“So you drove her to the woods and burned her?”
My heart rate is rising as I realize Nevaeh could have been alive when they burned her. Trapped inside her own mind, in a coma. Lyndee and her idiot boyfriend too high and stupid to know that a person’s heart rate can drop so low that even a stethoscope can struggle to pick it up.
“Steve said the mistake was already made. We could make it look like someone took her. I didn’t want to go to prison because of an accident!” She’s so insistent. So desperate for me to see her broken reasoning.
“An accident?” I ask. “What about the rest of the days? Not just the day you killed her. All the days you chose your piece of shit boyfriend over her, the nights she put herself to bed because you were too drunk to stand up, the nights she made herself dinner, the days she had to take care of YOU. You were her mother!”
Lyndee is temporarily stunned, her lips moving without sound.
“You knew her,” she finally says. “Did she tell you that?”
She did. Stories on the bus. Little things Nevaeh would say. Never accusatory in regards to her mother, just simple facts that slipped in during our conversations.
“Bambi was scared last night. She cried ‘til she fell asleep.”
“Why was she scared?”
“We were home alone.”
“Where was your mom?”
“Somewhere with Steve…”
“I ate brownies for dinner, and I felt so funny after.”
“You did? Was it someone’s birthday?”
“Naw. It was dinnertime. Mama was asleep, so I ate the brownies I found. But after that I felt dizzy and weird…”
“It was my birthday this weekend.”
‘What did you do? Did you go somewhere special?”
“No. Mama had to go somewhere important with Steve. She said we would go to a movie next week.”
“So you didn’t do anything for your birthday?”
“They sang to me at school, and Granny brought me over a cupcake.”
I try to find my humanity. There is forgiveness, even in the hardest human heart. I could hand her over to the police, but there’s no evidence. If they pushed her, perhaps she’d confess like she did with me, but if she didn’t, then what? Without proof, they’d have to let her go. Judah is right. There is no justice for the poor.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I can’t do that. From one murderess to another, you should understand.”
She whimpers. She was a little girl once. Just like Nevaeh, with pigtails and innocence and hopes for a life of love. Maybe if I picture her like that, I can forgive her. I try, but all I see is a murdering whore. She was born to be a murderess, just like me. Plus, I like the way this feels. Cleaning up. The satisfaction is deep. A warm shower when you’re cold. I pick up Bambi from where Lyndee dropped her, and tuck her under my arm.
Murderess!
Murderess!
I empty the gas can around her; it splashes on her arms and legs, the smell of petroleum burning my nose and making me light-headed. She yells and begs, brilliant, thick tears streaming down her face. All I can think is how she never cried for Nevaeh, not once, but here she is crying for herself. She stands up and rushes me, but the chain around her ankle yanks her back. She falls, but for a moment she is suspended in the air. I slip the book of matches from my back pocket. Heat flares across the shed. Lyndee screams. I close the door behind me. I burn her. One match from a book that I bought from the Quickie Corner—the ones with the teddy bear on them—and a locked room soaked in gasoline. An eye for an eye. A burn for a burn. Vengeance for Nevaeh.
I am a monster. I am just like her. One day I’ll burn, but not now. Now I’ll burn her. I am not five steps out when I see the crow. A dark blur on a branch. It caws at me. I lift a hand, wave to the bird, then carry on.
The smoke curls into the sky behind me as I pick my way back through the woods. I take my time, touching the leaves and listening to frogs and crickets. I am relaxed, lulled by her screams.
“Do you hear that, Nevaeh?” I say to the woods. “Vengeance is mine.”
I WAKE UP IN A COLD SWEAT. I am shaking so hard I bite down on my tongue and taste blood. There was a dream, horrific and violent, in which I burned Nevaeh’s mother alive. I swallow the blood in my mouth and stare down at my hands. My fingernails are dirty—ripped, jagged, and caked in dark dirt. I run to the bathroom. I don’t care if my mother has a man in her bedroom. I don’t care that I’m not supposed to be out here before seven so that he can leave in peace. I need to see myself. My face is dirty, my eyes big, panicked. There is blood on my chin and long scratches on my cheeks. I fill the sink with hot water, and grab the old rag from its hooks. Dipping it in the water, I scrub my face, then my fingernails.
“Oh my God. Oh my God…” I say it over and over to fill the silence of the eating house. Her body burning. Her screams. They were all real. I did that. Again. And it wasn’t an accident. Not the first time, not last night. I killed. I bend over, breathing hard, and then not breathing at all. I don’t know whether to breathe or not breathe. I don’t know whether to stand, or sit, or cry, or run. It wasn’t like this the first time. I killed Vola on instinct when I caught her in the act of beating her child. I planned Lyndee’s murder, agonized over the details, but I never saw her hurt Nevaeh. I could turn myself into the police. It’s then that I remember my mother is dead. It all comes back in a flash of memory: blood, the body bags, the tiny body in the corner of the bedroom. I straighten up, blinking at myself in the mirror.