Someone Like Me

by M. R. Carey

  “Relax,” the woman said. “You attacked me, remember. Not the other way around. I admit I lost my temper there for a moment, but I’ve got nothing against you.” She raised her hand to her mouth and wiped it, then held them up to show the dark red smear on her palm. “Nothing except this, and I probably had that coming. I put a real scare into you that night in the kitchen, didn’t I? And I called you a crazy person, or as good as. Let’s say we’re even.”

  Fran still didn’t move. “We’re not even,” she said, her voice tight.

  “No? Well, I’m sorry, honey, but only the first one is free. If you want any more, we go knock for knock, and I’ll knock you so far you’ll have to get a ride home on the space shuttle. You want to sit down?”

  She indicated a seat right next to her.

  Fran shook her head. “No way.”

  “Please yourself. Look, you’ve obviously got some idea in your head about me. I don’t know what it is …”

  “Then I’ll tell you,” said Fran. “You’re not Ms. Kendall. Not the real one. You come from somewhere else and you took her over somehow. Got control of her.” Fran faltered. She suddenly remembered what Jinx had said, about how this Liz—Beth, rather had eaten the other one. Jinx had been warning her. Trying to protect her, if only she’d listened.

  Beth shifted in her seat, making herself more comfortable. She crossed her legs, sticking them out into the aisle. “Well now, that does sound like a crazy person talking, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

  “I don’t care,” Fran said. “It’s true. And I don’t know what else you’ve done since but I know you’re hurting Molly and I’m going to stop you.”

  “That’ll be a neat trick without any proof, won’t it?”

  “I’ve got proof! Zac is onto you too. Everybody is onto you. You’re not as clever as you think you are!” It occurred to her after she’d already said it that bringing Zac into this was probably a stupid thing to do, and a wrong thing in any case because she didn’t have his permission. She’d just blurted out something that had been told to her in confidence. She shifted tack quickly. “I’ll call child protection. They’ll send an inspector.”

  Beth was unmoved. “They’ll find a well-fed, healthy kid who loves her mom. No cuts, no bruises, no history of trips and falls, absences from school or any of that shit. I gave her a push and she fell over, that’s all. I’m not Charles Manson. And if you think Zac will give evidence against me, you don’t know Zac. He loves his mother, that boy.”

  “You’re not her!” Fran said. It came out as a shout.

  “No,” Beth said. “I’m not. But he doesn’t know that, does he?”

  The flat admission took the wind out of Fran’s sails. She wasn’t sure where else to go with this. She clenched her fists again. The one she’d used to hit Beth was throbbing painfully and didn’t close all the way. “You’ve got to bring Liz back,” she said.

  “You think so? Why?”

  Fran groped for words. All the reasons were so obvious there was no easy way of saying them. “Because you don’t belong here, and she does.”

  “You ever hear that thing about possession being nine-tenths of the law?”

  Fran’s mind was racing. Her phone had a voice recording app. Could she activate it without looking at the screen? Probably not, but maybe she could pretend her phone was on vibrate, and take it out of her pocket, then—

  “I’d like it a lot better if you sat down,” Beth said. “I’m not going to hurt you.” She considered. “Well, probably not. Unless you do something to piss me off, in which case it’s on you.”

  Fran shook her head. Her dad must already be wondering what had happened to her. She had to make her break for the door soon, and it would be a lot easier to do that if she was standing up.

  Beth was looking at her strangely. For a long time she said nothing at all, but her expression was one of intense thought.

  “You don’t know me,” she said at last, much more softly than before. “Shit, you barely knew her. But if you did know me you wouldn’t be giving me arguments about what’s right or what belongs. Believe me, I know better than you do where I belong, and I can’t ever get back there. But this is where I wound up, and I’m not about to leave because it makes you unhappy.” She paused, her cold stare fixed hard on Fran. “You really should back off, kid. That’s a friendly warning. You’ve got your life to live, and I’ve got mine. They don’t have to overlap.”

  “It’s not your life. You’ve stolen someone else’s life,” Fran reminded her grimly.

