by Mary Kubica
“What is it?” he asks, and I come outright and say that I think
Imogen had something to do with Morgan’s murder. His sigh is
long, exasperated, but he humors me nonetheless, asking why
I think this now.
“I found a bloody washcloth, Will. In the laundry. Com-
pletely saturated in blood.”
From the other end of the line comes an ear-splitting silence.
I go on, because he says nothing. I feel the words rattle in my
throat. Before me, my hands have turned sweaty though inside
I’m so cold I shake. I tell him how I discovered it as I was doing
the laundry. How I found the washcloth and hid it beneath the
washing machine because I didn’t know what else to do with it.
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“Where is this washcloth now?” he asks, concern in his voice.
“Still under the washing machine. The thing is, Will, I’m
thinking about turning the washcloth over to Officer Berg.”
“Whoa,” he says. “Stop right there, Sadie. You’re not mak-
ing any sense. Are you sure it’s blood?”
“I’m sure.”
Will tries to make excuses. Maybe someone had wiped up
a spill with it. Paint, mud, some mess the dogs made. “Maybe
dog shit,” he says, and it’s so unlike Will to be crass like that.
But perhaps, like me, he’s scared. “Maybe one of the boys cut
himself,” he suggests, and he reminds me then of the time Otto
was small and ran the pad of his thumb across the razor’s sharp
blade just to see what it would feel like, though he had been told
before to never touch Daddy’s razor. The razor sliced through
this skin. There was a surge of blood which Otto tried to hide
from us. He didn’t want to get in trouble. We found blood-
stained tissues packed in the garbage can, an infection festering
days later on his thumb.
“This isn’t the same thing as playing with razors,” I tell Will.
“This is far different than that. The washcloth, Will, was wet
through with blood. Not a few drops of blood, but it was liter-
ally soaked. Imogen killed her,” I say decisively. “She killed her
and wiped herself clean with that washcloth.”
“It isn’t fair what you’re doing to her, Sadie,” he says, voice
loud, and I don’t know if he’s yelling at me or yelling over the
wind. But he’s most definitely yelling. “This is a witch hunt,”
he says.
“Morgan’s necklace was here too,” I go on. “I found it on the
stairs. I stepped on it. I set it on the kitchen counter and now
it’s gone. Imogen took it to hide the evidence.”
“Sadie,” he says. “I know you don’t like her. I know she hasn’t
taken kindly to you. But you can’t keep blaming her for every
little thing that goes wrong.”
His choice of words strikes me as strange. Every little thing.
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Murder is not an inconsequential thing.
“If not Imogen, then someone in this house killed her,” I tell
Will. “That’s a given. Because how else can you explain her
necklace on our floor, the bloody washcloth in the laundry. If
not her, then who?” I ask, and at first the question is rhetorical.
At first I ask it only to make him see that of course it was Imo-
gen because no one else in the house is capable of murder. If
she did it once—yanking that stool from beneath her mother’s
feet—she could do it again.
But then, in the silence that follows, my eyes come to land on
Otto’s angry drawing with the decapitated head and the blobs
of blood. The fact that he’s regressed to playing with dolls. And
I think of the way my fourteen-year-old son carried a knife to
school.
I draw in a sudden breath, wondering if Imogen isn’t the only
one in this house who is capable of murder. I don’t mean for the
thought to leave my head. And yet it does.
“Could it have been Otto?” I think aloud, wishing, as soon
as the words are out, that I could take them back, put them back
in my head where they belong.
“You can’t be serious,” Will says, and I don’t want to be seri-
ous. I don’t want to believe for a second that Otto could do this.
But it isn’t outside the realm of possibility. Because the same ar-
gument rings true: If he did it once, he could do it again.
“But what about Otto’s history of violence?” I ask.
“Not a history of violence,” Will insists. “Otto never hurt
anyone, remember?”
“But how do you know he wouldn’t have, if he hadn’t been
caught first? If that student hadn’t turned him in, how do you
know he wouldn’t have hurt his classmates, Will?”
“We can’t know what he would have done. But I’d like to
believe our son isn’t a killer,” Will says. “Wouldn’t you?”
Will is right. Otto never hurt any of those kids back at his old
high school. But the intent was there. The motive. A weapon.
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He very intentionally took a knife to school. There’s no telling
what he might have done if his plan hadn’t been thwarted in
time. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because I want to believe only the best about our son. Be-
cause I won’t let myself think Otto could take another life,” he
says, and I’m overcome with the strangest combination of fear and
guilt that I don’t know which prevails. Am I more scared that
Otto has murdered a woman? Or do I feel more guilty for allow-
ing myself to think this?
