The Woman Hidden

by Lucas Mattias

“Don’t you worry about it,” Clarice replied, wiping her own face now. “I never feared you’d leave me.”

  She forced a smile, although the bitterness of the moment was too strong to be absorbed and ignored. Her lips were twisted, trying to keep positive. Her brain, though, yelled at her that this was the end. The end of it all.

  “He…” Michelle tried to lift her head and when she failed, Clarice leaned and bowed down. “He did this to me.”

  The heart monitor briefly went louder and Clarice feared, not only for her friend’s life, but for her own safety in there. She had managed to infiltrate the hospital with the help of a friend, but now she was on her own.

  “Michelle, let’s not talk about it now, I…”

  “This is why I called you. To say goodbye…” She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to regain strength. “And for you to know it. Someone to know it. You… you must listen to me while I’m still here, while I’m alive.”

  “You aren’t going anywhere, Michelle. I won’t…”

  “Do not let yourself be fooled. I’m dying, I can feel I’m dying. But this needs to end, Clarice. You need to bring this to an end, an end I couldn’t find. I cannot… I cannot let you end up like this, too.”

  Clarice inhaled deeply and held Michelle’s hand. She had no choice and, although she didn’t want to tell it to herself, she wanted to listen. She wanted to know. She wanted to put an end to that violent and dark cycle. She knew she needed to do it.

  And Michelle told her.

  She told her she had decided to keep the agreement with Clarice. She packed her things, loaded the family SUV with hers and Marco’s stuff, she wanted to take him too, perhaps new air would give him a new chance of being someone else. She was ready to leave when she heard the sedan parking again and she felt her heart freeze, she felt air leaving her body with all her strengths and bravery. What if she couldn’t do it?

  “I kept myself in there, waiting. He was drunk again. I told… I told him I was tired. I woke up, Clarice. We both woke up.”

  Michelle smirked when she told how she had said exactly that to him, avoiding names and plans, obviously. And that they argued, yelled and threats were shouted. And he hit her again, a heavy and powerful slap, throttled by the alcohol, but with clear intentions. That was enough. She no longer had reasons to withstand the abuse, the depreciation.

  And she grabbed her keys and handbags and headed to the car. She only needed Marco, she’d just leave with him. She knew him not to be the best of the children, but she feared him to be Jason’s next target whether she left him there. And when she returned home to get him, he came with the gun.

  “He had the gun against his head, crying. In that moment, Clarice, I thought I’d give it up. Something in me… something I cannot explain makes me falter whenever I see him so vulnerable, so…”

  “Faking it.”

  Clarice was infuriated, she knew the game he played with Michelle. She knew he’d humiliate her, whether in public or home, that he’d deprive her from all she was and had, abash her just to plead later how much he needed her. Just to make her feel needed and, a few days later, it would all go back to the start. And it’d repeat itself, for he knew exactly what hit her, what bothered her, he knew what she needed.

  “He said he would kill himself, he couldn’t live without me. He told me, Clare, and I thought about going back. And Marco attacked him. I don’t know if Marco wanted to stop him from killing himself or if he wanted the gun…” Michelle sank into tears again, trying to breath. “I do not recognize my child anymore.”

  “Calm down. Marco attacked him.”

  “And they fell. When I turned to them, Jason was killing my… our son. And that I couldn’t bear, he’s my baby. I didn’t have what to do, Clarice, I didn’t know what to do. I saw that rock right there and I didn’t want to, but I needed and…”

  “You were right.”

  “I attacked my husband. And he fell, but that’s what I needed. I needed to make my son wake up, I needed him to breath just once more, I knew that was my end. I fought back, Clarice. I was stupid.”

  “It’s alright, Michelle. You’re safe now.”

  Then Michelle grasped Clarice’s hand with a strength she shouldn’t have then, at least Clarice didn’t expect her to have it.

  “I’m not safe, I’m being watched.”

  “Michelle…”

  No. Accusing her of neurosis was not right, she was already done with that and it wasn’t fair. Clarice considered that, if Michelle believed to be endangered, then she probably was. She needed to offer he safety, she needed to show Michelle she was trustworthy.

