The last secret_ a novel - Mary McGarry Morris [87]
“How about a movie?” he asks, aiming it.
“No!” She holds up her hand. “I like this.”
“You shouldn't be watching crap all the time. Your brain'll rot.” He changes the channel. CNN. A car bomb has exploded in an open-air market in Baghdad. Mangled bodies strewn everywhere.
“No it won't,” she gasps, staring up at the gruesome scene. The camera zooms in on a small, dead thing. On her back, limbs splayed, lies a little, dark-haired girl surrounded by tumbled fruit.
“Yes it will. See, that's why you're sick, it's already started. Pretty soon pieces of your brain'll start leaking out your eyes and your nose.” The old storm of rage and absurdity surges through him. He doesn't even care, so why bother trying to reason with this brat. But it's her fear, her cowering, that exhilarates him. He leans over her, his hard-on rubbing against the bed. “Little by little, then it starts coming out your mouth and you choke.” Holding his throat, he pretends to gag.
“Where's Mommy?” She cringes into the pillows.
“I don't know.” He looks around and laughs. “You keep making her get things for you. Maybe she got sick of it and left.”
“Where? Where'd she go?”
“On a trip maybe, someplace far away. Maybe there, that place.” He points to the television, to the close-up of a grief-stricken old woman in black. Kneeling, arms beseechingly wide, she wails into the camera. He turns the volume up high, higher, until her eerie keening fills the room.
Limp again. This time it's her. He can't stand the kid, it's reached that point. Too demanding. Whining and spoiled. Pampered little princess with ribbons in her hair, propped against the pillows, surrounded by her new stuffed animals and books. Barely looked at his get-well balloon, only thanked him with Robin's coaxing. When's my Daddy coming, she keeps asking her mother and, every time she says it, stares at him. Shut up little bitch, he wants to yell. She knows how to push her mother's buttons. All he wants is to be alone with Robin, impossible with two kids and her mother always nosing around. And the husband, he keeps calling. Every night, bawling, begging her forgiveness. He's coming home soon and everything'll be different, she'll see. Yeah, right, Bob. Real different; she won't even be here, asshole, he wants to grab the phone and say. Meanwhile, he's running out of time. He knows what she'll say so he can't ask. A vacation, he keeps telling her. Money's not a problem. She needs to get away. Someplace warm. Just the two of them. She thinks he means her and the brat.
Her pillows fall on the floor. Inconsolable, Lyra is curled on her side with the blanket over her head. Her shoulders convulse with her sobs.
“Don't cry.” He picks up a pillow and stands by the bed. Wouldn't take long for a kid. Not as long as Bevvie, drugged-out whore but strong as a man. Strangling finally did the trick. Made him sick to his stomach, though, all the gagging and gurgling. Lisa, now that was quick, surprising with such a meaty gullet.
“Excuse me,” comes a voice from behind. “Is this room three twenty-four? I'm looking for … oh! I remember you.” Ken Hammond looks confused.
“Hey! Sure!” Eddie holds out his hand, says his name. “Robin'll be right back.”
“Uncle Ken!” Lyra cries, throwing back the blanket.
“Lyrrie.” Ken Hammond sits on the edge of the bed and hugs her. “Poor sweet baby,” he croons into her hair. “I didn't know you were sick. I just found out. Your granana told me.”
“I got the flu,” the child whimpers, staring up at Eddie now, triumphantly, taunting him, he knows, as he tries to tamp down his fury. At her. At this preppie asshole Hammond in his open-neck blue shirt and brass-buttoned blazer. “I kept throwing up. On the couch and Mommy's bed,