The rocking chair in Nick’s room squeaked against the hard wood floors. Back and forth, back and forth. She held Nick’s worn blue blanket in her arms. Her head rested on the back of the chair; her eyes were closed. Harrison had gone into the woods after Mackenzie. Cora knew where the girl was headed. She was so stubborn and head strong. She probably could have made a clean escape but Cora knew that despite being held captive and starved, when freed she would head to the cemetery.
The older woman pushed against the floor with her foot to move the chair again. The motion was hypnotic. Nick, it seems, had not betrayed their secret to his precious wife after all. Cora had won. In the end all might be revealed but she had won. Nick had been thinking of his mother, good or bad, when he drew his last breath. This thought alone was enough to make her smile, just a little.
Harrison was the only man on earth, other than Nick, that Cora had ever loved and trusted. He had taught her what she needed to know about the world and God and love over the years. He had saved her time and time again when her heart and body ached from being exposed to constant brutality. Harrison was soft and kind and good to her. Always. Though his life was in the outside world, he’d never forgotten her. Their relationship was hidden away, existing only in those woods with no other witnesses to it. Maybe it was more perfect because of that. It had become, always was, everything to her.
Nick was so much more than just a product of that relationship with Harry. That would have been enough, but he also served to thwart her father’s plan for the future of the Monroe clan. Nick was her revenge, the end to her struggle, her vindication. Her freedom, though she now chose to exist within those same walls that had imprisoned her her entire life. The two had been one person since the time he was born. Nobody really understood that.
She hugged Nick’s fleece blanket tightly to her, feeling a slight nausea rise in her stomach. It would have been a difficult thing to explain to an outsider, but just like she knew that Nick was a part of her, she also knew that James was her father. He was the culmination of a plan designed for her life when she was months old. He was exactly what her father wanted for as long as she could remember.
Once again Cora had obeyed his wishes, this time with her womb, just as her mother had so long ago. Yes, James was her father. She knew it when his tiny form was taking shape inside of her. She carried that thought with her when she felt his first movements, felt his first kicks. She prayed over it daily, begging God to take the child from her uterus and make her barren, unable to carry any of Bradford’s children.
When her prayers failed, she begged her father to beat her, the way he had beaten her mother that day at the swimming hole. She provoked him without fear. She accused him of putting this thing inside her. She said those words and saw his weathered face twist in surprise, then confusion, then anger. Eventually he smiled, a very hateful smile. He said she was insane but he didn’t lay a hand on her. Mostly because she wanted him to, but the years had also taken his strength. He mumbled about her insanity to Bradford. She heard them talk but didn’t care. She knew she had conceived this child with Bradford, her husband, in a very rare act of intimacy, but wasn’t to be fooled. This child, this miserable child, was absolutely her father.
Born very early on a hot Tuesday morning, from the moment his piercing wails reached the world, she knew that she’d been right. It was something in his eyes. Maybe something behind his eyes. Her father was close to death but God had cursed her yet again, forcing her to birth him all over again. She’d never, ever escape this misery. She’d endured enough for one lifetime. She couldn’t take anymore.
The family attorney read Edward Monroe’s will one morning shortly after his funeral. Bradford sat next to Cora, so cold and unemotional. She heard the words in her father’s will but it took time to fully understand the implication. Her father had essentially cut her out completely, barely made mention of Nick, and left the bulk of his personal holdings to James. He’d left his money to himself.
Now she sat in her son’s room, rocking in her chair, her heart continued to pound out a steady even rhythm, though inside, it was broken. The day was ending. The sun had never really come out from behind the black clouds, but when it had gone down over the horizon, those woods would be treacherous. That was good, she reasoned. Harrison would have the upper hand. The woods were his home. She stood and walked to the window. There was inky blackness on the other side of the glass. The window faced the front of the house and there was nothing really to see but darkness and rain, but she was transfixed. Harrison just had to do this one thing. Just one more time. And she would be free forever.
The past five years had been so peaceful. Harrison and Cora were together within the walls of her fortress. She was able, for a short time, to make peace with her son being gone. Out there in the world without her. That peace was short lived when the news came to her of his wife. A wife. Her mind was in turmoil. Harrison tried the best he could to calm her. He reassured her constantly but it was for nothing. Her son had taken a wife. He’d replaced her. She was inconsolable. He had no need for another woman. She had to find a way to remedy the situation, to make him remember. They were, and always would be, bound together forever in their secret.
The idea to have Nick murder her youngest son came to her years ago on a brutally hot Sunday morning during prayer. The idea was so perfect, she’d gasped as all the angles came together in her mind. This one simple act would bind all of them together forever, Cora, Harrison and Nick. Her son, of the union with Harrison, would inherit everything. Her father would be defeated. Finally.
Primed and renewed with purpose, Cora took it upon herself to groom Nick to complete his duty, without hesitation or resistance. Every day she did something, however small, to move the plan forward. The word of God was used and twisted, molded to support her cause. The brutality towards her younger son became a routine event, increasing in intensity as the days passed. She would make Nick watch, to let him see that it was okay. That this child wasn’t really wanted, he wasn’t one of them. Nick became so accustomed to hearing the words, to seeing it over a period of time he understood what she needed him to do, and believed it was right. Cora had offered to help him kill his brother. Nick stared for a long time into the small green eyes of the older woman.
“No. I want to do it all by myself,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for this for a long time.” He had turned six only weeks before.
Cora nodded.
