Because God is a murderer, Daddy.
Chapter 53
Brady Collins woke up in his bed. His mother had finally let him out of the doghouse when he woke up with a bad fever and couldn’t go to school. She asked him if he was ready to act like a human being, and he said yes. They all ate breakfast at the table. His father complained about “that fucking sheriff” delaying the Mission Street Woods project and how the loans were coming due. If the project died, the family was bankrupt. “So, why do you spend so much God damn money, Kathleen?!” As his father railed against the small pond he mistook for the world, Brady finished his breakfast, then spent the rest of the day in bed. He slept the whole time, stopping only to take one long pee that smelled sweet like baby aspirin. Then, he went back to bed and slept all the way through lunch and dinner. When he woke up, he was covered in sweat. His fever had broken, but the itch on his arm was worse than ever. Brady looked at the alarm clock to see what time it was. The date looked right. December 18. But the time was all wrong.
An hour can’t have more than sixty minutes.
Maybe he was still asleep. Maybe he was still having that nightmare. The one with his mother luring him off the street and killing him while Special Ed laughed. Brady walked down the hall into his parents’ bedroom. His parents were asleep. They were so much nicer when they were asleep. His father’s nightstand was covered with business papers. His mother’s nightstand was covered with invitations and thank-you cards. And her letter opener. It was sterling silver. It cost a lot of money. She fired their old housekeeper for stealing it. But it turned out his mother just lost it. And when she found it a week later, she didn’t give their old housekeeper her job back because the new one was from the Middle East and worked harder for less money. Desperate people do that, she told a friend on the phone. Brady picked up the letter opener. He looked at the reflection of the moon in the silver. It looked like a row of smiling teeth. Brady tucked it into the string of his bathrobe. Then, he knelt down and held his mother’s hand. The itch on his arm began to heat up. It became warm and soft like his mother’s smile the times she loved him. He put her hand on his head and pretended that she was patting it and telling him he was good. Good boy, Brady. It felt so much better than the nightmares where she killed him, saying the same thing over and over, while Special Ed laughed.
“You’re such a bad little dog, Brady. Somebody should put you down.”
2:17
Special Ed pulled the gun out from under his pillow. That’s how scary that nightmare was. He and his friends were out on the street playing baseball with fresh baseball gloves. But the cars kept coming faster and faster as the deer kept chasing them. His mother reached her arm out to get them off the street, but just as Special Ed took his mother’s hand, Brady Collins and Jenny Hertzog jumped out of nowhere and stabbed her. Her blood ran into the street, and Brady took his little serpent’s tongue and lapped it up like a dog in a toilet. That’s when Special Ed woke up. He was covered in sweat. His fever had broken. All day, it didn’t matter how many times he turned the pillow over and back. He could still feel the fever on his forehead. But now, all he felt was the itch on his arm. He looked at the five empty chambers and scratched his arm with the barrel. It didn’t matter how much he scratched it, his arm kept itching. And he kept thinking. About one thing.
You need more than one bullet, Eddie. Listen to Grandma.
Special Ed got out of bed and walked pitter-pat downstairs. He went to the study, got a nice leather chair, and leaned his ear against the cold metal of his father’s gun safe. He started to turn the dial in three-number combinations. 1-1-1. 1-1-2. 1-1-3. All night. Because the war was coming, and the good guys needed to win the war. When dawn broke, Special Ed stopped his quest at 2-1-6 and went to his mother, asleep in the master bedroom. Alone. He was so happy that she was alive. He held her hand. The itch moved down his fingers to hers. Special Ed’s mother opened her eyes slowly. She looked at him sleepily and smiled. “What’s wrong with my Eddie?” she asked.
“Nothing, Mom. I feel much better,” he said.
“Good. I love you. I left you a slice of cake in the fridge,” she said. She patted his head, closed her eyes, and went back to sleep. Special Ed waited until she had drifted far away. Then, he kissed her forehead and whispered in her ear.
