Painful Truths

by Brian Spangler

  “Time to go home?” I asked. My mother cocked her head and wiped her brow. She glanced at the body of the dead man. I knew we weren’t done, though, and added, “I guess not.”

  “That’s right, baby girl,” she confirmed, my hopes dashed. She patted her cheeks, fanned the air, her face still glistening. “You did well. Really well. And it’s time to finish.”

  Thunder rolled—distant and passing. I hoped the storm would find a path toward us. The land was vast and empty. We’d been here before. I recognized the spot. To one side, I saw the mountains. Giants. Hulking boulders, silhouetted and black as the night. In the dark, I couldn’t tell how far away they were, but I stared and waited for them to move, waited for them to sit up and stretch out a yawn. They never budged. And from the other side of the car, I saw the city, the lights spiraling up floor after floor, dressing the skyscrapers like a lighted holiday tree.

  “A heartbeat,” I mumbled, the city lights blinking a steady rhythm.

  To each side, the city lights spread like a halo, washing out the stars and showing me where we lived. Our home was in the brush where the light failed, where the weakest glimmers emerged from rows of homes on the outskirts of the city. I thought of my bed and how I wanted to be tucked in, buried beneath the covers, protected from knowing who we were.

  Behind our car were the trees, too far from the lights to see. I heard them, though, and I loved the sound. Their music made what we did seem less real somehow. The wind rustled the branches as crickets and tree frogs kept us company. I concentrated on the sounds as if they were talking to me, mumbling sweet nothings while I lifted my daddy’s belt, eased it off the man’s neck. Moonlight poured through the windshield, shining on his face. I stopped, frozen by his lifeless glare. My mother caught me staring and covered his bulging eyes, closed the lids forever.

  “Have to put everything away before we give him back,” she said, tucking him in and then zipping his trousers. She worked on his loose clothes, stirring the stench of sex and death.

  Another roll of thunder. I cast my eyes forward, peering through the window. The sky flashed white, like a giant sheet had been thrown over us. I waited, but no sound came.

  “Sheet lightning,” I said, remembering what my father had called it.

  “What’s that, baby girl?” my mother asked, sounding winded, hurrying to finish dressing the dead man.

  “Storm?” I asked.

  “Shit,” she answered, ducking her head down to peer through the window. “Have to hurry, baby.”

  I plopped down onto the backseat, the humidity turning my skin wet and sticky. I was tired, and my legs shook from trying to stand. My mother tried lifting the man, heaving and letting out a grunt. His head rolled like a budding flower on a broken stem. I cringed, hating this part. Sometimes their bones cracked when we waited too long—the arms and legs popping and snapping, their joints and muscles turning rigid and useless.

  “Drunk,” my mother said, rushing her words, a sense of urgency replacing the sex, replacing the murder. I knew this part too, and felt my gut flutter. It was the excitement of hiding what we did, burying it. “Have to make him look like he’s drunk and we’re driving him home—case we get pulled over, like the last time. Can you remember that?”

  “Uh-huh,” I answered, circling the leather belt around and around, coiling it, putting it away for next time. “And he’s dead?”

  My mother sat up, pinching the man’s collar, straightening it. “Dead?”

  I shook my head, wanting to be sure. She brought her arm as far back as she could and swung, striking the man as sheet lightning flashed around us. The man’s head snapped to the side with a crack and slumped forward.

  “Yes, dead. Now lie down, baby girl,” she instructed. She climbed over the man to reach me. She cradled my head and tucked my hair behind my ear. “You did good tonight. Now it’s time to get some sleep. I’ll wake you when it’s time.” As she eased back, she raised her finger to her lips one last time.

  ***

  “Amy?” I heard my father’s voice. “Amy, it’s time to wake up.”

  My eyes sprang open and I bolted from my bed, swinging my arms and searching for the coiled belt. I wanted to throw it as far from me as I could, to rid my life of the poison that came with it. But in the darkness, my hands found each other, and then my arms as I tried to settle myself. My clothes were damp, and my skin chilled.

  “I’m home!” I cried, realizing it had been a nightmare.

  “Babe?” Steve asked.

  “Sleep, hon,” I told him, laying back down and pulling the covers up to my chin. A rattle came to my chest. A strong sentiment woke with my dream. I was beginning to remember more of what we had done to those men. Finding the belt in my mother’s house was only the beginning. There was a bigger puzzle, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before I’d see all of what we did.

  “Daddy?” I whispered. I had heard my father’s voice in my dream too, telling me to wake up.

  Hadn’t I?

  Confused, I rolled over, turning away from Steve. I gripped my pillow, wetting it with fresh tears. I missed my father and hearing his voice jarred my memories, but it jarred something else too. I missed my mother.

  TEN

  I SHIVERED AT THE cold touch of the toilet seat, my underpants crumpled around my ankles, the heel of my foot tapping anxiously against the tiled floor. If anyone else were home, they’d come running or maybe call out, asking what the noise was. But I was alone. I was nervous, and I was scared.