  Beth tossed her head, consigning that objection to oblivion—or to her bag of trash. “The stuff I’ve got, including this body, I got it by fighting for it. All she had to do was be born.”

  “That’s stupid,” Fran scoffed. “What, so if someone else fought you and beat you and took it away from you, then it would suddenly be theirs?”

  “If they beat me, believe me they would have had to earn it. I’m a tough act to follow. Say, just for instance I was interested in doing a number on you. The first thing I’d do is scream real loud, then when someone comes I’d point to this split lip and say you gave it to me. You could say you didn’t, but you’ve got my blood on your knuckles and a long, rich history of mental instability. Doesn’t look good, does it?”

  Fran didn’t like the look of calculation in Beth’s eyes. She was still tensed and ready to run, but she felt as though the threat had just shifted a little—from something she could see to something that was invisible and therefore much more dangerous.

  “I’d tell the truth,” Fran said. “At least people would be watching you then. You’d have to stop beating your own kid, for one thing.”

  Beth scowled and got to her feet again. She settled the trash bag a little more carefully, as if she was making sure it didn’t accidentally get tipped over. Fran stepped back a few more feet. “I’m a little sick of hearing about that,” Beth said. “I told you, I pushed her once. I didn’t beat her. I would never intentionally hurt a child. Even you.”

  She advanced on Fran, her arms thrown wide with the palms open. Fran wasn’t fooled for a second. She backed away even further, then picked her moment and sprinted for the door.

  Beth was too quick for her. She barreled in on an intercept course and thrust out her foot, tripping Fran so she went sprawling on the carpet. Then she knelt astride her, her knee in the small of Fran’s back, one of her hands gripping Fran by her braided hair while the other hooked under her chin and squeezed hard.

  Fran struggled to get free, but Beth’s weight would have been too much for her even if she hadn’t been in a headlock. She opened her mouth to scream,but Beth’s grip on her throat tightened. Only a tiny clicking noise came out of her mouth, made by her jawbone being pushed sideways by the heel of Beth’s hand. She couldn’t utter a sound.

  Beth leaned down and set her mouth against Fran’s ear. Fran could feel the heat and wetness of her breath. “I was lying about that, obviously,” she said. “I am totally up for hurting you.” She didn’t hiss or growl or snarl. She didn’t even sound angry. If anything, her tone was gentle.

  Panic came out of nowhere, eclipsing Fran’s mind. She tried to break free again, shifting her weight furiously from left to right to left, trying to dislodge Beth from her back. Beth just bore down harder and pulled Fran’s head up and back. Fran was going to choke if she didn’t stop fighting. She went limp, and Beth loosened her grip a fraction.

  “Better,” Beth said. “Now I am thoroughly pissed off with you, little girl, and killing you would be the easiest thing in the world. But I’ve got other battles to fight, and some of them actually matter. My ex-husband is missing, and the slut he was living with is twisting my tits like you wouldn’t believe. I don’t want to have to keep one eye on you while I’m dealing with that.

  “So I’m cutting you a break, just this once. Unrepeatable special offer. You pick your little tush up off the ground and you take it out of here, and you never, ever, come within a mile of
me or mine as long as you live. If you do, I swear to God I will kill you, dismantle you and stow you where nobody will ever fucking find you. And if your dad comes looking, I’ll do the same to him. Do you believe me?”

  She loosened her grip more so Fran could answer. Fran was too terrified to speak at first, but when Beth shook her she managed a hoarse croak. “Yes!”

  “Good. I knew there was a little grain of sense in there somewhere.”

  Suddenly the pressure was gone. There was no sound as Beth moved, but her fingers were no longer around Fran’s throat and her knee wasn’t in Fran’s back. Fran crawled a few feet forward before climbing to her feet.

  Beth was already standing, arms folded across her chest as if to say she was done with this. Done with Fran. “Now get the fuck out of here,” she said.

