“You can’t blame yourself.” But I know the words are useless. Laura will blame herself for as long as she feels the need to.
She sniffs and wipes her eyes. “I keep thinking that she learned it from me. I mean, I put on this act, too, you know? I pretend to be something I’m not. I’m from Rotherham, but I changed my accent to sound posher. I didn’t want to sound like my parents because… because of what they were like. What if she learned all this from me?”
“It’s not the same,” I say.
“I had to change so I could make something of myself. But in the process I wonder if I made myself too detached, too cold. I pushed her away and she became a monster.” Laura places a hand over her mouth. She clears her throat and seems to shake her feelings away. “But she’s still my daughter. I’m going to stick by her. I’m going to visit her, and make sure she’s treated right, because she’s my daughter.” She laughs. “I can’t believe I’m saying that. A few days ago, I was regretting her even being in my life. Now, even after everything that has happened, I don’t regret adopting her. I just regret not being able to stop her becoming…” She trails off and stares out into the distance.
“Maybe you never could,” I reply. “Maybe it was in her DNA to begin with. You don’t know anything for sure.”
Laura gives me a weak smile and steps up from the visitor’s chair. “Well, you get better now. How long are you in for?”
“I’m out this afternoon,” I reply. “They wanted to keep an eye on me because of the concussion.”
Laura winces slightly at the word. “Well, I’d better get back to Matt.”
“Is there any change?”
“He’s still in a coma. I’m hoping he wakes up so he can give his side of the story.” Laura starts to leave, but before she goes, she adds. “I’m not going to stay with him. I realised what I’d done. I… my parents were drunks, and they hit me. I married a controlling man with a temper. I repeated the cycle.”
“I married a man with a wandering eye,” I reply. “My father cheated on my mother, and my husband did the same to me. It’s hard not to repeat history. But someone has to break the cycle. It’d may as well be us.”
Laura is still nodding her head as she leaves the hospital room. Somehow I already know that we’ll never see each other again. But I wish her well.
That afternoon, after I’m discharged from the hospital, I drive myself to a place I haven’t visited in a long time. The weather is perfect for it. On the way, I call at a garage and pick the brightest bunch of flowers I can find. As I drive, I lean back against my driver’s seat, and let one hand rest on my knee like I used to do on a summery day. The windows are down, my car smells like flowers, and the sun warms my skin.
I drive slowly through the cemetery, remembering each turn as though the directions are carved into my being. The gravestone is wide, marble, and a warm grey. Their names are etched in gold. James chose the spot, but he did it well. They’re high up, so that the valley stretches out below them. Stu always loved to be in high, windy places where he could oversee the surrounding countryside. He was from a small village in the peak district, and he never really got out of that small village mentality. He loved beauty. He loved the peaks and valleys of our country. He would have loved this spot.
Next to them is a dark mahogany bench. I remember it well from the funeral. I sit there for a while, arranging the flowers, cutting off leaves, trimming stalks, placing them into the pot that fits onto the grave stone. James has been here. He’s cleaned up, and removed old flowers. I knew he would. I know he misses Emma almost as much as I do. He misses me, too, because I’ve not been me for a long time.
I could stay here all day and watch the sun go down, but Stu wouldn’t want me to linger. I’ve lingered long enough, living in the half-life of grief. It’s time to leave this place.
I take a few more moments to think. I take a deep breath, bringing with it the smell of the lilies in my bouquet, and the freshly mown grass from a plot further up the cemetery. There’s no tightness in my chest anymore. Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I see April poised with the rock in her hands, her eyes narrowing as she tries to understand why I would forgive her. I should hate April for what she put me through, and I should be more anxious than ever. But I don’t feel either of those things. She awakened me. I’ve finally woken up from the nightmare that kept me confined to my house. I might not have saved April, but I saved myself.
When the flowers are arranged, I put the wrapper and the trimmings into the bin, and make my way back to my car. They aren’t there, Stu and Emma, I don’t feel their presence in their graves. Just like I’m not really in number 73 Cavendish Street, I’m finally somewhere else.
Epilogue
April
This is all stupid. They’re stupid. They think they can figure me out with their questions. They lock me up in my room so I don’t hurt others. They make me eat with plastic cutlery so I don’t hurt myself. I’m not allowed to talk to other people because I’m a bad influence. They treat me like I’m a crazy monster who’s going to attack them at any moment. And every day, they ask me the same questions.
“Why do you feel the need to punish people, April?” she asks. It’s Dr. Humphries this time. I don’t like her. She has these tiny, icy blue eyes that stare right through you. Sometimes she calls herself Humphries, and I think that is way creepier than anything I’ve done.
I shrug. “Someone has to.”
“Do you like to outwit people? Do you like to prove your intelligence?”
I could outwit you, I think. I’m smarter than everyone in here. Who else thought of the plan to kill their parents and not get caught? If it hadn’t been for Laura and Hannah… I never thought of that. I never thought of Hannah fighting back. She was so weak, so easily controlled. Laura surprised me with the GPS thing. Well played, Laura.
