My Darling Husband

by Kimberly Belle

  His face when I bailed. God, I will never forget it, or the words he said to me over and over. I need this, Cam. I need this or my daughter will die.

  I told myself he was exaggerating, that universal health care would pay for whatever treatment his sick daughter needed. I figured another chef would be enticed by the promise of a Lasky-grade kitchen and snap up my sloppy seconds. I was wrong on both accounts, and the truth is, I didn’t much care. I was too damn busy trying to keep my own ass afloat.

  But I said it. God help me, I told him his dying daughter wasn’t my problem. And now Jade knows, and Bea knows, and they probably blame me for all of it, and they’re right to.

  “Cam.”

  Jade’s voice is loud and urgent, bleating in my iPhone’s speaker. My gaze snaps to the screen.

  Jade is standing now, staring into the camera—the speaker on the wall. Her head is tipped back, the couch spread like wings coming off her shoulders, Beatrix on the far end. Jade’s eyes are big and wide.

  “Cam, don’t come here. As soon as you do—”

  “Shut up.” Sebastian’s body steps into the shot, moving fast, a blurry black blotch on my iPhone screen. “Don’t listen to her, Cam.”

  He shoves her out of the shot.

  “Don’t come inside!” she shouts. “He’s going to kill us either way!”

  I swipe to another screen, searching for the bird’s-eye feed.

  Sebastian lunges, and my screen becomes a jumble of sound, of bodies. I stare at it, gripping it hard enough to snap the thing in two, trying to hold it together, trying to see, but my world has gone foggy with fury. Jade screams, then Beatrix. Nick dives for the wheel, jerking the truck’s tires back on the road, and orders me to let up on the gas.

  I lift my foot and scream into the cab, “What is happening?”

  I see Jade, sprawled across two empty chairs, her feet tangled with a squirming Beatrix’s. Jade scrambles to sit up, to protect our daughter, who is calm in a way that pierces my heart. With an unbothered expression, Beatrix leans over the armrest and reaches for her mother’s hand.

  Sebastian stalks up to the speaker, talks right into it.

  “Listen to me, Cam. If you ever want to see your family again, I’d advise you not to listen to your wife. Get over here, now. Bring me my money. You have three minutes.”

  His lip is curled up on one side, his face red and ugly, splotchy in the high-definition, full-color camera, but it’s not his face I’m looking at.

  It’s Beatrix’s.

  Over Sebastian’s shoulder I take in my daughter’s cool stare, her clamped down jaw, the look of calm determination. It’s a look anybody else might mistake for boredom, but not me. I know Beatrix too well. This is the expression she gets when she’s steeling herself, gathering up all her courage, right before she walks onto an orchestra stage.

  With both hands, she shoves her body to the edge of the oversize chair and pushes to a shaky stand. Feet planted to the carpet in front of her chair. She looks at her mother on the chair next to her. At Sebastian, still spitting mad, screaming into the speaker. At the side table, and a black smudge that looks just like—

  “No.”

  With helpless horror, I watch my daughter pick up the gun.

  T H E I N T E R V I E W

  Juanita: In the months since the home invasion, your daughter, Beatrix, has become an internet sensation. That still shot from the nanny cam footage of her sneaking out of the playroom made the cover of the New York Times, and there are Facebook groups and fan pages and hundreds of GIFs and memes dedicated to her bravery and daring. There are Hollywood producers competing to tell her story, even talk of putting her face on a cereal box. That must feel...

  Cam: Strange. Surreal. Bizarre. All of the above.

  Juanita: I’d imagine it’s also a big invasion of privacy.

  Cam: I’ll say. You people are pretty relentless.

  Juanita: I agree the media can be tenacious, but that’s because this story is one that holds widespread appeal. A celebrity chef, a brave little girl who also happens to be a violin virtuoso, a masked and armed man who targeted you and your family, a shooting captured on camera—

  Cam: A villain who’s only out for money.

  Juanita: Are we talking about him or you?

  Cam: [shrugs] Up to your viewers to decide, though pretty sure I know which side of the equation they’ll fall on.

