ABOUT HER

by Kimberly Adams

  When I flipped her over, she was blue and bloated. I liked her skin better that color. Bloated blue. “Wait here,” I whispered before walking back to the house.

  By the time I reached the porch, I hadn’t panicked yet. I wasn’t afraid, or even disturbed. I was... unfinished. I really wanted my best paring knife, the one I keep in the drawer with my finest knives.

  I was wet, so I carefully stripped on the porch and walked naked to the kitchen. Knife in hand, I made my way back outside. Rather than putting my wet clothes back on my body, I remained naked. Without sopping clothes to restrict my arm movements, I felt I could more easily work with her skin.

  When I got back to the lake, I almost expected her to have disappeared. It was too good to be true. Liza, in the mud, bloated and blue. Clumps of red hair missing from her scalp. A hole in her face. Too good to be true.

  I started with her face.

  I pared her upper lip, and then her lower. The skin separated easily, a few layers down. Not much bleeding, though. But I wasn’t too disappointed. Blood would have been too messy, I consoled myself. It’s best that there is no blood.

  I peeled and peeled. Skin everywhere. Clumps in the grass, like mud in the water.

  After a while my lower back began to ache from kneeling over her, peeling. I stood and grabbed her by the ankle, dragging her back into the lake. I tied her to the furthest piling from the shore, all the way at the end of the dock. I used the rope that kept Martin and Molly’s boat attached to the dock. I didn’t mind if the boat floated away now, you see. I didn’t have Martin or Molly, and I certainly didn’t need their boat.

  I peeled her for days, Lizzie. Days. I woke up every morning with such excitement. Such exuberance. After a full night of sleep, the first that I’d had in years, I had the energy of a teenager. It was that falling-in-love feeling. That mixture of endorphins and adrenaline that forced me out of my grief. So, I do have Liza to thank for that. She may have killed me, but she helped me recover from my own death. Thank you, Liza.

  Her hands had begun to blister and turn greenish-black. Her skin was wrinkled, and the knife didn’t glide as easily. Her body was decomposing, so the smell had started to get to me a bit. Admittedly, when I began to peel between her legs, I almost vomited. Just the smell, you see. I found a pair of Martin’s foamy earplugs, ones he often used when he went shooting, and shoved them into my nostrils. The problem was solved.

  I’m not sure how many days I peeled her. One day, when I went to untie the rope, her hand slipped out before the knot was undone. She was slimy, and the leaves were clinging to her skin in piles. I’d brought the oar back to the garage, so I had nothing to retrieve her with.

  It was getting cold, and I didn’t want to jump into the lake.

  I realized... I had to let her go, Lizzie.

  I had to let her go. I went through another period of grief after that. I almost contacted Martin and asked him to come to me, but I was unsure of myself. I was angry with Martin, and I no longer knew my limits, or what I was capable of. If Martin arrived, would I kill him, too? Or would I be relieved? Would his presence be a comfort or a temptation?

  I didn’t call Martin, but he did arrive at my doorstep six months later. He told me Liza had left him and they’d never spoken again. He told me he was beyond sorry for what he’d done, and the choices that he’d made. He begged my forgiveness and asked if he could come back home to me. If we could try again, just the two of us. Try for another child. Try for forgiveness.

  Lizzie, it was tempting to believe him. To trust that he’d changed and wouldn’t hurt me again. Even more tempting was the thought of another child, with Martin’s genes and my DNA. Maybe even another girl, and maybe a girl who would look like Molly.

  But his dick, Lizzie. His dick that thrust in and out of her bloated blue crotch. I’d peeled away all her skin that his dick had touched, but I hadn’t peeled away his skin. She was clean, but he was not. And if I let him come back, and I let him touch me again, I knew what I needed to do.

  I needed to peel her away from him.

  FOURTEEN

  “You’re a fucking psycho.”

  Cal’s voice filled the dead air in the shadowy cellar.

  Virginia’s head whipped in his direction, and his eyes focused on us. I met them, pleading for him to be silent.

  Shut up Cal!

  “Cal,” she said simply.

