SICKER: Psychological Thriller Series Novella 2

by Christa Wojciechowski

  “I stayed in Dunbar for months. I just let everything go. I would call Lyla a few times a week and tell her I was off here or there or anywhere and invent some jargon-filled banking problem to confuse her and prevent her from asking anything more. After a while, she stopped inquiring why I was delayed from returning to the United States, and politely accepted whatever excuse I had. I was relieved she would not reproach me for staying away from home for so long. I didn’t care why she was so agreeable about it. All I wanted was Sorcha. The mansion, the money, the empire seemed trivial compared to the life I was experiencing. The simple cabin, the local beer, the hearty food, and her warm embrace were what being a man was all about.

  “Lyla and I never had children, and I suspected one of us to be infertile, but I had no real desire to have a child with her, and I put off going to the fertility doctor as long as I could. But with Sorcha I fantasized about a family for the first time. I envisioned my children with me on the heath, exerting ourselves outside, running on the shore or playing rugby in the field, then coming into the warmth of the hearth for hot, simple meals that would satisfy better than any fine dining because we had exhausted our bodies in the cold. I never entertained such idyllic, simple dreams in my life. All the more sign that Sorcha was the woman who could make me happy, no matter the circumstance.

  “Sometimes she would be in a fever of painting. No eating, no drinking, just madly working at the canvas in a frenzied trance. It seemed she was reliving something and trying to purge it from her system by painting. At these times, I would go into the town to give her some solitude. After becoming friendly with the locals in the bar where we met, I began to hear rumors. When I mentioned Sorcha in introducing myself, I would get a strange look. One man even said, “‘Oh, Crazy Sorcha?’” He laughed at my puzzlement and slapped my forearm. ‘Just playing wit ye,’ and went off to laugh with his friends at the other end of the bar.

  “Later I would find out her father was a drunk who beat and abused her, and that she had been institutionalized routinely. I never brought it up to her. I told myself she would work it out on her own. If I loved her relentlessly, she would be healed one day.

  “Sometimes I would come home to find her despondent and drunk. At other times she would spin into a rage and come at me with a fist full of brushes, throwing her palette across the room, and collapse, crying, onto the floor. ‘What is it? What is it?’ I’d ask. But she would mumble about how something wasn’t right. She could never paint what was in her head or her heart. How she could never get it out, whatever it was.

  “Then she told me she was pregnant.

  “I was scared, but a delightful scared. This was the turning point I had been waiting for. I had no choice but to change things now. It all made sense, her worsening mood swings and her restlessness. I kissed her all over. Worshiped her. I told her we would be married. That she was everything, and my son—I knew you’d be a boy—knowing my son was in her belly made me more frightened than I ever had been in my life. I never loved anything so much as you, and it terrified me that if anything should happen to my family, I would lose my mind.

  “I had to orchestrate everything carefully, so, as was my habit in business, I wrote down a step-by-step plan on how I would divorce Lyla, step down from the company and leave it to Richard, marry Sorcha, and begin living a heart-and-soul real life in Scotland.

  “The months sailed by. Sorcha was getting bigger and bigger, and becoming increasingly bitter and temperamental. She kept asking me why I was waiting so long to marry her. She didn’t want to be wed as a big, giant seal. Neither did she want to wait till after you were born. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that I was waiting for the divorce to be settled. Lyla was purposely making things difficult for me, and Sorcha’s unpredictable behavior made me afraid to tell her anything.

  “The longer I procrastinated, the more difficult it was to bring it up. I think she sensed that. She could uncover the soul of an ordinary rock in her paintings; she could sense the secrets within me. Secrets will kill the deepest love, son.

  “One day I left her painting. She was in one of her volatile moods that confused and worried me. I blamed it on hormones and walked into town to give her some space. I called New York to speak with my lawyer, who said that all was in order. Lyla would get the company, Richard would run it, and I would get a fixed sum. I didn’t care what I left behind. I just wanted to make things right with Sorcha. I stopped by a small jeweler and bought her a humble antique ring. I would order the legal papers to be sent in the morning. And I would officially propose tonight. We would be married, belly and all, the three of us, and things would go back to the way they were when Sorcha first burned her way into my life the day we drank and chatted over pints.

