What I Remember Most

by Cathy Lamb

  “She died, died, died, too. Knife, knife, knife.”

  “You killed them both.” Tears burned my eyes.

  “I didn’t. Someone else did.”

  I was confused now. “Who?”

  “The man inside me.” He twisted his hair, pulling hard. He giggled, high-pitched.

  He was so sick. “The man inside you killed them?”

  “We exist peaceably together. As one. There’s the two of us in here. The other one killed your mommy. His name is Danny. He is not a poet, like me.”

  I swayed.

  “Awwww. Grenadine. I’ve upset the Miss Muffet girl. The girl with her daisy crown and her pink dress and her purple pants. I see you still have the lily bracelet. Interesting.”

  “What about my lily bracelet?”

  “I get it. Silly me, silly you. I know all about it. It’s in my brain.” Bucky’s face twisted into anger. “Your mommy’s mommy made one for herself and one for her daughter. Your momma with the nice, heavy breasts gave you hers. They told me that by the campfire.”

  “What were their real names?”

  “What were your mommy and daddy’s real names?”

  “Yes.”

  “What were Bear and Freedom’s names?”

  “Yes.”

  “What were Mr. and Mrs. Wild’s real names?”

  “Yes.”

  He giggled. High and pitchy. “I won’t tell you.”

  “Why?”

  “Why would I?”

  “Because I want to know the truth about my parents. I could track their parents, their brothers and sisters. My family.” I choked up. I had family out there. I belonged to a family. Bad or good, I had two families, my mother’s family, my father’s family.

  “Ah, family. You know what my daddy did to me? You don’t, do you, because you weren’t there. My daddy whipped me. He raped me up my yin yang with his sword. I hate him. When I was a teenager I killed him, too, with a hatchet.” He pointed to his tattoo. “With a hatchet!

  “My mother told the neighbors that Daddy took off for Oklahoma with a floozy whore. A floozy whore!” He stared into space, then wiggled his fingers together like worms. “She was a wonderful storyteller. I have a tattoo of her, too! See?

  “I killed him one night when he told me to go down to the basement for my punishment with his sword. My mother swears she didn’t know he was ding-donging me, and that could be the truth.” He drew circles in the air with his fingers. “She was a nurse and worked nights. That’s when it happened. Night. Black. Cold. He was a bad, bad man.”

  “Where are my parents’ bodies?”

  “I cannot tell you, rock-a-bye baby, in the treetops, when the wind blows the cradle will rock, and down came your parents and died.”

  “Why not? You’re going to die in jail. Tell me so I can find them, give them a proper burial, maybe find out who the rest of my family is.”

  “Family. Schamaily. I don’t have a family, and neither do you. I put your parents in a hole.”

  “Where? Where are they?”

  “It’s getting crowded up there now. My own personal cemetery. But it isn’t an animal cemetery.” He shook his head back and forth, back and forth. “Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon, the little dog laughed. There are no cats or dogs or cows up there. People only. I put a necklace around them. A skull necklace.”

  “I remember the skull necklaces.” I waited. My fists clenched tight. Kade grunted next to me. He wanted to take Bucky out, I could feel it.

  “The third one was for you, Little Bo Peep who lost her two sheep. You don’t feel well, Grenadine.” He smoothed his hair down, preening. “Or is it my beauty that is making you dizzy?”

  Crazy, so crazy. “Where did you bury them?”

  “I’ll give you a riddle.” He clapped his hands. “You could go to Japan from there. You could go to Australia. You could see a whale shredding a shark. Blood. You could see white froth.”

  “I don’t know what you’re saying or hinting at.”

  “Forest. Tall trees.” He smiled at me. “Fog! Fog!”

  Forest. Tall trees. Fog. They’d followed me all my life. His expression was joyful, excited. I wanted to pitch myself through the glass and strangle him.

  “The ocean waves roll. The tall trees grow. Above the tide pools there’s a cliff. On the cliff there’s a sign. A sign about a lighthouse. A sign about a woman. Seagulls playing.” He clapped again. “Go fifty long paces east, by a rock that’s tall. Dig you may, dig you might, you may find a body, you may find a red kite.”

