Smoke hung chest-high in the living room, but neither Aiden nor April was standing. They sat on the couch with blank stares, every slow wave of the smoke’s movement visible as if they were watching wisps of clouds roll and build in the room. Both of them lit cigarettes end to end, maybe to calm their nerves or maybe just to keep from having to talk to each other.
The television was the only sound, and a commercial of some blonde walking around a warehouse of rugs in Asheville cut to a commercial of a car dealership in Canton, where these two gap-toothed children slurred how their daddy’s business was the best place to buy a new car in all of western North Carolina. April didn’t need to look at the television to see what was happening. Those two commercials played over and over every day no matter if it was lunchtime and The Young and the Restless was on, or it was a two-in-the-morning infomercial. She’d seen them a thousand times.
Mittens slept on the top of the couch behind April’s head and she felt him wake for a second to lap a few strokes down his side. The place was so still that even that slight movement startled her, the world having become so fragile all of a sudden. Neither had said a word since the deputies left, nor had they shed a tear, Aiden having never cried that April’d seen, and she was just unsure what to feel. She was numb. Nothing had sunk in.
The television flicked to the ten o’clock news, and both April and Aiden turned when they heard her voice. A short young blonde with big hips who wore a black pencil skirt and white blouse stood in the church parking lot and delivered the opening story, the headline at the bottom reading, At Least Three Dead in Jackson County.
“We have breaking news out of Jackson County tonight as a gunman confesses to killing three before taking his own life.” The camera broke away and panned across the parking lot filled with patrol cars, then zoomed in on the front door of the church as her voice unfolded over the scene. “Authorities have yet to release the suspect’s name but confirmed that an armed man walked into the church you see here in the Little Canada community of Jackson County this afternoon and admitted to killing three people before turning the gun on himself. Lieutenant Jimmy Shelton of the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office has also confirmed that upon arriving at one of the locations given by the suspect in his confession, deputies uncovered a grisly scene.”
The camera turned to a recording of Lieutenant Shelton standing in the church parking lot with his feet spread shoulder-width apart and his hands behind his back.
“Upon initial investigation into one of the locations our suspect identified, deputies found the bodies of two female individuals, both deceased,” Lieutenant Shelton explained.
The camera zoomed out and showed the reporter standing next to the lieutenant, her line of questioning ensuing thereafter.
“Can you say how these two women were killed?”
“I can’t give any details at this time.”
“Can you identify the victims?” the reporter prodded.
“All I can say is that, upon arriving, deputies found the bodies of two female individuals. We are not releasing any names at this time.”
“Do you know if there is any connection between the suspect and these women?”
“Not at this time.”
“What other locations are deputies looking into?”
“I can say that the suspect indicated a second location and that our deputies are on scene as we speak.”
“But deputies have not found the body of a third victim?”
“Not at this time. We’re releasing no other information. This investigation is ongoing.” With that, Lieutenant Shelton walked off camera and left the young reporter standing in the parking lot.
“While it is unclear how the suspect knew the victims and whether or not there is, in fact, a third victim involved, a witness at the church when the gunman took his own life says that the suspect indicated a third.”
“I wasn’t actually there when he said it, but, yes, he told the pastor there were three.” He stood on-screen in black slacks and a white button-down shirt and scratched at the side of his face, the runner beneath him identifying him as Samuel Mathis, Church Deacon. All it took was seeing him, hearing his voice, for April to panic. She slapped around the couch looking for the remote before seeing it on the coffee table, and April snatched it and mashed the POWER button over and over with her hand quivering at the screen. The television stayed on and Samuel Mathis slicked his red hair back on his head and continued. “We’re praying for everyone involved.” He was staring directly into the camera, his green eyes holding that same hollow deadness she would always remember. “It’s always horrible when something like this happens.”
Rising from the couch, April threw the remote at the television as hard as she could but missed and hit the wall. The remote broke apart on impact. In two strides, she was there and she hit the power on the set, but it didn’t turn off. Samuel was still on the screen and the reporter was asking him another line of questions and April jabbed the button over and over but the TV stayed on. She rained down on the top of the set with her fists, hammered as hard as she could, but none of it was doing any good, and Aiden stood to help her. Grabbing behind the set, she slid the television off its stand, and as it rolled onto its face, the cord yanked from the outlet and there was silence.
She forgot Aiden was there until he touched her arm, her scared and flinching when she felt him. Aiden wrapped his arms around her and held her so tight that she couldn’t fall, and she wept against his chest.
April had cried like that only one other time in her life and there had been no one there to comfort her then. She shook with her hands clenched against her chest, her face buried into Aiden, and shuddered from somewhere deep inside. She could feel the pain and the fear and the memories physically push out of her body bit by broken bit, piece by shattered piece, until there was nothing left to give.
As the tears waned, April’s thoughts cleared and she realized that she was weeks away, a month at most, from leaving behind this place and everything that haunted her. For the first time in her life, she felt in complete control. She felt all of the fear that had kept her in secrecy for so long vanish, and all that was left was an unbearable anger. She was filled with it. She could feel the words roiling inside of her. She could feel them taking form and rising from within, a fire that had smoldered for so long in the absence of air. She could taste the words in her mouth and she began to speak them, and the minute they touched air the entire world caught fire. She told Aiden everything that she’d sworn she would never say, everything that had nearly gnawed her into nothing. And as those words came, she could feel everything she’d ever known burning. She could feel herself being rebuilt, something new taking shape.
There was a memory of being young and pregnant and crying her eyes out in her car after being spit on by some woman she didn’t know, some woman who held a Bible as April walked out of the abortion clinic. April had somehow missed her when she went inside and it was her own guilt that had kept her from filling out the paperwork, that kept her from doing what that woman cursed her for when she left. Sitting there in that room just minutes before, she hadn’t even been able to spell her name.
She remembered having to sit her parents down and tell them when she finally started to show, her having hoped for so long that maybe she’d miscarry, praying to God she’d miscarry, but that prayer going unanswered just the same as every one before.
She thought of the day she gave birth to Thad and how she was scared and in pain and how there was no one there to tell her that things were going to be okay, that everything was going to be fine, and she didn’t know if hearing those things that most people hear would’ve meant anything to her right then or not, because none of those things were true right then. Things weren’t okay. Everything wasn’t going to be all right. The world was entirely broken.
She remembered when the doctor handed over her son to her for the first time and how she couldn’t bear to look at him, much less bear the thought of having to raise him and take care of him. Everyone makes sacrifices, the hospital chaplain told her, but he could never understand. This was having your innocence stolen and then being told that you’re going to hold that feeling in your hands and nurture it. You’re going to look into its eyes and smile. You’re going to grit your teeth and love every minute.
Now that all of that fear and anger had settled onto the place it belonged, she was filled with an immense sadness. She could see so clearly what she’d done, the person she’d punished and how that punishment had led to this.
“I’m sorry I never loved him,” April said with her face still buried in Aiden’s chest, and though Aiden squeezed her tighter he did not say a word.
So much of April was still that scared little girl, but there was an older, wiser self now that just wanted to go back and hold that eighteen-year-old and tell her that everything was going to be fine, everything would be okay. But she couldn’t go back and there was no sense in it even if she could. The only place she could go was forward.
She was headed to someplace better.