Emma threw her hands out in front of her. ‘Enough,’ she said. ‘I just want them to find the person who did this and be done with it.’ Emma’s hideous desire for answers made my heart beat faster. She made my teeth want to sink into her flesh and eat her out of my life, made me want to swarm her mind and sort through all the thoughts she had of me, that I was being too stubborn, I was being too secretive, I was being bad, I was, I was. I felt her nastiness crawl over my skin, tiny deaths that made me want to become nothing. Emma sat boulder strong, eyed me like a parent seeing their child misbehave for the first time and not liking any of it. The same look Mrs Borden gave me from time to time.
Emma tilted her head, mouthed a small-breath whisper then shook her head. ‘I can’t believe no one saw or heard anything.’
‘What are you saying?’
Emma shrugged, was defeated. ‘I don’t know. Nothing.’
A weight dropped through my stomach, perforated holes along muscle. Were other people watching me like this? Thinking like this? My palms ached, became small deserts. I rubbed them together, newly formed calluses bonding. Why was my truth so hard to believe? The police had asked question, question, question, had written my words down like gospel. When Emma came home, the police threw information at her, I bet that’s why she’s like this with me, made her think things. Sitting there, Emma looked exactly the way Mrs Borden had in the morning, stalking me around the house, shadow of shadow.
I felt like sinking. All day I had made sure I was the daughter Father raised, had answered questions. There had been a moment after lunch when I overheard two officers ask, ‘How much time would you want to spend alone in a house where you found your murdered father?’
‘Maybe Miss Borden didn’t run out of the house because she knew someone would eventually come and be with her.’
‘Or she felt she was in no danger.’
‘What type of madman would stick around waiting to kill someone else? Miss Borden probably didn’t even consider herself a potential victim.’
My blood jumped. It wasn’t right to make a grieving child feel that way, that somehow they were responsible for death, does this mean they will come for me?
Emma rubbed her face. None of this would’ve happened if she hadn’t left me in the house.
‘Do you think they’re close to finding a suspect?’ I said.
‘I don’t know. I don’t know how any of this works.’ Emma unfolded and folded her hands in front of her, begging.
‘What will they do to the killer when they catch them?’
‘I guess they’ll have a trial.’
‘And if they’re guilty?’
She leaned towards me, let her mouth gorge wide before saying, ‘They will be hanged.’
‘Does that always happen?’ Heat swamped over my body, made my mind spiral then collapse.
‘Do we have to talk about this now?’
‘I’m worried, that’s all.’
‘How about you worry about the fact Father died.’ Her voice a scream.
There was a pop in the middle of my ear. It crawled out and lunged at the walls of the house. A window shook. Emma pulsed in her chair, threw a hand over her mouth and closed her eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to be angry with you.’
‘Why are you?’ I heard my voice sound out like small pebbles across floorboards. I didn’t like the way Emma watched me.
‘Why don’t I get you some tea?’ Emma stood.
‘Get Bridget to do it.’
Emma tied her fingers together, said, ‘Bridget left us.’
‘Why? What did you do to make her leave?’ I thought Bridget would like it more now things had changed.
Emma gave me a blank, dirty look, went to the kitchen without saying another word about it. The clock on the mantel ticked ticked. I ran my hand over the wallpaper then my chair; felt the sticky coating of Mrs Borden’s cream cake. I rubbed my finger over my teeth, tasted remains of days’-old entertaining.
When I was ten, I used to like it when Father and Mrs Borden invited the occasional friend over, liked the way I could go unnoticed like a critter, biting off conversation here, sipping mulled wine there. Emma was often invited to sit with Mrs Borden and friends. I never could.
‘It’s to make me like her more,’ Emma spat out.
‘It’s because you’re a grown-up. You’re lucky.’
Emma pulled at her throat. ‘It’s not that fun.’
From the front stairs I’d watch Emma in the parlour drink cups of tea. Mrs Borden would say, ‘Emma, dear, tell us about the things you’re crafting.’
Sip, sip. ‘I’m sketching a landscape scene.’ Sip, sip. ‘Nothing too important.’
‘Your mother tells us all the time how talented you are,’ a friend would say.
