Painful Truths

by Brian Spangler

  I was right about her lying. I was always right. It wouldn’t be the last time. Weeks would pass. Quiet weeks when we acted and seemed almost like a normal family. But there’d come a night when my father wasn’t home, when he was traveling for work, and it was just my mother and me. I’d hear the sound of her pacing—her bare feet on the wood floor in front of our living room’s big window. I’d keep myself out of her sight, I’d keep myself hidden like a church mouse, finding the deepest, most undisturbed corners of our house. Sometimes I’d act as if I were asleep, tucked beneath my covers. And sometimes I had a notion to call my father, to tell him it was an emergency and that he needed to come home. I never did, though. I waited and listened to the gait of her steps as if they were a countdown to the start of a big race. And maybe I knew I’d wait. Maybe I wanted to wait, wanted to be in the race. When the sound of her pacing stopped, I’d hold my breath, anticipating the sound of her voice calling out my name. I’d answer, and she’d tell me to get my father’s belt.

  “We’re going for a ride,” she’d say.

  ***

  “Amy?” I heard Steve’s voice and felt his fingers on my elbow. “Babe, it’s time.”

  I opened my eyes, the dream ending. All my dreams were over. Michael stood in front of me, looking handsome, looking grown-up, a single long-stem rose propped in his closed hands. He offered the flower to me as if it were a key to forever locking my mother’s grave. I moved toward the casket like a robot, my feet and arms moving in rehearsed motion divorced from what was racing through my mind.

  My father knew. He’d always known.

  And like a bad taste, I couldn’t rid myself of the sourness that came with knowing he could have saved me. But more than that, that he could have saved all of those men too.

  I glanced over to the victims’ families—and felt a sudden urge to run. I couldn’t take them staring at us anymore. I dropped the rose as though I’d been pricked by one of its thorns. The flower plunked onto the casket and I swung around, stepping away briskly, swearing to myself I’d never look upon my mother’s grave again.

  “I need to go,” I told Steve. He nodded, understanding, but didn’t move. “I need to go. Now!”

  “Don’t you want to wait—”

  “Steve, I have to go. You can get home without me. Can’t you?” I asked without waiting for an answer and reached into the pocket of his suit jacket. When my fingers closed around the car keys, I started walking.

  “Where’s Mom going?” I heard Michael ask, and I turned back to see his confused face.

  “I can’t stay here, okay?” I pleaded, tipping his chin with my fingers and hoping he’d understand. “You and Daddy will get home without me. I just need to be alone.”

  His lip trembled. I wrapped my arms around his middle, pulling him close to me.

  “I wanted to help you feel better,” he said, his words breaking as he swiped at his eyes.

  “Oh you did, baby. You did,” I assured him, then kissed his forehead. I squeezed Steve’s hand, reassuring him too before I faced the line of parked cars again.

  The grass had already dried, which helped speed my escape. I glanced once more at the gathered families, their eyes beaming, fixed on me as if they knew I’d been my mother’s accomplice, that I’d killed too. The faster I walked, the more piercing their stares became. I was certain it was all in my head, that I just imagined it, but I picked up my knees, lifted my feet, and threw my shoes off so that I could run anyway.

  I never looked back after that, finding the gas pedal on the car floor with my bare toes. I weaved through the maze of small roads, cutting through the grassy cemetery, speeding on and off as I raced over the blacktop. When I found the tall, time-pitted gates and the ancient square pillars marking the entrance, I knew where I had to go.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  I TURNED ONTO MY mother’s street, grateful to see it empty of reporters and parked news vans.

  They’re all at the funeral, I reminded myself as I scraped the car’s rear wheel against the curb. I cringed at the grating sound, knowing I’d rushed impatiently—but I’d never been good at parallel parking.

  I left my shoes behind and tiptoed over the rough asphalt. The street burned my feet like hot sand, and I hurried across in a near run, rushing through the front gate and into my mother’s yard. The gate closed behind me with a clap, and I fell to the grass and stared into the dim blue sky until the burn eased from my toes. I still wasn’t sure why I’d come, but it was the one place I believed I had to be.

