Amy Chelsea Stacie Dee

by Mary G. Thompson

“Good luck!” Vinnie yells after me.

  I wave back at him as I head for the front door. I meant it when I said that my friends and family are the reason I know I can handle this. They have been with me every step of the way for the last two years. There were so many times when things were hard. I had so many breakdowns and so many issues and so much to learn. My dad went back to Colorado, but we talk almost every day now, and we visit each other. I even brought the girls to Colorado to meet Beth and Liam and Beatrice, and it was so much better than I hoped. The kids had a great time together, and that sealed us as one family. Mom is always over at Aunt Hannah’s and we’re always at Mom’s. Things are even good with Jay. He’s still frosty with Dad and refuses to even meet Beth, but with me, he’s the brother I hoped and prayed I’d have again.

  Aunt Hannah has been best of all, though. The change that came over her when she first met the girls stuck. There was a hole in her heart after Dee disappeared, and Lola and Barbie have mostly filled it. I say mostly because I know that one child can never replace another. But now she has two little girls to focus on, girls who aren’t about to be grown up and out of the house like Lee.

  “Hey,” she says as I walk in the door. She’s sitting in the recliner next to the fireplace under a tall lamp, holding a book but not reading it. Her blond hair is even longer, and you can still barely see the gray.

  “Vinnie drove,” I say. “He wasn’t drinking.”

  “It’s all right,” she says. “It’s graduation. Time to let loose a little.”

  “But you had to wait up,” I say. I haven’t told her what I plan to do tomorrow. I wonder if Lee let it slip, or maybe she overheard us arguing about it last night. Lee feels the same way as Vinnie. She thinks I should listen to my therapist and all my friends who say it’s a bad idea. Like she would do what everyone else said.

  “I just have a bad feeling, Amy,” Aunt Hannah says. She stays in her chair, and I walk over. “We’ve gotten our lives together over the past two years, and now things are going to change. I’m not good with change anymore.” She wipes a tear off her face. I can see that she’s been crying for a while now.

  “Hey.” I walk behind her and wrap my arms around her neck. “Nothing’s really changing. We have the whole summer. And then I’ll be back every weekend.” I turn my face away while I talk, making a futile attempt to hide the beer breath. But she doesn’t notice.

  “I know,” she says. “Look at me. I’m being crazy again.”

  “No C-word in this house,” I say.

  “Lee will be all right, won’t she?” Aunt Hannah asks. “I know you will. You’ve made it through so much, Amy. But Lee. She’s been the rock for me for so long, for all of us these past two years. I worry that when she doesn’t have us leaning on her, she’ll crack.”

  “Lee won’t crack,” I say. She’s not like Dee, I think. They look alike, and sometimes they talk alike, but they aren’t. “Lee’s strong and she’ll always be that way. Trust me.” I kiss Aunt Hannah on the cheek. “I need to get some sleep. Wake me for breakfast?”

  “Okay,” she says. “Love you.”

  “Love you, too.”

  I lie in bed awake, thinking about what Aunt Hannah said about Lee. I realize that’s what happened to me. When I was with Kyle, I had to be the strong one. I had to be the mom, to take care of the girls and Dee and even Kyle. But once I got home and I was safe, I cracked. I started falling back into my memories, losing time, hiding from life. Back in the cabin, I could never afford to do those things, but when I got away, the dam of crazy just let loose. No C-word in this house. But I can’t take my own advice. I was crazy. And now I’m finally living in the real world. I hardly ever go back there. It’s been half a year since I lost any time. When I see Kyle, will I still be the person I am today, or will I go back to being crazy Amy, or will I go back to being Chelsea? Chelsea was strong, I think. It wasn’t so bad to be Chelsea, in the scheme of things. Not when the alternative was being Stacie and cracking with the first blow.

  I threw the Stacie doll away. It took a few months to get up the courage, but I did it. One night I went out to the corner where the trash can was waiting for pickup, and I stuffed her in. Not her, it. The doll that Dee had nothing to do with.