  “I couldn’t wait to get home. To tell her the truth, and that it was over, and now I could make her mine in the eyes of God, in whom I also started to believe because love will make you do that, become full of faith. We would continue growing our family strong and fiery, like her heart and my passion for her.

  “I broke into a run, ran until I was out of breath, and then walked quickly to recover. I did this several times, run, walk, run, walk, sometimes laughing hysterically at the thought of bungling my question, and of her saying yes. Finally I saw the light of her cabin, a beacon shivering in the dusk. She would be there in the warmth of the light, painting and waiting for me, maybe a little bit grouchy, and absolutely adorable. I would marry her, and she would always be there waiting for me. I felt in my pocket for the ring in its small felt satchel.

  “I crashed into the house and called her name. I took off my coat and looked into the living room. She had finished the painting she had been working. There were violent swirls of dark colors, an angry cliff near sunset. I felt uneasy looking at it, like the storm would blow out off the canvas and consume me. My nose was icy, and I wiped the snot away with my sleeve. I called her again but was met with silence. Could she have gone into town looking for me?

  “I tromped in my boots through the dark hall to our bedroom at the end. ‘Sorcha! I’m home, and I have something for you!’ I pushed open the door and there she was, lying naked on the floor, a beauty with a large round belly, her wrists pumping blood in the pool of red that surrounded her.”

  *

  I felt awkward holding onto my father’s hand after he stopped speaking. He got stuck in this part of the story. His eyes watered. His voice was weak and faltering. I never knew this side of him existed. He stared at the wall as if the scene was projected there, and fought to tell the end.

  “I cried out and went to my knees,” he said. “She was still breathing, but the blood was surging out, her heart determined to empty it onto my lap, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I’m sure I yelled her name over and over again. I grabbed some tube socks from under the bed and tied them brutally tight around her limp, white wrists. Then I called the ambulance and screamed like a madman for them to hurry.

  “I sat her up with me against the bed, trying to hold her arms above her head. I noticed blood smeared papers on the floor. I realized it was the practical plan to escape my life with Lyla, check marks beside each task I had executed. How did she find them? What provoked her to look through my files? I felt an irrational flash of anger. How dare she go through my things? But she’d found out about my wife, and I wasn’t the one who had told her. I lamented how arrogant I had been, putting people’s lives and feelings on my to-do list. As if everyone had to follow my schedule, and I didn’t have to inform or explain myself to anyone.

  “It surely was minutes, but it seemed like hours that I was there begging her to forgive me, to stay with me, as I felt her body get colder and colder and stiller and quieter in my arms. She was dying, and the baby would too. I couldn’t let it happen. My son must survive, I thought.

  “I was surprised at the steadiness with which I walked into the kitchen and found a large knife. I sharpened it on a whetstone and wiped it clean with a white towel. I walked b
ack into the room. I kissed Sorcha’s blue lips. ‘I love you,’ I said. ‘And I’m sorry.’ I’ve long since blocked from my mind what had to be done. I don’t know how I was able to cut my beloved’s smooth, white belly open, but the next thing I remember is holding you in my arms, Johnny. Both of us covered in blood, screaming and crying to the Devil.

  “Finally, the paramedics barged in and lifted me from the sticky wooden floor. Someone took the baby, I didn’t know who. All I knew was that Sorcha was gone. She was gone, gutted and slumped on the floor. But I had you, Johnny. I yanked you out just in time. You were small, three weeks premature, but you wriggled and cried like an angry old soul, and I knew you were just as livid with me as your mother had been.