“No,” I lie. “I don’t need to prove anything.”
Dr. Humphries gets this little smile on her face that I totally want to wipe away with my fist. But I tell myself there’s no point. I don’t like to be violent for no reason. I like my violence to have a good reason, like teaching Hannah a lesson.
“Why did you kill your parents?”
I roll my eyes. “You know why. They were scum. They deserved it. In fact, they had it coming. I saved them, anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
“They drank every day and it was disgusting. They were slowly poisoning their bodies. I may have only been eight, but I still understood that they were going to drink themselves to death. I saved them years of agony.”
“So you believe that you did them a favour. You don’t think you did anything wrong?”
“I know I broke the law. You people keep telling me that. But they deserved it. I don’t know how many more times I can tell you that.”
“We keep going over this because you see the world differently to other people, April. You need to understand that the things you say and do aren’t normal. Most girls your age have a better understanding of empathy and morality.” Humphries leans back in her chair. She always sits a few feet away from me, and she always glances nervously towards the door as though planning her exit. If I said “boo”, she’d crap her pants. “What about your neighbour, Hannah Abbott?”
“What about her?”
“She tried to help you. Everything she did was to try and save you from an abusive home. But you manipulated, kidnapped, and assaulted her. None of that was punishment.”
“I didn’t intend to involve her. I was going to use Laura.”
“What changed?”
“Laura was never around. When she was, I never knew how to make her do what I wanted.” Laura never did what was expected. I would stay quiet, thinking she’d feel sorry for me, but she’d get suspicious instead. Then I’d leave my fake diary out for her to read, but she wouldn’t touch it. I knew early on that I’d never get Laura to do what I wanted. That’s when I started writing Laura into my fake diary. When the polic
e came, I wanted her arrested too.
“So you used Hannah to try and kill your father, who you thought deserved to die?”
“He’s a steroid taking, cheating, wife-beater, so yeah.” I refuse to feel bad about what I did to Matt. He deserved that conk on the head, and he deserves the brain damage he got from it. It was a shame he woke up, though. I could have done without his statement to the police.
“Why are you smiling?” she asks.
I shrug. I’m thinking about the stupid expression on Matt’s face as he fell to the floor of the shed. Then I think about the sound his skull made when I hit him for the second time.
“April there’s one other thing we’ve not discussed yet. You’ve been here for over a month now and we’ve discussed your actions towards people at length. We’ve come to understand that you have a very rigid sense of right and wrong, and that you believe people should be punished in very extreme ways. What we haven’t discussed is your treatment of animals. Where did you get the mice from?”
“The woods a few streets away. Sometimes I’d sneak out of the house while Matt was cheating on Laura. I’d climb over the back fence and cut through a footpath near the field. I got quite good at catching them. I found the old shed and inside there were some traps, so I used them to catch the mice.”
“Why didn’t you keep them in the shed? Why did you take them home?” she asks.
“I…” I hadn’t thought about that. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. I did kill some of them in the shed, but I knew I only had a few hours before Matt came home, so I used to take them home and put them in a shoe box. Sometimes I let them starve, and would open the box at night to see what they looked like after a few days. Sometimes I played with them. Sometimes I killed them right away.
“April, did part of you want to get caught?”
“No,” I say. “I wanted my plan to succeed.”
“Are you sure? Because you didn’t make it very hard for Laura to find everything when she searched your room.”
“I didn’t think she’d bother. She didn’t give a shit about me, so why would she bother searching my room?”
“April, why did you kill the mice?”
“Because I like to watch squirming things go still.”
About the Author
Sarah A. Denzil is a British suspense writer from Derbyshire. In her alternative life—AKA YA author Sarah Dalton—she writes speculative fiction for teenagers, including The Blemished, Mary Hades and White Hart.
Sarah lives in Yorkshire with her partner, enjoying the scenic countryside and rather unpredictable weather.
Saving April, Sarah’s debut suspense thriller, is a psychological look into the minds of the people around us who we rarely even consider—our neighbours. What do we really know about them, and what goes on when the doors are closed?
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Writing as Sarah Dalton - http://www.sarahdaltonbooks.com/
Acknowledgements
Thank you to everyone who voted for Saving April on Kindle Scout. You made this book happen. And you made me very happy to be chosen by Kindle Press.
Thank you to the fab bunch of Kboards authors all going through the Kindle Scout experience at the same time. It was wonderful to celebrate and commiserate with you guys. I think we kept each other sane through this experience! A special shout out to Alison Perry who gave amazing advice at the beginning of the campaign, thank you! And a big congratulations to Kimberley G. Giarratano whose amazing book was chosen on the same day as Saving April. It was so exciting sharing the day with you!
Last but not least, a special thank you to my partner who has supported me throughout this experience, and who is surprisingly good at helping me promote my work! Thank you!
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