  Juanita: That moment when Beatrix picked up the gun, you were watching on your cell phone. You saw your daughter pick up a deadly weapon, and there was literally nothing you could do to stop it. I can’t imagine what that must have been like.

  Cam: [long pause] My heart, it just...stopped. Like, no pulse, no blood pumping at all. My muscles locked up, and it’s a miracle I didn’t hit a tree because I couldn’t tear my eyes off the phone. I didn’t look at the road. All I could see was my baby on that little screen, holding a gun, waving it around. And I was completely helpless to stop her.

  Juanita: Because you were still miles away. Stuck in traffic.

  Cam: [wipes eyes] Nothing could have prepared me for that kind of terror. Nothing.

  Juanita: So what did you do?

  Cam: I drove like hell. I prayed to a God I’ve spent most of my life either ignoring or mocking, a God I have zero business asking any favors. I swore that if He or She would just spare my family, just... [shakes head]

  Juanita: Do you need to take a break?

  Cam: No. I’m all right.

  Juanita: Take all the time you need.

  Cam: I swore if God would spare them, keep them alive and in one piece, then I would never ask for anything ever again. And all those things I used to care about, the restaurants and the real estate and the houses and cars, I’d give it all up. Because here’s what happens when your family’s lives are at stake. There’s this...white-light moment of clarity, a lightning-bolt realization that you’re an idiot and all that shit you’ve spent so much time and effort accumulating is worthless. The banks can have everything. I don’t want any of those things anymore. Without Jade and the Bees, it’s worthless. I’m worthless.

  Juanita: August 6 was your wake-up call?

  Cam: [nods] I’m just sorry it happened too late.

  J A D E

  6:57 p.m.

  I’m so busy watching Sebastian that I don’t notice it at first.

  The way Beatrix’s arm reached across the armrest and into my chair just now, like her wrist wasn’t connected to the leather. The object she pressed in my hand.

  Long. Hard. Warm from body heat.

  Automatically, I close my fingers around it, concealing the thing in a fist.

  But I don’t look. And I don’t consider how it could be possible. Not yet.

  I’m too distracted by Sebastian’s shouting into the wall speaker, a long tirade about how Cam better get here and get here in a hurry. How he shouldn’t listen to me.

  Three minutes until seven, the blink of an eye and an endless eternity at the same time. Sebastian is furious, this situation so volatile. Anything can happen in three minutes.

  And then realization hits.

  The warm, hard, sticky thing in my palm.

  I unfurl my fingers just enough to peek inside.

  It’s Cam’s pocketknife, the one he’s had since college, a scratched and beat-up thing that once belonged to his grandfather. Cam keeps it more for sentimental value than for its usefulness, storing it under a stack of wrinkled business cards in an antique box in his study. As far as I know, he’s never showed it to the kids.

  But Beatrix knew where to look.

  Not only that.

  In the middle of a life-or-death emergency, when she had only a few seconds to scout out a hiding place, Beatrix went for a weapon. She found the pocketknife in Cam’s hiding place. This is the reason we don’t have a gun.

/>   My smart girl kept her wits about her. While the three of us were downstairs searching the basement, Beatrix was in Cam’s study, gathering weapons and making signs. She’s my four-foot, curly-haired, levelheaded hero.

  I close my fingers around the knife and twist around on my chair.

  Beatrix’s seat is empty. She stands in front of it, bare toes digging into the carpet. Her hands hang loose by her sides, free from their bindings.

  Behind her, the duct tape lies wrinkled and deflated on the leather. Sawed completely through, four messy slices in the metallic silver, by the pocketknife in my hand. It must have taken her forever, and all that time I didn’t see. None of us heard a sound.

  Especially not Sebastian, watching from the other side of the coffee table. He has both hands raised, fingers spread wide, palms pushing against the air. “Don’t even think about it.”

  My gaze returns to Beatrix’s hands, but I only see one of them. Her left hand, hanging empty by her side. The other is concealed by her body.

  And yet I already know what’s in it.

