The Last Resort

by Marissa Stapley

  “Miles,” he said. “Ruth.” That was all he said, but the way he said it brought back all the fear from the night before. They were not safe. Not yet. He kept walking, Johanna behind him, then Grace, then Shell, and Colin at the end. A macabre parade.

  Grace’s throat was dry. It felt like it was on fire. She had picked up a water bottle as they had passed one of the supply tables inside. She took a deep drink, but it did nothing to put out the fire inside her.

  They got to the stairs of the restaurant, somehow still intact. Storms were so indiscriminate—she had seen this. What they chose to destroy, what they left alone. They walked up the stairs. “Oh, my god,” Shell murmured.

  Grace saw. Miles was on the floor, his legs bent at unnatural angles, blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth, from his eyes, from one of his ears. His face was impossibly pale. Ruth was there, cradling his head in her lap. They were whispering to one another. They looked like two lovers bidding one another a gentle goodbye. But Grace knew better. She knew it wasn’t right, what he was saying to her. Ruth’s face was anguished, and not because he appeared to be dying. It was because of his words, whatever ugliness was still streaming from his mouth, even as he lost his strength by the second. Ruth bent in close and shook her head. No, please, she mouthed. Was he smiling, was he laughing? How was that possible?

  It didn’t look right and this was why: Ruth was cradling Miles, yes, but she was also holding a knife to his neck. As Grace saw this, Ruth looked up and saw the five of them.

  “Get back!” she called. “Get back, now, or I swear, I’ll kill him.”

  “He looks like he’s already dying,” Colin said, stepping forward.

  “Get back, I said!” Now Ruth’s voice was a scream. A hesitation and then they all retreated at once, to stand on the staircase landing. If they stood on tiptoes, they could still see her. Grace did, and she watched as Ruth leaned down her head again. “Please,” Grace thought she heard her repeat. Then, “No, no, please, no, stop saying that!” Her voice was growing louder. “No!” A shout with surprising depth and power. “Stop! No more! You’ve ruined me! I won’t let you anymore!”

  Ruth lifted the knife, and they could all see it now. They fell back in a wave, toward the stairs. Grace moved forward to stop her, because surely someone needed to—but a hand pulled her back. Warm fingertips, a touch she knew. She let Johanna pull her away and stood still, her body touching Johanna’s, all of them frozen in time as Ruth lifted the knife with both hands, then plunged it into Miles’s chest.

  She did it again.

  Again.

  Again.

  Again.

  No one moved, except for Ruth. Except for the knife. Miles wasn’t moving anymore, but Ruth still wouldn’t stop. She stabbed him over and over—and Grace imagined she was doing it for every time he had hurt her, every single time, maybe even for the times he had hurt anyone else. They could all be standing there forever, watching her kill an already dead man. It felt like they were. It felt, in that moment, like they were all one person, like they were all Ruth. Like they were making sure he was really dead. Because with a man like Miles, you wanted to be sure.

  Finally, Ruth stood. She dropped the knife and started to shake. “I killed him,” she said, her voice surprisingly calm. “I did it. He’s dead. I killed him. It’s over. Call the police.” Ruth was looking at Grace, and Grace had to look away. She felt Johanna move away from her. She didn’t want her to.

  “No,” Johanna said. “It wasn’t you. I started all this. I’m the reason he was injured in the first place. This is my fault. I don’t want you to be punished for this, Ruth.”

  After Johanna spoke, there was no sound in the restaurant but the chastened ocean, the calm wind and a seabird overhead, above the damaged roof, testing out its wings in the brand-new world. Then Grace’s voice. “Johanna, please don’t.”

  The truth is a strange thing. You can mold it sometimes and bend it to your will. But there are some things that are beyond anyone’s control. Shell was certain everyone who was there that morning saw it in Grace’s eyes, heard it in her voice. And she felt brief comfort because she knew that what they saw in that moment was love—and if, later, they decided it was not that, if they decided it was anything but that between these two women, then that was their own fault, because it had been shown to them, clearer than anything. So many things in the world were complicated, but love is really quite simple.