  Perched on the edge of the bathroom sink, a pregnancy test. I gripped my hands, rubbing them needlessly. I’d let a week pass since missing my period. My mind raced out of control. I could do that easily enough—speculate and dream up the worst of the worst. I needed to calm down. I checked my phone for the hundredth time.

  Maybe a bath afterward, I thought aimlessly. And a glass of wine.

  “Wait. I can’t do that,” I mumbled. “Not if I’m pregnant.”

  The tub sat across from me, empty, barren, the drippings of a candle’s waxy remains stuck to the sides like a scab—left over from when Steve took care of me while I mourned Katie’s death.

  “If only you were barren too,” I said, half joking. But then another flit of nervous energy sent sparks into my mind that pounded against the walls of my skull.

  “I need to wash my hands,” I added, waiting for my pee to do whatever it was that pee was supposed to do in a situation like this.

  I checked the pregnancy test, tilting it, wishing it had an alarm—a bright one with an obnoxious siren like a department store’s blue-light special.

  The pharmacy shelves had held every possible type of pregnancy test imaginable, leaving me overwhelmed, undecided, and feeling like a scared teen whose first kiss had gone too far. I just needed a simple one—pee on it, and be done. When I was pregnant with Michael, there had only been a few to choose from. An easy decision. I had bought them all. And then with Snacks, we didn’t know I was pregnant until we knew. But today, I needed to know. I needed to know because being pregnant would change everything.

  “Can I help you?” I’d heard in my ear, thinking it was some fantasy fairy godmother that had come to help. A small older woman wearing an oversize white lab coat had lifted a finger and pointed to the shelf.

  “Oh, I don’t know which one,” I told her. She’d heard the emotion in my voice and patted my shoulder.

  “Do you know what the funny thing is?” she asked, leaning forward and picking the simplest, most generic-looking box. “They all do exactly the same thing.”

  “The same?”

  “The same,” she answered. “Here. This one. This will tell you. And I wish you good luck.”

  “Thank you,” I said again, but frowned, unsure how to feel about potentially being pregnant.

  “Oh,” she responded, her penciled brow lifting. “Or maybe a different kind of luck, then. All the same, this one. You won’t need a second.” She handed me the box and disappeared aroun
d the corner of the aisle.

  “This one,” I had said, repeating her words. But just to be sure, I grabbed a second box.

  How could I have been too busy to notice? How could I have missed my period?

  I’d counted the days a dozen times, but by now no creative counting could skew the facts.

  “Come on, already . . .” The clock on my phone told me I had another minute, another sixty seconds to figure out what we were going to do with the rest of our lives.

  Could I make any decision in one minute? Do I even know what questions to ask?

  I started to cry, afraid of knowing the future the pee stick’s little window was going to show. I thought back to my Magic 8 Ball—a favorite toy when I was young. Its guide to the future had been so helpful.

  “Outlook is good.”

  “Don’t count on it.”

  “As I see it, yes.”

  “It is certain.”

  With the last prediction, I let out a childish giggle. It was five years later when I finally learned the truth about the Magic 8 Ball. Another fight with my mother, another angry rush to leave my home. I’d been packing my things when the glossy black sphere had rolled out from beneath my bed. I plopped down on my pillow and sought an answer. After years of neglect, the ball was covered in dust and scratches, dulling the finish, but it still offered the liquid-blue advice. I shook the ball, desperately hoping to read some wisdom, but the answer told me that the outlook was not so good. I had tried again and again, wanting to change the prediction, wanting to string the triangle prophecies together until they worked in my favor. And that was when I realized there was no magic, that the answers were what I wanted them to be. And sadly, I realized that I was growing up. I dropped my old toy then, let it plop onto my bedroom floor with a soft thud.

  I picked up the pregnancy test and uncapped the end. I noticed I had partially missed hitting the collection pad.

  Was there enough pee?

  I had a spare, just in case. I knew I was overly compulsive, but my hands trembled, and my breath shuddered from having had a cry. I couldn’t help but feel afraid. Magic 8 Ball or not, there was no spinning this in my favor.

  “I can’t be pregnant,” I told myself, squeezing my bladder to try and pee just a little more, thinking it would help. But I was empty. “I can’t be pregnant. Not now.”

  I decided I’d waited long enough. I didn’t shake the stick like I would have my Magic 8 Ball, but there I was, staring at a tiny window again to try and read my future. The image of the blue plus sign blurred behind my watery eyes.

  I was pregnant.

  I instantly fell in love with the life inside of me. A million questions sprang to mind like a weedy garden days after a hard rain, but only one of them mattered.

  “How am I going to tell Steve?”

  ELEVEN

  THE SOUND OF MORNING birds stirred me awake. I slipped deeper beneath the bed sheets, covering my face to hide from the day. I had to get up and get the household started, but desperately wanted to steal a few more minutes. I ran my foot to the other side of the bed, nudging the blankets, expecting to reach Steve’s warm leg, but found only the cold instead.

  Has he left already?

  If he’d been here, I think I would have told him the news, told him we were pregnant. I wanted him to know. I’d wanted him to know from the moment I saw the plus sign in the pregnancy test’s popsicle-stick window. But with everything he had going on, I had thought maybe it would be best to wait.