  “Why are you not safe?”

  “The sheriff. He’s friends with Jason. He… Marco was breathing again.”

  Clarice didn’t know it to be the low voice tone or the terminal lucidity of Michelle’s, but she was having trouble in following the details. The non-linearity was confusing, as were the profusion of ideas in that narrative.

  “I scarcely had time to hold my son, Jason hit me with the stone, the same one. I can’t remember well, just flashes… but I was alive, trying to breath, feeling the ground against my face and unable to… I was desperate and I couldn’t scream. That’s when he arrived.”

  “Who arrived?”

  Michelle supported herself onto Clarice and tried to get up, something ineffective and Clarice bent down again. That was a desperate voice and Clarice felt as if she had been experiencing Michelle’s feelings herself.

  “Him! The sheriff. He arrived. They argued. I could hear, I just can’t remember and I need to…”

  “You don’t have to remember.”

  Michelle told her how she heard the sheriff saying he had covered up too much already. He was the reason Michelle’s hell went on. He was the reason her husband was free. She couldn’t remember many details from that moment, but she remembered waking up inside the car. She wanted to move, but her body was unresponsive, she couldn’t even blink. She felt the blood running and heard the sheriff again. That she recalled.

  “’You take it from here’, is what he said. I wanted to shout, but I couldn’t, Clarice. I couldn’t feel my body, I thought it was my true end. But no…” She laughed to her own chagrin, closing her eyes again. “I knew it then; my end had come. I saw it all in my head. The moment I should’ve left it all, the moment I should’ve said ‘no’ instead of…”

  “Don’t torture yourself, Michelle. It is not your fault, you…”

  Clarice didn’t know what to say. She was taken aback by the emotions and her throat burned in flames, as if an animal tried to escape amidst a wave of tears that seemed also ready to come out.

  “He said… the sheriff said he needed an alibi.” Michelle changed, laughing out loud, somehow hysterical. It was not funny, it was terrorizing and she was well aware of that. “They put my other bags in the car. I finally got to move, but all I could do was to fall on the seat and the handbags. I’m so useless.”

  “No, you’re not, Michelle. You need to rest.”

  “You have to know.”

  Yes, she did, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to. She wasn’t sure she would be able to coldly leave the hospital, no looking back, without attacking that man and drag him out of there, without gagging him and tie him up, without leaving him to rot in public square, naked, after severely torturing him. She didn’t know if she could be cold like that.

  Michelle put her oxygen mask back for a while, just to recover her breath among the tears.

  “I remember… I remember being put on the driver’s seat. He was even careful enough to put my belt on.”

  “Jason?”

  “Jason.” Michelle coughed and took the mask back for a few more seconds. Although Clarice understood she needed the air, she didn’t know if they had much time. “They put me in the car. He asked Marco to grab the stone, it was there, in the car… the same stone he attacked me with. I wanted to moan, to say I was alive, but they didn’t listen. They didn’t hear my call
… I heard the thud from the door and I felt my body moving, it was all moving, slowly and…”

  Clarice understood the rest. The gap from which they accused her of jumping out was, actually, the easy way out for him. He let the car roll, believing it would be enough to get rid of the woman. It wasn’t. Perhaps she wasn’t as fragile as he thought.

  “They killed me, Clarice.”

  “You’re not dead. You won’t…”

  Michelle grabbed Clarice’s arm again with such strength that, hadn’t Clarice been wearing a long-sleeved dress, her nails would have cut Clarice’s skin. This time, also, Michelle managed to get up and approach Clarice.

  “I need you to kill me.”

  “Michelle, I… I can’t do it. Not to you, I…”

  “If I survive, I’ll go back to him, to that hell. No one’s going to believe me, he’s my guardian, he… I can’t, Clarice, I can’t go back, I can’t…”

  “I believe in you. I know you. Our group, they…”

  “You know it’s not true. Clarice, I need to go with the dignity I still… I lost it all. I cannot feel my legs, Clarice. I don’t even know I have my legs anymore.”