  When I was ready to face my past, I got back to my feet. The house looked abandoned, desolate, and bleak. The sight of it reminded me of the grim horror Katie’s house had become in the weeks that followed her murder. Spots of rust and chipped paint showed where the patio furniture had once been placed, the stained concrete matching the placement of the table and chair legs.

  Taken by the neighbors, I assumed. One less thing for me to deal with.

  I didn’t care about the furniture, but I felt a sad twinge when I saw her potted plants and garden gnomes. They’d been smashed—nearly pulverized—into a ruin of ceramic puddles.

  “Someone did that in anger,” I muttered, nudging my toe against one of the pieces. It fell over, clinking against a shallow pile of rubble. I didn’t know what to make of the broken pottery: a warning maybe?

  Then my gaze fell upon the windows and her front door. A smear of dried egg and broken shells. They had splattered and run downward like a clock pegged at the bottom of the hour.

  “Fucking teens,” I said, speculating. Time hadn’t changed high school that much—I suspected I’d still find plenty of drinking and partying going on under the abandoned railway bridge where I used to go too. “Some decorative retaliation for something you’d forget about by morning.”

  The For Sale sign had drastically changed too. Crooked red letters covered the front, spelling out the words “Price Reduced.”

  “Price reduced is right,” I said to no one. It was my house now, and leveling it to the ground had been my first thought. Given the choice, I’d never set foot in it again. A shudder of mixed emotions passed over me like clouds breaking the sunlight. I shook my head and pleaded with my father’s ghost to help me understand why he hadn’t stopped my mother. Beneath my foot, I felt something smooth and hard. I curled my toes around it and dug them into the cool dirt, unearthing the rock like a gemstone.

  “Why didn’t you stop her!?” I shouted, flinging the stone at my former bedroom window. I missed—the rock skipped across the shingled roof with a thud. Tears ran from my eyes, sobs coming in painful throes. The anger became hot in my throat and blurred my vision, leaving me to feel completely out of control. I dropped to my knees and dug into the ground with my hands, clawing and scratching out mounds of grass and dirt to throw at the house. “You could have stopped her!”

  I sought out the large scab in the ground where my father’s tree once stood.

  He knew.

  And in my gut, I think he’d always known who my mother was. I was his baby girl, and he was afraid of her.

  “You should’ve protected me,” I cried. “It was your job to protect me.”

  The lawn’s grass had grown wild in the weeks before my mother’s death. Slender stalks sprouted from the weave of thick blades, climbing into the air, their round tops engorged and set to bud, to drop their seed for the coming year.

  The yard was a tear-filled blur, and twice I had to stop and heave as the crying became too much. My body ached. I could have lain down and cried myself to sleep, but I pushed on, crawling to the remains of my father’s tree. The woody scab had grown black and had become almost unrecognizable. I got up on my knees as if I were going to pray. My mind filled with a crazy mix of anguish and resentment—but disdain cut through all reasoning like a razor’s edge.

  Why was I born to a woman who used me and to a man who was too afraid to protect me?

  “How could you?” I blurted, only my words came out in a blubberi
ng cry. I hitched up, straightening my back and reaching beneath my skirt until my fingers were looped onto my underwear. I yanked the sides, began sliding the sheer fabric down my thighs, intending to piss on the one thing my father did protect. “You were weak and didn’t deserve m—”

  “Amy!” a voice hollered from the street. My body pulsed like a raw nerve ending. “Babe? What . . . what are you doing?”

  “What?” I answered as I quickly pulled up on my underwear and covered my bare legs. I rocked my head wildly, wanting to tell Steve the truth, wanting to tell him that I was losing it. I kept the truth to myself, though, and instead slumped onto the woody remains. He passed through the gate, his eyes darting around at the window and dried eggs as he stepped over the sad collection of ceramic rubble. “I . . . I had to come here.”

