Jar of Hearts
Page 30
“No. Fuck that. No fucking way.” His face was a mask of disgust. “Are you out of your fucking mind? There’s no way I can do that.”
“We’ve come this far,” Geo said. “Do you want to finish it, or not?”
He unwrapped the body, rolling it out of the comforter, grunting with the effort. They were both startled when they saw Angela’s skin. Though she hadn’t been dead long, her color had paled, with a grayish cast that hadn’t been there before. There was a slackness to her face, a heaviness in the way her arms and legs flopped, and a dullness in her eyes, which were still open.
She didn’t look like she was sleeping. She didn’t look unconscious. She looked dead.
Calvin bent over her with the saw, his face contorted in a grimace. He looked up at Geo one last time. She nodded, then began to dig, starting a fresh hole about two feet away from the others.
“I can’t,” he said, his voice weak.
She ignored him. Continued to dig, ramming her shovel into the dirt. Push, scoop, toss. Push, scoop, toss.
A few seconds later, he said again, “I don’t know where to start.”
She looked up, annoyed. He was soaked in his own sweat, his damp hair plastered to his forehead, his face still knotted in disgust and revulsion. It was a version of him she’d never seen before. He looked ugly. Weak. In that moment, she couldn’t remember why she’d fallen in love with him at all.
“Start in the middle,” she said, resuming her digging.
The sound of flesh tearing isn’t like other sounds. It’s not staccato, like cutting into wood. It’s not silent, like slicing into dough. It’s deeper somehow, wetter, slightly resistant, but ultimately yielding. Back and forth and back again, the saw tore her best friend open. She heard the moment when the saw hit bone. It made a scraping sound.
She looked up when he gagged, just in time to see him vomit all over himself. Tears streamed down his face. Angela lay in the dirt, her leg almost detached from her hip, but not all the way.
“I can’t…,” he said, choking.
Geo gripped the shovel tighter. She could smell his vomit, a curdling blend of pizza and beer and gastric juices, almost identical to what hers had smelled like when she’d vomited inside his house earlier. She had never seen Calvin vulnerable before, and in that moment she had no doubt she could walk over, hit him over the head with the shovel as hard as she could, as many times as it took, until he was dead, too. Maybe the fog would stick around long enough for her to dig holes for both of them.
But she wasn’t a killer. She didn’t know who the hell she was, but she wasn’t that.
“Come here and take the shovel,” she said.
They changed places.
Geo took the saw in her hands, the wood handle feeling warm from Calvin’s grasp even through the gloves she was wearing. Her dad was an emergency-room doctor, had discussed his work with her many times, had even given her details about the surgical rotation he’d done during medical school. She had some knowledge of how to cut at the joint for minimal resistance. Hadn’t she done this with chicken wings for dinner the other night? She couldn’t remember now. Maybe it was last week. Or last month.
She kneeled over Angela, whose eyes were still open. Brushed a hand over her best friend’s face. Now they were closed.
Don’t look, my love. Don’t look.
She lifted the saw, gritted her teeth, and finished what Calvin started, the teeth of the blade ripping into her best friend, desecrating Angela’s human body.
Desecrating Geo’s soul.
When she was finished, they both placed Angela’s body parts in the graves wherever they would fit, packing the dirt on top of them and pressing it down firmly. They left the woods covered in blood and vomit sometime after four A.M. By then, the fog had lifted a little.
And still, nobody saw.
Calvin rinsed the shovels and the saw in the backyard with the hose, the water rinsing red into the grass and then disappearing altogether. They walked back to the front of the house. Calvin tried to speak to Geo before getting into his car, but she did not reply. He drove away. It would be days before she would see him again, before he would show up at her bedroom window in the middle of the night, duffel bag in hand, to say good-bye and take what little was left of her, by force.
Assuming they weren’t caught by then, of course. In the movies, it seemed the bad guys never got away.
For now, though, it was finished. Geo did the only thing left to do.
She went home.
33
Dominic is still on top of her, the weight of him becoming unbearable. He’s fumbling, and he’s furious, because what he came here to do isn’t working. And if he can’t do it, he’ll simply kill her.