  “Where is Lana? Lizzie! Are you hurt?” he demanded.

  “No,” I replied. Virginia raised her eyebrows and looked between us.

  “No? Oh, Lizzie dear. You are so hurt. So very hurt. The time for being brave has ended. It’s time for truths. It’s time you opened your wounds and showed Cal. You have his undivided attention, dear Lizzie. Let’s begin.”

  She walked to Cal, streaming a silver piece of duct tape in her hands. He swung his head left and right, trying to avoid his mouth being taped shut. She took a step back and glared at him.

  “If you resist, Cal, then I have no choice but to punish Lana for your impertinence.”

  He paused, his nostrils flaring. They did that when he was at his angriest.

  He jerked at the metal shackles once more but remained still while Virginia applied the tape. She used two layers for good measure, staggering them to stretch between his nose and his chin.

  “There now, Lizzie has the floor. Lizzie, dear, it’s time. Time for you to tell me about Lilly.”

  I shifted my eyes between hers and Cal’s. “Virginia,” I began carefully, “Lilly is alive. You’re confused. I know that- that your Molly died. But Lilly didn’t.”

  That feeling of sorrow came again, so pungent that I nearly doubled over. I pictured Virginia leaning over Liza’s body at the lake, naked as she peeled away her skin. Why I felt sadness and despair instead of horror and disgust bewildered me. I couldn’t seem to put the pieces of the emotional puzzle together.

  I feel for her. I know what happened to Molly. I understand what she did and why.

  But the way she described her feelings and her actions... emotionless. Lacking human empathy. Cold.

  Nonchalant.

  Somewhere between her divorce with Martin and Molly’s death, Virginia had a psychotic break. I wasn’t sure if a person could become a killer, or if they were born a killer; too many serial killer documentaries told me that many people developed a personality disorder at a young age that predisposed them to a lack of empathy and remorse.

  Virginia seemed to lack both empathy and remorse. Rather, she was thrilled as she talked about murdering Liza, and I wanted to know more about Martin.

  “Did you let Martin live?” I asked.

  Virginia shook her head. “My turn to talk is over, Lizzie. No deflecting now. I have shared so much with you. I told you all about Liza. Details I’ve never shared with anyone.”

  “But there’s a tow truck coming,” I protested. “The police officer sent for one, and Jake went too. Any second they’ll be showing up here.”

  “I pretended to receive a text when I was talking to Officer Roy,” she said, shaking her head. “As I stood out in the driveway while he cleaned off his cruiser, I explained that you had finally gotten a signal and called for a tow. It was a white lie, you see, but a necessary one. I’ve been blocking your signals with a small device that I purchased. A jammer. Just a simple little box that I could turn on and off to suit my fancy. Why, I even sabotaged your vehicles. It’s not a coincidence that neither of them would start. The officer showing up at the house, though... that was not part of my plan. I needed Officer Roy to move along. I didn’t want him to be part of this. This is too emotional, Lizzie.”

  Our vehicles. Our signals. Every sporadic communication I’d received had been orchestrated from the beginning, all by Virginia.

  We’d been at her mercy since the beginning.

  I gasped back a sob I didn’t realize I’d been holding. “Is Jake okay? Did you hurt Jake?” I pleaded.

  “Oh, dear, of course not,” she cooed, hurrying
to give me a half-hug. I cringed at her embrace. “Jake is just fine. As I said, they will arrive to find the house empty. Perhaps they will assume we hiked to the nearest house. After all, there are footsteps- fresh tracks- in the snow out back.”

  “Tracks?” I repeated.

  She nodded encouragingly. “Yes, Lizzie. Lana went with me willingly, once I convinced her that Cal was waiting for her.”

  Cal gave a guttural growl, thrusting himself forward. The shackles caught his wrists and ankles, and he moaned in furious pain.

  “Is Lana alive, Virginia?” I asked.

  “Tell me about Lilly,” she urged. “You tell me about Lilly, and I’ll tell you about Lana.”

  “Lilly is fine! She’s with her brother and sister at my parent’s house! There’s nothing to say!” I shouted, losing my patience.