This is my son I’m speaking of. Is my son capable of murder?
“Don’t you know that, Sadie? Do you really believe Otto
could do this?” he asks, and it’s my silence that gets the best of
him. My unknowingness. My silent admission that yes, I do
think maybe Otto could have done this.
Will breathes out loudly, feathers ruffled. His words are
clipped. “What Otto did, Sadie,” Will says, words razor-sharp,
“is a far cry from murder. He’s fourteen, for God’s sake. He’s a
kid. He acted in self-defense. He stood up for himself the only
way he knew how. You’re being irrational, Sadie.”
“But what if I’m not?” I ask.
Will’s response is immediate. “But you are,” he says. “What
Otto did was stand up for himself when no one else would.”
He stops there but I know he wants to say more. He wants
to tell me that Otto took matters into his own hands because of
me. Because even though Otto told me about the harassment, I
didn’t intervene. Because I wasn’t listening. There was a hotline
at the school. A bullying hotline. I could have called and left
an anonymous complaint. I could have called a teacher or the
school principal and made a not-so-anonymous complaint. But
instead I did nothing; I ignored him, ev
en if unintentionally.
Will has yet to call me out on this. And yet I see it there in
the unspoken words. Silently, he’s castigating me. He thinks it’s
my fault Otto took that knife to school because I didn’t offer a
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more reasonable alternative, a more appropriate alternative for
our fourteen-year-old son.
Otto isn’t a murderer. He would never have hurt those kids,
I don’t think.
He’s a troubled boy, a scared boy.
There’s a difference.
“I’m scared, Will,” I admit, and he says, voice softening, “I
know you are, Sadie. We both are.”
“I have to turn the washcloth in to the police,” I tell him,
voice cracking, on the verge of tears, and only then does Will
relent. Because of the tone of my voice. He knows as well as me
that I’ve become discomposed. “It isn’t right for us to keep it.”
“Alright then,” he says. “As soon as I get to campus I’ll can-
cel my classes. Give me an hour, Sadie, and then I’ll be home.
Don’t do anything with the washcloth until then,” he pleads,
before his voice takes on a different tone, a softer tone, and he
says, “We’ll go see Officer Berg together. Just wait until I get
home and we’ll speak to Officer Berg together.”
I end the call and move into the living room to wait. I drop
down onto the marigold sofa. I stretch my legs before me, think-
ing that if I close my eyes, I will sleep. The weight of worry
and fatigue come bearing down on me, and suddenly I’m tired.
My eyes sink shut.
Before I can fall asleep, they bolt open again.
The sound of the front door startles me. It shifts in its casing,
getting jostled around.
It’s only the wind blowing against it, agitating the door, I
tell myself.
But then comes the sound of a key jiggling in the lock.
It’s only been a few minutes since Will and I hung up the
phone. No more than ten or fifteen. He would have scarcely
reached the mainland by now, much less waited for passengers
to disembark and then board the boat. He wouldn’t have had
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time to make the twenty-minute commute back across the bay,
or drive home from the ferry dock.
It’s not Will.
Someone else is here.
I inch myself away from the door, searching for a place to
hide. But before I’ve gone a step or two, the door presses vio-
lently open. It ricochets off the rubber stopper on the other side.
There, standing in the foyer, is Otto. His backpack is slung
across a shoulder. His hair is covered with snow. It’s white with
it. His cheeks are rosy and red from the cold outside. The tip of
his nose is also red. Everything else is pallid.
Otto slams the door shut.
“Otto,” I breathe out midstride, pressing my hand to my chest.
“What are you doing here?” I ask and he says, “I’m sick.” He
does look peaked to me, yes. But I’m not certain he looks sick.
“The school didn’t call,” I tell him because this is the way it’s
supposed to happen. The school nurse is supposed to call and
tell me my son is sick and then I go to the school and pick him
up. But this isn’t what happened.
“The nurse just sent you home?” I ask, feeling cross at her for
allowing a child to walk off campus in the middle of the school
day, but also scared. Because the look on Otto’s face is alarm-
ing. He shouldn’t be here. Why is he here?
His reply is offhand. He takes a step into the room. “I didn’t
ask,” he says. “I just left.”
“I see,” I say, feeling my feet inch backwards.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks. “I told you I was
sick. You don’t believe me?” It isn’t like Otto to be antagonis-
tic with me.
Otto stares at me with his jaw clenched, chin forward. He
runs his fingers through his hair, then jams them into the pock-
ets of his jeans.
