The Diary

by Julia Derek

  Holding on to Celeste with one hand, I try to open my pocketbook with my other hand to get out a business card so I can give the information to Angie. But I can’t get it out. I need to get it out. I throw a glance at Celeste on my hip. She is being so good that I don’t have the heart to put her back down on the floor. I know she wants to stay with me.

  I remember then that I have the business card info on my iPad. I turn around and run to get it from the coffee table. Right as I’m about to reach it, I stub my toe against one of the legs of the couch. It hurts so badly I scream out loud and before I know it, I have loosened my firm grip around Celeste. The unthinkable happens. Yelling frightened, she falls toward the floor. On the way, she bangs her head hard against the sharp corner of a low side table. The blood is squirting from the back of her dark head even before she has fully landed on the carpet.

  As I bend down to pick her up, she says Mommy and then the light goes out in her wide, clear blue eyes. There is so much blood. Oh, God, there is so much blood! So much blood.

  I know this is an accident. It’s an accident. An accident. A terrible, terrible accident, but still an accident. An accident! Accident, accident, accident. It could have happened to anyone. This is what my shrink and Jason and my mom keep telling me. Please stop blaming yourself, it was an accident, Lexi! It could have happened to anyone. But if it isn’t my fault, then whose fault is it? I should have held on harder. Please tell me, if it isn’t my fault, why am I feeling so horribly guilty? Every minute of every day I feel guilty, so guilty. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I can’t think about anything else than the fact that I killed my own daughter.

  I KILLED HER.

  Those last three horrible words are written across one entire, tear-stained page of the diary. The tears are streaming down my cheeks now, adding to the tears that are already on the page. I remember now. I remember everything, Celeste and everything that Jason and I did with her. I remember everything about her, the way she felt, squishy soft yet firm, so alive. I remember the powdery scent of her. I even remember the day when I wrote these last words and then couldn’t write anymore in this diary after that. I didn’t believe it would help me get over all the guilt I felt over what I had done, what a horrible mother I was, killing my own daughter. Dr. Meyer kept telling me that I should write about my feelings around what had happened, put down anything that came to me. It would be therapeutic, help me feel better finally.

  Perhaps me writing in that book did help because I eventually felt better, almost back to normal. Well, as normal as you can feel after what happened with Celeste. But I was functioning again, even managed to be happy some days. But then came Matt.

  I put the diary away and stare out the window, at the many tiny snowflakes that are sailing down from the sky, piling over each other to form a thin layer of white on the ground. Warm tears keep streaming down my face, my neck. So what Dr. Meyer has been trying to tell me is true then. I was the killer all along, not Jason. I’m crazy, having only imagined everything. I’m schizophrenic—which is just a politically correct way of saying that I’m deranged, really. But even as this realization sinks into me, I can’t help but wonder what made me see my own words now, and not Jason’s, the ones I thought he had written. Why now, today?

  I don’t know how long I keep staring out the window, thinking about all of this when I hear my husband’s voice.

  “Lexi?”

  Slowly, I turn toward the sound and see that Jason is coming toward me.

  “Can I join you?” he asks, looking almost shy.

  I stare at him at the same time as I nod. Is he here for real or is he just another of my many hallucinations? There is only one way to find out.

  “Mom!” I call. “Mom! Can you come to the living room?” Hopefully she is still in the house.

  Jason jerks and looks uncomfortable and sad. My mom shows up in the doorway to the living room.

  “Yes, sweetie?” she says, appearing almost as tense as Jason.

  I nod toward Jason. “Can you see him?”

  She looks at Jason. “Are you talking about Jason?”

  Relief surges through me. At least he is for real then…

  “Yeah,” I say and smile a little, exhaling.

  “Yes, I can see him,” she says. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes, it’s fine,” I say.

  My mom nods and then she leaves again.

  Jason comes up and sits on the couch next to me. I hold up the diary to him. “Do you have anything to do with me getting this today?”

  “Yeah, but it was really Dr. Meyer’s idea. She thought that if you got it in your hands after you’d been on the medication for some time, you’d finally believe us.”

  I frown at him. “The medication?”

  “Yes. Ever since you were released from the hospital, you’ve been on anti-psychotic medication. Your mother mixed it into your food.” He lowers his gaze before he looks at me again. “We were worried that you would refuse to take it voluntarily, so that’s why we had to trick you. It usually takes weeks before it kicks in. You were so, so angry. It was the only way we could think of that would make you face the truth finally. And—”

  I hold up a hand to make him stop talking. “It’s okay, Jason. Really. I understand why you did it that way. And I’m glad that you did. It has finally kicked in, thank God.” I look away, out into the thickening snow landscape outside and blink away new tears that fill my eyes. “I can’t imagine how you must feel after everything I’ve put you through… ”

  I really can’t. Not now that I remember everything. So many things I created for us in my mind after Matt was born aren’t true. I was never reproductively challenged, quite the contrary. I got pregnant with Celeste only months after we started trying after getting home from Paris. I never had any miscarriages. I never took off from work to make sure I didn’t have another one while carrying Matt. I worked as much and as hard as ever up until his birth.