  “And that’s where my parents are?”

  “Yes. Decaying flesh. Eyeballs popping. Fingernails dirty. Bugs. Worms in their eyeballs. Bugs in their ears. Maggots eating their intestines. Bones only, though. Bones only. Others there, too. Mother Goose in her shoe, that whore. Mother Goose had a red, crocheted shawl! She let you wear it, one of her blind mice!”

  A red, crocheted shawl. I swallowed down bile. “Where is this place?”

  “I’ll give you another clue for the haiku. A hint for a mint. A sentence for your parents who were sentenced by me. Their judge. I judged them to be in my way. They were in the way of you!” He opened his fingers wide and tapped them together. “A beach in the sun, a beach in the rain, high on a cliff, that’s where I caused pain.”

  “Why? Why did you cause them pain?” I felt the tears burn. I blinked. I would not cry though my entire body was racked with pain. He would see his power over me then.

  “Because I wanted you.” He smiled at me. Sexual. Predatory. “I wanted you, sweet Grenadine. Daughter of my new friends. Small. Tight body. Little girl. Yummy girl. But then”—he smashed his hands on the table in front of him—“your father fought me. He fought, he wouldn’t die, and your mother, she fought, too, tried to protect her daisy girl. Her man. Your daddy. Da da. Dad.” He smashed the table again. “But I won. I was the one out for fun.”

  I couldn’t even speak.

  “They told you, run Grenadine, run! Run!” He whistled, a haunted, jagged tune.

  I closed my eyes, totally overwhelmed. Sickened. It was true. The words I’d heard ringing in my head for so long. My parents had tried to save me. They had fought for each other, they had fought for me.

  “Run, Grenadine, run!” He imitated a woman’s voice, my mother’s. “Run, Grenadine, run!” He imitated my father’s voice, deep and low. “Run, Grenadine!” he shrieked. “Run!”

  I shivered, felt faint. Kade put his arm around me. He swore at Bucky again, but Bucky didn’t even pause.

  “I had to hit her, smash her, to get her down and keep her down. Run, Grenadine, run! Like your daddy, dad, father, your mother, mommy, mom, they wouldn’t die! Wouldn’t die! They fought so I couldn’t get you! You! They ruined it. You ruined it!”

  He was frustrated, angry.

  “You got away, sugar and spice and all things nice. You ran through the forest. At night. Down a hill. To a trucker. But no one ever wanted you. Your parents dead. Alone. Lost. They put signs up. Your face on the news, but no one ever came for you. No one wanted you. I took their hippie bus, do you know that? Drive, drive, drive, I took myself for a ride.”

  I heard myself crying inside. For my parents. For the grief that was still within me. It would never leave, I knew that now. I would have to grieve for them all over again, now that I knew what happened. I would find their bodies and bury them. I would do that for them. For us. For the family we were.

  “Where are they, Bucky? Tell me.”

  “I did tell you. One, two, three, I have a riddle for thee.”

  “I need more information.”

  “The devil, that’s Danny, he buried them near a rock, by a lighthouse, over the sea.” He pulled on his hair, both hands, above his ears, as if trying to pull the insanity out. Then he tilted his head back and giggled.

  My emotions boiled over. “I hope you’re never executed. Then you can stay here and rot.”

  He laughed. “I
am already rotten, you pretty girl, all grown up to a pretty woman with heavy breasts like your momma’s. Jack and Jill went up the hill, Jack and Jill were killed, but the baby black sheep, black sheep, have you any wool, she got away.”

  He bent his head and started sobbing. “It’s the bad devil in me. It’s Danny. He makes me do these things, but I will tell you.” He whipped his head up, and it was as if I was seeing a different man, his eyes filled with tears, his face slack. “Grenadine Scotch Wild, I would have killed you so you could have been with your parents with Him. I would have. But you dashed away and ruined it all.

  “I knew your parents for a week before I killed them. All they wanted to do was play with you. Sing. Dance. Love you, love you, love you.” His face changed again into one of unleashed, uncontrolled fury. “My daddy didn’t love me, he didn’t! And when I’m out of here, Grenadine Scotch Wild, I am going to kill you! No love is allowed! No love is allowed!”

