by Margot Hunt
But as I sat on the hard bench and watched the children play, I knew Kat was wrong to think that. I wasn’t damaged, and I certainly didn’t believe in hell.
I believed in logic. The clean, clear sorting of facts. And when you stripped away those things that confuse the facts—passion and anger, sorrow and fear, love and hate—the logical conclusions are often breathtakingly simple.
Some people do not deserve to live.
Take Howard, for example. He had been a sadistic, bullying drunk who had contributed little to the people and world around him. Even if he hadn’t yet physically abused Kat, he probably would have eventually. He might even have killed her if he could have figured out how he could get away with it. His death was a benefit to everyone who knew him. Except, perhaps, to Amanda. She was the one good thing Howard had left behind.
If I’d known then that Kat had been manipulating me, I wouldn’t have killed him. But I also wasn’t going to pretend that he was an innocent.
And then there was Brendon, Todd’s older half brother. Early in our marriage, Todd had told me about an ugly footnote in his family’s history involving Brendon when he was a teenager. Todd hadn’t known the details, only that there had been an accusation that Brendon had hurt a younger female cousin. It was only many years later, when Todd was an adult, that he figured out the assault had been sexual in nature. She was a troubled girl who grew up to be an even more troubled adult—drugs, commitment for her mental illness. Todd wasn’t entirely sure what had happened as they’d lost touch over the years. No formal complaints had ever been filed against Brendon.
But years later, after the children were born, we’d spent Thanksgiving weekend at Todd’s parents’ house in St. Augustine. Brendon, who lived in Gainesville, and whom I’d never before met, had shown up unexpectedly for Thanksgiving dinner. He was in his late forties by that point and had not taken good care of himself over the years. He was overweight, with puffy, pallid skin and the sour smell of someone who didn’t wash as often as he should. I could tell that Todd’s mother—Brendon’s stepmother—was not happy to see him, and even less happy when he asked to spend the night on the sofa after drinking too much to be able to drive home safely. I had also noticed during dinner that Brendon’s eyes kept drifting toward Bridget, then seven years old and beautiful, with her large eyes and long curls.
Long after Todd fell asleep, I stayed awake, listening. Just past midnight, I finally heard the footsteps creaking on the stairs. I slipped out of bed and opened my door in time to see Brendon reaching for the doorknob of the guest room my children were sharing.
I stepped out into the hall, and he, sensing the movement, turned and saw me. For a few seconds, we stared wordlessly at one another, predator and mother of the prey. Brendon’s hand dropped from the doorknob, and he began shuffling toward the staircase, which was located in the middle of the hallway, equidistant between where he and I stood.
I moved quickly, surprising myself.
Surprising him.
But then, Brendon was drunk, and I was not.
Just as he reached the stairs and was about to descend, I gave him a good, solid push from behind. I had slipped into Todd’s and my bedroom and back into bed next to my sleeping husband before the sound of Brendon’s body hitting the floor below wakened anyone else in the household.
Would Todd have made the choice I had if he’d been the one to see Brendon poised at our sleeping children’s door? Perhaps. And yet somehow I doubted it. People like Todd and Kat might believe a person deserved to die, might even want someone dead, but that didn’t mean they were capable of that final push. The action that sent a body tumbling off a balcony or down a flight of stairs. Even when that push was the only logical solution to the problem.
And then there were the times logic pointed to death not as a punishment but as a release. A kindness. A gift born of love.
Like when a mother sees her infant daughter dying in increments, her tiny body working against her gossamer-thin will to live. The doctors spoke words of hope to the mother, assuring her they were doing everything they could. Later, when she was feeding quarters into the vending machine for a cup of the acrid coffee that would keep her alert as she stood vigil over her tiny charges, she overheard those same doctors discussing how bleak the situation really was. How the hemorrhage was not resolving on its own. How even if the infant did survive, which had become increasingly unlikely, she had almost certainly suffered severe brain damage. The baby would face a life not worth living. They would have to prepare the parents for the bad news, for the terrible weeks or months to come. Before they told her this, the mother did the only thing left she could do for her daughter.
As they sat together in a rocking chair under the dimmed lights of the deserted neonatal intensive care unit, the mother allowed her daughter to slip peacefully out of the world while being held in the arms of the person who loved her best, one hand pressed gently over the baby’s rosebud mouth and tiny nose.
* * *
I stood suddenly, blinking back tears. I’d always hated crying, hated its pointlessness. I was suddenly eager to leave the playground. I was tired of sitting on the hard wooden bench, tired of listening to the children, who were worn-out from their day of play and growing peevish. I was tired of how illogical the world could be, full of its frustrating inhabitants, people who claimed to want one thing and then changed their minds once they got it. Most of all, I was tired of Kat and her unrelenting selfishness. I was glad to be rid of her.
I turned and walked away from the playground, heading toward the parking lot. I was suddenly eager to be at home myself, to see Todd and the children. Maybe we’d go out to dinner. Liam and Bridget both loved the Japanese steak house, where the hibachi chef put on a show, his knife moving lightning quick to carve up the meat that would become our dinner.
Soon the sun would start its slow descent, leaving behind an inky dark sky. This day would be over.
A new one would dawn tomorrow.
There was no point in dwelling on the past.
* * * * *
ISBN-13: 9781488027970
Best Friends Forever
Copyright © 2018 by Whitney Gaskell
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