Sip, sip. ‘Oh.’ Sip, sip and Emma would stare at Mrs Borden before saying, ‘I still have quite a lot to learn about form and colour.’ Sip, sip. When were they going to talk to me about what I liked? After skin flushed red, Emma would make excuses to leave the table, taking with her a handful of Borden-made cookies and heading for the backyard. Everyone always chooses the wrong sister. I wanted to be at the table. I’d make my way down, quiet into Emma’s chair and listen to adult talk.
‘No, Lizzie. Not this time.’ Mrs Borden rushed her fingers over my head, made skin dance. Nothing was ever my time.
I rubbed my fingers along my forehead, massaged an ache away. Emma came back into the parlour, placed tea onto the small table between us and watched me.
‘Are you alright?’ She stared at me, made me shiver.
‘Why?’
‘Your head. You keep touching it.’
I rubbed again. ‘Just a strange throb, that’s all.’ The butcher pounded.
‘Let’s call for Dr Bowen again in the morning.’
I smiled, and Emma kept her watch of me and I looked around the room. We were surrounded by ghosts of sympathy. On small tables, half-full cups of tea and cream had been left by Father and Mrs Borden’s friends who could no longer handle the stench of their absence. Underneath the sofa were tiny pieces of paper that had come away from police officers’ notebooks, trailing from sofa to kitchen like Hansel and Gretel’s crumbs, hoping to find their way home. I rubbed my forehead again. There would be many things Emma would have to fix to make everything right. I could see Father’s blood on the sofa.
Words slipped out of me then. ‘I was in here talking to Mrs Borden this morning.’
Emma seized. ‘When was this?’ Her voice scratched at my ear.
‘After she told Bridget to keep cleaning the windows. She said there was a strange smell.’
Emma’s nose twitched. ‘What kind of smell?’
The sweet syrup tripped through my limbs. ‘I don’t know. It was probably her.’ I giggled.
‘What time did you speak to her?’ Emma said.
My head jerked towards her. ‘I just told you.’
‘But you said she had gone to see a sick relative.’
I rubbed my forehead. ‘She did but I spoke to her first.’ Is this the way things really go? The butcher pounded out all sense.
Emma got haughty. ‘I’m simply trying to understand . . .’
I heard a tiny voice say not to speak anymore, that she wouldn’t understand the thoughts swimming inside. But it was hard to keep a tongue still. The clock on the mantel ticked ticked. My body swooned and clothes gripped tight around ribs. This feeling of being held too tightly when I was younger, first by Father then by Emma. The feeling that made you want to jump out of your skin, run like hammers away, away, I shouldn’t be feeling like this now.
I turned to Emma, saw her stare at me like I was a caged animal. ‘Why do you keep staring?’
‘You look pale,’ Emma said.
I touched my face, pulled down on skin. ‘Do I?’
‘You should rest.’
‘There’s so much to do. We have to plan the funeral.’ I parted the parlour curtains, looked out the window, watched people hold h
ands as they passed and tried to see in. Heads make curious shapes. ‘Who do you think Father would want to attend for him?’
Emma breathed, curled around my ear. ‘I can’t talk about this now.’
‘But it’s important.’
Emma’s face drained of colour. I leaned towards her and saw light-blue veins along jawbone tighten and pulse, all the little angers waiting to come out and spill. I leaned closer.
‘Sit back,’ she snarled.
‘Stop looking at me like that.’ I pulled at my neck. Emma kept watch until I felt her begin to crawl under my skin, eyes like parasites.
‘Like what?’ she said.
Her eyes continued to take my skin as a feast, ate the layers until I felt her inside my insides. ‘You always do this,’ I said.
‘What am I doing, exactly?’ Emma burrowed in closer, chewed to bone. All the little strings that hold a body together threatened to undo. How far would she go?
‘Nothing,’ I said. But the more she looked at me, the more I thought things, thought about the time we were robbed last year, how Emma had looked and looked at me for days after. Just like this. ‘You told Father about the necklace, didn’t you?’ I folded teeth over teeth.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Last year. You told Father I took the necklace, that it was me who stole all Mrs Borden’s jewellery.’
