Amy Chelsea Stacie Dee

by Mary G. Thompson

  If he doesn’t think he can have us, then he will never get us.

  I close the door to the backseat, leaving Barbie inside. As I turn, I see that Lee is on the phone again. She must be trying to get the cops here. But I know they won’t get here in time. I have to handle this myself.

  Vinnie steps out of the car.

  “No, get back in,” I say.

  “Amy, come on!”

  “I know him,” I say.

  Vinnie doesn’t get back in the car, but he doesn’t say anything else either.

  I walk forward.

  Kyle walks forward.

  I don’t know what Vinnie does. I can’t see anything but Kyle.

  Kyle’s feet shuffle but still manage to land hard and strong. I feel them on the pavement as they land. But I keep walking. I’m not going to run away this time. This time I’m going to stand up to him. But as we come closer, I look down, too. We’re both looking down, and we both realize we’re doing it, and we both look up, and our eyes meet.

  I brace myself for the blow. But it doesn’t come. He reaches his arms out and encircles me, and pulls me in. He holds me against him. My face is pressed against his chest. He is sweating through his long-sleeve T-shirt, but he doesn’t stink. He smells familiar, like someone who has been in my life for years, like the familiarity of a father.

  I can’t pull away. He’s too strong. But he can’t take me away. Everyone knows where he is now. They all know about the girls. The police are coming. All he can do is kill me. But he won’t get to them unless he goes through me. So if he wants to hug me, it’s all right. He can hug me for as long as he wants to. He can do anything he wants to me, as long as he doesn’t get past me and go to them.

  “You can’t have them,” he says. His arms pull me even closer, so I can’t move at all. I can’t speak. “You thought you could have them if you killed her, but you can’t.”

  I turn my head, pushing against his chest, just enough to get out a few words. “I didn’t mean to,” I say.

  He releases me from the hug but grabs my arm and pulls me toward the car. I brace myself to fight, to not let him pull me in. When you get in the car, you die. I’m sure that this time it’s true. But he doesn’t try. Instead, he opens the back door and reaches in, still gripping me with one hand. He pulls out the dress, the princess dress that he thought Stacie would marry him in.

  “You want it,” he says. He pushes it into my chest.

  Instinctively, I catch it. I don’t know what to do with it. She hated it from first sight. She saw it, and she hurt them. She saw it, and there was no hope. But it was for her. It was everything Stacie became. If I drop it, I’ll drop everything that’s left of her.

  He lets my arm go, and I wrap both arms around the dress. But it’s empty. My arms come together, and I’m only hugging myself.

  “I don’t want it,” I say. But I keep holding it.

  “It’s yours,” he says. “Get them.”

  I almost begin to shake my head. He thinks I’m going to get the girls and get in the car with him, and then we’re going to go away, all of us. He thinks I’m going to do this voluntarily, even though he doesn’t have them, and he doesn’t have Stacie. He has no one anymore, and I have no reason to go with him.

  He stares at me. His shoulders tense. This is the look he gets before he hits me. But his head is also angled down. This is the look he gets before he cries.

  “We’ll tell them you’re eighteen,” he says.

  The dress slips from my arms. He wants me to marry him. He thinks I’m going to do this. I take a step back, keeping my eyes on him.

  He takes a step forward.

  Somebody takes my left hand. It’s Vinnie. I can feel his height over me.

  Barbie and Lola are both crying. Somebody says, Daddy. I can’t tell which one. They’re crying because he’s out here and they’re not allowed to go. Lee is holding them back. Lola knew enough to be quiet, and to run, but she still wants her daddy. That’s why it’s the mom who makes decisions, because the child doesn’t know who is her friend and who is not. I’m the adult here. I’m not ready to be one, but I am.

  We all hear the sirens at the same time.

  Kyle stands up straight and looks behind him. The cars come around the curve in the road. There are three of them, speeding toward us, lights blaring. Kyle looks from them to me to Vinnie. He leaps forward and grabs my free arm and pulls. Vinnie pulls, too, but Kyle is too fast. He tears me away from Vinnie and jerks me close. He presses my back to him this time, and his arm is around my waist. He’s almost lifting me off the ground, he’s so tall.