  “I understand now why you didn’t want to talk to me after I left the hospital,” I say, still not meeting Jason’s gaze. I’m too ashamed. “You’ve had enough of me and no one can blame you. I wouldn’t want to have anything to do with a crazy schizo like me either.”

  Tears are streaming down my face as I wait for him to tell me that he wants a divorce. But instead he stands up and sinks onto his knees before me. He takes both my hands that are limp in my lap.

  “Look at me, Lexi,” he says, his voice soft. It takes all I have to face my gorgeous husband. But if this is what he wants me to do after all that he has done for me, even if he is about to tell me he’ll be leaving me, the least I can do is look at him now. Even if it’s killing me.

  He smiles a little. “Good thing I’m not you then. Because I’m not going anywhere. I don’t care if you’re a crazy schizo. You’re my crazy schizo. And I love you as much as ever, Lexi.”

  Epilogue

  A year has passed since I was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

  All things considered, I’m doing well. Thanks to the meds Dr. Meyer has me on, I can live a normal life. There have been no more episodes since the time I thought I saw Jason walk into his young mistress’s apartment. Apparently, I was just sitting in some random building out in Forrest Hills, Queens, having followed some man who lives there the first time I imagined seeing Jason jump in a cab. Well, I suppose my imaginary friend Rick Atkinson happened after I left that building, but I’m not sure I can call him an episode, at least not a detrimental one. After all, he was pretty nice overall. In fact, I wouldn’t mind seeing him again at some point.

  If I do, I’ll kick him for laughing at me instead of helping me when I was thrown out of Finnerty’s. I can’t help but chuckle when I imagine how this would look to the world. A crazy woman kicking the air…

  Jason and I are on our way to St. Michael’s Cemetery. He is not freaking out like the last time we went there together, thinking that I wouldn’t be able to handle seeing Celeste’s grave again in addition to
Matt’s. I honestly didn’t see my daughter’s grave at all that time. It was as if it didn’t exist.

  Me breaking down so much I’d be unfixable was the reason he had all the photos of Celeste removed in the week after the stillbirth and never once mentioned her name. Well, he did say her name a couple of times when I brought it up at dinner thinking this was someone in his novel. Thinking that I had just misspoken, he thought it best to just play along with me. All the photos are back up again and I’m okay with it. I don’t cry when I look at them. They make me a little sad, yes, but my eyes are relatively dry. Jason and I believe the ultimate test will be me going to the cemetery and see the two graves. I’m not worried, though; I feel I’m finally ready to face them. We’re only five minutes away now; I know because we’ve already passed that yellow house at the side of the road.

  I think about the couple who found me passed out in an obscure alley in uptown Manhattan Saturday evening and how I probably owe them my life. They called 911 and apparently stayed with me until the paramedics came. Then they quickly left. I still have no idea who they are, only that it was a young man and woman who appeared to be Hispanic. No one knows how I ended up in that alley and what I did up until then, but from what I was told, I was holding an almost empty quart of Absolut vodka against my chest.

  Jason squeezes my hand. He’s been holding it the entire time since we left home, only letting go when he needs to switch gear. He’s been coming with me to see Dr. Meyer twice a week ever since I came back home and we have worked through what happened with Herman. It seems he’s okay with it now. At least his nightmares have stopped and he claims that he rarely thinks about me and Herman together any longer. I hope, for his sake, that it’s true.

  We arrive at the cemetery and park the car. It’s a sunny but brisk early February day, chilly winds biting our cheeks as we walk toward the corner of the cemetery where our children are buried. We don’t say a word, just hold hands as we get closer and closer. There are several people here this Sunday afternoon, visiting loved ones. My heart is beating faster and when I spot the two gravestones, one gray and one pink, my chest tightens. I take deep, quiet breaths through my nostrils to calm myself down.

  Finally we get there and I can clearly see what it says on the pale pink sandstone gravestone, the one I thought belonged to a Celeste Hyland (who, by the way, is still alive):

  In Memory of Celeste Anne Marie Woods, Beloved Daughter. June 11, 2006—Aug 4, 2008. A Little Angel Taken Too Soon.

  I put the first of the bouquets of forget-me-nots in front of Celeste gravestone, then I walk over and put the second in front of Matt’s. There are tears in my eyes as we stand there in silence for some time, but I’m okay. I’m not about to break down. I know that I’ll be okay later, too, because I have Jason. Whatever happens, he’ll help me get through it.

  Just like I thought that first time he kissed me more than a decade ago, he’s one of a kind.

  And he’ll always be mine. No doubt about it.

  THE END

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  You can read the first episode of my popular GIRL UNDERCOVER serial on the next page. Here is the description:

  LAPD Detective Gabi Longoria returns home one night to a nasty surprise--her husband has been brutally killed. A note next to his body says: "Rats always get what they deserve." Her captain refuses to let her join the murder investigation, so Gabi decides to do her own. Convinced the reason to her husband's death can be found at the New York health club where she met him, she goes undercover as a trainer there. In the process of seeking the truth, she meets a handsome, mysterious man who claims an evil corporation killed her husband--what's worse, he also claims they've developed a master race to replace all of humankind...

