumbled. “I’m sorry.”
“See?” My father’s tone was shockingly boastful. He was, I realized, enjoying the worst moment of my life. “I know you’re hurt now, but it’s for the best. You don’t want trash like him dragging you down for the rest of your life.”
“But--”
It was all I could muster. Shock and heartbreak had silenced me. But I knew I could still speak volumes with the knife in my hand.
I tried to rush at both of them, not caring which one I hurt just as long as I inflicted pain on someone. But before I could take a step, I was halted by a gentle grip on the arm that held the knife.
My mother.
No doubt summoned by my sister.
Although I was surprised to see her out of bed and walking around on her own, my mother barely seemed fazed by the sight of me holding a knife. Alert for the first time in weeks, she knew exactly what was transpiring in that billiard room.
“Don’t, my darling,” she said, her hands disconcertingly strong as she wrested the knife from my grip. “They’re not worth destroying your young life over.”
I let her take the knife from my hand and collapsed against her, weeping. With the knife in one hand and stroking my hair with the other, she addressed my father.
“Fifty thousand dollars, Winston? Your price has gone up. If I recall, you only offered twenty-five thousand to make the man I loved go away.”
“That didn’t stop him from taking it,” my father said with not an ounce of softness in his voice. “You can judge me for it all you want--and you certainly have--but it was the best thing to happen to you. It allowed you to get married, pretend that Lenora was my child, and keep your precious reputation intact.”
His words caused something inside my mother to break. I watched it happen. Her eyes went dark and her body still. Standing silent and motionless, she reminded me of a clock unnervingly stopped at midnight.
Yet one small part of her continued to tick. I saw that, too. Something coiled around the gears of her mind, ready to spring.
And spring she did.
Toward my father.
Knife in hand.
Not stopping until the blade was deep in his side.
My father didn’t scream when the knife plunged into him. I did that for him, letting out a sharp cry that pinged around the room in an infernal echo. I could still hear it when my mother yanked the knife from my father’s gut.
He clutched at the wound, blood seeping between his fingers as he stumbled against the pool table.
“Please take my daughter out of the room,” my mother said to Ricky in a voice as calm as a spring morn. “Now.”
Ricky leapt from the chair and took me by the hand, although the last thing I wanted was to feel his touch. Yet I was too stunned and horrified to do anything but let him pull me from the room, into the hallway, and toward the foyer.
“It’s a dream, right?” I said, more to myself than to Ricky. “Just a terrible dream.”
Yet the waking nightmare continued as a grunt and a gurgle sounded from the billiard room. My mother emerged a few moments later, still holding the now-crimson knife. Blood covered her nightgown and dripped from her hands in large dollops that fell across the foyer floor.
I pulled myself from Ricky’s grasp and ran up the Grand Stairs, wanting nothing more than to be upstairs in bed, fast asleep, waking up to a new day in which none of this had happened. My mother took a few shuffling steps, moving as if in a daze. Perhaps she thought it was a dream as well. A horrible, terrible, blood-drenched dream.
But as my mother climbed the steps to join Ricky on the landing, I saw it was all too real--and that the blood covering her wasn’t just my father’s.
It was also her own.
A tear in the fabric of her nightgown revealed a gushing wound in her stomach. The moment I saw it, I knew my mother had also used the knife on herself.
“Mother!” I cried as I started to run back down the stairs.
Ricky, still on the landing, halted me with a gruff “Don’t come any closer, Ginny!”
I stopped halfway to the landing, frozen by confusion and fear. I watched as Ricky approached my mother and took the blood-soaked knife from her hands.
“Please,” my mother whispered to him. “Please put an end to my misery.”
Ricky shook his head. “You don’t mean that.”
“Don’t tell me what I mean,” my mother snapped. “You don’t know me. You don’t know how much I’ve suffered. You wouldn’t, of course. You’re just a shiftless, worthless cad who will amount to nothing.”
My mother’s eyes contained a determined spark that worried me. I knew what she was trying to do--and that Ricky was falling for it.
“Don’t talk about me like that,” he said.
“Why?” my mother said. “It’s true, isn’t it? You come from nothing, you’ll live with nothing, and you’ll die with nothing. You’re worthless.”
Ricky stiffened, his body coiled with tension. “I’m not.”
“Then prove it,” my mother said. “Be a man for once and prove you’re not a piece of--”
From the stairs, I screamed as I saw a flash of movement at Ricky’s hand.
The knife.
The rest happened so quickly I can scarcely recall it. A small mercy. What I do remember--the sound of the knife entering my mother’s torso, her collapsing on the landing--is horrible enough.
When it was over, I flew down the stairs to my mother’s side. It was clear she was mortally wounded. Her face had become stark white, and there was blood everywhere. It soaked into my nightgown as I screamed at Ricky to call for help.
“Help us! Please!”
The knife remained in Ricky’s grip. He stared at it in disbelief for a moment before looking directly at me and my dying mother.
“I-I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I didn’t mean to--”
“Get out,” I said, my voice a ragged whisper.
“It’s true, Ginny. You have to believe me.”
“Get out!” I said again, this time in a roar borne of pain, anger, and fear.
Ricky dropped the knife and fled out the front door and into the dark night.
A minute after he left, so, too, did my mother. I was holding her hand when I felt the last flicker of her pulse. I kept holding it even as the skin grew cold, not knowing what else to do. My parents were dead. My child was gone. The man I had once loved but didn’t any longer had fled. How is one supposed to carry on when they have nothing left?