Which would be Geo’s preference. Though the legal system may disagree, there are worse things than murder. She knows that now. Rape isn’t about sex. It’s about dominance and control. It’s about taking the best parts of a person and leaving the empty shell behind.
Unconsciousness threatens to overtake her. Dominic’s hand is still at her throat, and he’s impossibly strong. She can’t scream, she can barely move, and little by little, she feels the fight going out of her.
Then, a second later, he’s ripped away from her. In the sudden absence of pain, there is relief, and she wilts under it, gasping for breath. Her vision is hazy, and all she can see is a shape looming over Dominic, who’s now on the floor.
The shape through the haze reminds Geo of the fog the night of Angela’s murder. When her vision finally clears, she sees why.
Calvin.
He’s standing over Dominic, who’s stunned, a dark-red welt forming on his cheekbone where he was punched. His lip is split open, and he’s lying on his side, hurt and vulnerable. In this moment Geo can finally see a glimpse of the boy she might have known had she chosen to keep him.
“Are you all right, Georgina?” Calvin asks her.
He doesn’t look anything like the last time she saw him. His hair is longer, lighter, and a full beard specked with gray covers half his face. He’s dressed in old clothes. She nods, sitting up on the bed, and his eyes move down to her stomach and her thighs, which are bare. She’s aware suddenly that she’s exposed, and hot tears fill her eyes as she frantically pulls her leggings and underwear back up.
Because someone has seen. Someone has borne witness to what her son just tried to do to her. Even if that someone is Calvin, it’s still the worst thing for anyone to know.
On the floor, coming to, Dominic lets out a small laugh. Calvin looks down and kicks him in the head.
“Wait,” Geo gasps, struggling to speak. She’s still on the bed, and she scooches as far back as she can until her back is resting against the headboard. “Calvin, wait. Just … just back away from him.” She forces herself to focus. “How did you get in here? There’s a police officer out front.”
“I took care of the cop,” her old boyfriend says, his brow furrowing. His gaze moves from her to the young man on the floor, and then back to Geo. “I’ve been keeping an eye on you. These new murders, they’re not me. I would never hurt a kid.”
“I know.” She closes her eyes briefly. The police officer assigned to guard her couldn’t have been more than thirty. His poor family. His poor mother.
Another laugh from Dominic.
“Can I pull my pants up?” the younger man asks, and though his words are a little thick because his lips are beginning to swell, he sounds almost pleasant. “I’m feeling a little chilly down here.”
The gun she got from Ella Frank’s brother is still where she hid it, and Geo’s hand snakes under the pillow as the two men talk to each other. The small grip fits comfortably in her palm, and once it’s firmly in her grasp, she clicks off the safety. The sound is muffled by the pillow.
“No, asshole,” Calvin says, sounding equally pleasant, the arrogant drawl unchanged in almost twenty years. “You seemed to have no problem pulling them down, so why don’t we leave them that way?”
Calvin’s eyes widen and cut immediately to Geo, reflexively seeking confirmation that this can’t possibly be true.
“Surprise,” Dominic says, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “It’s a boy.”
“How?” Calvin asks, locking with eyes with her. “How is that possible?”
“So the man’s erect penis enters the woman’s vagina—” Dominic begins in a monotone voice, parodying what one might hear in a middle school sex-education lecture.
“Shut up,” Calvin says, but he doesn’t kick him again. His eyes are still fixed on Geo. “How?” he asks, more urgently.
“You know how,” she says, her voice small. Her gaze shifts to the heart tattoo on Calvin’s inner wrist. She hasn’t seen it before, but it has to have been there awhile, because the red ink is a bit faded. She can see the initials inside it. GS. He immortalized her on his goddamned arm.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice is soft. “I would have wanted to know.”
“You were gone,” she answers. “And I was glad. I never wanted to see you again.”
Calvin stares at her a second longer, then looks down at the young man on the floor, who is still lying on his side, but watching the exchange with bright eyes. “Stand up. Pull your pants up. And don’t make any sudden moves or I’ll rip your throat out.”
