ABOUT HER

by Kimberly Adams

  Chains, complete with metal cuffs, supported his body weight and held him upright. Another set of metal cuffs gripped his ankles. His head lulled on his shoulders, his chin touching his chest. He wasn’t fully conscious, but I could tell he was trying to wake up.

  Lana was gone.

  I turned my head, trying to take in my surroundings.

  A basement. Wooden shelves lined the walls and dusty, rotted vegetables clotted on the timber planks. Stone stairs to the right, leading up to the low ceiling and ending abruptly.

  Virginia watched me taking inventory, smiling. “Isn’t it perfect? It’s called a root cellar, Lizzie. It’s a place to naturally store your vegetables. The perfect temperature. The perfect humidity. Why, I used to store all sorts of fresh garden vegetables down here. Winter squash. Beets. Onions even. Molly was quite the gardener,” she added. “The best part about the root cellar is its anonymity. It’s not even included in the original design for the house, you know. Those stairs are under a very well-hidden trap door, and the dumbwaiter has its own trap door that must be worked manually to lower this far down.”

  My eyes burned. I wanted to cry, but I wanted to listen. Listening to her was imperative. I needed to hear her if I was going to survive.

  “Why, during Prohibition, this root cellar was used to store alcohol. I found very old record books detailing transactions by bootleggers. 1926 was the peak for our previous owners. It was 1926 when the secret trapdoor and dumbwaiter extension was added to fit large barrels of illegal liquor. And good golly, they did a fine job. No record of any arrests associated with the former residents of this house.”

  I pretended to listen to her history lesson, mentally calculating how long it would take for Jake to return with the tow truck.

  If he searched the house and found it empty, would he know to look for trapdoors and secret passageways? Did I ever mention the hidden staircase in the master bedroom to him?

  I couldn’t remember.

  Virginia moved in front of me, lowering to my level and meeting my eyes. “I’m going to take this cloth out of your mouth now, Lizzie. You mustn’t scream or fret, dear. The cellar is quite soundproof, you see, so you’ll only irritate your throat. Why, I can’t even hear the music any longer, and I had the volume turned up to the absolute maximum. Do you hear the music?”

  I couldn’t hear the music. I couldn’t hear anything except her voice and Cal’s shallow breathing.

  “Do you understand?” she prodded.

  I blinked away the moisture in my eyes, nodding quickly.

  She removed the gag, and I gasped for air, rolling my tongue over my teeth and lips. I was incredibly thirsty, and she produced a bottle of water from the oversized pocket of her white cardigan.

  I hesitated, afraid of being drugged again, but she held the bottle up to my face and twisted the cap slowly so that I could hear the seal break. “I want there to be trust between us, Lizzie. You are so special to me, and I don’t want you to doubt me or my intentions. I mean for us to work together in this, Lizzie. Together. You and me. Are we in agreement?”

  I nodded again, accepting the cool water as she tipped the plastic bottle to my lips. I drank eagerly, liquid dripping over my chin and onto the blanket.

  “Good, good,” she murmured, pulling the bottle away. “Not too much.”

  “Where’s Lana?” I asked. My voice was strained, my throat sore. She patted my hand, tracing the rope with her index finger.

  “Never you mind about Lana. It’s you and I who must talk. Lana’s time to answer for her sins will come. So will Cal’s. But you and I have unfinished words between us. Unspoken tragedies that neither of us have opened our hearts to. Neither of us have mourned.”

  I pinched my eyebrows together, staring at her. “Virginia, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, as firmly as possible. I kept my tone neutral, afraid to push buttons that might ultimately get me hurt.

  Or worse.

  She patted her blonde hair, straightening her shoulders as she paced before me. “You’ve been inside this shell of a body for too long, Lizzie. Trapped inside a mind that refuses to give you truths. Deceits will only prolong your pain. Jake has enabled your grief because he loves you, I understand. I forgive him for that, but not me, Lizzie. I don’t love you. I am here to break you free from this pain. This shell. Let’s make sense of where we are and what happened, shall we?”

