That blanket was heavy and dragging, wet with rain, and so I dropped it outside. Through the big doors, I could see Jake inside, the back of him, flying up the stairwell to Lila’s room. I saw the glass on the table next to me, empty of its brown liquid, his chair knocked over from rising with fury.
The shouting from Lila’s room had already started. You let her run around! Jake yelled. You’re not her father! Lila yelled back. You’re raising a slut, Jake said, and then there was the sound of a slap. And then him again: Goddamn you!
This fight, the last one, it wasn’t about Jake’s crimes or the FBI or stolen paintings. It was about me. Me, and whether or not I belonged to myself. Her, and whether or not she did.
I’m leaving you! Get out of here!
It’s my house, you stupid bitch. You think you’ll leave me? You’ll never leave me.
Thuds, crashing. Screaming. Her screaming. Max ran in circles downstairs, whining, trotting half up the stairs and down again.
I had to do something. I felt in my pocket for my phone.
But it wasn’t there. It wasn’t there! Where was it? I had no idea. I ran outside to look on the patio, but no. It could have fallen out of my pocket down at the beach when we were on the blanket, or while we were running, or on the stairs. It could be anywhere. I remembered the security system, that button with the little red cross that meant emergency. I ran to the box on the wall and pushed and pushed and pushed the button.
And then came a scream like I’d never heard before. A primitive sound. A terror sound. I grabbed Max by the collar and practically threw him into the garage and I shut the door. I didn’t know if help was coming. I couldn’t wait for it if it was, because it might be too late by then.
I was in a panic. I didn’t know what to do. Something. Something! I would scare Jake—that was my plan, if you could call it a plan. I went into the kitchen. I grabbed one of those knives. One of those fancy kitchen knives stuck on that magnetic holder.
And then I ran upstairs.
I did.
On the stairwell, I saw that poster of Lila on the ground, the glass broken as if a fist had gone through it. I ran to their room. The door was open, and I saw Jake with his arm raised. He was coming at her. I saw a flash of black. I thought it was a gun, maybe.
“Stop it, stop it, stop it!” I shouted.
Lila looked at that knife and screamed. “Baby, no!” She grabbed the knife from me. And as Jake charged toward her, she thrust out her hand and the knife went in. God, into his body! His eyes looked at us both in shock. Blood started to… just seep through his shirt. I shut my eyes. I turned away, put my head in my hands in horror and confusion, but not before I saw the expression on his face. Disbelief. Betrayal. How could you?
My head was turned away, but I heard it, the crashing stumble backward, the hard thud of his landing.
And then Lila began to sob. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to.”
I looked. She was on her knees, next to him. She was stroking his forehead. Blood was pooling beneath him, soaking the hem of her satin robe. He didn’t look right. His eyes didn’t. A terrible sound was coming from his throat.
“Baby, help me here!” Lila craned his neck back, breathed into his open mouth. Her hands and arms were all bloody and it didn’t look real. Nothing seemed real. It was like an R. W. Wright movie, the blood, the body, the girls, but the one girl was frozen; she just stayed frozen for way too long, and the body didn’t get up again—it just lay there.
“Baby, what am I going to do?” Lila was crying. She was pleading. “You’ve got to help me. Please, you’ve got to help me.”
She stared and stared into my eyes. And even through the cold distance of being frozen, even through the unreality of the film playing, I knew what she was asking.
An ambulance arrived, and then the police. There was a sudden swirl of lights and people, and the house was full of cops and attendants. A different van came, and Jake’s body was taken outside on a rolling stretcher, and Lila’s attorney, Bill Greer, suddenly appeared.
It was all a spinning mass of confusion, but when Detective Don Chambers leaned toward me and said, “Sydney, can you tell me what happened?” it was clear what I was supposed to do. I was guilty anyway. I felt guilty. I’d wanted and I’d taken and now I was getting punished, like the dirty, slutty girls in the R. W. Wright books. I’d been hungry, and hungry was wrong and bad, and now look. That fight had been about me, and I had gotten that knife, and I didn’t listen hard enough to the ghost when she’d tried to speak. I would help Lila, just like she asked me to.
“Sydney, can you hear me?” Detective Chambers asked. His eyes looked into mine. I wasn’t sure if my heart was beating or not.
“I didn’t mean to do it,” I said.