  “Tell them to go away,” he says.

  “You can’t get them,” I say. “You can kill me, but they’ll kill you. You’ll never get them.”

  “Chelsea,” he says. “Chelsea.” The arm that is not crunching me touches my face.

  “It’s Amy,” I say. “There never was any Chelsea. There never was any Stacie. You made us up.”

  “Stay back!” Kyle yells. His voice booms out across the parking lot. There are people coming toward us, people in black uniforms, and lights everywhere. It’s hard to see them, or Vinnie. I look for the car. I see Lee’s face inside it, and the top of Lola’s head. They are safe.

  “Her name was Dee,” I say. “And she was good. She was sweet and friendly and fun and smart and loyal.” Tears are rolling down my face. I’m seeing her the way she was, that day at the river, before. I’m seeing her smile and her blue eyes, those real blue eyes that a doll’s eyes could never do justice to. “She was my best friend, and you killed her. You did.”

  He pulls me tighter. “I said, stay back!” But he hears me; I know he does. His voice trembles. He’s hearing me for the first time.

  “You raped her,” I yell. “You raped her a million times and she was supposed to have years, and she was supposed to choose, but she couldn’t. You hurt her and that’s why she was crazy, and that’s why she’s dead. You!”

  Kyle drags me in a half circle until we’re facing the car. He slams me into it, and he’s behind me, completely shielding my body from the outside, crushing me against the metal.

  I don’t hear the gunshot. I only hear him scream and see him stumble backward. But he grabs me as he falls, and I fall with him. I fall half on his body and half on the pavement. There’s another gunshot, and this time I hear it. Kyle screams louder. He lets me go and screams and screams. I get to my hands and knees, and I crawl. I crawl toward a man who is wearing black, and the lights blind me, but I put one hand in front of the other.

  I’M SO USED TO not talking that when they start to ask me questions, I don’t say a word at first. I’m in the backseat of a police car, and they say it’s for my protection, but I don’t know what they’re protecting me from. Kyle is in the ambulance. I saw them put him on a stretcher and wheel him in. He was still screaming while they did it. In the movies, when the cops shoot someone, he falls down dead, but Kyle didn’t die. It took one hit on the head to kill Dee, but somehow Kyle survived being shot twice.

  There is a puddle of blood on the ground where he fell. Some of his blood is on me. It’s on my pants and on my arms and on my hands.

  He can’t kill anyone, I think. He can’t kill me and he can’t kill them. But instead of relief, I feel nothing. I stare at the blood on my arms, and I can’t believe it. I can’t believe that after six years, after what seems like my whole life, they’re taking him away. I don’t know what to do if he goes to jail. Everything in my life has revolved around him. Fear of what he might do. Needing him to bring us food. Needing him to tell me when to stand and when to jump. And what not to say.

  “Amy?” a woman cop says, gently.

  “Yes, my name is Amy,” I say.

  The kids are still in the car. I can’t see them, but I did see Lee as they were putting me in here. She was trying to get in front of the
girls, to make sure they didn’t see. They’ll be sad. They’ll cry and cry, and they don’t know any better. They’ll blame me. I killed their mommy, and now their daddy will be going away. They may never see him again.

  Vinnie is talking to one of the cops. He keeps looking over at me.

  I feel like everything is far away.

  “Amy, what is that man’s name?” the woman asks. It’s the third or fourth time she’s asked that.

  “Kyle,” I say.

  She waits.

  “That’s it,” I say. “Just Kyle.” But the cops have searched through Kyle’s pockets. One of them is holding his wallet. I’ve seen that wallet a million times, but I’ve never looked inside it. I’ve never wondered what Kyle’s last name is. “His birthday is February seventh,” I say. We celebrated his birthday every year. I cooked a special meal with extra meat, and the dolls sat in my chair. It was the same way for Stacie’s made-up birthday. I never had a birthday, the whole six years. But I remember what day it is now. December 9th. This year I’m going to celebrate.

