Page 13 of The Kill Clause
“Daddy?” she mutters.
I’m time traveling again. In the closet on Black Friday, watching my father kill my mother. Sitting frozen, shock keeping me locked in place, world shattering. I watched life leave her kind brown eyes, which went from loving to blank. I’ve replayed that moment a thousand times. What could I have done? Should I have done?
You were a child,Dr. Black repeats when it comes up, as it often does.You were in no way responsible for any of it. You were powerless. Defenseless. That’s the condition of childhood. We’re at the mercy of our parents’ choices.
Maybe Dr. Black would say, if she knew the truth of my profession, that in my work, I am killing my father, avenging my mother, over and over. And now, after so many years, I’ve realized finally that there’s no turning back the clock, no righting this cosmic wrong. And that my recent depression is really just grief.I feel like your heart’s just not in this anymore, Paige.But maybe the truth is that my heart’s in it for the very first time since that night thirty years ago.
I pull one of Bryce’s jackets from a hanger and cover Apple with it. She’s hidden, safe for now behind the island. I take a stand in the dark to the right of the door, waiting.
8.
Do you still love him?” asked Dr. Black.
“I don’t know if I ever did.” Another lie. Maybe I loved Julian too much.
In my memories, and sometimes in my dreams, I go back to that crappy motel in New Mexico, somewhere between Santa Fe and Albuquerque, miles from anything. The Sleep Tight Motel, sitting beside a deserted rural road, dilapidated and nearly empty, just a single car in the parking lot.
Julian had been waiting awhile when I arrived. He stood up from the chair where he’d obviously been watching out the window. He looked disheveled, tired.
“I didn’t think you’d come.”
“I almost didn’t.”
“I can’t do this anymore,” he said. I felt a pulse of sadness but also relief. I thought he was ending it. But then he swept his arm wide to indicate the seedy room. “I want a home with you, a real life.”
“What does that mean to you?” I asked. “How do we make areallife in the context of what weare.”
He shook his head. “We’re more than this, aren’t we? More than what we do for a living. I can be better. Do better. You’re right. About so many things.”
“Are we? Are we more than this? It’s not like we’re accountants or lawyers, looking for a better work-life balance.”
He smiled at that, moved in. God, I could never resist him. His arm looped around the small of my back. He pushed a strand of my hair behind my ear. Those eyes, that kiss. I let myself melt into him. In our most intimate moments, I knew there was no one else on this earth for me but him.
We made love on a squeaky bed, the flashing neon sign washing it in yellow.
“You know what I think the truth is,” he said as I lay in the crook of his arm afterward. A semi roared past the motel, and everything shook. “You don’t want to be happy.”
“Maybe we don’t deserve to be happy,” I told him. “Look at how we live.”
“See,” he said sadly.
We made love again. Holding me, he wept. Then he fell into a deep sleep. He was still sleeping when I woke again after drifting off in his arms.
I moved from his warmth, slipping from his embrace carefully. Pulled on my clothes, watching him. His beauty. His power. His love. I didn’t deserve any of it.
I left him there, drove away down that dark highway.
The truth is that Julian is not the asshole.
I am.
Now, I stand to the side of the walk-in closet door, out of sight. My breath is measured. I wait, gun in hand. There’s the whisper of movement in the bedroom.
I’m trying to decide if it’s better to rush out shooting or keep my position and wait for him to enter the closet. Here I have the advantage of surprise but no exit. If I rush out, I make myself vulnerable. My heart is a drum.
Another shuffle.
Then the darkness of the doorway morphs, and a large masked figure moves into the closet. I’m surprised. It’s an amateur move to walk into a space where you know someone is hiding, not checking your blind spots.
