Truth

by Brittany Chapman

  I pulled back and spat in her face. “You aren't worth shit. You have an unhealthy obsession with your half brother. It's not my fault he loved me, but I wouldn't take it back for a second.”

  Her face was furious and shocked as she realized what I had done.

  I stood tall as she rammed herself toward me. I stepped out of the way in time. She tumbled through the open doorway, knocking over my unsuspecting father.

  I stood over them, “I regret nothing.”

  ✷✴✷

  I began to see Hugh again. Hannah loved having me around. She seemed to be losing weight at an alarming speed. The roles reversed when Hugh came home from school solely to care for her.

  He decided to homeschool against her wishes so he could stay with his mother, and took up working in the kitchen to make up for the pay she missed when diagnosed with cancer.

  When Hugh turned sixteen I asked Hannah if I could buy him a car and she agreed. We talked about the best models and safety ratings and came to a decision on an economy style vehicle.

  When I pulled in front of the house, Mother threw a fit.

  As always I hadn't realized how many strings Mother had in her grasp. Hannah looked at me with eyes full of apology as Mother screamed about paying for Hannah's treatments.

  I told Hannah to retrieve Hugh from my old room and take him to where he couldn't hear, knowing the threat was coming.

  Mother demanded I stay away from her house, and my best friend, or she would stop paying for Hannah's treatment. As I was about to object, reminding her I could afford to do it, she reminded me of her influence in the community.

  She could make sure no doctor in the tri-state area would help.

  I forced myself into an imprisonment of my own mind and body, silencing my screams for help. The pills I took weren't to help normalize me any longer. They were to numb me as deeply as possible.

  I knew I couldn't be a stable mother to Olivia if I could feel. I didn't trust myself to stay away from Hugh.

  I kept my promise and my distance for as long as I could but found myself in the possession of a phone much like the one William had bought when we were on the run.

  I started calling Hannah every few weeks, asking for updates on her health and Hugh. I celebrated with her after Hugh's seventeenth birthday when she announced she was in remission. I cried with her when she told me how lonely Hugh seemed, and I was proud when she announced Hugh had graduated early.

  She told me that Hugh wanted to be a chef.

  We marveled over his similarities to his father, and she often asked how Olivia and Parker were.

  I told her of my worries about the way I was raising Olivia. She comforted me, making me laugh when she said I could afford the therapy Olivia would need.

  Almost another year passed and I became anxious at the thought of William’s hearing coming up, again. I didn't even breathe toward the computer. I couldn’t shake the paranoia of Mother seeing from miles away, or her having set some software to read keystrokes. I had heard that was another new thing technology created.

  Olivia's sixteenth birthday was approaching and I promised to make it special. I wanted her to feel loved and appreciated, worried I had been too comatose on prescription pills throughout her life to show her how much I cared.

  I took her all over the state, let her taste test caterers, and flew her to a tiny, couture shop in New York City for her a gown. I grinned as the pale silver shimmered around her. Parker worried when I told him my plan to make the cake, and that I was even taking a few classes so I could get it right.

  The day of Olivia's birthday I served her breakfast and watched Parker dote on her. He truly was an amazing father. I never could force myself to believe I loved him as a husband deserved, and for that I felt guilt.

  As Parker and Olivia both kissed me goodbye before school and work Mr. Stan led in an army of decorators. I turned to Stan, “I'm going for my run. I'll be back soon.” The habit of exhausting my emotions every morning had never died. Though my shoes weren't zip tied and my leggings weren't sweats that tried to trip me, it always helped put me back in a safe memory.

  ✷✴✷

  I always jogged around the property line. That morning the hills and soft grass under my feet as the rain sprinkled down from above helped clear away my burdens enough to squeeze in room for Olivia's celebration.

  As I turned along the fence at the front of the house and headed toward the driveway I stopped. A tan car I didn't recognize sat at the end.

  I looked around at the white vans. None of the men carrying tables or boxes into the house, out of the drizzle seemed to recognize the vehicle.

  The tinted windows hid the driver. I didn't like people creeping on my daughter's birthday. I ran over to the car and rapped on the window. I stepped back as I heard the latch of the door.

  A scream gurgled and died in my throat as the short black man climbed out of the vehicle. His salted hair was receding and he had fine lines in his face. He wore slacks and a tie, with shiny shoes.

  “Reese?” I flung my arms around him, almost jumping into his hug.