“Mom, what’s the combination to Dad’s gun safe?”
2:17
Jenny Hertzog stood over her sleeping stepbrother. The fever that had kept her home from school was gone. And there was nothing in its place except the itch, which twitched its way to the knife in her hand. She stared at her stepbrother. As angry as he had been after somebody ding-dong-ditched their house, woke up his mother, and stopped his afternoon fun. The moonlight made his face pasty and pale. His acne stood out like stars in the sky. She thought his blood would do his face some good. She could take his blood and color his cheeks rouge red like the whores in the movies he loved to watch on his computer. Or a clown. She took the knife and gently pressed it in the middle of his palm. He turned a little in bed, but he did not wake. Jenny closed her eyes and pushed the itch down her arm through the knife and into his skin. As the itch ate its way into her stepbrother’s filthy hands, she thought about her beautiful dream. Her mother was still alive. And Jenny’s father had never married that horrible woman with her even more horrible son. In her dream, Jenny saw her mother running through the backyard, hunting for Christopher. Jenny’s mother came rushing up with a little pet boy, but Christopher was too fast, and he disappeared down the street. Jenny’s mother chased after him, but she couldn’t catch up. So, she came back to Jenny’s backyard. She scaled the ivy walls into Jenny’s bedroom. She smelled so nice. Like Chanel No. 5. She held Jenny in her arms and listened to Jenny tell stories about school and dance practice. Jenny’s mother then explained that Jenny shouldn’t stab her stepbrother Scott. Because there was a war coming. And their side needed all the soldiers they could get. Jenny asked if she could kill Scott after the war was over. Her mother explained that she wouldn’t have to. All she would have to do was look up at the moon staring back at the Earth and say a little prayer.
“Wash him away, God. Wash him away in Floods. Floods.”
2:17
Mrs. Henderson stared at the clock as she stood in the warm kitchen. Mr. Henderson had finally come home. Without an explanation. Or an apology. But still, he was home. So, she made him his favorite meal, as she had more than a thousand times over the last fifty years. He didn’t notice. He didn’t care. Mrs. Henderson asked her husband if he remembered what today was. She waited for him to remember lifting the veil off her beautiful young face. Her red hair tumbling down over her shoulder on their wedding night. She waited for him to remember it was their anniversary. But he never did.
Because he doesn’t love you anymore.
Mrs. Henderson tried to kiss Mr. Henderson like it was their wedding night, but he pushed her away. Mrs. Henderson started crying when he said he didn’t want to kiss her anymore. She had kissed her husband for the last time, and she didn’t even know it, so she could cherish it. She gave him fifty years. Mrs. Henderson went to the counter. She looked at herself in the glass of the window. She was worse than ugly now. She was invisible. Her husband had taken her youth, and he hated the snakeskin that was left behind. This was her last year of teaching. At the end of the school year, there would be nothing left. No school. No job. No husband. No children. She would have nothing but these walls. She started to scratch her head. God, it wouldn’t stop itching. Why wouldn’t it stop itching?
Mrs. Henderson stood behind her husband. She waited to see if he would turn around. If he would say anything. But he kept eating as if nothing had happened. He made his little yum yum moan sounds when he chewed. God, that chewing. That awful chewing. Those moans he made when he ate his favorite meal. Didn’t he remember that she had to ask his mother how to cook that meal? Didn’t he remember that a beautiful young woman with gorgeous red hair worked like a God damn slave
to perfect that meal that he keeps chewing and chewing like a God damn dog? Did he think that the men he ran around with were going to learn to cook him that meal?
You better turn around. You better ask me how I’m feeling.
Mr. Henderson didn’t turn around. Mrs. Henderson thought so loudly she didn’t understand how he couldn’t hear her.
If you pick up that newspaper, I’m going to make you remember lifting the veil off my face.
Mr. Henderson picked up the newspaper.