  He was utterly insane. Vicious and cruel.

  “A sign about a lighthouse, a sign about a woman,” he sang, then whistled. “Seagulls playing with Mary had a little lamb. Dig you may, dig you might, you may find the bodies, you may find a kite.” He whistled again. “You may find your parents killed by my might!”

  And that was it. He lost it.

  “I am going to kill you, Grenadine Scotch Wild!” He stood up and started pounding on the glass with his fists, his face contorted and red, the veins in his neck popping. “You didn’t play right, you ran away, you little cunt! One, two, buckle my shoe, three, four, shut the door, five, six, I’ll kill you with sticks! Run, Grenadine, run!”

  The guards were there. They grabbed him and yanked him back, but he kicked at the table, kicked at the chair, struggled and screamed.

  “Run, Grenadine, run!” he screeched.

  Dizziness swamped me, and I slumped against Kade, as Kade sent a volley of swear words and threats through the glass to Bucky that Bucky didn’t even hear.

  “Run, Grenadine, run!”

  “We got all of it, Dina,” Dale said to me when I could breathe normally again and stand up on my own outside the prison. “We have to figure out what Bucky’s talking about. Where it is.”

  The whole conversation had been recorded. Dale was there with the FBI agents, police, and other officials in and out of uniform. They were all talking. One of the agents had her computer opened. “I can find this place.”

  Dale nodded, then reached over and hugged me. I hugged him back. Kade shook his hand. “We’re on it, Dina. Try to rest. I’ll call you as soon as we know anything.”

  Dale called at two in the morning. Kade and I were still up. We’d had some mind-blowing sex, my legs wrapped around his hips, my back against the wall.

  Afterward I’d cried in his arms in bed. Cried and cried as he smoothed my hair, held me close, kissed my forehead, my chin, my lips. I assured him I would not always cry after sex. He told me I could cry whenever I wanted.

  “Dina?” Dale said.

  “Yes.” Kade and I sat up in bed.

  “We think we know where your parents’ bodies might be.”

  We were soon on the road, driving through the night. We sat on the sand as the sun came up behind us, waking up the sea.

  We didn’t talk. Kade held me.

  The ocean sparkled behind us, sunlight caressing every wave, the white foam frothing, like soap, while seagulls squawked. It was crisp and cold and lovely, a direct contrast to the grim, harsh scene in front of us.

  The police had shut down the road to the red-and-white lighthouse so no one could come up. Kade and I stood back from the rock that Bucky had talked about, along with local and state police, the FBI, the task force, and other official-looking people with badges and uniforms.

  In my head I heard Bucky say, “The ocean waves roll. The tall trees grow. Above the tide pools there’s a cliff. On the cliff there’s a sign. A sign about a lighthouse. A sign about a woman. Seagulls playing. Go fifty long paces east, by a rock that’s tall. Dig you may, dig you might, you may find a body, you may find a red kite.”

  We were there. There was a sign about a lighthouse. There was a sign about a woman who had lived in the lighthouse in the 1900s named Eleanor Sherwood. The rock was almost hidden by trees. A perfect place for Bucky’s graveyard.

  The lighthouse keeper and his wife stood beside us. They were in their early thirties. When they heard why we were there, they served coffee and cinnamon rolls. I couldn’t eat or drink, and neither could Kade.

  As the area around the rock was dug up, the wife, Amelia, held my hand. Her husband patted my shoulder a couple times. Kade’s arm never left me. In the middle of such evil, kindness and care. I blinked back tears, then let them roll down. I put my hand over my lily bracelet.

  The ocean sparkled behind us, sunlight caressing every wave, the white foam frothing, like soap, while seagulls squawked. It was crisp and cold and lovely, and the digging went on and on and I closed my eyes.

  I remembered my parents . . . how huggable my dad was. I remembered his beard, his smile. Riding on his back. Drawing pictures with him. Singing along with him on the guitar, finding the Big Dipper. . . . My mother holding me, teaching me how to paint, reading to me, the lines all squiggles on the page, laughing, dancing . . . daisy crowns . . . lilies . . . camping . . . rivers . . . sunsets . . . Freedom. Bear. Grenadine. Wild.