  I waited. I knew she was going to tell me what in the hell she was rambling on about eventually, but the more I spoke the more distracted she became.

  She continued to pace. “Right, then. First, let’s begin with why you’re here.”

  I lifted my unfocused eyes in confusion. “Why I’m here?”

  “Why this house?” she pushed. “Why did you choose this house?”

  I shrugged, and the blanket slipped a little off my right shoulder. “The snowstorm. We were just looking for somewhere to stay overnight, until the highway reopened.”

  “Where are your children?” she asked.

  “They’re with my parents,” I answered quickly, my nerves fraying. Cal’s head continued to bob every few minutes, as though he was trying to pull himself out of the haze she’d put him in.

  “Where are your parents?”

  I exhaled slowly. It was the strangest interrogation I’d ever heard. I thought back to all the kidnapping movies I’d seen, and never had the kidnapper sounded like a lawyer recounting the night of the “incident.” “My parents live in Pennsylvania. So do Cal’s. But Cal and Lana, and Jake and I, we live in Ohio. It’s a four-hour drive. The kids are staying with my parents over Christmas break, for a visit. We have jobs. We have to get back to work.”

  Virginia nodded. “How many years ago did Cal leave you for Lana?”

  I looked at her strangely, biting the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming at her. “Three.”

  “And what year was that?”

  I finally growled under my breath. “None of this is important, Virginia. And whatever you need, I can help you. Let’s just let Cal and Lana leave, and you and I can continue our friendship without all these... dramatics.”

  She knelt before me, her blue eyes pitying. “How many years has it been?”

  I exhaled sharply. “Four.”

  The number slipped out before I could stop it, and I blinked, narrowing my eyes in confusion.

  Had it been four years? Or three?

  “What year was Leah born?”

  “1998,” I answered with certainty. “March.”

  Virginia nodded. “And how old will she be this March coming up?”

  She was deliberately trying to confuse me. Leah had been fifteen when Cal left, and now she was about to be twenty in March.

  “Twenty,” I whispered.

  She nodded encouragingly. “Yes. Yes, Lizzie! You’re missing more than a year. Tell me about that year.”

  I blinked away tears, lowering my eyes to the concrete floor. Fury seethed from somewhere low in my gut, and I ground my teeth. “Go fuck yourself, Virginia.”

  She exhaled sharply.

  I waited. Enraging your captor was never a good idea in any situation, but I couldn’t help it. She was frustrating me, and the residual effects of the drug in my system streamed confusing information in my memory.

  Finally, she patted my hand. “Anger is good, my dear. So good.” She stood again and continued to pace. “Do you remember when I told you about that day at the lake, with Liza?”

  How could I forget.

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “And you asked me if I killed her,” she pushed, the frankness of her tone not at all surprising.

  “Yes,” I repeated.

  Virginia crossed her arms over her chest, tilting her head. She gave me a thoughtful look. “What if I was already dead? What if she killed me first? Can a dead woman kill a living woman?”

  Jesus Christ, I was so done. Clinically insane was a passive-aggressive label for whatever Virginia was.

>   “No, I guess not,” I said.

  She nodded encouragingly. “Of course not. And when Liza wrecked that car with my Molly inside, she killed me, too. I was already dead the day she arrived here. I’m dead now. My actions are inconsequential.”

  I blinked. Did she think she was a goddamn ghost?

  “I see,” I replied.

  She stared at me, her expression hardening. I gripped the arms of the chair.

  “And when Lilly died, you became a ghost too, Lizzie. A ghost. You roam this world for the sake of your remaining two children and for Jake, but you’re only a half-person. A lost spirit. An apparition waiting for the next life.”

  I didn’t breathe. I couldn’t.

  “Lilly isn’t dead,” I said, my slow words trying to break her manic psyche.

  Virginia stared at me.

  Finally, she sighed.

  “I’ll finish my story of Molly. And then you will finish your story of Lilly. Agreed?”

  I glared at her. “Fine. Whatever you need to say so we can get out of here,” I demanded.

  She turned her face to Cal, then back to me with a slight shake of the head. “You know Cal’s not leaving, Lizzie. You know how this story ends.”