Okay, you just picked up the newspaper. Let’s see how the Steelers are doing while your wife cries behind you. Well, guess what? Your wife just stopped crying. Did you notice that I stopped crying? Do you have any idea what is happening behind you? Do you think your little mousy wife is standing there just begging for whatever crumbs you call love? Well, just turn around, and you will see who your mousy wife really is. Turn around, and you will know I am not invisible. I am a BEAUTIFUL FUCKING WOMAN AND I DESERVE YOUR FUCKING RESPECT.
“Honey?” Mrs. Henderson whispered sweetly.
“What now?” her husband groaned.
Then, he turned around, and she plunged the kitchen knife straight through his neck.
Chapter 54
Mary Katherine woke up in a cold sweat. Her fever had broken, but her body didn’t feel good. In fact, it felt worse. She was bloated. Her joints ached. Her breasts were tender. The itch on her arm was driving her crazy. And she felt a little queasy. It was probably the fact that she had stayed in bed all day and slept without eating.
Or maybe it was that dream.
In her dream, it was still three days ago. And none of the horrible things that had happened to her had happened yet. She was babysitting Christopher. She found him in the tree house. She went home. But this time, when the sinful thoughts came to her, she didn’t fantasize about the sheriff. She didn’t put Doug’s awful thing in her mouth. She didn’t wake up in the tree house with no memory of how she got there. She didn’t come home at eight o’clock in the morning to find her parents seething in the living room. And she didn’t have to spend two days taking finals with a 102-degree fever from staying out in a freezing tree house all night. In her dream, none of that happened.
Because the Virgin Mary stopped her.
In her dream, Mary Katherine was back in her room. When the sinful thoughts started, she heard a knocking on the window. She turned to the window and saw a woman floating outside.
“Please let me in, Mary Katherine,” the woman whispered.
“How do you know my name?”
“Because your parents named you after me,” the woman said.
“I thought I was named for the Virgin Mary.”
The woman said nothing. She simply smiled and waited for two plus two to find its way to four. Mary Katherine studied her face. The woman didn’t look like an angel. She didn’t look like all of those paintings and statues that Mary Katherine had seen in churches her whole life. She had no makeup. Her hair wasn’t perfect. She was a simple woman. Poor and dignified. With dirt on her clothes from giving birth in a manger. She was real.
“Please, open the window, Mary Katherine,” the woman whispered.
Mary Katherine walked over to the window and slowly unhooked the lock. When the window opened, the freezing air of December hit her white cotton nightgown. The cold made her flesh stand up all over her body.
“Thank you. It’s so cold out there. And no one would help me,” the woman whispered.
The woman sat in Mary Katherine’s white wicker chair and shivered. Mary Katherine took the extra blanket from the foot of her bed and gave it to her. The woman took Mary Katherine’s hands. She was ice-cold, but a warm itch ran through her fingers.
“What are you doing here?” Mary Katherine asked.
“I’m here to save you, Mary Katherine,” the woman said.
“From what?”
“From Hell, of course.”
“Yes, please. How do I keep from going to Hell?” Mary Katherine asked.
The woman smiled and opened her mouth. But when she spoke, there were no words. All Mary Katherine could hear was the sound of a baby crying.
That’s when she woke up.
Mary Katherine sat up in bed. For a moment, the dream occupied her mind. But soon, the memories of everything she had done flooded back. Her horrible sexual thoughts. Doug’s thing in her mouth. Waking up in the tree house and rushing home to her parents, who had never been more disappointed in all their lives. Mary Katherine’s face was hot with shame. The pit in her stomach felt permanent.
She felt like she was going to throw up.
Mary Katherine rushed to the bathroom. She opened the toilet and knelt in front of it like an altar. She started to throw up, but it was a dry heave. There was no food in her stomach. There was only that pit. After a moment, the nausea passed.
But the taste was still there.
Mary Katherine took the mouthwash out of her medicine cabinet. She filled the cap to the rim with blue liquid and filled her mouth with it like her Irish grandfather did with whiskey sours at Christmas. The Listerine sat in her mouth like a cold blue ocean.
