All the Dark Corners

by Emerald O'Brien

I don’t know, but Stacy trusted her. She took her…Hid her somewhere…And then when she ran out of ways to keep me here, she made sure I was the one to find Stacy.

  How was it possible I just came upon her at the cemetery? That’s too big of a coincidence.

  Mom must have followed me.

  She squints up at me as I work this all through, and I can’t even look at her face anymore.

  “Where did you keep Stacy?” I ask, turning around. “You can’t get far, Mom. Where did you keep her?”

  “Sam, I don’t know what you’re talking about—”

  The basement.

  It’s the only place I haven’t been. The only place close enough that Mom could get to easily… And she did. When I came back from searching at the ravine, she was right by the basement door. I’d have been too drunk and drugged up to hear her bring Stacy in that night, and she was here all along, right under us.

  I twist the knob, and rush down the stairs, pulling the cord to the bulb that swings back and forth, illuminating the dusty, cluttered space.

  “Sam! Sam, what are you doing down there?”

  She knows I’m going to find something, but what?

  One of the posts running from the floor to ceiling, supporting the load has a clear patch of space surrounding it. The only clear space down here. I step over a box and a large bin, stumbling toward the spot but there’s nothing obvious there.

  “Sam!” she calls, and her ragged voice fuels me to keep looking.

  I walk around the post, dropping to my knees, and scan the floor surrounding it, but it’s just boxes and bins, covered in dust.

  She must have cleaned up after herself.

  I grab the cold post and pull myself to my feet as a silver glimmer catches my eye in the open bin next to me.

  There, laying on top of clothing are a pair of open metal handcuffs.

  The marks on her wrists…

  When I left to get Mom’s prescription, she knew there was nothing left to keep me here, so she did the one thing that could.

  She came down here, unlocked the cuffs on Stacy’s wrists, tossed them aside, and brought her to find me. To put her right where I’d find her.

  I grab the cuffs and jump over the boxes, back to the stairs, and take them two by two until I reach the top where Mom stands in front of the couch.

  Holding out the cuffs, I watch her face.

  Her cheeks turn red.

  “I won’t even give you the satisfaction of denying that you took her,” I shout. “I know! I know you did it!”

  “I would never hurt Stacy! How could you think that?”

  “She wasn’t hurt, though, was she Mom? Not physically anyway, except for the marks on her wrists. How did you get down there? You can’t move far or fast…”

  Short bursts of energy, like she told me when I first arrived.

  “I wouldn’t!”

  “But you’d send me out to kill an innocent man!”

  “He’s not innocent!”

  “All he’s guilty of is driving by here. He has an alibi! He was at the bar!”

  “Pfft, that’s what they say, but I know—Ted saw him in the Hopcroft’s driveway! You left; we got close without you coming between us, wrecking everything, and after all that, Craig was goin’ back to her!”

  “You thought Dad was still having an affair with Eve, so you killed him. It was you!”

  Nothing would surprise me anymore.

  Not kidnapping, not murder.

  “No! I didn’t know he went there until after Ted told me! And he told me what your dad said before he died! He named his murderer!”

  “Ted said it, huh?” I nod. That’s it. No more lies. “I’m going to go ask him, then!”

  “Go ahead! Be my guest! Whatever helps you realize I did not kill your dad!”

  “Then who did?! If it wasn’t Lawrence, and it wasn’t you, who killed him?”

  She searches the room. “I—I don’t know. Maybe it was Eve, then. If Lawrence wasn’t there, maybe the bitch finally got her revenge!”

  “No. She’s scarred. Terrified of anything. You guys wrecked her. You make me sick! The both of you!”

  Dad wields the knife. Mom watches on.

  They make me watch, because this—this is what you do for family.

  “If I ask him right now, Ted will tell me he saw Dad in the Hopcroft’s driveway?”

  “Yes!”

  “And he’ll tell me when Dad got back, he said it was Lawrence. Lawrence’s name?”

  “Yes, I promise. All the neighbors heard him say it. That’s why he and Cliff went there. To make him pay for what he’d done.”