Dominic does as he’s told, slowly bringing himself to a standing position. Side by side, there’s no question that he’s Calvin’s son. They’re the same height, with the same features. But where Calvin has confidence, his son has bravado, and they’re not the same thing at all.
“Jesus,” Dominic says with a mocking roll of his eyes. “Now I know where I get my violent tendencies from.”
“Shut up,” Calvin says again.
Geo pulls out the gun. The two men look over, their faces making identical expressions of surprise. Dominic takes a step toward her, but Calvin grabs his arm. He nods to Geo, who gets up off the bed and stands, facing them. Calvin pulls Dominic back toward the wall, putting about five feet of distance between the two of them and Geo. It might as well be five inches. The bedroom feels tiny and stiflingly hot.
She focuses her gaze on her son. “How do you want this to end, Dominic?”
“Oh, so now I have a choice?” he says with another terrible smile. “You’re letting me decide what happens to me? That’s rich. You should have aborted me, by the way. Why didn’t you?”
“Because I loved you,” she says, and it’s true.
He doesn’t believe her, and she doesn’t blame him. He doesn’t know what love looks like. He doesn’t know what love feels like. Love—healthy love, the kind that doesn’t hurt or bruise or take away someone’s sense of self-worth—is like anything else that’s important in life. It has to be taught.
“I hate you,” Dominic says, and his voice chokes. But not from sadness. From fury. It colors his words, punctuating each syllable. “I fucking hate you so much.”
“I’m sorry,” she says.
Calvin watches them both, saying nothing.
They’re at a standstill. She doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t know if she can shoot either of them, but neither can she let them get away. Especially her son. Hurt people will always hurt people, and the wounds gouged into Dominic over the years can never heal. They’re too deep.
“Well, this shit is hilarious. After eighteen years, I finally have both my parents,” Dominic says, and he’s laughing. It’s hysterical laughter, the laughter of someone who’s laughing even though nothing is funny, an expression of pent-up, toxic emotion. “You assholes. Look what you’ve done.”
He laughs even harder, his whole body shaking. In the distance, there are sirens. They grow louder, their wails filling up the normally quiet neighborhood. The police are getting closer.
Dominic throws his head back, almost convulsing. “LOOK WHAT YOU’VE DONE!”
It’s not quite a howl, not quite a roar; it’s something in between, animalistic and predatory and insane, and it fills Geo with a sadness that goes way beyond grief and guilt.
“How did you know?” she says, directing her question to Calvin. “How did you know to come here?”
“I came back when I read about the first pair of murders,” Calvin says. “I knew then. Buried in the woods, their bodies cut up the same way … of course I came back. It felt like someone was trying to call me home.”
Their eyes meet. It’s the one secret they still share, after all these years. He never told the cops the whole story of that fateful night—about the saw, the vomit, how Geo took over and finished it—none of it ever came out at trial. And Calvin could have revealed it, could have told the whole truth, not only about himself, but about her. But he never did. He never said a word. Instead, here he is, a silly heart tattoo on his wrist with her initials inside it, even though they will never, ever end up together. It was classic Calvin, just like the jar of hearts, full of candy he’d given her that only he ended up eating.
She stares at the two of them. Her first love and her last love. Was this what love was? Was this what it looked like, demented and malformed and diseased and monstrous?
“I understand it now,” Calvin says, looking at Dominic. “Why you killed the children, too. My children. You did it to hurt me.”
“No, you fucking idiot.” Dominic lets out a mirthless laugh. “I did it to hurt her. Why did your other kids get to have good mothers? Why weren’t they fucked with? Why me? I want to finish what I started, Father. Want to help? I’ll let you go first.” He laughs again, and the sound is as humorless as the first. “Oh wait. You already did.”
“Georgina, go,” Calvin says, not taking his eyes off his son. “Leave right now. I won’t let him hurt you. Go out the window.”
“I can’t leave it like this,” she says. She’s shaking now, the weight of nineteen years of secrets and lies threatening to crush her from the inside out. “He’s our son.”