  VIRGINA

  Martin was a wonderful father, and Molly adored him.

  He loved her adventurous spirit. She showed an early interest in the outdoors, so Martin would take her fishing almost every weekend. Martin was an avid shooter and enjoyed target practice on the range he’d built in the woods behind the lake, and he bought a pair of pink headphones to protect Molly’s ears. Only she wanted the camouflaged headphones, so he had to exchange the pink ones for camo print.

  They would fall asleep on the couch together watching the History channel, specifically World War II documentaries. And Molly loved old Japanese Godzilla films, and she and Martin would watch them again and again. It was both hilarious and endearing.

  Martin taught her to play baseball and to ride a bike. She looked up to her father; he could do no wrong in her eyes. For Molly, Martin was a hero. Her hero.

  When Martin left, Molly’s world grew dark. She became depressed. Her grades dropped, and her health declined. It seemed she was sick with this virus or that virus so often that her school arranged work to be completed at home so she wouldn’t fall behind.

  At first, Martin tried to help. He met me at school conferences and listened to Molly’s teachers as they described how distracted she’d become in class. Her teacher even mentioned that Molly would often fall asleep before lunch, in the middle of a lesson.

  I explained to her teacher that her beloved father had walked out and was living with his lover, which made for a very uncomfortable conversation with Martin sitting in the seat right next to me. Molly’s teacher looked apologetic, and I wasn’t certain if her uneasiness was directed at me for having gone through such an ordeal, or at Martin for enduring my scathing recount of his infidelity. Either way, Martin yelled at me in the parking lot for the first time that afternoon.

  “Her teacher didn’t need to know everything,” Martin said, his temper flaring. “You can play the martyr on your own time, Virginia. Not in front of me, or at Molly’s expense.”

  I gave him the coldest shoulder I could and got into my car. I drove away and declined two of his phone calls on my way home.

  Molly started working with a child psychologist, and she began to heal. We started seeing signs of improvement. Her grades and attendance at school were pulling up, her appetite improved, and she was feeling healthy again.

  The child psychologist suggested that I be supportive in our new blended family dynamic, and even went as far as to suggest I become amiable with Liza.

  I was disgusted by the prospect of forming a relationship with my husband’s whore, but for Molly’s sake, I bit my tongue in Liza’s presence. We agreed to a “family” dinner at Molly’s favorite restaurant that weekend. I smiled politely throughout the entire ordeal, assuring Molly that everything was okay, and we could all live harmoniously.

  “I just have to find you a new husband, Mommy. Since Daddy is making Liza his new wife.”

  I found out that he was marrying her like that. From Molly. From my daughter informing me that she needed to find me a “new husband.”

  I made an embarrassment of myself then. Though I’ve tried to remind myself that I’m only human and I do have emotions, I still regret that evening. I stood up from the table and took Molly’s hand, telling her that we were leaving. When she started to protest, and when Martin started to defend himself, I reached into my purse and collected the stack of twenty one-dollar bills I’d broken for Molly’s school lunches that week. I threw the dollars at Liza and watched them fall over her like confetti.

  “This should cover my dinner. Continue stealing my husband and my money.”

  I dragged Molly by the hand to the car, and she cried all the way home from the backseat. I knew I was being a terrible mother, but I couldn’t control myself.

  How dare he propose to her? How dare he tell Molly, without my consent? How dare he leave her alone with such a life-altering piece of information, without her mother having any knowledge of what her own daughter was left to deal with?

  No wonder she was failing her class and struggling. How long had she known? In his selfishness, Martin had stripped away all the effort I had spent in getting Molly well again only to fill her head with uneasiness and even more questions.

  But that was Martin. Molly was his best friend. If Molly was capable of understanding the politics of World War II, she was able to accept him taking a new wife. That was his logic. And his logic was hurting our daughter.

  When Liza walked to the lake with me that day, I was thinking about that dinner. I wasn’t only thinking about Liza killing my daughter, I was thinking about Liza’s face when I threw the money at her.