  I want to threaten her with the fact that I’ll tell the Hutchings what she did to Stacy, but something nags at me… Ted.

  Mom’s a liar, but it was Ted who told everyone what my dad’s last word was.

  It was Ted who saw him at the Hopcroft’s.

  “Well…what if Ted’s lying, then?” I ask. “What if Dad was never at the Hopcroft’s? Ted is the one all this hinges on. He’s got the only so-called proof.”

  She shakes her head. “The neighbors. They were all there, like I told you. They saw it all, too.”

  “But you weren’t there. You didn’t see anything. You were in here watching TV.”

  “Craig left, and he was wearing his good cologne. I smelled it.”

  “Where was he going?”

  She puffs at what’s left of her cigarette. “I was too afraid to ask.”

  “Well, maybe he was just going out? Maybe he went to Ted’s…”

  “After Ted left to go get pumpkins?” Mom asks.

  “What if Dad went over there after Ted left to see Mitsy?”

  Her face twists in confusion.

  He was half-dressed in the car because he was having an affair. Maybe it was with Mitsy. Mom’s working it all out in her head, too.

  “He wouldn’t,” she says, frowning, “not with Mitsy…”

  “But we both know he would.”

  She stares up at me, shaking her head no as her lips twitch.

  I pat the gun in the back of my pants before turning for the door. “I’m going to find out what really happened. To Dad and to Stacy.”

  “You wouldn’t! You wouldn’t dare tell them I took her!”

  “I will!” I fling the door open.

  Mom shouts something else, but I slam the door behind me.

  There’s no point in listening to her anymore.

  I march across the front lawn, climb the steps to the Hutchings’, and knock on the door.

  “Sam,” Ted says, opening the door all the way. He frowns down at me. “Is everything okay? Is it Perry?”

  I want to barge in, but Stacy’s in there. And Will.

  “Could you and Mitsy come over for a sec?” I nod my head toward the house.

  “Of course,” Mitsy says, rushing to the door as Ted hands her a jacket before putting on his own. “Is Mary okay?”

  “Not really.”

  She’s sick. She’s worse than I’d ever imagined.

  “Oh dear,” Mitsy says, stepping outside first.

  We walk down their porch steps, and I step onto their lawn before turning around.

  “It’s actually my mom and me. Neither of us is okay.” I rock my weight back and forth between my feet, creating a wide stance, my hands at my side, ready to go for the gun if I need to.

  The weight of my new revelations pull me down all at once, and I don’t know how to say it or where to start.

  “What is it?” Ted asks.

  If I start with Stacy, they won’t be able to focus on anything else.

  “The night my dad was killed, you said you saw him at the Hopcroft’s.”

  “Right,” he says, exchanging a glance with Mitsy.

  “But Lawrence was seen at The Crooked Crow all night. He didn’t get home until after Dad was found in the driveway, so how could it have been Lawrence?”

  “Your dad told me it was him,” Ted says. “What’s brought
all this on all of a sudden? Your mom can verify all of this.”

  He stares at me, frowning, and Mitsy raises her chin high as she stares down her nose at me, judging me as she always has.

  I step toward them, closing the distance between us so they can hear me as I whisper, not wanting to disturb Stacy. “You’re the only one who heard him say Lawrence’s name. The only one who saw him at Lawrence’s house… But you didn’t, did you?”

  They exchange glances, and Ted looks genuinely confused.

  “Sam,” Mitsy hisses. “What is the meaning of this? I know you’re upset about your dad, but I don’t understand where you’re getting this from.”

  I turn to Ted and imagine him dragging my dad across the lawn to our car. Not far to go, but what a heavy weight… Was he even alive at that point? I imagine Ted leaning in through the window or door, the neighbors finding him that way, as he pretends to have heard my dad tell him who his killer was.

  “Sam?”

  The voice comes from behind me, and Cliff and Amelia stand there, staring at me. How did they get there?

  “Sam,” Amelia whispers, “what are you saying?”