  Virginia lifted her eyes to Cal’s. The silence from the wall where he was shackled drew my attention.

  Cal stared at me, pity clouding his blue eyes.

  “What?” I demanded, looking between them both.

  “Tell me about the night Lilly stayed with Cal and Lana. The night you called the police.”

  I pressed my lips together and exhaled through my nose.

  “Fine. Details. You want details. Okay.” I scowled at her. “Cal and Lana got into a fight. Cal spit on Lana. He choked her. He pointed a gun at her. Lilly tried to break it up. I called the police, went and got Lilly, and brought her home with me.”

  Virginia nodded. “Yes,” she agreed. “Yes, Lilly went home with you. You saved her. You kept her safe from harm. Protected.”

  “Yes. And Cal and Lana are fucking assholes and Lilly will never go over there again. The end.”

  Virginia straightened, rolling her shoulders back and tucking her white cardigan tighter around her torso.

  “Lizzie, I didn’t want to have to do this. I wanted you to tell me yourself. But I can see that you won’t.” She walked to Cal, and I moaned, shaking my head.

  “Wait. Wait! Don’t hurt him. I’ll tell you anything you want to hear,” I pleaded, yanking at the ropes on my wrists.

  “I’m only taking off the tape.” She peeled a little of the silver duct tape back before ripping the adhesive with a cruel tug. Cal grunted, coughing against the rush of stagnant air.

  After a silence that seemed to drag on for centuries, Cal met my eyes. “Lizzie?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “What? What, Cal?”

  He looked at Virginia, and Virginia gave him a reassuring nod.

  He met my eyes again. “Lizzie, Lilly hurt herself. Don’t you remember?”

  The sorrow again, sweeping in and tightening a fist over my beating heart. I bowed my head between my legs.

  The song was playing again, from somewhere in the cellar. It was faint this time, like the speakers were smothered with a pillow.

  She’s not there.

  She’s not there.

  “No one told me about her,” I whispered, my head still pressed to my knees. “No one told me about her. About the girl who looked like half of Cal and half of me. No one told me she would be so protective. So fiercely protective of her family.”

  “Lizzie,” Virginia said sharply, snapping her fingers.

  I lifted my head, tears streaming down my cheeks. They burned, but I couldn’t wipe them away. “No one told me about her. No one told me.”

  “Lizzie,” Cal whispered, his voice filled with pain. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know she took my gun that night. I had no idea it was missing until it was too late.”

  “You were drinking,” I said, blinking back tears. “Lana came home from a party, wasted, and you were drinking all evening. You got into a fight and Lilly rushed in to break it up. She watched you spit in your wife’s face, Cal. She jumped on your back and begged you to stop choking her stepmother. She took the gun. She took your gun and ran back to her room and hid it in her backpack, so you couldn’t find it. She didn’t want you to hurt Lana. She knew you were angrier than you’d ever been. And then she texted me and called me. And I called the police,” I sobbed, shaking my head.

  “We cried together on the way home. She was so disappointed in you, Cal. Disgusted and disappointed. You’d been angry and abusive in front of her before, but never this bad. She’d never feared for her life until that night, and from her own father,” I cried.

  Virginia approached me slowly. She reached for my eyes, dabbing each corner with a tissue. She began working on my ropes as I continued to cry.

  “I’m an asshole, I know I’m an asshole,” Cal said, tears filling his own eyes. I hadn’t seen Cal cry often, but when he did, it was usually in a drunken haze of pity and regret.

  I suddenly saw him in a suit, crying by a coffin.

  I blinked, looking around the cellar.

  Slowly the walls fell away and were replaced by generic wallpaper, a floral print. Folding chairs were lined up in two sections with an aisleway in-between, but not card table chairs. Nice chairs with upholstered seats. Abstract blue that matched the carpeting and drapery. The musty smell of too many warm people wearing clashing scents lingered in the air with the overwhelming aroma of flowers. Huge bouquets of hydrangeas and orchids, all with tiny cards expressing their sincerest and deepest sympathies.

  Beyond sorry.