  Shell walked toward Johanna and turned. Now she was standing facing all of them, her back to the cliff and ocean and sky. “That knife Ruth has, it belongs to Miles. Earlier, I left the room Colin and I were in to go to the washroom. Miles was in the hallway, and he grabbed me and dragged me outside. And then I—”

  Colin’s voice. “No. Stop. I can’t lose you because of him.”

  Shell just shook her head. She tried to tune out the voice of her husband. She needed to take responsibility for her actions, no matter what the consequences. She needed to be strong. For Zoey. For all of them. Maybe if she did what was right she wouldn’t feel so scared anymore. Because all around her, she could still see Miles. She could still feel his grip. She turned her head and looked at him lying there dead on the ground—and knew that she had wanted him to be dead more than anyone. And he was. He was gone. Which meant someone was going to have to endure the consequences. “He held the knife to my throat and he said he would kill me.” Shell noticed Grace was fiddling with something in her pocket, panic in her eyes. Shell could make that panic go away. But—something white, in Grace’s hands. What was she doing? Were those pills? Shell struggled for focus. Grace was unscrewing the cap of her water bottle. She looked away. “I pushed him over the edge of the rocks and I left him there to die. But he must have landed on the net and climbed back up. And then—Ruth. Yes, she stabbed him, but it wasn’t her fault. You all saw it. He was going to die anyway, I’m sure of it. She just finished something that I had already started. I pushed him.”

  “I won’t let you take this on alone,” Johanna said fiercely. “I was with you. I hurt him, too.”

  Colin moved forward, too. “This can’t be happening,” he said. More movement in a corner of Shell’s vision: Grace was shaking the water bottle she held in her hand, up and down, over and over. The water was cloudy, and then it wasn’t. Shell felt a slow dawning. She blinked and all certainty was gone.

  “Ruth.” Grace’s voice was firm, strong, different. “Listen to me.” The power in her voice: for a frightening moment, it reminded Shell of Miles. She glanced down at him again, at his lifeless form. Just to make sure. One last time. “Ruth,” Grace said again. She was holding up the water bottle. “Come away from there. Drink this water. You need it. Drink.”

  “We have to think of something,” Colin was saying. But Shell had a feeling Grace already had.

  It was no good. Grace was not Miles. Ruth was not going to listen to her. She had never taken orders from Grace, and she was not going to start now. “You need some water, you need to sit,” Grace persisted. Ruth’s wide and scared eyes were staring into Grace’s, but she didn’t obey.

  “No,” she said, and Grace felt herself start to panic. She’s going to go inside, covered with his blood, and she’s going to start screaming about what she did, and it’s going to be too late. Or, the guests are going to come outside and see us all standing here. See the wounds Johanna inflicted, Shell inflicted, Ruth inflicted—and then what? And an autopsy will show that I drugged him. Will we all go to jail? I did the only thing I could do, the only thing left. But I’ve failed so many times. It isn’t going to work.

  “Ruth.” Another voice now: Ben’s. “I’m a lawyer. I can help you. But you really should have something to drink. Try to calm down.” He was beside Grace now. “Give me the bottle,” he said under his breath.

  Ruth turned to look at Ben. “I am very calm,” she said, but her entire body was still trembling. “I don�
�t need a lawyer. It’s very simple. I’m guilty.” Light in her eyes. Hope. Oh, child, Grace thought. You poor, poor child. Thinking your only hope lies in judgment.

  “I’ll help you,” Ben said. “I’ll help you tell your story. I’ll help you with whatever you need. Just have a little water and we’ll go inside.” He was holding the bottle up to her and Grace was wondering what he knew, what he had seen, what all of them knew. Ruth hesitated, but then she lifted her mouth to him, like a baby bird—like a woman so used to doing a man’s bidding it was the most natural thing for her to do so now.

  Ruth drank. She winced for a moment, perhaps at the bitter taste of the doctored water. But she kept drinking. She was so far gone perhaps she thought the taste was Miles’s blood. “You’re right,” she said to Ben, grateful. “This does feel better.” She drank more. She finished the entire bottle.

