The Neighbor

by Joseph Souza

  Clarissa doesn’t want to go home just yet. She points to a road leading out of town, explaining that she wants to go somewhere to talk. I’m in no mood to resist her temptations, especially since I can’t get the memory of that shooting lesson out of my head. She has many questions to ask me, questions that I haven’t thought about for years. My memory about that time in life is hazy, and I wonder if it will even come back to me.

  I speed past a wall of sheer granite cliffs, water dripping down the sides like a leaky faucet. Ahead is a series of rolling hills. To my right I see three large windmills, blades spinning slowly and churning out energy for all these rural towns. I don’t care about any of that right now: clean energy, climate change, rising oceans. All I can think about is Annie and that terrible day we shared.

  We emerge into a small town and I park along the sidewalk. We enter a quaint Italian bistro and settle in to one of the back booths. I know I shouldn’t drink this early, but I order a glass of wine anyway.

  “The police are going to ask where I got the gun,” I whisper. “What do I say?”

  “You bought it for protection after you heard about the attack in town. You tell the police that you were scared to be all alone in that new house because your husband was gone most of the day, working at the brewery. It made you feel scared and vulnerable.”

  “But whom did I buy it from?”

  “Someone told you to go down to Portland with three hundred dollars. Park Street, you tell them. You purchased it from an anonymous seller on the street.”

  “This is really frightening me.”

  “Stay strong, Leah. It’ll be over soon.”

  “I don’t think I can do it.”

  “Don’t you want to protect yourself and your family? Isn’t it crucial that we prevent others in the community from being terrorized by him?”

  “But I’ve never shot anyone before.”

  “It’s easy. All you have to do is pull the trigger like you did at that abandoned house,” she says. “And it’s not like you haven’t killed before.”

  “Yes, but I had my reasons for doing that.”

  “I’m sure you did. There are also very good reasons for shooting Russell, don’t you agree?”

  “I suppose.” I do wholeheartedly agree. The man’s a monster not deserving of such a beautiful soul as Clarissa.

  The waitress appears out of nowhere, smiling and cheerful to a fault, calling us “honey” and “dear,” which sounds so silly coming from someone barely out of high school. She sets down our glasses of wine before lunch arrives, and I can’t drink mine fast enough.

  “So are you ready to talk about it?” Clarissa asks while I butter a yeasty roll.

  “What if I’m not?”

  “You need to get it off your chest, Leah. Look how much better I feel.”

  “But my memory is so hazy after all these years.”

  “We need to be brutally honest with each other if we’re going to pull this off. I confided in you, didn’t I?” She sips her wine and waits for me to respond. “You need to confess your sins if we’re to be friends.”

  I never want to revisit those days again. But there’s something in her eyes that tells me I have no choice in the matter if we’re to pull this off. If I’m going to kill another human being—in self-defense—I need to tell my story. I can’t care about appearances or how she’ll perceive me. It’s time to strip naked and bare my soul. I gulp down the rest of my wine, order another, and prepare myself for what is to be a painful admission.

  We sit quietly until the waitress returns with my second glass of wine. I take a healthy sip and let the alcohol fortify my brain cells.

  “Now are you ready?” Clarissa asks.

  “Yes.”

  This is what I tell her.

  * * *

  From my earliest memories, I knew that my twin sister was different. But it didn’t matter. I still loved her. It didn’t bother me when Annie refused to maintain eye contact when we huddled together as toddlers. Or that she failed all the earliest tests of childhood. None of that mattered because she seemed completely normal to me. To a young child who didn’t know any better, Annie seemed like the most normal, wonderful sister in the world.

  By the time I reached school age, we’d developed a close bond. It was a bond that only twin sisters could form. Although she’d never uttered a single word, apart from shouting and occasional startled cries, I understood everything about her. In fact, I thought her a brilliant and rare creature.

  We had our own way of communicating, which utilized body language, grunts, and hand signals that only I seemed to understand. As time wore on, I grew to understand how others perceived her. Most thought Annie an imbecile with a low IQ. But I knew better and believed she was far more intelligent than anyone could begin to imagine.

  I loved Annie more with each passing day. She was my best friend and confidante. I raced home after school each day to confer with her about what I did and whom I spent time with. Annie would lay reclined in her chair, rolling her head around on her neck and jerking spastically. Saliva often drooled from her lips, and her hands were perpetually bent at the wrists. She laughed at my jokes, and many days I would read one of my books to her. Whenever I stopped or got up to use the bathroom, Annie would cry out in protest. Before I left for school in the morning, she would make a fuss, and I would have to go over to her chair and give her a big hug so she’d settle down.

  Our mother refused to let Annie leave the house unless we were going to church, so protective was she of her youngest daughter. The summer before I started third grade, the state had agreed to pay for a special school for girls like her. My father was all for it, arguing that the school could do far more for Annie than we could in Oregon, but thankfully my mother wouldn’t hear of sending her to California. Being separated from Annie would have killed me.

