In the highest and most exposed part of the field, I walked to see my Annie. Her melodic laughter whistled through the trees. As I knelt down at the tree line, in front of her tiny grave marker, I could almost feel her standing over my shoulder, watching me with a curious, accusatory smile. Why, mama? Why did you let me fall?
The fall had killed her. But Andy had facilitated the fall. Ultimately, though, I was responsible. I was her protector. Her mother. I should have dug my toes into the dirt, held my ground. Never should have left her with that man. I knew better, and that’s why I’d been so worried in the first place when he’d taken her out there…
Ten years—that’s how long I waited to kill him. After Annie died, he eventually went back to his old ways—drinking and screaming. Setting the emotional tone in our family. I imagined our house was made of cards. One wrong move, and the whole thing would come tumbling down…
I moved out of our bedroom and slept with Krissy, never leaving her side, even when she was older. She thought I was overprotective, sure, but she and I both knew the real reason. I couldn’t stand to lose another daughter.
I stopped fighting with Andy. If he yelled or stomped, I grew quiet. I stared at him with such viciousness sometimes that I think it scared him. Hell, it scared me. There’s anger and then there’s anger, the kind of fury that burns deep inside your chest and has no place to go. Sometimes, I wondered if actual steam was emitting from my ears and nose.
Andy took to leaving the house for long bouts of time—either on drinking benders or running around with that mistress of his. I fantasized about killing him so many times, but I didn’t…I didn’t think I had it in me.
After Krissy left, I gave him most of our savings and told him to go stay with his mistress. I thought he’d put up more of a fight than he did, but he didn’t. He left. I thought he’d left for good…
When he showed back up, he didn’t beg me to take him back and promise to change his drinking, cheating ways…he told me he was moving back in. He also told me that he blew through the savings I gave him.
It’s strange how when you live with someone abusive, you get so used to it. What’s also strange is how quickly you become repelled by men like that once you escape…so, when he turned back up and he raised his fist…I raised a metal shovel and brought it down over his head.
I didn’t mean to kill him. That initial smack was an accident…it was self-defense. But I just kept going…I wish I could say that it felt awful. Unnatural. But it didn’t. It felt like I was finally doling out justice for Annie.
Maybe his evil and meanness slithered out from his body and was absorbed into my own.
A monster lurks inside me. Or maybe I am the monster. Maybe I always have been…
Every time I close my eyes, I can feel that shovel in my palm…I can see the red river of blood engulfing his entire face…
“I got you something, angel eyes.” I blinked back tears and pressed a hand on my daughter’s flimsy marker. It was all I could afford at the time, with the farm going under, and after a while, I grew used to it, not wanting to replace the marker. It was silly—I was worried that if I disturbed it and put up a new one, she might not come back. That her ghost might become lost to me…
In my hand, I held a pack of cheap plastic toys, the kind you can get for a few dollars. Wasn’t much, but I’d seen it on the shelf at Dollar Tree, and I’d spotted tiny black horses mixed among the sheep and chickens in the pack. My hands shook as I scooped the horses out, one by one. There were six of them in all. Tenderly, I lined them up on the grass in front of Annie’s marker.
That damn horse. Its name was Midnight, a name we let Krissy choose. Should have been mad at the horse, but I couldn’t bring myself to get angry at an animal. Annie loved him. We took her to the zoo in St. Paul once, and instead of being interested in the real animals, she was drawn to a sparkly old carousel. Cost a dollar each time you rode. There were at least a dozen horses, with elaborate roses carved on their saddles and manes. She chose the plain black one without a saddle. Looking back, I wonder if she somehow knew a plain black horse would go and kill her…
After the accident, Andy had put that beautiful creature down. I locked Krissy and I in my bedroom and turned on Mickey Mouse to drown out the sound of gunfire when he did it…
“Clara?” Startled, I jerked my head around, surprised to see Sergeant DelGrande standing in the field behind me. It was early, barely daylight.
He was standing with his legs apart, clutching his hat to his chest. His hair was thinner and grayer than it used to be and for the first time, I noticed the thickness of his jowls and the drooping of his shoulders. He’d always been such a kind man. Never could understand why he liked to hang around with Andy.
“Sorry to interrupt you, but we need to talk about something important,” he said, solemnly. My heart fluttered in my chest.