  These thoughts used to send me back, make me fall into a memory and not come out until the sunrise. But instead, I stare up at the ceiling in my bedroom in Aunt Hannah’s house. I don’t need to see Kyle to be okay. I know he’s behind bars. He pleaded guilty to kidnapping us and raping Dee. I guess it was hard for him to deny when we had two samples of their DNA. He even pleaded guilty to murder, because since Dee died while he was holding her prisoner, it legally doesn’t matter how it happened. At first Aunt Hannah wanted a trial so he would get the death penalty, but finally she agreed not to object to letting him plead. Otherwise he would have claimed he was insane, and I would have had to testify. Maybe even the girls would have had to come to court. I roll over on my side. He still got thirty years to life in prison. If he ever gets out, we’ll both be old.

  He told everyone who would listen that I murdered her. He said that I picked up that lamp and hit her over the head with it in cold blood, all because I was jealous that he was going to marry her and not me. He even talked to a TV reporter, and it was all over the national news. But nobody who mattered believed him. The autopsy proved she died from hitting her head on something, but they couldn’t tell what. Officially, it was a rock in the river, and she died instantly.

  I don’t need to give him a chance to throw the truth back in my face. But at the same time, the truth is all I have to cling to. Dr. Kayla says I have to face it, even if it’s only between her and me. Facing the truth is one of the ways I stay here and now. I know that I killed Dee, but I also know that I was protecting myself and the girls, and I never meant to kill her. Dr. Kayla says that what you mean matters.

  I am strong enough to do this. I have to face him if I want to be truly free.

  • • •

  There are a few other people in the room, sitting at the tables. The tables are gray, the chairs plastic. I expected shouting and crying, but the people mostly talk quietly. This is a medium-security prison. I guess they don’t think Kyle is much of a threat to anyone else. He’s no criminal mastermind who might plan a daring escape. The people he hurt were only little girls. These bars, these walls are enough to contain him.

  One of the guards stands behind me, a short, stocky man wearing a gray uniform with a black tie. There are no guards with any other visitors, but then, I’m special. As a victim, I had to go through a huge process just to get this visit. They acted like no other victim had ever asked, and maybe it’s true. Maybe no one is as crazy as me.

  “I have to do this,” I say.

  “He’s not worth it, ma’am,” the guard says.

  “No, but she is.” I pull the picture of Dee out of my pocket and hand it to him. It’s of her the spring before he took us, eight years ago now. It was the day she got her braces off, and she’s smiling big. Her blond hair floats around her face, and her big blue eyes are shining.

  “This is the girl that died?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I say.

  “This guy doesn’t care. Let him rot here, and you go on with your life.” He hands the photo back to me.

  Another guard walks through the visiting room door with Kyle. Kyle is thinner. He’s finally lost the flabby gut that used to bother him so much. His hair is almost half gray, but it’s short. I’ve never seen him with such short hair before. It makes his tiny head look even smaller, a pinhead on bony but wide shoulders. He’s wearing jeans that are too big for him and a gray sweatshirt. He sees me, but he doesn’t react. He just stands next to the table.

  “Sit down, Parsons,” the guard behind me says.

  Kyle sits in the chair. He looks down for a few seconds, and then he looks up. He isn’t smiling, and his eyes say nothing. Th
ey are brown, but at the same time, they seem gray. Everything about Kyle right now is gray.

  I know I look different, too. I’ve let my hair grow out, and it’s down to my shoulders. I’ve gained a little bit of weight, the result of eating like a normal teenager in a house full of people who love you and never throw away your food. I’m not wearing even a single piece of purple.

  “Hi, I’m Amy,” I say.

  “I know who you are,” he says. His voice is scratchy, like he needs a drink of water.

  “How are you?” I ask. Why am I asking that? I think. It just seems like something that you say. As if we’re two normal people who ran into each other on the street.

  “They took away my dolls,” he says. “I had to make them myself out of my socks, but they took them.” His eyes are wet.