  Clarice heard her own sobbing and she couldn’t see Michelle anymore, her tears had her eyes covered and her body shook entirely. She couldn’t comply with that last request, but she didn’t want to abandon her friend, not in that condition. There was, however, nothing she could do.

  “Clarice, I beg you, please. Please, I…”

  And Michelle dropped onto the bed, her eyes and mouth wide-open. Clarice couldn’t kill her, but she couldn’t also watch her die. She knew that it was the final moment, that moment seemed to be the last one. Michelle’s begging echoed in her mind, as the fast and desperate beeps from the machines drowned her. She didn’t want to see Michelle die, but she didn’t want to see her living that way, half-alive. If Michelle survived that seizure, she would come back with a syringe filled with sedatives and would help her die, all she needed was a heavenly sign, she only needed…

  The bedroom was raided and a team of doctors and nurses walked in, bringing in a cart with a defibrillator. Someone shouted, but she didn’t hear. She needed to leave. They were all too busy to notice her being there, she just had to run away.

  When Clarice turned, still underneath the hat, she saw him. Their eyes met abruptly, although he wasn’t actually seeing her. His blue eyes shone, despite the sleepy state he was in. She felt her body freeze, in a mix of adrenaline and hate, but she couldn’t be delayed. He would come to her, she had to run.

  She turned her face away and ran outside, dancing around employees and patients and the man himself, before he could ever reach her.

  “Charge 300!” Someone yelled, muffling the husband’s yells, who tried to get her attention.

  As she left the room, the sounds faded when the door was closed. She inhaled deeply, but she never stopped walking, she had to leave, she had to let it soak in and run, before it all fell apart for her too.

  Michelle was dead. She wasn’t.

  Not yet.

  The hospital memory vanished as the wind blew, tossing her hair up. There, from the mountains, she could see it all around. The houses, the cabins, the distant lake and the road way below, after the field of pines and chalets.

  Clarice embraced herself strongly, raising her shoulders in a way her scarf hid her lips and ears. Someone had told her that, soon enough, a snowstorm could come. She didn’t know it to be true, but not even that would get in the way of what she had longed for. She longed for freedom. Three years had passed, three years of planning, three years of a rage that simmered inside of her, three years of further suffering caused by the murder that took from her the only perspective of change she had ever created to herself in the last years.

  The voice of Anna, the psychologist, echoed in her mind.

  “You’re not weak because so he says. You are who you want to be and all you need is to free yourself.”

  She had to free herself.

  She looked at her hand, where the wedding ring sparkled with its fourteen-carat diamond. Clarice remembered the moment in which he proposed to her. He was her savior, he was the one she’d been waiting for. And she recalled when it all turned upside down at his first jealous rage. The first lie and the first accusation of her being incoherent. The first accusation of her seeing things that didn’t exist. She remembered the first friendship that was prohibited and the last time she saw her family around. She recalled the first time he told her she was nothing without him, that she needed him. Her memory brought back the first time he raised his hand at her, as well as the first time she needed an urgent surgery after a broken rib punctured her lung. She also remembered how he had offered his support and shoulder during her recovery, how he reminded her of the ‘accident’ being her fault, and that she shouldn’t have confronted him for such stupid reasons. She recalled the times he pointed his finger at her, saying the marriage was being destroyed by her. The time he raised his hand again, accusing her of being useless for not granting him a child. The many times he prohibited from talking to other people, because she was uncappable of communicating without sounding stupid. The many times he forbade her from leaving the house for not looking appropriate enough, the times he arrived home with the perfume of other women and made her believe it was all an illusion, the times he had her drugged with antidepressants after convincing the fellow psychiatrist she was losing her mind. The times he made her controllable through drugs and made her believe she needed him, that she needed to constantly be saved by him to survive.

  “You’d die out there without me.”

  She remembered the last fifteen years as if they were there, passing by her eyes.

  Clarice sighed, the cold wind almost tearing her skin. She didn’t need to remember that, not then. All she needed was a couple more days, maybe a couple weeks. She needed the confirmations, she needed to know about Jason.