Then, it started to heat up.
The heat covered her tongue like the itch on her arm. Tears began to fill her eyes as seconds turned to minutes, but she wouldn’t stop. She couldn’t stop. The mouthwash burned like Hell, but she didn’t dare spit it out. She just held it there, begging God to take it all away. Burn the taste off her tongue like a memory killed by time.
Make me forget.
Make me a child.
Make me forget Doug’s thing.
Make me forget I liked it.
Eventually, her flesh won, and she spit the liquid out in a gasp of pain. She left the bathroom and moved down the hall to the master bedroom. She looked at her parents sleeping in the king-size bed. All she wanted to do was crawl in between them the way she did when she was little. She knelt in front of her father and took his hand. She closed her eyes and asked for his forgiveness. The itch moved through her fingers to her father’s hand. He stirred for a moment, then turned over and started snoring.
She spent the rest of the night writing her essay for Notre Dame about Jesus’ mother, the Virgin Mary. She thought if she could get into Notre Dame, her parents would forgive her.
In the morning, her mother came downstairs and made breakfast. Mary Katherine tried to engage her in conversation, but her mother was too disappointed to speak. The only thing her mother told her was that she was allowed to go to school and volunteer at Shady Pines. Then, it was right back home.
“No friends. No Doug. No nothing.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry,” Mary Katherine said. “Where’s Dad?”
“He’s in bed. He doesn’t feel well this morning,” her mother said.
Mary Katherine rode the bus to school. She looked up at the sky and saw the beautiful clouds floating above her. For a moment, she remembered a rhyme Mrs. Radcliffe taught them in CCD.
Clouds gave us rain.
God gave us floods.
Mary gave her son.
Jesus gave His blood.
When she arrived at school, Doug was outside, waiting for her. He was the last person she wanted to talk to right now. Just seeing him made her want to throw up. So, she snuck around the side entrance to avoid him and waited under the stairs for ten whole minutes while the world passed above her.
When the bell rang, Mary Katherine ran down the hall. She was late for first period. She had been so wrapped up in her life for the last three days, she had completely forgotten that today was the history final. It was her last final before Christmas break. She needed this grade to keep her straight-A average. She needed this grade to get into Notre Dame. She needed Notre Dame for her parents to forgive her.
Mary Katherine tried to focus on the test, but all she noticed were the aches in her body. The itch on her arm was screaming. And she just didn’t understand why her boobs hurt so much. Was that what happened to girl
s after they became orally sexual? She didn’t know. But she didn’t dare look it up on the internet because her parents monitored her search history. And she couldn’t use the library’s computer because the administration monitored everything since some boys were caught downloading porn last year. She wished she knew a counselor she could ask, but counselors were for girls with problems or reputations. Like Debbie Dunham. Mary Katherine never had any problems. Not until now.
She felt like she was going to throw up again.
She somehow managed to finish her test and get through the school day by skipping lunch and swatting away Doug’s texts like flies. After school, she came home to an icy silence. The only thing her parents said to her was that they were going to church.
“Do you want to join us or do you want to rot in Hell?” her father asked.
Mary Katherine rode in silence all the way to church. She sat dutifully on the hard bench despite her physical discomfort. She didn’t know why Father Tom was holding mass on a Thursday night, but she didn’t dare question it. Mary Katherine had come to this building fifty-two Sundays (plus Christmas Eves and Christmas Days and Good Fridays and Ash Wednesdays and CCD) every year since she was born. And yet, she realized she had never really seen the people who came here at night when everyone else was home and safe. She didn’t even know these people existed. But there they were, some dressed as homeless people. Some were bickering with each other. Some of them seemed a little crazy. Or a little sick. So, Mary Katherine paid particular attention to Father Tom’s homily. When he asked the congregation to pray for the refugees in the Middle East before another war broke out, Mary Katherine turned off all noise about Notre Dame, Doug, and her parents, and prayed to deliver those poor people.
Imaginary Friend Page 30
