by Kate Myles
“She had a red BMW, just like you.”
“I drive a Mercedes,” I said. “And I think you should leave.”
I took a step back, opening a path to the stairs. She slid forward from the fridge and gripped the rim of the countertop. The freezer was still open, hurtling me toward a world where melted ice cubes and thawed gyoza no longer mattered.
“I stabbed her,” she said.
“Get out.”
“That doesn’t scare you?”
“Are you trying to scare me?”
“I found the sugar box,” she said.
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay?” She raised her voice. “That’s all you can say?”
I had no fear at that moment. I had only grim calculation. My daughter was upstairs. It was too dangerous now to let Chloe pass the nursery. She’d have to take the sliding glass door. It was high tide. She’d be stuck on the balcony.
“What do you want?” I asked.
She scoffed and hung her mouth open in outrage. “You used me!”
I took a breath. I had to keep cool.
“Don’t take it personally,” I said. “I’ve used lots of people.”
My cell phone rang. The sound was muffled through my purse, but at least I knew the phone was downstairs, near the couch. If only it could have been in my hand like it usually was. I was incredulous that I couldn’t simply make it materialize there.
“Do you want to get that?” She was smirking, challenging me.
To not answer it was to admit I was aware of looming violence, to make it real. But I didn’t dare turn my back on her. The ringing stopped. Chloe lifted her chin in triumph.
I needed an advantage, a deterrent. I strode past her with a burst of bravado. I went deep into the kitchen, straight for my knife block. I pulled out my chef’s knife and turned.
All I could see was her eyes. They were so pointed, so sharp. The rest of her blurred in contrast, into a silhouette haloed with undulating shades of a rage I could never hope to match.
The landline started ringing in the office. Doug was the only one besides me who knew the number. He was alive. He was throwing me a lifeline. Chloe glanced toward the sound. I sprinted past her, bumping my ribs on the counter. The phone was in the corner of the office, on the other side of the bulky swivel chair. I swept it aside with my arm, but it caught on the rolling mat. I stumbled over it. The knife was in my right hand. I grabbed the cordless receiver with my left. My fingers were stiff, like I’d been out in the freezing cold. I couldn’t make them move. I stared at the buttons. In that moment, I couldn’t remember which one would let me answer.
Chloe slammed into me with her whole body and slapped the phone out of my hand. It bounced to the ground, still ringing. I dived for it. I dropped the knife. Then she was on top of me, yanking my hair. I elbowed her. I punched her thigh. I reached for the arm of the chair and pulled it over us.
“Let go!” I screamed. And she did. I pushed her off me and rose to a crouch. She stood. Her eyes were wide and frozen. She looked even more freaked out than I was.
The knife was under the chair, behind her. My instinct was to lead her away from it. I backed out of the office into the living room, feeling for obstacles with my hands. She moved forward at an even distance. There was no menace to her just then. She looked like a kid sister, tagging along.
“Doug’s alive,” I said.
“How do you know that?”
“No one else calls that number,” I said. “You want to go back? Pretend like none of this happened?”
“What do we do?” she asked.
I reached the sliding glass door. “We have to keep everyone safe, okay?” I touched the door handle.
Some understanding rushed to her face like a blush. She crossed her arms. “You mean keep you safe.”
“Chloe,” I said. “I have a child upstairs. I have to protect my child.”
Her expression didn’t change.
“I’m going to open this door, okay? I have to unlock it first.”
“Okay.”
I kept my eyes on her as I bent to unlatch the floor lock. I slid the door open.
“Come outside with me,” I said. “We can call Doug.”
“I thought we were going to kill him.”
I tilted my head toward her and summoned something soft and sweet inside me. “No, no,” I said. “That was a mistake. And I’m so relieved he’s alive.”
Chloe pursed her lips and swished them to the side like a kindergartener.
“It’s a mess,” I said. “But Doug’s alive. He doesn’t know anything. It’s like it never happened.” I moved out, keeping my hand on the door. “Come on out. We’ll call him. We’ll tell him we’re friends. He’ll think it’s funny.” She joined me outside. I stepped back in, straddling the screen track. “I just have to get my phone.” I moved both feet inside. “I’m going to close this and come back with my phone, okay?”