  “Got something,” a woman from the FBI called out.

  Kade’s arms tightened around me. Amelia squeezed my hand.

  I wanted to know.

  I didn’t want to know.

  I wanted to find my parents.

  But not like this.

  What Bucky had said was so horrific, I could barely wrap my mind around it without it exploding.

  They had dug a trench around the whole rock, several feet out. As I was told, bodies can, and do, shift over time.

  Six other men and women started digging, same place.

  I felt dizzy, sick-dizzy, when a woman in an FBI jacket pulled out a tattered, holey red kite.

  “Oh, my God.”

  The ocean sparkled behind us, sunlight caressing every wave, the white foam frothing, like soap, while seagulls squawked. It was crisp and cold and lovely, and there was my red kite.

  Dale turned toward me, his face wreathed in sorrow.

  “That’s . . . that’s my red kite.” The edges of my vision became black, blurry, and I shook my head.

  “Sit down, Grenady, sit down,” Kade said.

  “No, no, I can’t.”

  They kept digging.

  Dale walked toward me. “It looks like they’re here.”

  “Both of them?”

  “Yes.” He nodded, his face grim, tight. “Both of them. I’m very sorry, Dina.”

  I was sorry, too. Beyond sorry.

  We stayed the whole time. I couldn’t leave.

  I watched when my parents’ skeletal remains were lifted up and out and bagged.

  I saw my mother’s red hair, my father’s brown hair, covered in dirt. I saw a glimpse of my father’s tie-dye shirt. I saw a scrap of my mother’s red, crocheted shawl, her flowered skirt.

  I couldn’t look away, though at one point Kade asked if I wanted to go and sit by the lighthouse and watch the waves. No, I couldn’t. I would see them. I would witness this. I would make sure their bodies were treated with care and respect from this point on, though I knew that the people there would do so.

  I was my parents’ daughter, the daughter of Freedom and Bear Wild, Mommy and Daddy, and I would be with them now, as I was before, when it was the three of us. A family.

  When my parents were bagged and driven down the road, the red, crotched shawl disappearing, the tie-dye shirt disappearing, their souls long gone, I walked to the edge of the cliff, the lighthouse in back of me. Kade put his arms around me.

  My parents had been found.

  I was still alone, but they had been found.

  I felt the tiniest bit of peace creeping in around
the rage I felt for Bucky and my overwhelming sorrow.

  My parents had not deserted me.

  They had been murdered.

  They had died trying to protect me and each other.

  I had heard them, their soft voices in my mind, for years. I had had their love with me my whole life.

  Sometimes, in the dark depths of my despair, I had wondered if my parents had left me as I could not remember their end. They were there, happy, laughing, dancing, then they were gone. But inside my heart, I had always known: My parents would never have willingly left me.

  I would mourn them forever, but now I had an answer. A tragic answer, but an answer.

  It’s hard to move forward when you don’t know where you’ve come from, who you are, but now I knew.

  I came from the most important place a person can come from.

  I came from love.

  There were four other bodies buried beside the rock near my parents. The dental records were processed quickly. Bucky was on death row, and the detectives wanted all the loose ends and details tied up. Plus, they wanted to share the information with all of the victims’ long-suffering families. The families deserved it.

  There were other loved ones out there besides me who had never had peace, who had grieved forever through black, wrenching nights and cold, lonely days, who had been hysterical, wondering what happened to their family members, their friends. It was the unknown that would have kept them crying, worrying, feeling like they were dying.

  At least the families would now know. They would have an idea of when their loved one died, and how, and by whom. It would not settle their hearts, their loss, but at least they would know something. They could move forward a little bit. They could remember the person, relive the happy memories, and know they were gone and not still suffering.

  All of the victims wore a necklace with a skull. I could never stand skulls. Now I knew why.

  For me, my parents had finally been found.

  Mommy and Daddy . . .

  Who called themselves Freedom and Bear Wild . . .

  Who called their daughter Grenadine Scotch Wild . . .