  “I gave you my name, but I did not know how to take care of you. I couldn’t have if I’d wanted to. The grief was so brutal that it took all of my effort just to inhale and exhale. I told Lyla to come. I needed her help. She arrived the next day, looking like she’d walked onto the wrong movie set, her lilac pantsuit and perfectly sculpted hair clashing against Sorcha’s humble and worn possessions. I was immediately repelled by her, but I didn’t know whom else to turn to. I told her my cousin committed suicide and left a child behind. I told her I adopted it and would be bringing him home. He was a Branch, John Branch Junior, and he wouldn’t be left behind, but by my swollen eyes and by the way I held you, it was clear you were not merely some distant relative’s baby.

  “‘You lived here in this hovel! You had a son with your kin,’” she yelled. “‘I knew something awful was going on here. This is beyond disgusting. What kind of story this will make! I told your whore that this is not what happens in families like ours. And I will not give you a divorce!’

  “In my sorrow, my brain struggled to process what Lyla was saying, that she was the one who told your real mother the truth. How did she get Sorcha’s number? I imagined how cool and hateful Lyla would have sounded on the phone, her measured insults and condescending tone. I felt Sorcha’s shock when she went through my things and found the proof—betrayal from the only man she ever trusted. It made me even sicker when I thought of how close she and you and I had been to happiness. I was beaten down by grief and so angry and remorseful that I lost the will to speak. I never hated Lyla more than I did at that moment. She stood for everything that I had abandoned. But once the initial rage tapered off, there was no one I hated more than myself. I had been my own enemy. I was the one who lied. I was the one who really killed Sorcha, and my self-hatred multiplied.

  “Lyla paced back and forth, reciting how we would present the situation to the world, how we would go on married. I must continue to maintain her in the way she was accustomed. We would act as if we both decided to adopt you. For her, it was a regular public relations problem, and it made it that much clearer to me that we had never had love between us.

  “‘Yes, we must take the child back with us,’ she decided. ‘We can’t turn back now. I will adopt him, and we will stick with your story of the fatherless orphan of your cousin. But you must know something, John Branch, that I’ve had my own life since you’ve been gone. I have my secret, and you will allow me my freedom just as I have allowed you yours. I am having an affair, too, a passionate affair,’ she said, lifting her chin and smiling spitefully. I didn’t give a damn about whom she was sleeping with. Please, take her, I thought. Her frigid temper, her mechanical lovemaking, her constant upkeep of appearances. She was a façade. Inside was a hollow, heartless creature. But she wasn’t finished. “‘We’re in love, John, and you might as well know now that it’s me and your brother.’

  “So you see, son. I’ve known all this time.” He squeezed my hand. “They plotted against me. Uncle Richard, always envious of me, was the one who told Lyla about Sorcha. He’s the one who gave her my phone number in Scotland. Then Lyla mercilessly antagonized Sorcha.”

  I acknowledged with a nod, but I couldn’t speak. All I could think of was the image of my real mother in pools of her own blood and how at one time my father held me with love. I looked back into his eyes and saw it there again, the love.

  “You look so much like her, you feel like her, your presence. You have the same emotional intelligence, your mood swings and your wild intellect. The fiery eyes, the pretty smile, the wavy auburn hair. This is why I could hardly bear to be around you. It was like she was embodied in you, all these years, and when you looked at me, she looked at me and told me over and over again how I tore her heart apart.”

  *

  “Your father cut you out of the womb?” Susan asked. She was completely enraptured by the story now. I was too, so much so that I had forgotten our strange situation. The throbbing of my face had eased, and her wariness of me had been replaced by wonder.

  “Yes,” I said. “If it weren’t for the Branch pragmatism, the natural unrelenting drive to survive and ensure the survival of offspring, I would have essentially drowned in my mother’s stomach. Without blood or oxygen, it would have been over within minutes.” I was attempting to use the facts of Sorcha’s death and my violent birth to distract me because I was feeling strangely emotional. My throat ached. My voice quivered, and I was blinking away the tears.

  “I’m so sorry,” Susan looked at me with a frown. Her eyes were wet too. Her empathy enveloped me, embraced me in motherly warmth, and something about her willingness to share my pain and give me the comfort for which I’d always longed made me weak. I’d never told these secrets to anyone, and speaking them aloud made the memories vibrant in shape and color. I mourned both Sorcha and my father in that moment.