  As the years passed, my father became more embittered because of Annie’s condition. He began to drink heavily. He argued constantly with my mother about the merits of sending her away. I could hear them shouting as we huddled in Annie’s room with the door closed. I tried to block out the noise for Annie’s sake, but sometimes it became too much, and I would need to calm her down. She hated all the yelling and screaming, the banging of doors and smashing of pans. She hated hearing our father complain about her “uselessness.” Or how our mother was neglecting his “needs.”

  If the weather was nice, I would wheel her out to the backyard patio so we didn’t have to listen to them fight. I’d place the life jacket over her, secure it around her waist, and then gently guide her into the pool. Her body had grown thin and slender as the years passed, and she loved to be submerged in the cool water. She had long legs, allowing her to kick freely once inside.

  I was ten when I first noticed my father making his way into her room. What was he doing in there? I knew he resented Annie for how she’d ruined his life. The first time it happened was early in the morning after he’d been drinking whiskey all night. Annie slept on the first floor because of her disability. I happened to be downstairs, pouring a glass of milk, when I saw my father stagger inside her room and close the door. It aroused my curiosity and made me suspicious.

  I woke the next morning and heard Annie screaming. She was hysterical, jerking and convulsing, and nodding her head spastically. I’d never seen her like this. Was she in pain? My mother consoled her as I got ready for school. I didn’t want to leave Annie, but my mother insisted I go.

  “What’s wrong with her?” I asked.

  “She’s becoming a woman.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Just because she’s handicapped, Leah, doesn’t mean she won’t go through all the same stages as a regular woman.”

  “You mean she’s having her . . . ?”

  “Yes, she’s spotting.”

  “Oh my God. Poor Annie.” I hadn’t had my period yet, but I’d heard all about it and both feared and looked forward to its arrival.

  “She
probably has no idea what’s going on inside her body. All the changes taking place are scaring her.”

  I went to school that day in a sour mood. I found it odd that Annie’s strange behavior occurred the exact day after my father paid her an early morning visit. I vowed to monitor his behavior and see what he was up to. Was he hurting Annie? He rarely interacted with her during the day other than to occasionally feed her or carry her to bed. I knew poor Annie would never be free from my parents until death separated them. My father must have come to the conclusion that he would never live the life he wanted: golf, retirement, and travel.

  It was around this time that my mother started drinking as well, although she did it much more secretly than my father. I never actually saw her put a bottle to her lips, but after watching my father, I knew why she’d been acting so strange. They argued constantly, slurring words, often for hours at a time. His job as a maintenance man with the city paid the bills and kept our family afloat, but once he got home he couldn’t wait to hit the bottle.

  It happened again a month later. I watched from my bedroom door as he made his way downstairs. I waited at the top step until Annie’s door closed. For some strange reason, I had it in my head that he was going in there to pray with Annie. Maybe he was going to pray that she might recover from her condition and become a normal girl like me and marry a nice boy and leave home. My parents were devout Catholics. Maybe I was selfish, but I didn’t want Annie to change. I didn’t want her to marry a nice boy and have kids and a house with a white picket fence. I loved her as she was. But to my father, she was a constant reminder of his failure as a parent.

  I snuck downstairs and stopped at Annie’s door. I could hear my father making a shushing sound, although I couldn’t understand why he’d want to pray with her at such an early hour. Annie was probably mad about this intrusion. I didn’t think that Annie liked to pray in that manner.

  Why hadn’t my father tried to pray with me? We all went to church together on Sunday, and my father constantly prayed for a cure for Annie. Wasn’t that enough praying for one week? Jesus would eventually tire from our supplications. Or were we required to pray as much as possible for Annie’s well-being?

  I gently pulled open the door, closed one eye, and peered into the dark room. The window was open and I vividly remember seeing a full moon in the distant sky. The illumination allowed just enough light for me to see what was happening. My father was lying on top of Annie. His hips were moving back and forth, and his pants were halfway down his legs. I could see Annie’s head swiveling wildly on her neck, her arms splayed across the mattress, strange noises emanating from her mouth. It took me a few full seconds to realize the sick thing he was doing to her. I’d often overheard the boys in school talking about this sort of behavior in the recess yard.

  This was certainly no prayer.

  I ran back up to my room in tears and dove into bed, covering myself with blankets. I sobbed into my pillow, not knowing what my sister was suffering at the hands of my father. I swore in the morning to tell my mother what I saw. Once he left for work the next morning, I would tell her the truth about his “prayers” and watch happily as she kicked him out of the house.

  But to my disbelief, she disregarded my words. She said I must have been walking in my sleep and imagining things. I insisted that I hadn’t and she called me a liar and a troublemaker. She was forceful in her claim that he was a good man and that he went in there to pray for my sister’s health.

  “Are you trying to break up our family?”

  “He wasn’t praying, Mom. I saw what he was doing,” I said.

  “You’re a liar, Leah. You’re just jealous that Annie gets more attention than you do.”

  “No, I love Annie.”

  “You want her all to yourself. You think you’re so special because she’s your twin and that you’re the only one who understands her. Well, you’re wrong about that. Annie’s got the brain function of a two-year-old.”

  “That’s not true. Annie’s smart and funny.”