That morning she woke him early and they prayed together. Nick was patient with her prayers. He listened without interruption. His eyes were closed. After that she held him to her for a long time and promised him that no matter what, she would take care of things once the deed was done. Though it wasn’t necessary, she repeated for him all the reasons that his brother needed to die. He stood by her and listened, his eyes large with understanding. He didn’t speak much. Refusing breakfast, he changed quietly into his bathing suit. He found Cora in the kitchen, kissed her, grabbed his towel and called for his brother.
James was already in his swim trunks out on the terrace. He went willingly when his older brother called him. The two walked together across the large clearing to the woods. It was still all so vivid in Cora’s mind. The grass, a dark, luscious green, had just been cut. She counted their footsteps. The ground must have been wet because blades of grass were sticking to the bottoms of their sandals as they walked. Counting, but it was all taking so long. Her mind was fuzzy and it almost looked like they were surrounded by fog, though the sky was a deep, clear blue. Nick had his arm around James, his little hand resting on his brother’s shoulder. Nick never looked back. He was luring the smaller child to his death.
Cora stood on the terrace until they disappeared into the woods. Twenty minutes went by. Nothing. Surely it didn’t take that long to complete this simple act. Her mind was in agony. Had something gone wrong? Was Nick unable to do what she had so carefully planned? She’d raced across the yard and into the clearing after them, frantic, but stopped short just before the swimming hole and froze out of sight behind a tree.
Nick had not been strong enough to keep his brother underwater. The smaller boy’s head popped up to the surface again and again sucking in air. James fought back with all his strength. He’d fought for his life that day. Nick became more consumed with rage as each minute passed, his attempts more violent. The two splashed across the small water hole, limbs flying. The turmoil punctuated by screams.
The struggle continued from the water onto land. Cora watched from that spot, not far away. Finally James, bloody, weak and beaten, fell to the ground.
“Daddy, help.” The last words the boy spoke, barely audible. He had not been calling for his mother that day. It was the comfort of his father that he sought. His only source of kindness.
Nick looked down and hesitated only a moment before smashing his brother’s head open repeatedly with a large rock. Cora could have stopped it, but there wasn’t anything in her that might have moved her to intervene. She didn’t see her son, a helpless child, lying on the ground bleeding to death. What she saw was her father. A man who had destroyed her life. Made it almost unbearable. James stared into her eyes during those last moments before he died.
Afterwards, Nick was panting from the ordeal and had to lean forward, his hands on his knees for several moments to collect himself, but a small satisfactory smile played on his lips. He puffed, “It’s done,” through heavy breath. Nick went to his mother and held her tight. The two stood still for a few moments together just staring at the boy’s body. Then she made Nick go and immerse himself in the swimming hole to wash the blood from his body. She recited part of the Baptismal rite while he washed, cleansing the sin from his body with God’s words. He was born again, this time as her only child. Nick left silently through the woods, wrapped in a towel, the way he had come.
Cora sat in the dirt and looked at James lying only yards from her. Blood oozed from his wounds into the dirt. It pooled around his head. But even the earth seemed to reject this child, refusing to yield, to accept this simple offering of his blood. James’ eyes were open. She wanted to touch him, to close them but she couldn’t bring herself to even make that gesture. The words of God she said over his body would have to suffice. Then she placed her mother’s rosary beads on his chest. God’s bidding had been done. But at what cost? This could not be passed off as a simple accidental drowning as planned. She left the small child on his back at the swimming hole, his eyes open, very near the spot where she’d seen her mother lie years before.
Harrison and Cora never spoke fully about what had happened that day. She never told him she had witnessed the killing. He did as she asked because he had no choice. He buried James on top of her brother in the old cemetery. Cora took advantage of one of Bradford’s longest travel absences and reported nothing to the police until he had returned and she knew the child would be missed. By then so much time had passed most traces of the crime had vanished. This simple act had bonded Harrison, Cora and Nick together the way nothing else could.
But now Harrison would have to have the strength to take care of things again. Twenty-four years she had carried this in her soul. Enough was enough. She heard noise downstairs. It sounded like a door banging. Before she could turn around Harrison burst through the door and grabbed her by the wrist.
“Come with me. I’m leaving,” he said.
“Where’s Mackenzie?” She asked.
He pulled her towards the door. “She slipped through the damned fence in the cemetery, onto Troup’s property. By the time I got around there, she was long gone. I saw lights, like police lights coming through those woods. We have to go now. If they find her, they are coming in here.” They went into the hallway and down the stairs. He was moving so fast she almost tripped and fell. He stopped suddenly. “Things are bad, Cora, We can get off this property and go far away but we’re not coming back.”
“No, Harrison. I can’t leave. You know I can’t leave.”
“Damn it. We should leave while we still have a chance. We can’t stay here, Cora. They’ll come in after us.”
“We can, Harrison. I know all the hiding spots. I know where to go. We can stay for months or longer.”
“No.” He pulled at her but she resisted. Harrison looked down into her hard eyes. “Cora. I’d do anything for you. I’ll take care of you on the outside. Trust me.”
She started to cry. She begged. Finally she dropped to her knees and clung to his pant leg. He would have to drag her off the land. In the end, Harrison gave in. He stayed by her side. He was sure he’d be able to convince her to leave when she calmed down enough to really assess their situation. She was positive he wouldn’t.
They descended the marble steps together, arm in arm where it was dark and quiet and peaceful. Harrison had chosen to stay with her, that was all that mattered. Despite everything she had kept him by her side. He could have easily escaped on his own. Nick had chosen to leave her those years ago and get married but in the end he didn’t really betray her either, she reasoned. He may have sent his wife here, but he never divulged their secret. The bond she’d forged with him had endured everything. She had won.
Days later it didn’t even bother her all that much when she heard a cavalcade of police invading her home from above.