  Fran fled, out of the empty theater, along a corridor that curved like the inside of a shell, down some stairs. She had no idea where she was running to: she just had to get as much distance from Beth as she could manage. When she reached a fire door she sank down, crouched into a ball and burst into tears.

  She had never felt so helpless. She had all the answers she needed, but she couldn’t do anything with them. She had lost Jinx, and now she had lost this battle.

  She realized with a sickening feeling, like vertigo, that she had never been remotely equipped to fight it.

  Beth finished out her shift in a thoughtful mood. And she wore her feelings on her face, so none of her co-workers came near. She liked it better that way in any case.

  When she got home and found the house empty, she fired up her son’s laptop and read every article she could find on Fran Watts’ kidnapping. It didn’t trouble her that Zac and Molly were nowhere to be found. Presumably Zac had taken his kid sister out for a walk or a treat. She checked her phone and found no messages there, so it wasn’t an emergency of any kind. That being the case, she didn’t much care when they came back. The later the better, really.

  The media had had a field day with the Picota case. Picota made a great bogeyman, and the six-year-old Fran the perfect victim. Beauty and the Beast. Unsurprisingly, most of the articles were about Picota’s psychology rather than Fran’s, but there were plenty of insights to be gleaned from the prurient reconstructions of the crime. Well, that and the fact that when Fran had met Liz for the first time it had been at the Carroll Way Medical Center, where they had both been waiting in line for a session with the same shrink. Ten years after her abduction, Fran Watts was still in therapy.

  What was it she had said to Liz? That it was good to be able to find things when you needed them. Important, even. A pretty banal comment, Beth had thought at the time. But in Fran’s case it was probably more like a cry for help. That early trauma reverberated down through her life, stirring echoes that never quite faded.

  Useful to know.

  Beth heard the key turn in the lock of the front door and shut down the browser window. She put the laptop back where she had found it on Zac’s bedside table, and went out to meet her kids as they walked in, Molly all bundled up in woolly hat and gloves and outdoor coat so she was twice her usual size. Holding Zac’s hand and trotting along in his wake, a tiny perpetual motion machine.

  “We went to the park!” she exclaimed. “And fed the ducks. And went in a rowboat.”

  Zac gave Beth a guarded smile.

  “Wow,” Beth said. “That sounds exciting. I wish you’d waited for me. I love rowboats. I’m the rowboat queen of Pennsylvania.”

  Zac’s face flushed. “I didn’t know when you’d be back,” he said. “And it was already starting to get dark.”

  “It’s fine,” Beth said. “You’re a good big brother.” She gave him a hug, then picked Molly up and hugged her too. It wasn’t faked. Maybe it started off that way, but something real and raw welled up inside her and it was all she could do not to cry.

  “I love you both,” she said with a catch in her voice. “You know that, right?”

  “We know!” Molly sing-songed, pressing her cheek—still cold from the outside air—against Beth’s warm indoor cheek.

  “We love you too, Mom,” Zac said. It didn’t sound as heartfelt as she would have liked. She had taken his devotion for granted and leaned on it pretty hard. But he was a genuinely good kid and he didn’t know jack shit about anything under the sun. No matter what Fran Watts had said, no matter what she thought, he was never going to lose faith in his mother, or stop trusting her.

  Which, again, was a good and extremely useful thing. “Oh hey,” she said to him, as though it was an afterthought, “I ran into your friend today.”

  “Which friend?”

  “Francine Watts. She was at the Cineplex. Got herself all lost and confused and I pointed her in the right direction.”

  Zac just stared at her for a moment or two, nonplussed.

  “Did she … say anything?” he asked.

  “Just sent her love to you both. She looked upset, though. Really unhappy. Like something was weighing on her mind. Is everything okay with her, Zachary?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “Poor kid. She’s been through so much. It’s amazing it didn’t drive her right out of her mind.”

  Zac made his escape, muttering about having an assignment to finish. Beth let him go for now. They would return to that theme soon.

  She started to fix dinner. In fact she went to town. Cutting some aged rib-eye into strips, she rubbed it with a little salt and then prepared a marinade of soy sauce, chili, black pepper, garlic and lime. She immersed the steaks and left them to steep.