  I step away, creating a circle, so no one’s at my back. “I—I think they killed my dad. I think he was having an affair with Mitsy; Ted came home and found out, and he killed him. I think they stuffed him in the car, half-naked—you—you couldn’t even give him some dignity—ha, not that he deserved it.” I press my fingers to my temples as a migraine rolls in like dark clouds.

  What’s happening here? Who knows the truth?

  “Sam,” Cliff says, “you’re not making sense. Ted found him in the driveway. He’d gone to Lawrence’s to be with Eve. He came back like that.”

  “Who saw him leave? Huh?”

  “I did,” Mitsy says. “And, Amelia, you did too!”

  “I did,” she mutters, “well, I didn’t see it, but I heard a car leave. I swear I heard a car’s engine across the street at your place.” Amelia turns to Cliff, as if trying to convince him.

  “They made you think that,” I stammer.

  Cliff shakes his head. “No. It’s wasn’t like that with Mitsy and your dad.”

  “Lawrence had an alibi,” I raise my voice, turning to Mitsy. “But you—you were alone once Ted left—”

  “This accusation is ridiculous!” Ted says, his deep voice overpowering mine. “What is this, Sam? Are you trying to get back at us for talking Will out of leaving with you?”

  Mitsy takes a step in front of Ted. “You’re no good, Sam. I’ve held my tongue since you’ve been back. I thought maybe you’d changed, but you’re the same selfish, crazy bitch you were back then. You cut yourself! You drove drunk and naked, crashing into a pole! You think we’d let you take our son and granddaughter away with you?” She cackles in her high-pitched voice. “You can get as far away from this town as you want, and please do, but you’ll never really get anywhere. You know that by now, don’t you? That’s why you’re back, trying to make our lives miserable.”

  I want to burst into a billion pieces and float away from here because she doesn’t have it all wrong.

  But she’s not completely right, either.

  The crash wasn’t me. I was set up.

  She’s trying too hard to discredit me, and stepping in front of Ted like that, she’s protecting him. If they set up my dad like Albert set me up, there will be a crack in their story.

  For me, it was the fact that I was found half-naked. Will believed me, even after I was held in jail, and after what everyone else said because it didn’t make sense to him. He knew I wouldn’t have driven drunk and naked alone. He knew me so well.

  Like Ted and Mitsy know each other so well.

  I step up in front of Ted. “You came back to find Mitsy and my dad in bed together, didn’t you?”

  Ted shakes his head. “I have no idea where you’re getting this from.”

  If they won’t admit it, I need them to think I know without a doubt. I turn to Mitsy. “Mom told me about the affair. You didn’t think she knew about you and my dad, but she did.”

  Mitsy opens her mouth, but Ted squeezes her arm and turns to Cliff. “I don’t think she’s doing too well after what happened with Perry. I think we need to get her home.”

  I stare at Mitsy and her red cheeks. She doesn’t take her eyes off Ted.

  “She’s accusing them of murder!” Amelia shouts. “Sam! What’s gotten into you? They would never—”

  “Never what?” I shout. “Look on and restrain a young man as my mom and dad made his girlfriend kneel before them? Watch and laugh as he drove a knife across the girl’s face, scarring her physically and emotionally forever? They did it. You all did it!”

  They all stare at me in silence like I’m crazy.

  “And then you went to Lawrence last year, all those years after what you did to him, and beat him almost to death,” I spit. “All to cover up the fact that Ted and Mitsy killed my dad!”

  “No,” a voice comes from the Hutchings’ front door.

  Will stands there without a jacket, shaking.

  “Will, go back inside,” Mitsy says.

  “No, Mom. I heard all of it, and I remember what you did to Lawrence and Eve. Well, some of it. Enough to remember you were there. You let it happen.”

  He turns to me, and as we make eye contact, I feel comfort in his stare. I want him to hold me. To tell me everything is going to be alright like he used to, even when we knew it wouldn’t, and I can tell him how I feel. That I want him.

  I need him now more than ever.

  “Sam,” Will says. “I killed your dad.”

  The words hit me like a punch in the gut.