  Ben said, “Come. Sit at this table. Let’s be sure we have your story straight.” She followed him.

  Eventually, Ruth was swaying, her head was nodding forward. This was what Grace had meant to happen to Miles. If she had done it right, everything would be different.

  Ruth was slumping now. Ben had her. “I need help,” he said, and Colin advanced. They lifted her in their arms. Everyone understood now. They were working as one. Solidarity.

  “Where?” They looked to Grace. She looked at Johanna, then at Shell. She knew it was a lot to ask.

  “Could the two of you stay here? With...him? We’ll be back soon.”

  At least she knew they were safe. At least she knew this: that Miles was not going to be able to hurt any of them again.

  Him: Maybe it’s time for us to take a break. You seem quite upset.

  Her: I told you, I’m fine. It feels good to have the truth out. I think this confession might mean that finally, I’m free. After all these years. Not physically, but from these chains inside me. They keep getting tighter. It’s hard to breathe. I need to be judged. In fact, I’m desperate to be judged. Please, don’t make me wait anymore.

  While Ben and Colin put Ruth on the floor in the room where Colin and Shell had been sleeping earlier, Grace went upstairs to Ruth’s quarters to find a fresh white lab coat to replace the one Ruth had been wearing, which was now spattered with Miles’s blood. She found the packaged cloths Ruth used to wash her face and took both downstairs with her. Back in the room, Ben and Colin looked away while Grace changed the coat and wiped the spots of blood that had landed on Ruth’s face, then carefully cleaned the blood from Ruth’s hands with the cloths. She felt like she was tending to a child. This was not a sensation she had ever experienced.

  Soon, it was done. They all stood and looked at Ruth’s peaceful, innocent, sleeping form. Her eyes fluttered, she murmured something. Then she was still.

  “Let’s go,” Grace said. “There’s still more to do.”

  “Grace,” Ben said “I need to talk to you. Colin, could we have a minute?”

  “I’ll go check on Shell and Johanna.” He closed the door behind him.

  Grace braced herself for what Ben was going to say to her, for the accusations he would fling. “This is not the time,” she began. “There’s too much we have to deal with.”

  But his expression was anguished, not angry. He put his face in his hands. “Please, I need help. What have I done?”

  Him: Ruth—

  Her: Please. Let me this time. It’s so strange, you know. I woke up inside the villa, and all of this seemed like a bad dream. Like it had never even happened. But I know it happened. I know the story. And you need to let me tell it.

  “I love my wife.” Ben’s voice caught, over that word, wife. He clenched both fists. “But I know—I know she doesn’t love me. And I felt so angry about that last night. When she was gone, when I woke up alone, and she wasn’t beside me, I was so angry. That may have been what started it. I started walking through the halls, looking all over for her. But I didn’t find her. Then I saw water, wet footprints leading from one of the doors. I thought maybe she had gone outside. I was so worried.” Water dripped from the ceiling. There was a smell of damp rot in the room already. “I opened the door and called her name, and I heard something, but it wasn’t her.”

  “You shouldn’t tell anyone this,” Grace began.

  “No. You don’t understand. No one else should take the fall for what I did. I found Miles in the restaurant. He was spitting up water and vomit. He smelled horrible, like he was already dead. Johanna hit him with the rock, okay, and Shell pushed him, yes, but he landed on that net, I guess. Shell’s right about that. That hammock Jo and I were in on our first morning here must have saved him. And he climbed back up. He was still alive. Very much so. He saw me, and he started saying such horrible, ugly things. He said you were a Jezebel. He said you were all whores. He said I was a sinner for having Johanna in my bed in the first place. He said he was going to kill you, and kill Johanna, and Shell, and Ruth, because you were all abominations. He had a knife in his hand, and I got really scared. He kept rambling on and on, and with every sentence he came closer to me.”