  He winced as he knelt down and took my arms in his hands. I couldn’t move. Mourning and anger had exhausted me. He squeezed my arms, urging me to get up. I shook my head, telling him I couldn’t find the strength. The harder I cried, the weaker I felt.

  “Amy, what were you doing?” In his face, I saw a man puzzled by the sight of what I could only imagine must have looked ridiculous. “I mean, your underwear . . . what?”

  “If you only knew—” I said in a breath overcome with emotion. Instantly, I bit down on my tongue until I tasted blood. Steve’s hands loosened. He never missed a thing. I needed to recover quickly, and set a different course. I nudged my chin toward the house. “The bathroom—needed it, but left the key at home. Nobody was around, so—”

  “Amy? If I only knew what?” he asked, ignoring my explanation. His grip became tight, knowing he’d hit on something worth exploring.

  The anger I had come to my parents’ house with disappeared, drying like the tears on my face.

  The case was still open. My mother’s guilty actions had been well documented, down to the forensic reenactments. But it was those same reenactments that told the investigators someone else had to have helped. Steve had shared that bit of news with me while I lay in my hospital bed, recovering. There had been someone else. The police knew, and the case would likely never close.

  “Amy? Did your father . . . was your father a part of what your mother did?”

  I tried to cry again, to use the anguish to distract him, but the tears wouldn’t come. When I moved to look away, Steve dipped his face until his eyes were square with mine. He knew I had more to tell him. He tried to play it cool, but I could sense his detective’s excitement. He had found another piece of the puzzle. I resented him for it. He needed to hear me proclaim my father’s involvement.

  What else had the forensic reenactments told him? Did they narrow down the accomplice’s weight? If so, it would be impossible for him to consider my father. But it wouldn’t be impossible for him to consider a little girl.

  “Babe, can we go home?” I pleaded, searching his eyes for the man I married, the man who said he’d get drunk and listen to country music with me. “I need you, Steve. I need my husband, today.”

  His grip tightened until I squirmed. “Amy, what do you know?”

  “What do you mean?” I answered as I jerked my arm free of him and let out a sharp cry.

  I’d never had to act defensively with him before. We’d crossed a line, and the idea of that broke my heart a little. A round woman with a stroller heard my yell and slowed her push, stopping at my mother’s gate—she fixed a look of concern on us and waited there until I assured her I was safe.

  “Please, Amy. I need to know!” he demanded.

  “It’s nothing, Steve. Why can’t you let it go and just be my husband?”

  He eased up and blinked as if clearing his head of some hypnotic trance. There was doubt in his face, but there was more too—suspicion. I caught a glimpse of it in his eyes. His detective brain refused to let go. He was chewing on another question. I snapped up a handful of tall grass, ripping the stalks from the ground, and tossed it back down.

  “Don’t you ever put your hands on me like that!”

  “Amy, did they do anything to you?” he asked, ignoring what I’d said. For a brief moment, his brow furrowed with compassion and concern that was clearly for me and not for his case. The sentiment was fleeting, though, and vanished in tandem with the sun passing behind a cloud. The shadow cast a sudden gloom across the house and yard, dimming Steve’s face in a gray light and turning the air cold.

  “I’m going home,” I told him, shaking my head at his questions.

  This will pass, I thought, trying to convince myself. He’ll get his fill, and when his appetite is satisfied, I’ll have my husband back. I just need to get through this interrogation.

  There was one plausible response that came to my mind, though. One answer that would stop all the suspicion, forever. My mouth went dry at the thought of it, and I toed the earthy remains of my father’s tree.

  “Amy, please. Was it your father?”

  “Why do you need to know?” I asked, leaning away from him, hesitating.

  “Because I just do,” he answered flatly, as if any other reason would have been absurd. His face froze like a foxhound’s locked on the scent of blood. At that moment, my wish to have my husband back vanished. “Because I’m a detective, Amy.”

  Sadness filled me, and I yanked my other arm from his hand and stood up on my own, brushing away the grass clinging to my skirt. He looked perplexed, but followed me.

