“All right. Although there’s not much else to hear.”
“I’ll be right back.”
The guards walked with me and waited, observing from the distance. I felt their eyes on me. Oppressing me. I quickly took everything I needed and walked away with the bottle of water in my hand. When I came back to Mark, I felt as if something within me had changed. Had he noticed?
“Are you better?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m okay.”
“Good.”
There was a silence in the room. I remember very well because it’s always very noisy, full of screams and arguments over the remote of the TV and nurses and patients talking aloud.
“Oh, Mark,” I said, moving closer. “I can’t deny I was afraid. I had come to fear for Marcus’s life, but Jaime…”
“You knew it needed to be done. You were finally on my side, weren’t you? You wanted to get rid of Jaime as much as I did, to send him away and forget about him and carry on with our happy lives.
“However, things didn’t turn out as I expected. Jaime heard you say you considered him a threat, and that put some distance between the two of you. The arguments worsened, we were shouting all day long, the three of us, and my fear for Marcus intensified. I had to do something, and soon, so I decided to give you a little push.
“I waited for the day we’d spend together, as a family, to make my move. Jaime had been impossible that afternoon, and you weren’t feeling well. You went to the toilet, and I used that moment to go to the kitchen and grab a good knife. I gave it to Jaime and told him we’d play a game. He just had to hold the knife near Marcus and move it in his hand. He was fascinated about knives, like most kids his age, so it wasn’t hard to convince him, even though he hesitated at first. I told him it’d be like a role play, I would pretend I was scared and he would be serious, but he couldn’t stop smiling, thinking he was acting and we were having fun together. That’d open your eyes. You’d definitely want to send Jaime away from us; to a children’s home, back to Peru, wherever.
“Then I screamed, and you came. You were pale. You shouted at him, but he thought it was part of the game. You were so nervous. My plan seemed to be working. You wouldn’t forgive Jaime for that.
“Everything happened very quickly: you jumped on him and pushed him away, and, well, you know the rest of the story.”
“It’s so sad,” I said as I came even closer to him. “It’s sad things didn’t turn up well for Jaime and us. We could’ve been a happy family, the four of us.”
The light of a lamp glinted in Mark’s eyes. He had a tear struggling to come out. I hugged him, and he broke down.
“I just wanted to be happy,” he said, sniffing. “Marcus, you and I. I love you, Laura!”
“And I love you too, honey,” I said, my eyes watered and burnt by the acid in my tears.
“I’m so sorry, Laura, I should’ve never blamed you.”
“It’s all right, sweetheart, it’s all right.”
“I panicked, I thought you would die, I should’ve told the truth to the detective, but I couldn’t bear the idea of being locked for life and not seeing you and Marcus again, and your sentence would be shorter. With your past, they wouldn’t send you to prison.”
“I know,” I said, “I know. It’s okay now. Everything is going to be all right.”
“I didn’t want to kill him, Laura!” he said. “I’m not a murderer!”
“I know you’re not, Mark. I know you’re not,” I said, pushing his face against mine and feeling his tears shedding and washing my cheek.
My heart was broken. My head heated up. My blood flushed my face. I was relieved and sad and furious at the same time. I hadn’t killed my boy. The guilt was still there, but it was of a different sort. I could’ve prevented his death. I knew I could.
I hugged my husband. “I know you did it for Marcus,” I said. “You wanted the best for your family.” He seemed relieved to listen to my words, he believed we could still be a happy family, but everything was broken.
My hand was quick. He didn’t see it coming. Before he could say or do anything, his throat was impaled by a three-inch knife I had gotten in the canteen from one of the cooks. He tried to defend himself, to push me away, but the blade had already cut his flesh. My enraged scream resonated throughout the room and the whole ward. A beast had taken control over my body, and it couldn’t be stopped.
His eyes were wide open, and so was his mouth. “Why?” he said, but a crimson cough interrupted his word.
I felt the guards’ hard hug ripping me out of my husband, but my look was still fixed on him, on his twisting body, shining at the sight of too much blood spouting and staining the sofa and the carpet.
I wasn’t defending myself or somebody else this time. I wasn’t unconscious either. I was well awake. I acted led by my own free will, wanting to kill the monster before me.
Dear reader
Thank you very much for reading The Outcast Son. If you’ve liked it, please feel free to leave a review on the Amazon website bellow:
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