  Susan leaned back and rested against the pillows stacked against the headboard as if to give me space. After a few minutes, she broke the silence. “I never told you this …” she began gravely.

  “Yes?” I asked

  “I always hated Lyla.”

  When I looked up at her, she was grinning. We both laughed, interrupting the stream of my tormented thoughts. Then we settled back into silence. I knew it was late and that my story was almost over. Would these be our last moments together?

  She squeezed my hand, prompting me to continue. “And your father? What happened after that?”

  *

  Father was out of breath from emotion and fatigue. A moment of strained silence stretched between us as if we were waiting for Sorcha to join in and contribute her side. Then his eyes cleared from their misty recollections. He coughed up the phlegm in his throat, swallowed it back down, and became stern and practical once again, and I felt more comfortable with the version of Father I knew.

  “How did you carry on?” I asked.

  “I went bitterly back into my old ways of calculated business,” he said. “I kept myself busy with the empire I had been so willing to give up. It was the only way I could cope and keep myself occupied enough to not recall her slumped body on the floor and your screams in that silent, bloody room.”

  “Why did you stay married to Lyla?” I asked him. “Why did you leave me with her? She has hated me since I was born, poisoning me with her silent contempt. Slow-drip hatred. I’ve been punished all my life for something that wasn’t my fault!”

  “She threatened to tell everyone about you. About your mother, that you were cut out of a lunatic’s womb. That you were an illegitimate child. Your life would’ve been hell.”

  “It was hell!” I trembled all over. “But you wouldn’t know that because you were never there!”

  His attempt at calmness crumpled again; his eyes flooded with tears, and his chapped lips trembled in a horrid way. It made me want him to die already. But now that there were no more secrets between us, I felt closer to him than ever and suddenly wanted him to stay. To stay forever and let me make him and Sorcha proud.

  “The pain of losing her was too much,” he said. “I knew I would go insane, or try to slit my wrists as she had done, but I went on, and in my own way made sure to look after you. I couldn’t bear to be close to you, but I provided for you from a distance. Forgive me,
can you forgive me for being such a cowardly man?”

  I wasn’t sure if I could forgive him, or if I even should. I needed time to process this whole new history of myself, to place myself within its context before I could figure out if I was still resentful or not. But I knew he was dying, and I nodded my head in acquiescence. I whispered, “I forgive you.”

  He let out a heavy, rattling exhale. His eyes closed, and he squeezed my hand. He was silent, but continued to breathe. His eyelashes wet with tears. Asleep.

  A nurse entered the room and gave me a scolding look when she saw the state of my father. “You should leave now,” she said. “He needs a break.” She placed the oxygen mask back over his mouth.

  Most people may have wanted to hit their father in this situation, but no, not me. I wanted to hit myself. I wanted a greater pain to lift me out of this one. I kissed his cheek, another unprecedented gesture, but being he was so vulnerable and hairless, like a baby, it was an instinctive thing to do. “I will return, Father,” I murmured into his ear.

  I walked briskly from the room, aching to be in one of the stretchers. But I wasn’t going to give into my compulsion now. It seemed in bad taste to become sick in the same hospital where my father was dying. As if I could outdo cancer. I had my integrity.

  I went back to my hotel room and flagellated myself with the buckle end of my belt until I reached a calm, meditative state. I looked into the bathroom mirror and admired my work: my pupils dilated, my bruised chest expanding and contracting, gouge marks in the flesh of my back and thighs from the metal buckle. I loved the way I looked. All was bright and glaring. I masturbated several times before and after dinner. I exhausted myself until I could fall asleep.

  I went back to the hospital in the morning, but Father was already gone. I was disappointed. I wanted to know more about Sorcha. I wanted to see his corpse. To touch it. I wanted to feel the cold flesh. To make sure he was dead. I didn’t believe it could really happen to one of us, but they had already taken the body to prepare it for a chartered flight as per arrangements he’d made long before his passing.