“Yes, he is. And people like him—like me—shouldn’t exist.”
He’s right, of course. And if she leaves, Geo has no doubt they’ll kill each other. The looks on their faces are identical. They’re beyond reach, beyond hope. And for the first time, she makes the decision she never made all those years ago.
“I love you,” she says, the words choking in her throat. “And I’m sorry. I am so fucking sorry.”
She aims the gun, and fires.
Then aims it again, and fires once more.
Her fingers go numb. The gun falls to the floor, landing soundlessly on the bedroom carpet. She collapses beside it, sobbing so hard she feels her insides might break, crying even harder than she did the morning after she gave birth.
She crawls toward Dominic, reaching for him, and cradles his head in her lap. Her chest heaving, she strokes his sweaty mat of hair, moving the loose strands away from his face. Caresses his cheeks, his chin, the bridge of his nose, the arch of his brow. Puts her nose to his forehead and breathes him in. His eyes are open. Through the blur of her tears, she can see her son looking up at her.
They’re her eyes. Her mother’s eyes. Brown. Soft. And dull now, from the absence of life behind them.
Her son. Her beautiful boy.
She opens her mouth and wails. The shriek is guttural, unlike any sound she’s ever produced before, and at first she doesn’t realize it’s coming from her. Beside them on the floor, Calvin twitches. His leg moves, then his arm. He’s down, but he’s not dead, despite the hole the bullet punched in his chest.
Continuing to stroke her son’s hair with one hand, Geo reaches for the gun again, and shoots Calvin in the head.
Maybe this is how it’s supposed to end, after all.
EPILOGUE
Angela Wong’s grave sits in an open area at Rose Hill Cemeter
y, on the side that gets the most light. Her parents chose a rose quartz headstone for her, and the flecks of silver and gold sparkle brilliantly when the sun is out, as it is right now.
Geo stands in front of it, her cardigan stuffed into her oversized purse, enjoying the soft spring breeze on her bare arms. She’s brought roses this time, pink. But instead of placing the entire bouquet at the base of the tombstone like she has the last half-dozen times she’s visited, she tears off the petals one by one, scattering them all around. The pink petals look pretty against the green grass, and she thinks Angela would have liked it. Leaning forward, she touches the headstone, tracing the engraved letters on the quartz that spell out her best friend’s name, date of birth, and date of death.
Angela Wong had lived sixteen years, two months, and twenty-four days. A fraction of time in what should have been a long, full life.
“I love you,” Geo says out loud. There’s a groundskeeper about forty feet away, trimming the shrubs that border this section of the cemetery. He can’t hear her, and even if he could, he’s seen and heard this kind of thing before. “I brought you a Slurpee—grape, of course—but I ended up drinking it on the way over here. You should see me right now. I’ve gained twenty pounds. I wish you were here to tell me my thighs are getting fat.”
She smiles. For the first time since before Angela died, she can think of her best friend and feel more happiness than grief, though both emotions still exist, sitting side by side like old friends. The difference is, they no longer interfere with one another.
“I miss you, Ang.”
She stands for a moment longer. The groundskeeper looks over, gives her a little wave. They’ve become familiar with each other, though they don’t know each other’s names and have never spoken. She waves back, and starts heading for the paved path that winds around the hill to the other side of the cemetery.
Her mother’s grave is in the shade, underneath a giant oak tree. Geo only recently learned that her parents had family plots, purchased decades ago by Walt’s parents when they first moved into the area. There’ll be space for Geo one day, if she wants it, but hopefully that’s a decision she doesn’t have to think about anytime soon. It’s chilly under the tree, and she digs her sweater out of her bag and slips it on. Her mother’s headstone is simpler and smaller than Angela’s, made of white marble. Grace Maria Gallardo Shaw had lived thirty-three years, seven months, and five days. It’s hard for Geo to comprehend that’s she older now than her mother was when she died. Not by much, but it feels strange. She remembers her mother as being the wisest, most beautiful person in the world.