Page 58 of The Therapist
‘It’s the kids’ birthdays, their dates um…um…twenty-third of the sixth and twenty-ninth of the ninth…two, three, six, two, nine, nine.’
I can’t turn the wheel of the padlock and hold the gun so I step back. ‘Do it,’ I say and he does but the combination doesn’t work.
‘I’m calling the police.’ I glance back to the house as I say it. Ben is still watching me. I had no idea what would happen here tonight and I feel as if I’m making this up as I go along.
I can’t wait anymore and this is not working the way I thought it should. I imagined Sandy would reveal herself, would reveal the game and I would have caught them in the act. I didn’t expect the scream.
Using one hand, I take my phone out of my bag and press triple zero. The police need to be here no matter what happens. Hopefully they can sort out what’s been going on.
‘I’m calling the police, Ben,’ I yell so he knows what I’m doing. I turn quickly and then I see what I’ve been waiting for on Ben’s face.
I see a flicker of panic.
I turn back to Mike, lifting my phone a little so Ben can see me make the call. I look down at the screen.
‘No, Mike, don’t hurt her,’ I hear Ben shout from the window, and I swing around to look at him. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Mike move towards me, and without thinking, I squeeze the trigger of the gun.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Sandy
I am filled with glee as I watch what’s happening, watch what my screams, my schemes have produced.
He is filled with panic and I’m so excited to see it. He will get what’s coming to him. He will pay for trapping me in a banal existence with someone incapable of giving me what I needed.
I watch from the back of the garden, standing behind the thick trunk of a gum tree, protected by the darkness and wrapped in the wind, my body shivering with cold or excitement.
This is better than I could have ever hoped and I know that tomorrow, when this is all over, I will want to remember everything. I will want to savour it so that I can go over it in my mind again and again.
Come on, come on, I think as I watch her slightly shaking hand holding the gun.
Do it. Do it now.
I glance up at the house, see him watching from the window.
And then she yells that she is calling the police and I can feel it all unravelling. It can’t go wrong now. I have waited for this moment for too long, planned for it for too long.
‘No, Mike, don’t hurt her,’ he shouts down into the garden, his voice carrying the threat to the woman with the gun and the man fumbling with the lock, to my therapist, Lana, and ‘the husband’, Mike.
The hand holding the gun trembles with panic and then she does it, just like that.
She shoots him.
I want to leap out and announce myself but I know I need to stay hidden, that I need to savour this alone. Joy runs through me as I look up at the window of a bedroom and see him there, watching me, watching it all and then – he’s gone.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Mike
An explosion of sound fills the air, too loud to have come from such a small gun. Echoes bounce around the garden as the sound stretches and Mike’s ears ring.
He feels like the physical force of the sound pushes him backwards and he stumbles as his foot hits something and twists. And then he goes down, his head banging against something hard and sharp.
Pain begins to spread through his body as his head spins.
He tries to get up, to make his body move because he needs to get to the kids, needs to protect them from whatever is going on.
White stars dance in front of his eyes and his limbs won’t move.
