Page 3 of Our Daughter's Bones
Mackenzie knew. She didn’t want to be separated from her mother. Her mother was all she had—even before what had happened tonight.
She stared at Melody blankly. A thick cloud of numbness cobwebbed her mind.
“They are assaulted and harassed!” Each word out of her mother’s mouth stung sharp. “Girls are not safeanywhere. Do you want that life? Do you want your mother to go to prison? I know what I did was wrong, but do I deserve to spend my life in jail?”
Mackenzie shook her head.
“That’s my girl. You have to help me bury him.”
Mackenzie tore herself away from Melody and marched to the other side of the kitchen. She wanted to run. The muscles in her legs twitched, ready to leap into action. Could she go for a run now?
Melody stood on the other side of the center table. “Sweetheart. I know how it sounds. But there’s no other way. I don’t want to do this either. But we have no choice.”
The light fixture hung low over the table, illuminating Melody’s face, pinched in desperation. There was frenzy in her eyes. Mackenzie had seen in old pictures how her mother’s skin was like milk. Now, no inch of it was pristine. Bruises covered her face—some purple and some green.
Melody spent all her hard-earned money on three things: groceries, electric bills, and makeup.
“He hasn’t been a father to you for many years, darling. It doesn’t make this right, but it does make it less wrong. You must help me. Otherwise, we will lose whatever we have left.”
Is this right?Mackenzie’s neck was stiff, but she nodded.
Melody released a long-drawn breath and nodded back. “Thank you, darling. We’ll take him to the woods behind the house and bury him there.” She checked the clock. “Let’s leave in around twenty minutes. Doris goes on a walk in the evening, but she should be back around now. I want to make sure we don’t run into her. You know how prying that woman can be.”
Melody tied her hair up in a bun, took off her apron, and left the kitchen.
Mackenzie’s eyes flitted everywhere else in the room. She hadn’t noticed until now that the walls were lime green. The floor tiles were dirty yellow. The kitchen cabinets were painted a darker shade of green, with pictures of fruits and vegetables on a white strip stuck across.
The place looked old, like something from the eighties she’d seen on television.
The body on the other side of the kitchen had a jarring presence. It took all Mackenzie’s strength to keep her eyes glued on the clean stove and the cracks on the walls above it. She began counting them.
Why didn’t they ever fix the wall? Why didn’t they ever renovate the kitchen? Why was everything in this house falling apart?
Why did Dad start drinking?
Numbness was oddly powerful. It lasted longer than shock and fright, and it came quicker than guilt and sorrow. It was a shield. It kept everything at bay. But it was a silent killer. It bit into the soul without leaving any marks.
Mackenzie was rooted to the spot. She waited for her mother. Her mother would tell her what to do. She was always an obedient daughter; she always did the right thing. She never caused any trouble. She always listened to her mother.
Whenever Melody told her to stay in her room no matter what she heard, she did just that. She always sat on her bed and watched the tree outside her window while her mother begged and her father yelled.
Melody walked in with a white bed sheet. “Help me put him in this.”
Mackenzie swallowed the lump in her throat. With shaking hands, she held the other end of the sheet and spread it on the floor next to her father.
“You lift his legs. I’ll lift his shoulders.”
Her chest tightened when she held her father by the ankles. She didn’t even remember the last time she had touched him.Call someone. Call anyone.
“Lift at three. One… two… three!”
He was heavy. Mackenzie felt the strain in her lower back. They lifted him a few inches off the floor and dropped him on the sheet. She stepped back and watched Melody wrap it around him.
Melody was breathless when she finished. Her greasy hair stuck to the sides of her face. She wiped off the sweat on her forehead with the back of her hand. “I’ll go out and make a scene in the garden so that the neighbors think he’s still around. You wash the frying pan with bleach. Can you do that?”
Mackenzie must have nodded, because Melody looked satisfied.
“Then we’ll go outside and take care of this. Once we’re back, strip off all your clothes down to your underwear. I’ll put everything in the wash. Tomorrow morning I’ll go to the police station and report him missing.”