  I see it from Sebastian’s suddenly blanched skin, the way his eyes go twitchy. I see it in the set of Beatrix’s mouth, her rod-straight back and trembling shoulders. From the way my mind stops screaming long enough to hear what’s happening outside, the soft but steady sound, whistling like a distant wind.

  I know what’s in Beatrix’s hand long before she lifts her arms and I see the gun. She grips it in two white-knuckled hands.

  And that whistling outside? It’s not wind.

  It’s sirens.

  Sebastian’s earlier words echo through my brain: At the first sign of sirens, the bullets start flying. First the kids, then you.

  And now it’s Beatrix holding the gun, her finger curled around the trigger.

  Sebastian doesn’t move.

  The moment slips into crystalline focus.

  “Move back,” Beatrix says. “Get up against the wall. Do it.”

  She’s like a stick-figure drawing of someone holding a gun, all sharp angles and straight lines, her arms extended from her body in a perfect triangle. It’s the amateur stance of someone who learned her gun skills from comic books and cartoons, who’s never held a gun, never even had an interest in a toy one.

  My chest swells with terror, and I shift to the other side of the chair. “Beatrix, sweetie, give me the gun.”

  She shakes her head, hard and sharp, a rapid back-and-forth that shivers her curls. “I mean it, mister. Back up.” Her muscles are taut, her finger twitching where it’s bent over the trigger.

  Sebastian takes a tiny backward step. “Be careful with that thing. This isn’t some plaything, you know, that gun is deadly. One wrong move and you could shoot yourself in the foot or worse. What if you shoot your mama?”

  “I’m not aiming at my mom. I’m aiming at you.”

  “Come on, kid. You really don’t want to do this.”

  “Yes, I do. I really, really want to shoot you.” Beatrix’s voice breaks on the word shoot, and she thrusts the gun for emphasis. “Now move back. I mean it. Go!”

  Sebastian takes another ministep. “So that’s it, then, you’re going to shoot me. Better make it good. Better not miss.”

  Beatrix closes one eye. Her muscles never so much as quiver when she holds the violin, but now her aim is all over the place. She’s close enough, though, that even a wide shot could be deadly. The femur, a collarbone, a direct hit to the head.

  I hold out a trembling hand. “Beatrix, I mean it. Give me the gun.”

  Another shake of the head. “Not until he moves back. He’s still too close. Move more.”

  “Or maybe you should just wait until the cops get here. Let them handle things.” Sebastian tips his head to the window, to the sound of sirens. The wailing feels like a hallucination, like if I cover my ears they’ll disappear, fading away into silence. I picture police cars hurtling through the streets behind our house, colorful lights cutting through the dusk and rain like swirling lanterns. In another few minutes, they’ll be squealing up the drive.

  “Stop talking. And move back more.” Beatrix enunciates each word slowly, deliberately. “Please don’t make me say it again.”

  It’s a phrase I say to the kids often, and in exactly that same tone, and my words coming out of my daughter’s mouth wrap around my heart and squeeze. It never works on them, either.

  Sebastian’s soles stay planted to the floor.

  I slide onto my knees on the carpet. I’m afraid any sudden movement will set Beatrix off. Slowly, steadily, I stretch my hand farther.

  “He’s right, baby. You’re so brave, but let me handle this, okay? Give Mommy the gun.”

  Except for two candy-red spots high on her cheeks, Beatrix’s face is shockingly pale, white and translucent like melted candle wax, like a body dredged from the depths. The effect is terrifying, especially when coupled with her voice, high with icy anger.

  “No. Not until he gets back to the wall. All the way. Mommy, make him move.”

  The sirens are getting steadier now, undulating waves through the air on the back side of the house, which means they’ve made the turn into the neighborhood.

  “Sweetie, give me the gun.”

  Beatrix’s body is wound tight, her shoulder muscles bunched under her pink polka-dot shirt.

  Sebastian’s gaze flicks to mine, his eyes going wide, like do something. “Put the gun down, missy.”

  “I’m not your missy.”