She started back to me. I put my hand up. “It’s okay.” I slid the door closed as inoffensively as I could. “I’ll be right back,” I said and locked the plastic handle. She was six inches away. But she was out of my house.
I moved to the other side of the living room. She tracked me, pacing the glass like a caged tiger. My purse was under the couch. I took my phone out and dialed 911.
Chloe knocked on the window and yelled, “Are you calling Doug?”
“Of course!” The emergency line rang. They picked up. I heard voices in the background. I was safe.
Chloe shook the door handle. I went up to the glass and slid the bottom lock into place.
“Nine one one emergency, what is the address you are calling from?” The dispatcher was female.
Chloe’s face scrunched. I turned my back to her. “Hello,” I said. “I have a disturbed person in my house. She won’t leave.”
“What is the address you are calling from?”
I heard a loud bang. I turned. Chloe had the garden table in her hands.
“She’s banging on the window,” I yelled into the phone. “She’s on the balcony.”
“Ma’am.”
Chloe hit the glass again.
“Holy shit!”
“Ma’am, I need you to calm down and tell me your address.”
Bam!
“19472 Pacific Coast Highway.”
“Repeat that?”
Bam!
I screamed into the phone. “I’m in Malibu!”
Bam!
“Slow down.” The dispatcher was firm and deliberate.
Bam!
“Chloe, stop!”
I was calling the police. That was what I was supposed to do. That was supposed to be the end of it.
Bam!
“I have Pacific Coast Highway,” said the dispatcher. “I need the house number.”
Chloe cracked the glass, making a bullet-size hole in the center of a shattering circle.
“Oh my God!”
She kept hitting, hard and fast. The hole was now the size of a fist.
“Your address!” The operator was screaming now too. “Your address!”
“One nine four seven two!”
Chloe pawed at the crumbling glass. I dropped the phone. I ran. I used my hands and feet to climb the stairs as she reentered the house. I rounded the top railing and ran across the hall into Grace’s room and grabbed her from her crib. We got as far as her bedroom door.
Chloe was at the top of the stairs, blocking my exit. She had blood on her face and hands. Grace wriggled in my arms.
“The police are coming,” I said. I saw a glint of something at her side. It was my chef’s knife. She flexed her fingers and closed her fist around the handle.
“Emily, all I want is an apology.”
The front door was behind her, just down the hallway. But I couldn’t make a run for it, not with Grace in my arms.
I pointed to the knife. “You want to kill us?”
She refastened her grip and focused her eyes on Grace.
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“What’s the plan, Chloe?”
The police were coming. I needed to keep Chloe calm until they got there. I needed to remove Grace from her line of vision. I laid Grace on the floor, just inside the doorway. Chloe was still staring at her. I stepped past her and pulled the bedroom door closed behind me.
“I wasn’t setting you up,” I said.
“Bullshit!” She waved the blade at me. I backed up. She lunged. She swiped my forearm and backed up. We looked at each other in shock. I held up my arm. There was no blood at first. I thought for a moment maybe nothing had happened. But then a clean, burning line of red appeared. Chloe watched, fascinated.
“Time-out,” I said and made a T with my hands. I had a sense we should break before we did this. She should give me a chance to turn on the light or use the bathroom.
She sliced my other arm and retreated, quick on her feet like a prizefighter. I pushed her in the chest. She stumbled and recovered quickly. She jabbed again and again. I circled my hands in wax-on-wax-off defense moves.
My arms were dripping. They were on fire. I reached for the knife. I grabbed the blade. She pulled back, cutting through the bridge of skin between my thumb and finger.
“Say you’re sorry,” she said.
I cupped my hand. Blood was pooling into my other palm.
“Emily, I just want you to say sorry.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“What are you sorry for?”
“For everything.”
“I don’t believe you.”
And I never knew what sorry meant. Did I wish I’d never met Chloe? Did I regret the fact that she was stabbing me?
