The Almost Moon - Alice Sebold [96]
“No.”
“Well, what?”
“Your grandmother is dead,” I said.
“What?”
“She died last night, and I called your father.”
Sarah grabbed my arm.
“Mom, that’s huge. Were you there?”
“We’re not walking,” I said.
“Were you?”
“Yes.”
Sarah dragged me toward her and tried to hug me. Despite her bloodline, she had always been one for touch. Emily had called her “Face Invader” when they were teenagers because Sarah didn’t know when close was too close.
“You’re all bones,” she said.
I pulled back and looked at her. I felt the tears in my eyes and knew they would fall.
“And you’re my beautiful child,” I said.
“Mom, it’s okay. You did everything for her.” She offered me her beer, but I shook my head.
“I killed her, Sarah.”
“That’s ridiculous. She sucked you dry.”
“Don’t.”
“I’m sorry. And I’m sorry she’s dead, but come on, you sacrificed yourself to her.”
“You’re not understanding me,” I said. I turned out of her embrace and looked back in the direction of the car. We were so far down in a hollow I could not see the main road.
The fields were wheat or barley. I had spent my life surrounded by them, but they were only various colored patches of earth to me, things that were good mainly because they were not buildings being built. I’d never known a farmer in my life.
“Listen. I’m sorry. I know you loved her, but Emily and I both think she’s why you never had a life.”
“I had a life,” I said. “I had the two of you.”
She paused. “Dad came all that way because Grandma died?” Something had twitched in her brain.
“Yes.”
“But he hated her.”
“That’s not why,” I said.
“Then what?”
“I’ve been trying to tell you. Because I,” I said, pointing to myself and waiting a beat, “killed her.”
I could see it begin to sink in. I could not make it go away. No Bactine for this wound, no soothing salve or spray.
“You what?”
“I suffocated her with a hand towel.”
Sarah backed away from me and dropped the beer can.
“She was very out of it,” I said. I thought of my mother’s eyes looking up at me, of her ruby rings flashing in the porch light, and of the sound of her nose as it snapped. “I don’t think she even knew it was me.”
“Stop talking,” Sarah said.
“The police are investigating. Mrs. Leverton died this morning after they took her away in an ambulance.”
“Mom, shut up! What are you saying?”
“That I killed my mother.”
Sarah picked up the beer can and started walking back toward the car.
“Sarah,” I said, “there’s more.”
She pivoted.
“More?”
I felt suddenly heady with it.
“Your grandfather killed himself.”
“What?”
“My father committed suicide—your grandfather.”
“You’re smiling,” Sarah said. “Do you know how sick you look?”
“I’m just happy to finally tell you the truth.” I walked toward her. A butterfly-shaped barrette was coming lose from her hair. “Your father knows, but we agreed never to tell you and Emily.” I reached up to fix her barrette. She flinched.
“Honey?” I lowered my arm.
She felt for the barrette and ripped it out, a clump of her hair coming with it.
“Don’t do that,” I said.
“How?”
“He shot himself.”
“And you blamed her for that?”
“At first.”
“And later?”
“She was my mother, Sarah. She was ill. You know that.”
“I don’t know anything,” she said. “You said something about police.”
“The thing is,” I said, “Mrs. Castle found her, and she was, well . . .”
“Yes.”
“I washed her.”
Sarah’s face distorted, her lip curling as if she might soon be sick.
“Before or after?”
“After.”
“Oh, Jesus,” she said. She walked away from me but this time across the potted road and into the edge of the woods on the other side.
“Ticks,” I said.
She walked quickly back. “You killed Grandma, and you’re worried about Lyme disease?”
“She had soiled herself. I knew she wouldn’t want anyone to see her like that.”
She stared at me. It took me a moment, and then I realized.
“Not afterward,” I clarified. “She soiled herself that afternoon. I was trying to figure out how to clean her before I called hospice. That’s why I had the towels.”
“I want to see Dad.”
“I wanted to tell you myself. I thought it was important.”