  Cal looked nice, I remembered thinking. Years ago, he’d taken out a credit card and bought himself a five-hundred-dollar suit to go on an interview for a pyramid scheme. Cal wasn’t typically the gullible type, but when he came home and eagerly explained to me the job offer he’d received, I told him what a pyramid scheme was and how it worked. When he realized that I was right, he became furious with me. He threw the portfolio I’d painstakingly put together for him across our bedroom, cursing me and telling me I was always “so negative” and was “trying to stand in his way.”

  He wore the pyramid scheme suit and had shined his shoes. Or maybe Lana had shined them for him.

  Jake held me upright the entire time. I felt the vice on my heart again, this time squeezing my fists as Virginia removed the ropes.

  The cellar came back into focus.

  “Lilly brought the gun home with her. She wanted to make sure the gun was out of the house if she wasn’t there to protect Lana. She wanted to protect you from yourself.” I brushed my hands over my face, wiping away the tears.

  “It’s my fault,” Cal cried, shaking his head. “I know it. I live with it every single day, Lizzie.”

  “You live with it! You live!” I screamed, bursting to my feet. My knees were wobbly, and Virginia caught me before I fell backward. “Why do you live? Why Cal? Lilly brought the gun home. She should never have been left alone with a gun. She was thirteen. Is thirteen. Lilly is thirteen.” I took deep breaths, gripping Virginia’s arm. “Anything could have happened, Cal! Can you imagine what horrible things could have happened? Jake always says I think the worst, but how can I not think about what might have happened if she had- had that gun in her hands-”

  Cal stared at me through his tears.

  “Lizzie,” he whispered, his eyes filled with pain.

  “Stop. Don’t say my name like that. Like you’re still my husband. Like you love me. Don’t say my name like that,” I hissed.

  “Lizzie, she shot herself,” he said, his shoulders shaking in sorrow. “Lilly shot herself.”

  Time stopped.

  I stopped.

  I stared at Cal, narrowing my eyes. “What are you talking about?” I cried, falling to my knees. Virginia couldn’t catch me this time; I had no muscles in my legs, and no will to stand.

  “What are you talking about, Cal? Why are you talking about her like that? About our Lilly, why?”

  “Lizzie,” Virginia said, kneeling at my side. “Poor, poor Lizzie.”

  “Lizzie, we’ve let you live like this for over a year. Jake has. Leah and Clay have. We’ve let you go on like this for too long,” Cal said. “It was an accident. A horrible, tragic accident. Lilly died because of my negligence, but
the courts let me go. Because it was out of our control. She did it to herself. It’s not your fault. You didn’t know she was depressed.”

  I stared at him, listening to his lies. The endless stream of bullshit pouring from his mouth forced me back to my feet.

  I walked to him, two steps in his direction.

  “She died because of you, Cal,” I seethed. My fingernails cut into my palms as I clenched my fists. “Because of abuse. Years and years of your abusive mind games. You fucked with her reality. You taught her that she could only be happy when you were happy. You told her that she was overreacting every time you mistreated her. That she was being dramatic every time you hurt her. The same thing you did to Leah. And Clay. And me. But Lilly couldn’t handle being denied your love. Because she called me, and then I called the police that night, you refused to speak to your own daughter to punish her. You put that fucking gun in her hands and you convinced her that she was not worthy enough to live. You killed her, Cal, and so help me God, I will fucking kill you too.”

  “If I am the chief of sinners, I am the chief of sufferers also.”

  -Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

  LIZZIE

  I was more disturbed by the Cal in my dreams than I’d ever been by Cal in real life. In my dreams, Cal was the man I stayed for, for so many years. When Jake reminded me that my marriage hadn’t been all bad, it was as though my mind sought out the good times and protected itself at night. If I needed to care for myself and my three children, I at least needed sleep.

  I read once that narcissism was one of the few disorders where the patient was left alone and everyone else was treated. It was the first sympathetic thing I’d ever read, and the article talked about the ways he could fix himself. Many of the steps reminded me of teaching a toddler to behave; a toddler must understand his choices hurt others and react to his negative feelings he has when hurting others so that he doesn’t make a bad choice and hurt others again.