  She didn’t look horrified. She wasn’t ashamed or embarrassed. And she certainly wasn’t upset for me, or for Molly.

  Liza looked satisfied. Triumphant. Hungry for even more of my reaction and jealousy. She began picking up the money, each dollar one by one, her eyes never leaving my face.

  Pleased.

  You asked me if I killed her, Lizzie.

  I grabbed her hair. That long, red hair that was dry to touch, like straw. Like an unmanicured lawn in the dog days of summer. Dead. Brittle. Lacking vitamins and minerals and humanity.

  I grabbed her hair with my right hand. On my left hand, I still wore my wedding band and my diamond engagement ring. A two-carat solitaire. I’d spun it around when she arrived, letting the stone be hidden in my palm. I hadn’t wanted her to see that I was still wearing Martin’s promise. I had too much pride.

  When I had her head twisted back and her chin facing the sky, I slapped my left hand across her face. I was taller than her, you see, so it was easy for me to pound my palm into her cheek.

  I say that I slapped her, but in truth, I did not slap her. I beat the heel of my hand up and into her cheek so hard that splinters of bone became lodged in the prongs of my diamond. It took weeks for me to dig out all the fragments and really clean the setting.

  When I pulled my hand away, blood spurted out of the side of her face. It was almost comical the way it sprayed at first, then poured from the hole in her cheek. She screamed and, with her head still back like that, I could see all her teeth and even her fillings. Silver fillings, mostly in her molars. The fillings illuminated with the reflection of the sun and were mesmerizing, Lizzie. It gave her a robotic presence. Like I’d pierced her skin to find wires and circuits, and she was a poorly-formed artificial intelligence designed to fuck husbands and kill children.

  Her phone fell out of her pocket, onto the dock.

  I let go of her hair and pushed her into the lake.

  I didn’t know if she could swim, but to a swimmer, it seemed inconsequential for an adult. For a child it’s different. I’d have been terrified if one of Molly’s little school friends had fallen into the wate
r. But for Liza, I didn’t care. What human couldn’t stay above still water in a life or death situation? It was unfathomable to me, the concept of drowning.

  Liza flailed in the water, her head bobbing up and down at the surface. The dock was far enough into the center of the lake for the bottom to be well below her feet and out of reach. Every time her mouth would catch air, she’d simultaneously try to draw in a breath and scream at the same time. And she choked.

  I laughed, Lizzie. I laughed as she choked, because I’d choked so many times because of Liza. I’d choked and coughed and gasped for air because of Liza. I’d prayed to stop breathing because of Liza. I laughed, Lizzie, I did. I laughed at her misery and her pain. I laughed at her terror. I laughed because I was an experienced swimmer, and all I had to do was jump into the lake and pull her above the water.

  But I didn’t want to save her.

  I wanted to kill her.

  Letting her drown was too passive. If I let her drown, she’d die always knowing that I was too much of a coward to end her life by my own hands. I couldn’t just idly sit back on my heels and let water fill her lungs.

  So I jumped in the water.

  I swam to her, and she was weakening. I grabbed two fistfuls of scarlet hair and I pushed. I crawled up onto her shoulders and I attached. I held her under with my body as I pulled clumps of her hair out with my bare hands. Even as my nails raked the sides of her face, caught the diamond hole in her cheek, and tore raw flesh. I imagined lake bacteria seeping into her bloodstream. Brain-eating amoebas feasting their way through her nostrils. Fictional water-beasts with sharp fangs tearing at her heels, ripping at tendons, and shredding her precious heels.

  Well, Lizzie. Time was a bit choppy that day. I’m not sure how many hours passed before I was back on the dock, and she floated belly-down to the dock. I thought I wasn’t finished with her yet. I wanted her to stay in the lake but I also wanted to bring her into the house so I could finish with her. I wanted to scrape all the skin off her body with a paring knife, Lizzie.

  I hit her with an oar for a while, but my arms grew tired.

  I dragged her by the hair along the side of the dock, all the way to the shore as though I was walking my pet along the water. She floated so easily. Glided, really. It took some elbow grease, but I managed to drag her ashore.