The Dead Husband by Carter Wilson (guided reading books .TXT) 📕

crunch that can only be some part of him breaking in two.

Silence. Desperate, painful silence, interrupted only by my own breaths. I’m still pressing my back against the wall, wishing I could disappear within it, transport to anywhere but here. Cora stands at the top of the stairs, her back to me, arms lifted by her side, a scarecrow.

Maybe two minutes have passed since Caleb first emerged from the bedroom.

Cora descends, slowly, one stair at a time, until her figure disappears from my view.

That’s when I hear the distant sound of the motorized garage door opening and then, a few seconds later, closing.

Dad’s home.

Forty-Five

November 13

Present Day

I wake screaming. This isn’t unusual after I have the dream, but Max is in my bed and my shriek startles him to tears. It’s his habit to come into my bed after I’ve fallen asleep about once a week, and I hadn’t even known he was in here tonight.

“It’s okay,” I tell him. “I was just having a dream.” I reach out to rub his back but he pulls away from me, angry. “You know that I have bad dreams from time to time.”

“You scared me,” he says, his voice muffled into his pillow.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

He says nothing. I reach out and touch his shoulder, and he pulls away.

I’m so tired of trying.

I’m so tired of everything.

I fall back into my pillow knowing sleep won’t come easily, if at all. The sweat cools on my neck, and I see Cora in my mind as I saw her hours ago at the trailhead, arms spread, knife grasped in her right hand, facing the woods as if praying to some god who listens only to her.

My mind races. I focus on my breathing and repeat a mantra, hoping it will help.

I am.

I am.

I am.

My heartbeat slows and, after time, sleep tugs at me, but there’s the problem with all this. I’m too exhausted to do anything but stay in bed, yet I don’t want to sleep. I don’t want to return to the place I just was, the world of my past. I’d rather go through my day torpid and dizzy with fatigue than keep reliving that horror.

I am.

I am.

I am.

A voice tears into my head. She sounds an awful lot like me, but there’s no bullshit about her. She’s the part of me that forces my eyes open when all I want to do is look away.

You are WHAT, exactly?

I don’t know, I tell her, this reasoning Rose. I just am.

Wrong. Everyone can be defined as something. Let’s start basic, Rose. Are you a good person or bad person?

I’m a good person.

This Rose isn’t buying it. She says, I’ll let you believe that. But would you agree that good people are capable of doing things society considers bad?

Yes, of course.

So here’s a more specific question, and I don’t want you to think about good or bad, right or wrong. Just facts. The question is this: Are you a killer?

I don’t answer but rather repeat my mantra, telling this Rose my words have nothing to do with her question.

I am.

I am.

I am.

Okay, fine, ignore me. Let’s talk about someone else. Let’s talk about Cora.

This is easier. Okay.

Is Cora a killer? she asks me.

Yes.

But is she a good person?

I don’t hesitate. No.

How about this one…a question you’ve thought about before, more so tonight than ever before. Has Cora killed again?

Yes, I reply. The dog.

No, not the dog. People. People like Caleb. Innocent people.

Caleb wasn’t innocent, I tell her, hearing the weakness of my argument in my own thoughts.

You don’t really know that. Based on everything you remember from that night, do you truly believe he was trying to hurt Cora?

It’s what I’ve always let myself believe, because it’s the only way to rationalize what happened. He must have been trying to hurt her. Maybe she overreacted, maybe she—

Cut the shit, Rose. You’re still rationalizing. Answer without thinking. Answer from your soul. Answer from the place you’ve been unwilling to explore for twenty-two years. Do you think Caleb was trying to hurt Cora?

No.

Do you think she enjoyed killing him?

Yes.

Do you know why she did it?

Because she’s broken. She’s different and she’s broken.

Good, Rose, we’re making progress here. You won’t sleep and you’ll feel like hell tomorrow, but we’re making progress. So given all you know about her, all your interactions from the past and present, do you think Cora has killed again?

I have no idea.

What if she has, Rose? What are you going to do about it?

I can’t change the past.

She’s still young. She’s got a lot of years ahead of her. Just think what she’s capable of. Not to mention the influence she’s passing down to that little Lizzie Borden of hers.

I never really thought it was—

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO, ROSE?

I give my own mind one final answer. One answer, as I lie here in the dark, listening to the soft snores of Max, to whom sleep comes with ease and he doesn’t even realize what a gift that is.

In the dead of this night, I answer.

I have to stop her.

Forty-Six

Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin

November 15

Colin never appreciated the dark as much as he did now. In his living room, ten o’clock at night, all things silent, all lights off. He’d spied stray ambient light from the digital thermostat and put duct tape over it.

Curtains drawn, taped flush to the wall.

Darkness, like a womb.

A delicate, fertile womb. It was Colin’s world now. Maybe just for tonight. Maybe for the rest of his life. But in this womb, Colin felt some kind of relief. Certainly not happiness. But relief. Like pain being transferred from one body part to another.

Also, he was drunk.

He stumbled in the darkness to the refrigerator and opened it. Brilliant light flooded him, causing him to recoil. He reached inside and grabbed an eighth beer. Twisted the cap off, then closed the door, entombing himself in the blackness once again.

Comfort in the void, he thought. Colin tipped the bottle back