  “Ben. Don’t. This is all going to be over soon. We just need to—”

  “I was angry. I’ll admit it. Maybe not even at him, but at Johanna, and at you, because I could see it, and I’ve always known. At myself, too, for thinking that just because I wanted Jo to love me, she was going to someday magically do so. Instead, she found the person she belongs with. I can see that. Any idiot can see that. But I was still hurt. And I was angry. He stumbled and dropped the knife and I took advantage of his weakness. I punched him. As hard as I could. Just once. He fell back and hit his head on the granite of the bar top. I could hear it over the wind, his head hitting that marble. It sounded like his skull had cracked right open. And when he landed, I knew he wasn’t going to be okay. Ever. I knew he needed help and I knew he was probably beyond help. But I—I didn’t help him. I went inside. I left him there to die. Ruth must have found him after the storm, and maybe she finished the task while we watched. But he was going to die anyway. I know it. And I know it was because I delivered that blow.”

  A long silence. Grace stared at this man who loved the same woman she did. She thought of what Colin had said, about how none of them should take the fall on account of a monster like Miles. He was wrong, according to the Bible. He was wrong, according to the law. Technically one of them, or all of them, needed to be punished in some way.

  But she didn’t want to believe in punishment anymore.

  She glanced down at Ruth, asleep on the floor. She said, “You are not to tell anyone that story ever. And from this moment on, you are to do everything I say. You are not to ask questions.” It surprised her again, this force inside her, as if Miles’s death had awakened it. She saw Ben hesitate, but then he nodded and followed her from the room as if there were nothing else he could possibly do. I’m always certain, Grace. Were those the last words Miles had said to her? They would stay with her forever. But perhaps one day she would be able to start to see them as the only gift Miles had ever given her: he had made her strong. There was no other choice.

  Her: No, it wasn’t Ben who killed him. In my dreams that day, I heard him saying he had done it. But it wasn’t Ben.

  Him: Do you have any happy memories, Ruth, from your past, from your childhood? Sometimes, it helps to remember something light when it feels like there’s only darkness. I think it helps you, when you get like this. I think we should talk about something else for a little while.

  Her: [A sob, then a gulp, then silence.] What do you mean, when I get like this? And happy memories? It didn’t last long, but after the suffering, the way he would hurt me—it just felt so good to have a break from it. I think those few days were the best days of my life. Sad, isn’t it?

  Him: I do feel sad for you, yes. Sad that all this happened to you.

  Her: [Looking up.] Oh, but I’m not a victim. You have t
o know that. I’m trying to confess. I was so, so sick in my mind. [Another sob.]

  Him: Try to calm down.

  Her: I loved Miles. I let him ruin me. But I shouldn’t have killed him for that. In the end, I murdered the only man I have ever loved.

  Him: Ruth, you know that’s not true. You took sleeping pills because the storm scared you, and when you woke up, Miles was already gone. Everyone at the resort corroborates the story that he was drunk or high, and behaving erratically—and both you and Grace Markell have confirmed that he often drank alcohol and sometimes took the prescription drugs he got his hands on at the resort. It also came to light that he didn’t know how to swim. There were extensive investigations, and his body was searched for. But the case is firmly closed. Accidental drowning.

  Her: No. I wasn’t asleep.

  Him: Ruth, you were. There are many, many people, an entire resort full of them, who say you were. And when you awoke, you had a psychotic break. You couldn’t deal with what it did to you, the fact that Miles couldn’t be found, the fact that he might be dead.

  Her: It’s all a lie. All of it. They were all lying.

  Him: [A sigh.] Who are they protecting? They all lied to protect you?

  Her: Yes. Because I killed him. It was me. If his body is ever found, they’ll know. I stabbed him. He was saying such horrible things. There was blood all over the restaurant.

  Him: There was no blood at all in the restaurant.

  Her: Do you know what he said to me? He was talking about what a silly girl Ruth was, as though I wasn’t even there, how he had no intention of running away with her. I made him repeat it. I said, “You don’t love Ruth??” And he laughed. I think he was almost half-dead at that point, and he still laughed. And I saw the knife in his waistband, and took it out. And then they were all standing there—