Turn of Mind - Alice LaPlante [98]
And kept stealing. Until Amanda stopped him.
Yes.
And you told her that you had returned it. All of it. And were repaying your debt to society by working at the clinic. But you hadn’t. You managed to keep her from knowing.
It was our secret, yes, James’s and mine.
Then Dad died. And you were deteriorating. I found it all out when going through your papers. At first I thought you didn’t know about it, that it was all Dad. But then of course I realized you must have known. And ever since I assumed financial power of attorney, Amanda had been asking me questions. Probing. Somehow she found out there was money. Too much money. That she had been your dupe. That I’d been corrupted, as you had been. She couldn’t stand that.
James had been right to worry about Fiona. It was too much for her.
And then she kept harassing you. Wouldn’t give up. Despite your condition. That afternoon, you’d had a fight. Magdalena told me. You were terribly upset. She had to take you to the ER. They had to inject you to calm you down. Magdalena called me. She was furious. That woman has gone too far, she said. I wasn’t able to get there until late—I had a faculty event I couldn’t get out of. So I drove up around ten PM. I parked in front of your house, walked to Amanda’s. I can still see the expression on her face when she opened the door. Triumphant. No regrets. She had wormed what she needed out of you. And set to work on me. The things she said, horrible things. About you, Dad, and especially me.
Amanda told me, I put a stop to it back then, and I will not have you perpetuate it now. With your father dead and your mother the way she is, you can discover the past crimes of your parents and make restitution. Recreate yourself as an ethical citizen.
The person is deep into the story and startles when spoken to.
Keep an eye on Fiona, James told me when she was still very young. Not even ten years old. You know what worried him the most?
What, Mom?
All the caretaking. Of her brother. Giving it all away and leaving herself defenseless. She’s at risk, he told me. Watch her carefully.
Amanda was going to report me, Mom. It would have been the end of us, our family, what little was left. And she told me such things. About Dad, about you. Nasty things. Amanda at her worst, her supercilious morality on full display. She would recreate me in her image, she said. A righteous image. I was so distraught, so angry. I pushed my way past her into the house. I had no plans. But somehow I found myself shaking her by the shoulders—I had to reach up, she is so tall. She laughed at me— at my ineffectiveness, at my—my weakness. So I gave her a hard shove. And she fell backward, hitting her head on the corner of that oak table in her hallway. So much blood! And the world just stopped turning. I knelt down, tried to feel for a heartbeat: nothing. I was desperate. Bloodied and shaking with the chills and the horror of it all. I couldn’t think clearly. I just ran—got in my car and began driving home, driving too quickly. It’s amazing I didn’t get stopped. I was past Armitage when I realized I didn’t have my Saint Christopher medal. Your medal. It was there in Amanda’s hand when I got back, but rigor mortis had already set in. I must have been sitting there for some time when you found us. I was just out of my mind.
All my beloved, gone. Except the one, the girl.
I didn’t know you were there until you came up behind me, knelt down. You held me for a moment. Then you took me by the arm, pulled me up, and moved me away from the body.
A botched job. A cruel job.
I was out of my mind.
But that terrible tableau. There on the floor. All the blood. But worst of all, the look on her face. Horror, yes, but something else. Satisfaction.
You know the rest, and after, how I scrambled to remove any evidence.
An unwelcome vision. It keeps visiting me. But is it true?
The person covered its face.
The two people you love most in the world. And it’s not the death that matters, but the look on your darling’s face. The dark joy. Unbearable.
You never hesitated. You just set