  “Oh.” I don’t know where my voice went. There were so many things I wanted to say. About Dee, about me, about the girls, about who we are without him. But this person in front of me is worried about dolls made of socks. After so many years with him, his obsession had almost stopped being bizarre. Now I’m not sure what to do with it.

  Someone on the far side of the room raises his voice. His female visitor yells something back about him not paying his child support. She tells him she needs money and she knows he has it. But I don’t expect Kyle to provide for his children. There’s nothing I actually have to ask of him.

  “How are the girls?” Kyle asks. His eyes sharpen. His hands are handcuffed together, but he lifts them and sets them on the table. He leans in.

  “They’re doing really well,” I say. “Lola just finished second grade. All As, every report card. She’s doing soccer this summer. You should see her run. And Barbie was in kindergarten. She’s a real little artist. She likes trees, and water. Most kids like to draw people and animals, but not Barbie. She likes plants.” The words spill out of me. I shouldn’t give him anything, but I can’t stop. I talk about them whenever anyone asks. I’m so proud.

  “Do they know where I am?” he asks.

  “Yes.” I look into his eyes. “I told them you hurt their mommy, and so you had to go away. I don’t know if they quite understand everything.”

  “They will,” he says. He meets my gaze.

  “When it’s time, we’ll have that conversation,” I say. They already understand more than he knows. Neither of them has said a word about the night Dee died, not since we had that talk in the back of the police car almost two years ago. I know they haven’t forgotten, though. Seeing your mother get beaten to death is not something you forget. But they know that what you mean matters, just like Dr. Kayla says.

  “You can’t change the truth,” he says. “You may be the perfect pretty little girl, the one who looks good in pictures that everyone can sob over, but you did it.” He leans over the table. “You killed her.”

  “Keep back,” the guard says.

  Kyle pulls away, just a little.

  I pull Dee’s picture out of my pocket and set it on the table between us. “This is Dee,” I say. “You never met her. The second you grabbed her arm that day by the river, she was gone. But this was my cousin, my best friend. This is the girl you raped and killed. You didn’t know her.”

  “I loved her,” Kyle says. Tears sparkle in his eyes. “I never killed her. I never would have.”

  “But you did,” I say.

  “You did,” he says. He picks up the picture in one hand and lifts both his shackled hands up to his face. “She was beautiful, wasn’t she? So perfect.”

  “No, she wasn’t. She was too quick to laugh. She talked too much. She didn’t understand people. She could be jealous and petty. But she was a lot of fun. She liked to go out in nature and ride her bike and roller-skate and play games and be silly. She liked to eat Red Vines in bed and stay up all night talking. She didn’t like to read books. She was always pulling me away, making me go down to the river with her. She wanted six children someday, but that was supposed to happen when she was grown up. That girl cried when she got her period for the first time.”

  Kyle sets the picture down.

  “Dee was not a doll,” I say. “She was Dee. You saw how scared she was that first day, and you saw how she changed after you raped her. You saw her break down and die inside, long before she attacked us. If you had never kidnapped us, she would still be alive. Her.” I push the picture back toward him.

  “I wish I had killed you the first night,” he says. “I never wanted two girls. If you hadn’t been there, she would be alive. We’d be married now. The girls would have their parents. You’re the reason the whole thing went wrong.”

  “I’m glad I was there to save the girls,” I say. “They’re what matter now. They’ll live long, happy lives with people who love them. People who treat them like precious children and not dolls. You will never see them again.”

  Kyle pulls the picture of Dee toward him. “I’m keeping this,” he says.

  “Nope.” The guard comes around the table and holds out his hand.

  Kyle shakes his head, but then drops the picture. The guard hands it back to me. I put it in my pocket. I have this picture on my computer. This one little print doesn’t matter at all. But it’s physical, a real thing to hold on to. It’s something I have that Kyle doesn’t.