  “I’m sick of your lies. All the doctors say that Annie’s retarded.”

  “They’re wrong. She’s brilliant and smart and witty. Annie understands way more than you know.”

  “Someday you’ll leave home and we’ll be the ones left to take care of her. It’s all on your father and me. We’re her only caretakers in this world when you leave for college.”

  “Then maybe I’ll never leave.”

  “Oh, you’ll leave all right.”

  I hated my father after that day. I hated my mother even more for not believing me. I wanted to kill him for what he’d been doing to Annie—and what he would continue to do in my absence. That evening, I went into his bottom drawer and stole the grimy nine-millimeter handgun he kept hidden there. I stashed it under my pillow and would wait for the next time he tried to hurt my sister.

  For the next two weeks, I stayed awake in bed, waiting to hear if he left his bedroom. My grades suffered and I began to get in trouble at school. There were times I could barely stay awake in class. I was becoming emotionally abusive to other students and getting into fights. Annie seemed more distant and estranged as well, as if my father’s “prayers” had inextricably broken our close bond. It nearly destroyed me that Annie would not laugh or communicate to me in our uniquely designed language.

  Then one night I heard my father’s door open. I grabbed the gun stashed beneath my pillow and walked gingerly down the stairs. The door to Annie’s room clicked shut. I moved alongside it, trying to work up the courage to confront him. His soft groans nearly made me sick. I became paralyzed with rage and revulsion. He slipped out of the room at some point and I sat behind the door, pointing the gun at him as he staggered drunkenly upstairs. But for some reason I couldn’t pull the trigger.

  Tears streamed down my face as I heard his bedroom door shut behind him. I raced up the stairs, walked into his bedroom, and crawled over to his side of the bed. He was snoring loudly by the time I got up on my knees. His breath reeked of sour lemons and spoiled meat. I lifted the gun and pointed it at his head. A second, unfamiliar yet noxious odor emanated from his wretched body, which later in life I would come to associate with sex. My hands trembled. It seemed as if I had been pointing that gun for a long time. But once again I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill the man who’d raised and then destroyed me, in such a short time.

  I believe that’s when my aversion to firearms began. The gun had let me down. It had let my sister down. Or maybe it was the other way around. My cowardice fed into my growing sense of self-loathing and hatred for men like my father. All I knew was that I never again wanted to touch another gun. Or “pray” in that method.

  The next month proved catastrophic. No one else could see it, but Annie had retreated deep into her shell. She refused to laugh or interact with me. She wouldn’t listen to me read books or sing to her. I stayed home from school for days at a time because of my disruptive behavior. Her spasms and tantrums worsened. It was almost as if she’d been trying to tell the world about the abuse she’d suffered at the hands of our father. But she was unable to do it in her condition. I was the only person who could communicate her thoughts to the world and tell the authorities what had really happened. But I knew they wouldn’t believe me. Or Annie. Every doctor claimed she had the mental capacity of a two-year-old.

  I came to believe that Annie wanted to escape from the catatonic flesh jail that kept her captive. Stuck in a body that enslaved her, and with two dysfunctional, drunken parents who were broken beyond repair, her only hope was to transcend. This was what I believed she was trying to tell me at the time. That she wanted to transcend her body.

  It was a gorgeous Sunday when I wheeled Annie out to the pool. Her symptoms seemed worse than ever that day, and when I tried to pull the life jacket over her, she screamed louder than I’d ever heard. Her one good arm pointed toward the pool. I pushed the chair to the water’s edge and listened to her usual grunts and shrieks. It took me a f
ew seconds to understand what she was trying to say. She wanted to be liberated from the shackles of disability and dysfunction. The water was the one place she felt safe and free, her useless body unhindered by the crushing heft of gravity.

  I didn’t want to do it, but she persisted until I had no other choice. I knew what I had to do. Tears dripped down my freckled cheeks as I spoke to her. Annie kept jerking and pointing toward the pool. For a brief second she looked me in the eye and held my gaze. I could see this was how she wanted to go. I embraced her for a long time. I kissed her on the lips and told her how much I loved her. My tears dripped over her face and made it look as if she too was crying.

  After I’d said my good-bye, I made sure she was buckled in. The seat belt had been installed so that she wouldn’t tumble out during a spasm. I grabbed the two handles, prayed to God for strength and forgiveness, and then gently pushed her over the pool’s edge.

  The chair hit the water and began to sink. Annie shouted something before her voice got drowned out. Her head went under and she began to descend. Soon she would be free. I watched as the chair fell to the aquamarine bottom. She kicked her legs and waved her hands. Bubbles rose up to the surface. After a few minutes her body went slack and began to oscillate in the ripples of pool water. I gazed down at her and for a brief second caught a glimpse of my own reflection. I was smiling. But so was Annie.

  I sat at the pool’s edge for a while, dangling my feet in the water and staring down at her.

  Annie was free at last.

  * * *

  “Oh my God, Leah. You must have felt terrible,” Clarissa says.

  “Actually, I felt very much at peace with myself. I knew she’d be in a better place.”

  “What did you do next?”

  “I just sat there until my parents came out.”