  I pulled back and saw the smile that made my heart light up like I hadn't known it could for years. I touched his face and shoulders. I heard my laughter through the tears. “I thought I had made you up in my head.” He squeezed me painfully tight.

  I finally broke away, wiping my face. He looked around, amazed. “You've got it good here, don't you?”

  My smile faded and my elation slipped a notch. He watched the ache in my eyes and nodded to himself, his lips tight. Even his accent was a little less defined.

  I cleared my throat, trying to find the bubble of excitement again, “Is Dizzy in there?” I pointed to the car. Pain flashed across his face and he shook his head. His brows dipped. My hands flew to my mouth. “Where is Dizzy?”

  “He got busted a few years ago. I always told him not to fight if he did get found, but he was so big. He scared the cops.” His voice broke, “They took him down.”

  I pulled him to me and patted his chest as he leaned back. The river of tears flowed stronger. The look in his eyes scared me. My heart started racing.

  “Reese?” He stared back at me, begging me not to ask though knowing I had to. “Why are you here?”

  My voice was not my own. It belonged to the little girl that had been left behind a long time ago, somewhere in the shadows of my parents’ home.

  Chapter 44- Glory

  “I'm so sorry.”

  His lips pulled up into the smile of uncontrollable agony. “What?” Alarms rang in my ears. I tried to force the worst possible scenario out of my mind.

  His low voice reverberated with sorrow, “William’s gone.”

  I became frozen in a space of time that no one but the ungodly know. My soul couldn't comprehend the words. My brain pushed at them, dissecting them in slow, oozing syllables.

  The weight of hell crushed me to the Earth.

  My knees gave as I crumpled. My mouth opened wide, trying to suck in air as I heaved on the grass.

  Reese knelt beside me, holding my hair and sobbing onto my back. I was unceremoniously drawn and quartered from every angle of my being. I felt hours and days, even years tick by in the seconds I let myself tear open. I gave in to the anger of repressed decades.

  “I didn't do anything wrong!” I wailed at the sky. “I DID EVERYTHING YOU TOLD ME TO.” Agony and rage warred and combined, over and over until my soul was nothing but miniscule shards.

  I screamed upward, but my words were directed towards her.

  Reese pulled me into his lap as I rolled into a ball. He held me on the lawn as the rain began to pour.

  ✷✴✷

  I felt like my eyes might explode from a lack of oxygen after crying so hard, and for so long. Reese had rocked me like an infant as I deteriorated on the lawn.

  I eventually unfolded from his lap and stood on shaking knees. Reese quickly pulled himself up to help me onto the hood of his car.

 
He turned to retrieve something from the backseat. My face crumbled again, but my eyes wouldn't let more tears fall. The sky cleared my face of salt and cried for me.

  Reese held the faded, tattered old blue suitcase. “I've thought about trying to get that for so long.” I almost had, a few times finding myself on the interstate headed towards Memphis. Home.

  He smiled, “I put some stuff in it for you. I have a boy who worked in the facility where William stayed. William always gave him the letters, knowing he couldn't trust anyone else.”

  “Letters?” I was afraid to ask or hope that William had thought of me.

  “Yeah. He never mailed them. He wanted someone who could hold onto them, in case he ever got out.” He looked into my eyes. “He was afraid of getting you into trouble if he tried to contact you. We all were.”

  I couldn't help but let an insane, angry laugh release from my chest at the irony. I sat, afraid to touch the suit case. The last time I had seen it William was hiding it in the night under the porch.

  “How?” I worried he wouldn't understand the bland, simple word, but his body stiffened.

  Reese shifted his weight as the words formed on his tongue, his eyes unfocused as though imaging the nightmare as he described it. “He slit his wrists with a shiv at about two this morning.” His voice dripped with pain. He pulled an envelope from his back pocket. “I picked this up when I got the call a couple of hours ago. My boy was on shift and he wanted to let me know first, so William's sister wouldn't get her hands on his stuff.”

  He handed me the envelope. I caressed my name, written in dull lead, in William's handwriting. Ruth. I swallowed hard.

  “I'll let you get back to this,” he gestured around at the vans. I could see his need to escape before he fell apart again, undoubtedly pulling me with him.

  “It's my daughter's birthday,” I remembered. I wasn't ready yet to look away from the scrawl I hadn't seen in too long.

  I hugged Reese and he asked if I he could come back to visit. I told him I would like that. I turned and walked into the house. I dripped on the floor as Mr. Stan stared curiously at the suitcase in my hand.