She closed her eyes and shook her head. ‘I can’t believe this. It’s not that important.’
My heart drummed, strike up the band! and pressed against my chest, throat tightened. ‘But how do I know you’re not going to tell the police things about me? Things I’ve said?’
Her eyes pinched into nothingness. ‘Why are you saying . . .’
‘I made one little mistake! I only ever make one little mistake and you always make sure I’m punished. I absolutely hate you sometimes.’ Heart drummed into my head. The clock on the mantel ticked ticked.
‘Lizzie, cut it out right now,’ her voice spat across the room.
My body lurched forwards then back, forwards then back, the way a body on gallows would swing. My neck ached. I wept. I shook until the floorboards whispered, no more, no more. From upstairs I heard Uncle call out, ‘What’s going on down there?’ Emma rushed at me, wrapped skeleton arm around me and shooshed, shooshed, shooshed. ‘It will be alright,’ she said. Her head curled into mine, magnetic skin, and in we breathed, out we breathed, like children, we children without parents.
‘This is how you should always be to me,’ I hummed into her ears. We were warm for a time. Then Emma’s fingers crawled over my head, soothed like God and made me electric.
‘What’s this?’ Her fingers stopped sharp at my temple. She pulled away, looked me over.
‘What?’
‘What’s in your hair?’ she whispered.
I ran my hand over the spot that had made her break from me; something brittle and coated.
Emma pulled my head towards her and studied. The clock on the mantel ticked ticked. ‘There’s something hard stuck in your hair.’ Her fingers weaved through strands, pulled gently. ‘Oh, my,’ she whispered again.
I studied her fingers, saw a tiny bauble of bone. ‘No.’ I said, no, no, no, we were quiet.
Emma looked me over then around the room. She wiped at her eyes, strained her neck towards the ceiling. Mrs Borden’s blood is still up there! The clock on the mantel ticked ticked. I watched Emma’s ribcage expand and deflate. I wondered what it would be like if she were to die right then. Emma stared at me once more and after a time said, ‘Do you think you might have hurt yourself?’
My heart skipped a beat. I touched the spot where she had been, couldn’t feel blood. I thought very hard. It was all very confusing. ‘Yes.’ I touched my forehead and rubbed. ‘I’ve been sore all day, come to think of it.’ I rubbed my forehead again. ‘I hurt myself a lot when you were away.’
When Emma was in Fairhaven I sat in my room and picked at my skin. First I picked at the dried skin on my feet, let it fall onto my red wool rug next to my bed, then I picked at skin around my elbows and knees, made myself bleed a little, drip drip onto my white sheets. If she had answered my letters, I wouldn’t have felt so empty and lonely, wouldn’t have had to force myself to play niceties with Father and Mrs Borden, to talk to them. Many things wouldn’t have happened. I wouldn’t have had to sit with them in the evenings. I’d often find them in the sitting room, Father with a book on the sofa, Mrs Borden with her too-ornate embroidery, knotted colour thread lying with each stitch: Home Sweet Home, My Heart Rests Here. One night I prayed for her to prick her fingers with the needle, to sew skin into skin.
‘Hello, Lizzie.’
‘Good evening.’ I sat in the chair nearest the parlour room and watched them, kerosene lamps burning off that devil-sulphur smell, shading their faces with half-shadows. Father looked up from his book at me, then at Mrs Borden before returning to the page. Mrs Borden embroidered, hand up, fingers tight and angular, pull through cloth, repeat, repeat. The clock on the mantel ticked ticked, its tick-tick climbing down over the ledge along the carpet into my feet; little cannons. I thought of jumping up and down, a giant stomp of ‘Here I am! Here I am!’ Instead I coughed. They both said nothing. I coughed again and listened to their breathing, that dragging of air up through aged lung, out of dry mouth and cracked lip.
Mrs Borden said, ‘Andrew, did I tell you? Bridget seems to think the upstairs space is attracting a particular smell.’
‘Is that right?’ Father said. ‘What does she think it might be?’ who cares what she thinks.
‘Perhaps an animal?’ said Mrs Borden.
‘Rodent?’ Father stroked his short beard.
‘Could be.’ Mrs Borden embroidered.