  Then she went and read to Molly in the living room—much to the six-year-old’s puzzlement. “It’s not my bedtime yet!” she exclaimed.

  “I know,” Beth said. “But stories aren’t just for bedtime, baby girl. They’re for whenever you want to tell them.”

  With Molly nestled in her lap, she read all her old favorites one after another. Fox in Socks, Bear Hunt, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. Zac was in his room, but the door was open: even if he wasn’t listening in on purpose he’d still get most of the highlights.

  “Why is your voice funny?” Molly asked. “Are you okay, Mommy?”

  “I’m fine, sweetheart,” Beth answered with a break on the last word. She held Molly for a minute or so without saying anything, then finished the story, kissed her on the top of her head and set her down gently. “Mommy’s got to go make dinner,” she said. She closed the door behind her as she left the room: Zac was up next.

  In the kitchen, she opened a bottle of red and poured herself a very full glass. She held it in her hand for a second or two before opening her fingers and letting it fall. It shattered on the tiles, the sound easily loud enough to carry.

  When Zac ran in, he found Beth on her knees, picking the larger pieces of glass out of the mess on the floor, her fingers dripping red.

  “Mom!” he cried. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. But she shook her head, turning slowly to meet his gaze. She put on a bewildered expression—one that would have looked right at home on Liz’s face. “Zac, I don’t know. I’ve done some really bad things and I don’t have any idea how to make it right again between us.”

  He crossed the room and knelt down beside her, throwing his arms around her. “You’ve been stressed out,” he said, “for ages now.”

  “That doesn’t make it okay,” Beth said. She turned on the waterworks and Zac held her until she turned them off again. With an eye on the time, she moved on to her confession, telling him in anguished tones how in a moment of blind misery, panic and a whole lot of other feelings she couldn’t even explain she’d actually hurt Molly. “I pushed her and she fell. I can’t believe I did that, Zac! What kind of a monster am I?”

  And so on, and so forth. By running herself down she forced him into running her up again, and she extorted forgiveness out of him by refusing to forgive herself. Once she had him in that emotional corner, the rest was easy. They moved to the
breakfast bar, leaving the spilled wine and broken glass where they lay.

  She had let him down, Beth said. She had let them all down. And not just her own family but that poor girl, Francine Watts, who was family in all but name. “What is it with her, Zac? What’s making her so unhappy?”

  It wasn’t plain sailing even then. Zac was reluctant to give away things the kid had told him in confidence. Beth had to work him hard to get him to talk, and he talked about the facts of what had happened to Fran rather than the more intimate terrain of her feelings.

  But one of the facts was very pertinent indeed. The kid had just made a personal pilgrimage up to Grove City to meet her nemesis, Bruno Picota, face-to-face. That evil old shit was still alive up there, it seemed, and Fran had hoped that by talking to him she might be able to work through what was left of her childhood trauma.

  Beth suspected there was more to this whole thing with Picota than Zac was telling her, but that was fine. He’d given her plenty to work with. With her arms around him, she promised that she would do better. Be the person she used to be, only more so, and never neglect or hit out at the ones she loved ever again. She was intending to do a little more crying by way of a finale, but Zac beat her to it. They held each other and sobbed and were reconciled, and old hurts stopped hurting.

  Or whatever.

  Beth sent Zac in to check on his sister while she cleared up the mess she’d made and finished dinner. She congratulated herself on a part well played, but she was also genuinely exhausted. To get that authentic feel, she had plumbed memories that she hadn’t gone near in a long time. The life she’d lost hung over her like a cloud, making the life she’d won darker and bleaker. Draining it of some of its savor and its meaning.

  But Beth was a survivor, and the key word here was life. That was what she was fighting for. In the end, it legitimized everything she had already done.

  And the terrible thing she was about to do next.

  Jinx just kept running. She had no idea where. The important thing was to get away. But in the end, she ran to the place where she always ran to, the place that was hers and had been hers ever since the night she was born.