  I move on my knees, edging closer to curl my hand around Beatrix’s, take control of the gun and shoot Sebastian in the head. And just to be sure, I’ll shoot him in the heart, too. Bang bang. Dead.

  And then I will carry this gun out the door and across the road and point it at Tanya until she gives me back my son. I will tear her limbs from her body if I have to.

  Sebastian points a gloved finger to the ceiling. “Hear that? They’ll be here any minute.”

  I keep my eyes on Sebastian, the gun a black blur in my periphery. “It’s true, sweetie. The police are on their way. They’re coming to save us. Let them handle this, please. Give the gun to me.”

  I reach for the gun, at the same time Beatrix steps to the side, and my hand swipes air. I don’t try again because I know that expression, the way her eyes and jaw are locked down tight. There’s no way she’s putting that weapon down, not even for me. Not even for the police.

  Beatrix’s finger tightens around the trigger.

  Sebastian’s gaze zeroes in on the gun. “Hey, watch it there. That gun has a heavy recoil. You might want to loosen up on that trigger.”

  Beatrix lifts the gun higher, aiming it at Sebastian’s chest.

  Dead center.

  “Okay, fine, you got me, but don’t do anything you’re going to regret. Once you pull that trigger, there’s no going back. You can’t take back a bullet.”

  My daughter squeezes her eyes and the trigger.

  J A D E

  7:02 p.m.

  Unlike my daughter’s, my eyes are wide-open. I see the flash of the gun as the bullet takes flight, the way the recoil is a sledgehammer to Beatrix’s shoulder, how it pops her clear off her feet, bounces her body off the recliner and sends her sprawling.

  I see the bullet smack Sebastian high on a shoulder, the spatter of blood where it enters his skin, the way it punches his torso into the wall. I see the smear he leaves on the eggshell paint as he slides down to the ground, the way his lips curl upward into a smile.

  “I told you somebody’d get shot at the first sign of sirens. Didn’t I tell you that?”

  My ears are still ringing from the gunshot, but I hear his breathy laughter loud and clear. Another stupid, demented joke. Despite the bullet, despite the blood turning his shirt shiny, he’s pleased with himself.

  His gaze wanders to Beatrix, still half-f
lopped on the floor, to the gun lying next to her on the carpet. Her face is still fish-belly white, but those two spots on her cheeks are so red they’re almost purple. “I gotta give you props, kid. You’ve been an excellent adversary. A real pain in my ass, but an excellent adversary. I didn’t even see you cut yourself loose. What’d you use—a knife? Scissors?”

  Cam’s pocketknife pulses in my hand.

  Beatrix fumbles for the gun, but I lunge and beat her there, plucking it from the floor, swinging it back to Sebastian. I’ve shot a gun only a few times in my life, and if Cam were here he’d tell you I’m the worst shot he’s ever seen. But with less than ten feet between me and my target, I’m certain I could do some damage. Head, torso, heart. I’ll keep shooting until I hit something lethal.

  But Sebastian hasn’t moved. He just sits there, slumped against the wall, legs bent like an awkward grasshopper. His knees jut upward, bony caps pointed to the sky.

  He presses a palm to his shoulder, wincing. “Do me a favor and make it a kill shot this time, would you? Put me out of my misery.” With a groan, he stretches his legs flat onto the floor. “I can’t be a hundred percent sure, but I’m guessing the only people who will shed a tear for me are the ones watching from those cameras.”

  I frown, gaze flitting to the dummy speaker above his head. “What people?”

  “Oh, did I forget to tell you? Those camera feeds don’t just stream to your phone. They stream to mine, too, and a couple of other people’s. Oh, and maybe a laptop or two that may or may not be pushing the footage onto the internet. I guess I forgot to mention it.”

  Beatrix scoots closer to where I am on my knees. With my free arm, I shove her behind me. “Mommy, what cameras?” she says in my ear.

  Sebastian gestures to them—the clock, the speaker, the plastic fire alarm. “One, two, three. Wave for the camera, kid.”

  All this time, he’s had access to the cameras. All these months, he’s been watching me, my children, our family, like some creepy, clandestine version of Big Brother.