  I gave him an excuse to leave me alone for a while. I tried to put the suitcase away. I laid the letter on the bed, intending to read it when I felt more stable. I couldn't remember if I had taken my medication that morning, so I took them all before remembering I already had.

  I stared at myself in the mirror. My hair was still down to my waist. I put it in rollers, mindlessly readying myself for Olivia. I repeated her name in my mind over and over, trying to calm my spirit and grab hold of the dimness I had grown to worship.

  I kept glancing at the letter, trying to find any excuse not to read it.

  I did my makeup and brushed my curls into soft tumbles around my shoulders. I put on my dress. The white, shimmering fabric suddenly reminded me of the dress I had worn to the party that celebrated William.

  I sat on the edge of the bed, giving in. Fear and anxiety consumed me. I had to believe Reese was wrong. Father would have called. Wouldn't he?

  I took the letter opener out of Parker’s night stand. The paper sliced beneath the blade and my heart stopped.

  My hands shook so hard I couldn't get the letter out. I clawed at the envelope, freeing the page that fluttered into my lap.

  I held it close to my face, trying to see it through tears of denial.

  My Ruth,

  I have missed you every second of every day. My parole hearing is in two days but I don't care to be there. Why would I want my freedom if you aren't on this earth to join me? There isn't much for me to say, knowing your hands will never touch this paper, but that you have been my whole life, my reason for this hollow existence. But now....

  I shook my head, confused. He thought I died?

  I have many moments in life that I look back on, wishing I could change them, that I could have done something different. But there is not one second I ever spent with you that I would change but to have let myself love you sooner, to have comforted and known you long before I allowed myself to. I should have never fought it. I should have never let you fight it.

  I wish we had more time together. I wish I didn’t have to watch your wedding. I saw it all and understood none of it. Why did you do it? Why did you take that man? Why did you take your life? Why couldn't it have been me waiting for you at the altar?

  I dreamed for so long that it had been me, and the strange little boy who ran around you as you stood in white was ours. I know it's ridiculous but that's how I've spent the rest of my life away from you. I dreamed about you, about us, about what we never got to have.

  My soul screamed with self-loathing. I had never gotten to tell him. I had been too afraid for him to ever try. I had protected Hugh and William and lost them both.

  When Elizabeth came today, I told her I was excited to be free. I asked if you would want to see me. I think it made her angry, it must have hurt her so much to have to tell me that she had to bury you the day before.

  I love you. I never got to tell you how much and wish I had told you more. Please be waiting for me. I don't deserve heaven, I don't deserve you, but I will fight my way through the gates to be with you.

  I can't wait to see you,

  William.

  It was true. Reese hadn't been mistaken.

  Mother had won- not simply the battle, but the entire war.

  I felt the tiny prick but didn't realize what I had done. I laid across the foot of the bed, feeling prick after prick, until I began ravaging my wrists. The pain never eased.

  The torrents of rain thundering outside lolled me to the pond beneath the willow. I could feel him above me, inside me, and surrounding every part of me.

  The shredding of the flesh up my arm, the searing pain of my body along with my soul unleashing itself, all pulled me into a deep surrender.

  I couldn't escape.

  I couldn't be the mother I needed to be for Hugh. I couldn't be the wife Parker deserved. Olivia was going to have no faith in herself as a woman, because of me. My father was too weak to care, and my mother....

  My mother had won.

  I would gladly let her. I no longer had the strength or reason to fight. I had failed at everything. I had done nothing good in my life but birth children who deserved so much more than I could offer.

  I saw the spread of red from my peripheral. I had never witnessed anything so vibrant.

  I felt the cold metal of the envelope cutter digging and twisting in my arms. I didn't care to stop myself.

  I didn't think I would have tried to, had I known how.

  I was lost. I had always felt my body and my being as two, but in that moment a hint of my soul pulled itself out of the sand of medication and years of trauma. My mind was unable to grasp the torture of my life. My heart was too destroyed to hold and push away the burden.

  My soul snapped back into my body with a roar of rage and despondency.

  Hope and excitement silenced my writhing spirit as I reached for the end. I was so close I could smell him. I could hear his voice and I fled towards it.

  “I can't wait to see you, too,” I whispered to William.

  About the Author

  Brittany Chapman was born in Paducah, Kentucky. She now lives in Memphis, Tennessee with her dog. She often finds inspiration through music and bases characters on their zodiac traits. She is currently working on the next installment of the Taboo series.