  “I got here and my dad was out—”

  “Will, no!” Ted shouts, but Will keeps going.

  “I didn’t realize your dad was here, but I heard them. My mom was screaming for help.” He shakes his head, breaking eye contact, and stares at his shoes. “I grabbed a knife from the kitchen and ran upstairs. Your dad was on her, and she was…handcuffed to the bed.”

  My mind spins as I try to focus on his words.

  “I was angry. Confused. It was October thirteenth. I thought he was hurting her. I tried to pull him off her, but he shoved me, and Mom was screaming, and I—I stabbed him.” Tears run down his cheeks, his green eyes glimmering as the streetlights turn on. “I didn’t know…”

  Mitsy climbs the steps and puts her arms around him, but Will shakes her off and walks down the stairs. “It wasn’t real. She wasn’t in danger. It was role-play and it was an accident. Sam, I’m so sorry.”

  I cover my mouth with my hands, watching in horror as he walks toward me.

  “Son,” Ted says, “you need to stop this right now.”

  He killed my dad, defending his mom, but she was never in danger. I can’t wrap my head around it.

  Will stops in front of me. “I wanted to go to the police right away. They wouldn’t let me. They told me Stacy would grow up without a dad—without any parents at all—and it’s the only reason I went along with it. It was easier keeping it to myself when you weren’t here. Mom and Dad tried to protect me. That’s why he framed Lawrence, but I didn’t remember what they did to him and his wife. I’m sorry, Sam. You have to believe me. About all of it.”

  My hands fall away from my face, and any energy drains away with them. My legs shake beneath me, and as I start to fall, Cliff starts toward me, but Will grabs my arms. I push off of him, walking backwards toward our own lawn.

  “I just…” I don’t even know how to finish that.

  Will killed my dad. He thought his mom was in danger.

  He was trying to defend her.

  It was an accident…

  I stare past him at Ted and Mitsy, but they avert their eyes. Mitsy stares up at Ted as he shakes his head at Cliff and Amelia.

  The gun at my back weighs heavy against my jeans, and all the anger trapped inside me disappears. I don’t even want to feel any of it anymore. Any energy
I had is gone, and my legs shake as I try to stand on my own.

  Stay standing.

  “Ted,” Cliff says, “is this true?”

  I don’t bother checking for Ted’s admission of guilt. I lock eyes with Will, and he steps toward me again. “When you came back, and Stacy disappeared—”

  “You thought it had something to do with me,” I whisper.

  “No.” He grabs my hands, and I let him. “It was like the universe was shoving this big I told you so in my face. You told me I should leave. Take Stacy and come with you, or just go on our own, anywhere but here. I didn’t believe you, but after she went missing, I promised myself and God if she came back, we’d leave here. We should have come with you before and maybe…maybe your dad would still be alive.”

  I shake my head. “Will…” His name slips out, coated with empathy.

  What have we done?

  Carried secrets and grudges that weigh us down. Buried truth and fostered lies, to others and ourselves.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I whisper. As the words come out, I know they are terrible and true.

  And I don’t care.

  He swallows hard, pressing his lips together, starting to let go of my hands, but I hold on.

  “You were trying to protect your mom. It was an accident.” I lick my lips, finally letting the words sink in past the barrier I created for myself.

  “I swear it was.”

  And I’d want to be forgiven. If I’d done something so terrible to defend someone I love, I’d hope for forgiveness.

  “I never thought anything good would ever come from me,” I say, my eyes searching his for the deep connection we once had. I need him to understand me like he used to, better than anyone else. “I thought Stacy was better off without me. I thought the best I could ever hope for in life away from here was that I didn’t hurt anyone else, the way everyone in our lives has—more than I knew, or wanted to admit to myself. I pushed it all away when I left. I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t—I’m sorry, my heart is racing right now.”

  “Adrenaline,” he whispers. “Sam, a lot has happened, and I’m not sure you’re totally understanding what I did.”

  “I do.” I nod. “You made a mistake. I’ve made so many; I know some seem unforgiveable.”

  But I forgive myself.