“I’m so sorry,” I said. I started crying. “I’m so, so, so sorry. I’m sorry.”
I kept crying. I kept apologizing as her face twisted in gruesome satisfaction. She was going to kill me. I knew this. She was going to kill Grace.
I could hear the traffic on the other side of my front door. The rest of the world, rescue, was close, just a few feet away. I conjured an image of a football tackle and led with my shoulder, aiming for her middle. She flew back and held on to the railing.
I slipped on my blood. I landed at her calves. I grabbed at her feet and pulled them toward me. She fell. I climbed up her body and grabbed a handful of her face. She beat the top of my head with the knife handle. I kept climbing up her body until my knees were at her shoulders. I pinned her arms down with my shins. She chomped the air like a zombie, trying to catch a piece of my flesh in her jaws.
But she couldn’t. I had her.
I had her until her arm started sliding out from underneath my leg. I pressed harder, but everything was slippery. I couldn’t keep her there. I scrambled forward. I kept going. I crawled up the front door and reached for the dead bolt.
It was unnatural, the force of what came next. The blows were steel, but they felt like water, waves of rage breaking over me and folding back in on themselves before crashing forward again, each surge stronger than the last. It started with my shoulders and sank into my neck, my ribs, my back.
I hadn’t known what pain was until then, not until pain was the only thing that was. It was a lake, and I was drowning. It was an ocean of pain. It was a universe, paper thin and shimmering out to eternity, and I was a flattened speck inside.
I didn’t start panicking until I heard myself screaming. I gurgled and trilled, and I covered my head with my hands. I’d never heard such screams before. “Please don’t let me die!” I could hear myself screaming. “I don’t want to die!” I’d be stuck there if I died, trapped in the beginning and end of my death, my terror wide open and echoing into the dark forever.
I heard a baby cry. I tried to say hush, to say it would be all right, but I couldn’t stop screaming.
Something pushed against me then. It was coming from the opposite direction. My front door. It was shoving me toward Chloe.
“Please,” I whispered.
Glass broke. It shattered all over. I barely felt it. There were people in the house now. They were yelling, and their voices were commanding. Chloe was yelling too.
I could hear my name. I could hear them telling me to stay with them.
“I don’t want to die,” I responded, but no sound came out. I don’t know if my lips moved. “I don’t want to die.”
But I did. I died in the ambulance. The EMTs kept calling my name, but the pain was ebbing, and it felt so nice.
And I wish I could say what happened next, where I went, what I’m doing now. But I’m afraid we’ve reached the limit of our understanding. I have no idea what happens after we die. I’m a ghost, you see. I’m a fiction. I am words on a page.
EPILOGUE
GRACE
GRACE
Hi Diary!
It’s nice to meet you. I got you for my birthday. I’m 12 years old (happy birthday to me!), and I’m in the 6th grade and I can’t wait for summer. That’s a lot of ANDs. Anyhow, next year I go to middle school which is gonna be weird because I only went to one school in my whole entire life. We’re gonna join up with kids from the other elementary school across the freeway which is also weird because that’s where all the poor kids go.
I mean, there are poor kids who go to school with me now but there’s also regular kids to balance it out. Not that I have anything against poor kids either. My mom tells me that those kids just aren’t as lucky as me but seriously, I’m soooo not lucky. Sometimes I think I’m like the unluckiest person in the whole world.
What else? Oh my gosh I forgot to tell you my name. I’m Grace. I live at 8 Glenside Trail, Figblossom Valley, California, United States of America, North America, Planet Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way, The Universe, Whatever Is Past The Universe, 90511.