  * * *

  Chapter 1

  The night I found Nick’s brutalized body, I broke a heel on my new slingback pumps. I was rushing to the restaurant where we’d meet for dinner. As I limped across the parking lot toward the entrance, I cursed my husband out in my head. I promised myself to remind him for the rest of his life how his hyper punctuality had stressed me out so much I’d tripped and destroyed my expensive shoes.

  I will always regret those furious, petty thoughts burning a trajectory in my mind that evening.

  As I got into the Santa Monica seafood restaurant, the hostess told me my date had yet to arrive but that I was welcome to have a seat at our table. In my distressed state, I was grateful of course and took the offer. Moments later, I was sitting behind a white-clothed table by the window waiting for Nick to arrive. I checked the time. Two minutes past eight, the hour we had settled on.

  Ha, I thought. This time he will be the one who’s late and I can give him jazz about it. While he was always on the dot, I was almost pathologically late. Not by much, usually only by five, max seven minutes. He never made a big deal about it, just smiled and shook his head at me like I was a mildly frustrating child. Still, it annoyed me to no end, so today I had gone out of my way to show him that I, too, could be exactly on time. It was a bad habit I needed to fix, though I didn’t know if sacrificing my brand new, three-hundred dollar shoes had been worth it.

  At fifteen past eight I was getting a little worried. I kept looking out the window and around the restaurant, hoping to spot Nick somewhere, coming toward the table, an apologetic smile on his ruggedly handsome face.

  Where is he?

  I checked my phone again for a text from him, explaining that he was stuck in traffic or something similar. Still nothing.

  I frowned. Very weird. I pressed the speed-dial button to get him on the line, but all I got was his voicemail.

  “Hey, baby, it’s me,” I said into my phone. “Where are you? Call me. I’m at Shutters at a table waiting for you.”

  I waited another twenty minutes, anxiously checking my phone and my surroundings, hoping to spot Nick somewhere. This was so not like him. Finally I couldn’t take the sense of rapidly spreading unease in my stomach any longer.

  Something wasn’t right.

  I got up from the table and limped out to my car, holding my phone all the while in case Nick tried to reach me. I wasn’t sure where to go, what to do, only that something was wrong and that I needed to find my husband. The idea of just sitting at the table while waiting for him to maybe show up eventually wasn’t something I could handle. Patience had never been one of my strengths; besides, the increasing tightness in my stomach suggested that wasn’t what I should be doing anyway. If Nick wasn’t contacting me, something must have happened to him and I’d better find out right away what that could be.

  I would start by going home and change into more comfortable shoes.

  Driving far above the legal speed limit, I was at our apartment building in West Hollywood a lot faster than I usually got there. The knot in my stomach had doubled in intensity as my phone still contained no texts or calls from Nick, nor had he picked up any of the times I’d tried to reach him again.

  Something was very, very wrong. It was a feeling that completely permeated me.

  I parked my car at the curb and rushed across the sidewalk toward the two-story, pastel green building that contained our one-bedroom apartment. My heart was pounding wildly as I entered the hallway. It picked up more speed when I noted that our front door wasn’t fully closed.

  Neither Nick nor I ever left our door open. Both of us being LAPD detectives, there were too many people who wanted to see us dead for us to be that negligent.

  Loud rock music poured out from our place.

  I was in front of our apartment door in three giant strides and pushed it open all the way. By now I was hyperventilating, I was so freaked out by that powerful sense of impending doom in my chest and stomach. Cold sweat coated the skin on my face.

  Oh, God, let this just be my nerves playing a cruel joke on me. Let eve
rything be okay. Let it be me just overreacting. Please make it so that Nick is all right.

  But it wasn’t just me overreacting. Everything was not okay. And I discovered that it couldn’t be more wrong when I stepped into our bedroom. It would never again be okay either.

  Halfway inside the room, I spotted a bloody, lifeless man splayed across the hardwood floor. It was Nick, so brutally beaten and tortured I didn’t recognize him at first.

  ***

  The hours that followed my horrible discovery were a nightmarish blur of pain and confusion.

  After I’d gotten over the initial, paralyzing shock of finding my husband in such a state, I called 911 to get an ambulance to come get him as quickly as possible to a hospital. I did this even though I knew on a visceral level he was already dead. No one in his butchered condition could be alive still, but I refused to accept this fact in the beginning. Then I got my boss, Captain Brady, on the line and managed to tell him what had happened. He and two squad cars were at our house within minutes. After embracing me, Brady dragged me out of the bedroom and our apartment; at that point I’d gone from hysteria to catatonia and actually let Brady take charge of me, remove me from Nick.

  Wrapped in a blanket and standing on the street with my boss, I watched out of the corner of my eye as the ambulance came and then left without Nick. A car from the coroner’s office picked him up instead.

  Brady took me to my parents’ house in Brentwood. My hysteria returned with a vengeance there. I spent hours crying and pacing the living room floor while trembling violently. I punched and kicked the walls, threw things. I yelled nasty phrases. Finally, my parents made me swallow heavy-duty sleeping pills to knock me out. I slept for eighteen hours straight before I came to again, thinking I was still asleep and having the worst nightmare of my life.