“What doesn’t feel good?” I ask, a lump forming in the pit
of my stomach.
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Otto moves another step closer and says, “My throat,” though
his voice isn’t raspy. He doesn’t clutch a hand to his throat as
one does when it hurts.
But it’s conceivable, of course. His throat could hurt. He could
be telling the truth. Strep throat is going around, as is the flu.
“Your father is on his way home,” I force out, though I don’t
know why.
“No he’s not,” he says, voice chillingly composed. “Dad’s at
work.”
“He canceled his classes,” I say, shambling backwards. “He’s
coming home. He should be here soon.”
“Why?” Otto asks as, in my subtle retreat, I bump softly into
the fireplace mantel.
I lie, telling Otto that Will also didn’t feel well. “He was
turning around just as soon as his ferry reached the mainland.”
I glance the clock and say, “Any minute, he should be home.”
“No he won’t,” Otto says again. It’s irrefutable the way that
he says it.
I suck in a breath, release it slowly. “What do you mean?” I ask.
“Ferries are delayed cause of the storm,” he tells me, thrust-
ing that hair of his back again with a hand.
“How’d you get home?” I ask.
“Mine was the last to leave.”
“Oh,” I say, thinking of Otto and me trapped together in this
house until ferry traffic resumes. How long that will take? I won-
der why Will hasn’t called to tell me about the ferries, though my
phone is in the other room. I wouldn’t have heard it if he did.
A gust of wind rattles the house just then, making the whole
thing shake. As it does, the lamp on the end table flickers. I hold my breath, waiting for the room to go dark. There’s a meager
amount of light coming through the windows, but as they fill
with snow it gets harder to see. The world outside turns a char-
coal gray. The dogs bark.
“Do you want me to look at your throat?” I ask Otto. When
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he doesn’t reply, I retrieve my penlight from my bag in the foyer
and go to him. Standing beside Otto, I see how he’s surpassed me
in height nearly overnight. He looks down on me now. He isn’t
heavily built. Rather, he’s lanky. He smells of teenage boy: all
those hormones they secrete in their sweat during puberty. But he’s handsome, the spitting image of Will, just younger and thinner.
I reach up and press my fingers to his lymph nodes. They’re
enlarged. He might be sick.
“Open up,” I tell him and though he hesitates, he complies.
Otto opens his mouth. It’s lazy at best,
just barely enough for
me to see inside.
I shine my penlight in, seeing a red, irritated throat. I press
the back of my hand to his forehead, feeling for a fever. As I do,
I feel a sudden rush of nostalgia, bringing me back to a four-
or a five-year-old Otto, sick as a dog with the flu. Instead of a
hand, it used to be my lips, a far more accurate measure of tem-
perature to me. One quick kiss and I could tell if my boys were
febrile or not. That and the way they’d lie limp and helpless in
my arms, wanting to be coddled. Those days are gone.
All at once Otto’s strong hand latches down on my wrist and
I jerk immediately back.
His grasp is strong. I can’t free myself from his hold.
The penlight drops from my hand, batteries skidding across
the floor.
“What are you doing, Otto? Let go of me,” I cry out, trying
desperately to wiggle free from his grasp. “You’re hurting me,”
I tell him. His grip is tight.
I look up to find his eyes watching me. They’re more brown
than blue today, more sad than mad. Otto speaks, his words
nothing more than a whisper. “I’ll never forgive you,” he says
and I stop fighting.
“For what, Otto?” I breathe, still thinking about the washcloth
and the necklace, as again the lights in the home flicker and I hold my breath, waiting for them to go out. My eyes move to a lamp,
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wishing I had something to protect myself with. The lamp has a
beautiful glazed ceramic base, sturdy, solid enough to do dam-
age but not so heavy that I can’t pick it up. But it’s six feet away now, out of reach, and I don’t know that I’d have it in me anyway,
to clutch the lamp by the neck and bash the heavy end into my
own son’s head. Even in self-defense. I don’t know that I could.
Otto’s Adams apple bobs in his throat. “You know,” he says,
fighting back the urge to cry.
I shake my head and say, “I don’t know,” though I realize
in the next moment that I do. He’ll never forgive me for not
standing up for him that day in the principal’s office. For not
complying with his lie.
“For lying,” he hollers, composure waning, “about the knife.”
“I never lied,” I tell him. What I want to say is that he’s the
one who lied, but it doesn’t seem a smart time to lay blame. In-
stead, “If only you’d have come to me. I could have helped you,