  I stand up. “You’re right,” I say. “I’m the reason everything went wrong for you. I’m the one who got us out and sent you to prison. I hope you remember that, every minute of every day.” I turn around and head for the door. I move so quickly that I have to wait for the guard to catch up to let me through. I don’t look behind me at Kyle. I don’t want to know what he’s doing back there, if he’s upset, if he’s angry, if he’s just gray.

  But his voice carries through the air. “I have a right to my possessions,” I hear him say. “They were my socks.”

  As I walk out of the dark, gloomy prison into the blissfully sunny parking lot, I realize that I never saw Kyle smile. That clown face that used to scare me so much was gone. It’s not until I’ve been driving for an hour that I realize the biggest thing. I am still in the here and now. Seeing Kyle didn’t change that. He didn’t send me back in time or make me crazy. My visit didn’t change Kyle’s mind. It didn’t make him suddenly realize that Dee’s death is his fault or make him sorry or turn him into a man worthy of being the dad to two brilliant, perfect little girls. But it proved that he no longer has power over me, and that is exactly what it was supposed to prove.

  I let a couple of tears fall, but only a couple. They are mostly tears of happiness, and relief. I, Amy MacArthur, am still here. There’s only one more thing I have to do.

  I PARK AT THE CLOSED UP old gas station, where the sign still reads $1.56. I’m there a little bit early, so I sit on the hood of Aunt Hannah’s old Honda station wagon and watch the cars going by. Nobody stops or even seems to look my way. I wonder what would have happened to me if that lady hadn’t decided to stop, if she hadn’t agreed to drive me to the bus station and given me money. How far down the road would I have walked? Would I have given up at some point and decided that my only choice was to walk back up the hill again? Would he have let me come back? Would he have killed me?

  What if I hadn’t cut our adventure on the river short that day, and we had waded back the way we came? Would we have gotten on our bikes and ridden off? Would Kyle have kept following Dee, or would he eventually have given up, or found another little girl to be obsessed with?

  What if I had hit Dee on the shoulders and not on the head? She might be alive, and we all might be up there to this day. Or I might have gotten the girls away, and the police might have caught Kyle, and Dee might be standing here right now. Or Dee might have gotten to one of the girls, and then . . . I think about my last session with Dr. Kayla.

  “We do things the best we can, Amy. Nobody’s life turns out perfect, and nobody gets to do it over. I don’t know if
you made any mistakes or not, but if you did, all you can do is learn from them.”

  “Don’t hit somebody on the head when you could hit them on the shoulders, or on the stomach.”

  “I don’t know, Amy. I wasn’t there. But you are here, and so are Lola and Barbie. All three of you are here because you took action. You have to give yourself credit for that.”

  I didn’t answer her. I will never give myself credit. I will never believe that I did the right thing by killing Dee, but I know that Dr. Kayla is right about one thing: the girls are here. Nobody will ever hit them or pull their hair or hurt them in any way as long as I can take action. As long as I’m here.

  After a few more minutes, I see Vinnie’s car coming down the road. As he gets closer, I see that he has Lee in the front seat with him. That’s exactly what I expected. But they also have Jay in the backseat, and behind them, Mom is driving her car with Aunt Hannah in the passenger seat and Lola and Barbie in the back.

  As they all get out of their respective cars, I wait for Mom and Aunt Hannah to let me have it, but they don’t. Instead, Mom gives me a big hug.

  “Are you all right?” she asks.

  “I’m fine,” I say.

  She shakes her head but says nothing, just pulls me in tighter.

  They all look at each other, and at the girls, and I know that I’m safe for now. No one is going to ask me for the details with them standing there. Instead, we all climb into the cars and begin the drive up the paved road.

  • • •

  We stand on the riverbank. I stand the closest to Dee’s grave, to the cross made of two flat sticks that thrusts crookedly from the ground. Dee’s body isn’t there anymore. There are rules and regulations, and Aunt Hannah had her moved to a family plot. But the cross is still there, and there’s also a plaque. It doesn’t say anything except her name: Dee Alicia Springfield. I hold the girls close to me, and they fidget. They’re like she was—they’d rather be running around or wading in the river than standing here in silence.