  “Yep,” says a cop, leaning in the window. “Says here February seventh, 1985. Kyle James Parsons.”

  The name rolls around in my head. Kyle James Parsons. It doesn’t sound like him at all. It sounds like a stranger, like a minister’s son, like the kind of person who wears a crisp button-down shirt and gets a regular haircut.

  “What happened tonight, Amy?” the woman asks.

  “I went back for the kids,” I say. “He said that if I ever told anyone, he would kill them, but I couldn’t leave them alone. So I went back, and he was asleep, so I took them.” I’ve made it sound simple, as if I made a coherent plan.

  “What kids, Amy?” the woman asks.

  I look over at Vinnie’s car. Lee and the kids are still inside it. Nobody has made them come out. Maybe no one even noticed they were in there. “My cousin Dee had two kids,” I say. “Because Kyle raped her. Lola is five and Barbie is three.”

  The man with the wallet follows my gaze. The man and the woman both stare at me.

  “What did you think would happen after six years?” I ask.

  The woman swallows. There is no other sound.

  “I didn’t have any,” I say. “He didn’t rape me; he just hit me a lot.” I look up at the woman. “But I’m their mom.”

  The male cop walks over to the car. He knocks on the window.

  Lee’s head appears. She opens the door, and she steps out. Behind her, I see Lola and Barbie. They look like they’re crying, of course. But they’re safe. They’re going to be safe now. Lee helps them out of the car.

  The cop kneels down and says something to Lola.

  Lola says something back. She looks at me.

  I give her a little wave and as much of a smile as I can manage. Everyone is looking at me now. The male cop, Lee, Vinnie, the woman cop, and Lola and Barbie. It’s like they’re waiting for me to do something. The ambulance is gone, I realize. I’m not sure when it left. My heart begins to pump fast. Did I lose time again? Or was I just not paying attention? I can’t keep losing time. I’m their mom. I have to be here. Here. I take a deep breath and let it out. Here. Here. Here, I think.

  Lee takes Lola by one hand and Barbie by the other. She comes toward us. I push down on the door handle, but it won’t open. The woman cop does something from her seat. The door opens. Lola is there. I hug her. I pull her up into the car.

  “Chel, are we going home now?” she asks.

  I lift Barbie up, and I see Lee behind her, Lee crying. “Yes, I say. But it’s going to be a new home.”

  “What about the dolls?” Lola asks.

  “We’ll see,” I say, because I can’t tell her that I’m never going back there and that I hope they burn down the cabin with everything in it, dolls and all. Right this second, I vow to throw the Stacie doll away. She isn’t my connection to Dee; she’s something terrible that Kyle owned. I never want to see that doll again.

  “I’m so glad we found you,” Lee says, wiping her eyes. Vinnie is behind her now.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “Thank you, Uncle Vinnie!” Barbie pipes.

  “Oh, I’m Uncle Vinnie now, am I?” Vinnie says, leaning down.

  “Auntie Lee says so,” says Barbie.

  “Well, Auntie Lee knows,” says Vinnie. He’s trying to pretend he isn’t crying, but he is.

  “Is Daddy coming?” Lola asks.

  I don’t answer. I just put my arm around her. There will be a time to tell her, but it isn’t now.

  • • •

  It takes a lot less time than the bus did, with its meanders and its many stops, but it takes longer than it took to get here; at least, it seems longer. Vinnie has driven his rented, possibly stolen car back to the sketchy guy at the mechanic’s shop, and his car has to be towed away, so Lee ends up riding with us in the back of the cop car. It’s illegal to ride this way, two adults and two kids with no car seats, but nobody says anything. I guess the cops don’t want to ask any questions with the kids here, and I’m glad. I don’t want to give any more answers. Even now, my throat is closed up, choking on what’s left of the truth.

  Even now, there are things no one can know.