  She turned and walked towards home, the mansion by the artificial lake she so much loathed. She hated that house and the lake. Nathan used to say he had built that for her, but it all was, just like the perfection of their marriage, a façade. She knew that that was the mansion he used for his private little parties whenever he was ‘traveling on business’. That was the mansion in which she spent months recovering from another ‘accident’, months she could barely remember due to the excess of drugs he frequently fed her with. She hated that mansion, she hated those mountains, she hated that pretentious village of rich and shallow-spirited people. She hated that place.

  However, the same way she hated it, she also loved it. It was because of that house she met Michelle. It was because of that place she had to go to the hospital in Derby, where she met Anna McCormick and her support group. And, thanks to Michelle and the group, she opened up her eyes and started realizing what was happening. That was the place where she understood that the family doctor, as well as the psychiatrist, were nothing but a husband’s pawn, scoundrels fueled by money and favors and who would do anything he asked them to. It was there she understood she needed none of those pills she was doping herself with and that she was not dying, and that she didn’t need him at all.

  She walked back, crunching the snow under her feet adorned by those long and expensive boots. At least she had money, money she would need. She only needed a few more days. She needed to find where he kept hidden his offshore estate, she needed the last details so that she could get away from all of that. She would also need to be patient, because other plans had to be fulfilled before she was actually free.

  Free. It was surreal considering that idea. She spent her days waiting for something unexpected to hit her or thinking she would wake up and realize it was all just an illusion induced by the number of pills she used to take.

  Clarice was so lost in her own daydreams that when she returned to earth, she was already climbing up the mansion stairs, looking for her room. She would’ve kept on, hadn’t she remembered her phone was at the ki
tchen. She didn’t recall why, but she had left it there and she needed to get it back before something…

  She climbed down the stairs in a hurry, trying to avoid a fall due to her wet boots, and crossed the huge hall with a distant and domed ceiling, avoiding the statues and the other unnecessary décor, her heels echoing through the polished wooden floor. She was just crossing the living room when she heard him clear his throat.

  The room was gigantic and Clarice had always felt tiny in there. The ceiling was extremely tall, the only part of the house that didn’t possess a floor above and the only reason was to create that effect. While on the walls gave access to a magnificent winter garden, the other one had glass walls and tall columns, which she believed to be Nathan’s megalomania representation. In the middle of the ceiling, an enormous chandelier hung, faking a candle effect in a classic mood, combined to the shades of wood and white of the room. The fireplace crackled slowly in the middle of the room, while Nathan, sitting at his white leather armchair, pretended to read a digital newspaper at his tablet. In one of the hands, Clarice’s phone.

  “Who’s Laura?”

  Clarice, by the fireplace, didn’t answer. First, she looked around, looking for her stepson, that little devil in the body of a spoiled and immature teenager.

  “Alex’s out with some friends.” Nathan put the tablet on a coffee table in front of his chair and stood up, her phone still in hands. “Who is Laura and why does she want to know whether I’m home or not?”

  She observed Nathan. Although she wanted to pose as if she didn’t fear him anymore, she couldn’t. Right there, in the middle of the room, he seemed more threatening, mainly when they were both alone in the house. Alexander knew most of things that happened under Nathan’s roofs, he had never witnessed to anything. Nathan was smart, a lawyer for Christ’s sake, he knew how to be cautious. She observed him deeply and, as in many other past moments, asked herself why she loved him.

  Nathan was like a caricature of a millionaire in some TV cartoon. The silver hair, always well-cared, adorned his head like the one of a clown deserving of a good horror story. His face, although renewed by the plastic procedures, didn’t possess any deeper countenances, not even the hatred ones. His face was lightly tanned, which made his blue eyes pop up in a disturbed and macabre way. His smile was an endless mockery, which never went beyond an evil giggle due to the Botox fillings. It was all always framed by million dollar suits or lavish robes just like the one he was wearing, crimson and purple. It was easier to conceal the blood, she wondered. Always so pompous; extremely pretentious.