  “For a little while,” I mumbled into my pillow. “Just wait until he’s settled into his new job.”

  An image of the new detective taking over for Steve came to mind. Hazel eyes. I’d wait until Steve found his groove, his day-to-day, when all of his cases were transferred and he was more like his old self. But something about the new detective bothered me. He wasn’t what he seemed. I couldn’t put my finger on why, though, and was tempted to chalk it up to pregnancy hormones. Maybe it was his expensive suit or the pretty-boy, manicured look. He certainly wasn’t Steve’s old partner, and maybe that’s what was bothering me. Trust. Or lack thereof. I trusted John with Steve’s life. But this new detective? Call it intuition, but I’d tell Steve to quit the force altogether if they ever had to work together.

  As if agreeing with me, a jay or crow cawed outside our bedroom window. I eased my eyes open, letting a sliver of morning light slip in. The house was asleep too, silent. But that wouldn’t last. It was Saturday and Michael wouldn’t stir until nearly noon—he’d been up late playing video games, though he didn’t think I’d noticed. With a new baby on my mind, my night had been sleepless anyway. I gave the house another hour before the barefooted rumble from Snacks would swallow the quiet.

  Pancakes.

  The smell and taste came to me and stayed.

  A craving? Too soon.

  I was up and out of bed, sleepy but hungry. As I took to the steps leading down, I noticed Steve had been in his office—had left the door slightly ajar. I found papers shuffled on his desk, the computer still on. Curious, I hit the keyboard, waking the computer from our family photo screen saver. On the screen, I saw Nerd’s software program. Or what looked a lot like it.

  Steve’s browsing the Deep Web?

  I read through the listings, the links whose names and handles I’d come to recognize.

  How?

  “What is this?” I asked, my voice sounding like a sigh.

  “What are you doing?” Steve’s voice exploded in my ear and his hands wrapped around my middle in a pinch. I flinched and swung around, slapping his chest as he laughed at having scared me.

  “You’re a slob,” I declared, hoping to cover up my snooping with a swipe at the stray pages. “Came in here looking for you and found a mess.”

  His eyes darted to the desk. “Damn cat. I shouldn’t have left those out,” he answered and let out a comical mew. I felt the sting of a tear, felt emotional at the thought of telling him he was going to be a father again. Steve saw my face and shook his head, confused. He kissed my lips and cheek. “Babe?”

  “Just got sad for a minute thinking what I would have done if I’d lost you,” I told him. Then I surprised myself by moving his hand to my belly. “Steve, I couldn’t imagine raising a family with anyone else in the world.”

  His eyes dropped to his hand. “Babe, what are you saying?”

  I leaned into him, returning his kisses as I whispered into his ear, “We’re going to have a baby.” He said nothing. Instead, he delivered a flurry of kisses, his eyes watering with mine.

  He stood back and held my hands out, “Love the shirt, by the way,” he said.

  “The shirt?” I realized I’d crept down the steps wearing nothing but one of his shirts. It wasn’t until the low slant of sunlight came into the room that I saw how sheer the fabric was. His face lit up, telling me exactly how he wanted to celebrate the news.

  “Kids are still asleep,” he said, taking to his knees and encouraging me to join him on the floor.

  “So persuasive,” I joked and joined him, my hands quickly finding the buttons to his pants.

  Coffee and pancakes could wait, at least for a little while.

  Even while he was perched above me, though, I couldn’t help but gaze over at the computer’s monitor and to the Deep Web links.

  If Steve has Nerd’s software, how much do the police know?

  ***

  Later, in the deepest of the night, when the house had been asleep for a while, I crept back to the office, to the Deep Web links I’d seen earlier. I needed confirmation, so I took screen shots and texted them to Nerd. He’d have something to explain tomorrow, but for now, I’d done my part.

  Steve’s office was still a mess. My mother’s case file was strewn over the desk in what I thought might be his attempt at producing a timeline. I sipped my herbal tea, wincing at the bitterness and wishing it were wine. I knew better, though.

  Among the photos, I saw a map. I pulled it out to find a penned d
rawing with Steve’s handwriting. It showed long roads, and the city and the town where I’d grown up. It wasn’t just my hometown on the map, though—he’d also marked where the men’s bodies were found.

  “You’re investigating the case, aren’t you?” I asked, blowing the steam from my cup. “Garrett has homicide now, so you’ve picked this case up.”

  Beneath Steve’s map there were notes and timelines and photographs. Some of the pictures were of truck stops while others showed pale tire tracks etched in dirt like footprints in sand. A dozen more showed the same tire tracks, the dirt and gravel changing slightly from grave site to grave site. And beneath each photo, I found a list in Steve’s handwriting, adding a tire’s model and the cars’ make and year that could have used them.

  I texted Nerd, sending him what I’d found and asking for his help. My phone buzzed with a response, but I dropped it to my lap when I saw the corner of my mom’s station wagon on a photo—I lifted a page, revealing a xeroxed photograph. Images flew into my mind like a storm of blackbirds screaming at my memories. I covered the photograph to hide my secret, pretending I could made it disappear. My chest tightened anyway. What terrified me even more was learning how far Steve had progressed in his investigation.