  Aunt Hannah is going to want them. She’s Dee’s mom, but I’m only her cousin, and I’m only sixteen. It doesn’t matter how old I feel or how long I’ve been their mother. No one is going to care about that. But at least I can see them. I will still be their cousin. But what if Aunt Hannah finds out what I did? She won’t want to hear the reason why. Who Stacie became—that’s something I can never tell her.

  I’m standing in the middle of the cabin.

  Dee is screaming.

  Kyle has the girls. He has one hand on each, pushing them behind him. He’s wearing a black shirt faded to gray and orangey work pants with a hammer loop. There’s a rip in the left leg the length of my foot. He steps back, pushing the girls against the wall.

  I open my eyes. I thought Kyle was behind Barbie. And he was holding Lola. That’s how I remembered it, before. He had them, but they were exposed. The back of the seat in front of me is a dark brown. There are holes in the vinyl, like someone else who was back here ripped it with claws. I don’t like being back here, even if I’m not in handcuffs, even if they’re doing us a favor driving us home.

  If Kyle was in front of the girls, then why did I pick up the lamp? He’s so big, he could have stopped her from hurting them. But I was only going to stop her. She wasn’t supposed to die. She wasn’t even supposed to be badly hurt. He was . . . I try to remember how he was standing, but I can’t. That part of the picture goes blank in my head. Then I’m shoving clothes into the Safeway bag. I’m outside the cabin.

  Dr. Kayla said, when something traumatic happens, you remember too much, so often that it hurts you. She said that was my problem—remembering. But now I can’t remember. It’s slipping away from me. I need to remember that they were in front of him and he wasn’t protecting them, because then I had to do it.

  “I had to,” I say out loud.

  Nobody answers. Lee looks at me like she wants to ask what I mean, but she won’t.

  “I didn’t want anyone to die,” I say.

  Lee looks down at Lola, who is asleep under her arm. I am bursting with something, some need to tell everyone the truth, as far as I can remember it. I need to tell someone before it all flows away. Lee thinks I’m talking about Kyle, but I’m sure he won’t die. I can’t tell them what I really mean. Kyle is going to jail and I still can’t tell them.

  Tears leak from my eyes. I still don’t feel like we’re safe. I feel like he’s still here. He is still leaning over me with those big ears and that floppy hair and big grin that turns into a grimace and the voice that coos at dolls and snaps before the fist follows. I can hear him through the bathroom door, his breathing when Stacie was silent. She’s
mine, I hear him say. But he took two bullets and didn’t die. She’s dead and he isn’t and it’s not fair.

  The tears flow now. I didn’t run. I didn’t tell anyone, but it still happened. She died.

  The woman cop stares at me. Her eyes squint; her mouth twists. She thinks I’m crying for Kyle. She thinks I care that he’s hurt. I look up at her.

  “I’m not crying for him,” I say.

  She keeps staring, like she doesn’t believe me. Lee stares at me, too. Lola shifts. I pray she can’t hear us. But she’s heard so much. This is just one more terrible night in a life of nights that should never have happened.

  “I’m crying for Dee,” I say. And what about Dee I’m crying for is impossible to say because there’s so much. If only I could really go back in time. But I feel Barbie leaning against me, and I feel guilty just for thinking it. There are two beautiful lives here because of Kyle. Were they worth losing one? If I could go back, I would.

  If I could not get in the car. Just not get in the car. Run and tell somebody. Send the cops after her.

  If I could not have picked up the lamp.

  “At least she’s going to have justice,” Lee says softly.

  I just cry. And the woman cop keeps staring at me, even though she turns back in her seat. I can feel the corners of her eyes, still judging my tears, still believing I was sorry to feel Kyle’s blood on me, to hear his screams as he slipped toward the pavement. But I’m not sorry about that.

  • • •

  Aunt Hannah is at our house when the cop car pulls up. She runs out of the door, and my parents run out behind her, and then Aunt Hannah stops, and my mom almost runs into her, and my dad almost runs into my mom, and he stops himself with two hands on her shoulders, and Mom grabs one of his hands in both of hers, and the car comes to a full stop in the driveway. The male cop turns the engine off, and the silence washes over us.