Oh, and my last name is Markham. That’s the funny thing. I literally don’t have the same last name as my mom and dad. And here, Dear Diary, is where I cannot tell a lie. The truth is, my mom and dad aren’t really my mom and dad. They’re my Aunt Jessica and Uncle Wally. I don’t even call them mom and dad except if I’m talking to someone I don’t know, like if I meet some kids on a beach, and I’m never going to see them again, I’ll be like, “Yeah, my mom and dad, whatever.” That way I don’t have to deal with them asking where my real parents are. It’s so embarrassing. I mean, everyone in my school knows the story, but they’ve all known me my whole life basically, and reporters don’t come to town anymore. I mean, sometimes they do, but Aunt Jessica is really good at telling them to fuck off. (Her words not mine!!!! I don’t have to put money in the swear jar because I’m just saying what she says!) That’s funny. I’m imagining somebody is gonna read this diary and be like, you shouldn’t say fuck. Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck. And BY THE WAY if someone is reading this diary MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS!
I don’t remember what I was talking about now. Oh yeah, my real mom. She was murdered when I was a baby. I don’t remember her at all.
Now I’m sure you’re wondering why my mom got murdered. That’s what everybody wants to know. Uncle Wally says that my mom was a good person who made bad choices. And that makes me so mad because even now, I’m 12 years old. I’ve been double digits for OVER TWO YEARS and they STILL won’t tell me what he means by bad choices. Aunt Jessica just says that’s why we go to church and why I can’t get a phone yet and have to eat hamburger casserole which I HATE. I hate tomatoes and she puts them in EVERY TIME.
Chopped tomatoes are NOT the same thing as tomato sauce. Do you:
AGREE or DISAGREE
(circle one).
Besides, I already know everything about my mom. Hello? I have the internet! She got killed by this lady who had an affair with my dad. I even saw a picture from where she stabbed my mom to death. My mom wasn’t in the picture but her blood was. It was all over the floor and smeared up the door of the house I lived in when I was a baby.
Okay. I have to be honest now. I didn’t just see the picture once. I saw it a lot. And I wanted to stop looking at it, I swear. Every day I woul
d wake up and say, “I’m not looking at that picture today.” But I kept going back to the website. Aunt Jessica and Uncle Wally finally went through my history and said I wasn’t allowed to have my laptop in my room anymore. I got really mad at them. I mean, I was there when my mom got killed. I found out from the website. I yelled at Aunt Jessica and Uncle Wally and called them liars for not telling me the truth. And that’s how we all ended up in therapy together. Even Jayden and Asher come to sessions when they visit. They’re my cousins, but they call me their little sister.
So I guess I should tell you about my real dad. First off, he’s really famous, but not the good kind of famous where you get to be a movie star. Second, the reason it’s not the good kind of famous is because he’s in jail. And here’s where it gets really complicated . . . (drum roll) . . . The murderer lady who killed my mom tried to kill him too.
She put sugar in his plane’s gas tank. But duh, sugar doesn’t dissolve in gasoline, so nothing happened. I learned about it in science class. If you want to dissolve sugar, you have to do it in water. It’s like this:
Sugar (solute) + Water (solvent) = Sugar Water (solution)
I raised my hand in class and asked my teacher, Mr. Travers, if gasoline could ever be solvent for sugar. That’s when it got weird. Mr. Travers got a funny look on his face, and the other kids started making shocked eyes at each other like they couldn’t believe what I was asking. Like I said, the whole town knows everything about me.
Mr. Travers coughed and said that gasoline was a solvent for things like oil and wax. So then it would be:
Oil (solute) + Gasoline (solvent) = Oil and Gas Solution
Anyhow, the murderer lady has a lot of nerve. I mean, I guess if you’re a murderer you’re probably not the most polite person, but she keeps saying it was my mom’s idea to kill my dad. She’s a total liar. Because there is NO WAY that’s true. My mom would NEVER do something like that.
Anyway, the murderer lady didn’t go to jail. She pleaded temporary insanity and self defense, so she ended up in a hospital instead. And me and Aunt Jessica and Uncle Wally are really mad about that. Every time they think about letting her out, we all go and tell the judge and doctors she should stay locked up. Like, every year, I have to talk about how sad it is that I don’t have a mom. We even went on The Dr. Maryn Show to complain about it once. But we hate Dr. Maryn now. She lied to us. She said we’d be on the show by ourselves, but she interviewed the murderer lady on the same episode.