  “My father knew all along. My mother told me he knew that night she came to the hospital,” I said in a tone that was flat and definitive.

  With those words, I destroyed who my father had been to me. With those words, I could cry again. I swiped at the wetness on my cheeks. I said nothing more, let him chew on, speculate on, surmise about that.

  That should give him enough to write a dozen reports.

  Within days, he’d likely work out some scenario that put my father in the station wagon with my mother—he’d include some made-up scenario of my father falsifying his work travels as an alibi to cover their tracks. Believable or not, it’d take just a single news report to ruin my father’s reputation. It’d be a story of stories. A grand, historic, serial-killer story of a husband-and-wife team that’d be studied and discussed for years to come. But the case would be closed. Once and for all. The case could be buried with my mother.

  My feet grazed the tops of the grass, my eyes taking in what was once my childhood home for the final time. And I realized that I didn’t care what the world thought of my parents or what Steve needed to know. I opened the front gate, but then stopped. I waited just long enough to see if my husband was going to follow me. He remained on the ground, his eyes wide, staring at nothing as ideas turned in his mind, trying to work out how my mother and father had killed the men together. He was lost in the theories of a thirty-year-old case. He was lost—and couldn’t see me.

  I bit back a cry and forced my voice to sound strong as I told him, “I didn’t need a detective today, Steve. I needed my husband. The detective can find someplace else to stay tonight.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  I WAITED FOR STEVE to come home. I waited alone and sat at our kitchen table, hoping he’d come and comfort me, apologize to me. But he never showed. He’d sent a text, though, telling me our children were with his mother—another disappointment. I wanted them home too, but maybe it was for the best. I sat in our empty house, sipping a glass of wine while the outside clouded up in dusky orange. I was only half-serious when I’d threatened Steve about finding someplace else to sleep—I wanted him home. I’m a cop’s wife first, so worrying is like breathing.

  I’d drunk nearly half a bottle of wine before hearing the front door: a subtle rattle of keys, the door handle turning. The sky had already faded into evening, and our part of the world was winding down. Steve limped into the kitchen and nodded his head in my direction, told me he’d gone to the station. I was still furious, but relieved to see him. Like I said, I’m a cop’s wife first and I couldn’t help how I felt. I j
ust didn’t show it. I refused to show it.

  He started right in, talking about the case, saying nothing about the funeral or if he’d checked in with his mother about how the kids were doing. I’d called, though, telling them how much I missed them and loved them. Steve was still in detective mode. I gulped my wine, then filled my glass again so the buzz would drown him out. He went on about starting new reports for the forensics team, giving them guidance to confirm or disprove what I’d revealed.

  I nodded and finished another glass. He paused at the door between our kitchen and hallway, waiting for me to say something. I held my words, offering nothing. I was already feeling a little drunk and knew the dangers of mixing resentment with alcohol. I tilted my chin, gave him a short acknowledgment, then switched my focus back to my wine.

  I heard about forensics next, and the kinetic sciences related to how the men died. He pawed through the refrigerator, piecing together a sandwich like a new, unsolved case. I chose to ignore most of what he said and kept drinking; anger had quenched my thirst, but I still lost count of how many glasses I’d emptied. He said something then about the men’s seminal fluid and a sloppy laugh slipped from my lips. I poured another glass, abandoning any warnings I’d given myself about feeling sick the next day. I felt gutted, though. He was home, but he wasn’t. He was ignoring what had happened in my mother’s yard, and getting drunk seemed the best way to keep from crying in front of him.

  He followed me around the house, talking and eating his sandwich. Eventually we settled into bed. I stayed quiet, nodding occasionally, and finally rolled over onto my side and pretended to have fallen asleep. When his breathing deepened, I stuffed my face into my pillow and cried. I’d never done that before. I’d never had to. Steve didn’t get it. He’d become blind to everything except the case. And sadly, that included me. I squeezed my eyes and my chest shuddered with sobs, causing him to stir. I held still until he settled back into a sleepy rhythm.