‘It’s the weather that makes it worse,’ Father said.
‘I told her to open the windows.’ Mrs Borden embroidered.
‘I dare say it’ll be trapped in the walls. The damage to the house and the cost to fix it will be enormous,’ Father said.
‘Yes, quite expensive.’ Mrs Borden, her fingers around the needle, going in and out, in and out of fabric. She changed the colour of the thread from red to purple, in and out. ‘Suppose we’ll have to wait until the end of summer.’
‘Yes, the animal will have well and truly disintegrated by then and the problem will have sorted itself out.’ Father smiled, proud of his solution. He returned to his book.
Their conversation made me want to hit walls. They knew nothing. I cleared my throat. ‘Maybe Bridget is storing food up there and it’s become rancid.’
‘Why would she do that?’ Mrs Borden stopped embroidering.
‘How am I supposed to know? Maids do take things. I wouldn’t be surprised . . .’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Father put the book down. ‘We all know Bridget isn’t the one who takes things in this house, is she?’ We locked eyes. His mouth opened. I saw grey tongue poke over gum.
‘Unfortunately, Father, there is crime in our beloved Fall River. Many people do many things.’
‘Yes, they do, Lizzie. They do.’ Father stroked his short beard. Mrs Borden put her embroidery on her lap. The clock on the mantel whirled, skipped time. We all turned to look at it. The clock whirled again then stopped. A silence.
‘That hasn’t happened in a long time,’ Mrs Borden said.
We were quiet.
Then Father said, ‘I’ll take it into town tomorrow and have it repaired.’
I stretched my legs until my stockinged ankle showed from underneath my skirt, my, what strong legs you have, and I clicked my jaw and sighed. Father turned and faced me. We watched each other and in that moment I was small again. I wanted to pounce on him like a kitten and dig my claws into his legs, swipe a paw into his cheek and watch the blood-letting, make him forget about the conversation we’d just had. ‘Cheeky child,’ he’d say, ‘but that is why I love you. What a wonder you are.’ I AM the great wonder, and I’d lick my kitten tongue over blood and cheek,
clean him with my fur and preen.
Father and I watched each other. He’d never let me grow, like he didn’t trust me. This thing we did night after night after night and I ended up picking at skin because Emma wasn’t home. So many times I thought about walking to Fairhaven, thought of stalking into Emma’s bed like the moon and lying by her side, growing tentacles and wrapping them around her until our breathing matched.
A week after Emma left for Fairhaven, I had taken to watching Mrs Borden trounce around the house, heavy iron-feet walking stairs and floorboards, her puff-puff breath curling around my neck and lips like an infection each time she walked by me.
‘Lizzie, you look lost,’ Mrs Borden said.
‘I’m not that lost. I know that I’m stuck here in this hellhole.’
She laughed. ‘You know that’s not what I meant.’
My lips gave way to a smile and I tried to suck it in.
‘Emma will be back soon enough.’ Sing-song, sing-song.
‘I don’t care,’ I said.
‘Oh . . .’
‘Actually, I was just thinking that sometimes it’s better to stay at home from time to time.’ I heard myself in the ease of the conversation, the way my voice spread like sweet butter. I knew if Emma had been there she would’ve said to me, ‘So what are you trying to get out of them this time?’
‘None of your business,’ I would’ve answered. Then after a time I’d tell Emma, ‘I want them to pay for me to go back to Europe.’
‘You’re quite right,’ Mrs Borden said. I let myself smile at her, what is wrong with me?
The side door had opened and Father came in, stood rigid in front of us. ‘You two are speaking, I see.’
Mrs Borden raised her eyebrows. ‘Lizzie and I were discussing the merits of staying home.’
‘From time to time,’ I added.
Father looked at me. ‘As long as one makes oneself useful.’
‘Don’t I always, Father?’ Lips gave way to a grin. I wanted to yell out, Give me what I deserve! But I kept quiet.
‘Have you heard from your sister?’ he said.
‘Yes. She’s fine.’
Mrs Borden moved her head to one side, eyed me, evil, before telling father, ‘Bridget has been preparing lunch. Some nice roasted mutton . . .’
See What I Have Done Page 19