Click. The first squeeze of the trigger didn’t end her life.
Alice hesitated before she pulled the trigger again. She didn’t want to die, and she had always been taught that suicide was a one-way ticket to the fire. She hoped that God would grant her leniency due to the extenuating and coerced circumstances surrounding her demise.
She hesitated for a second longer, but this time, she pulled the trigger over and over in quick succession. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. She paused and then squeezed again. Click. Click. Click. She was still alive.
The gun wasn’t loaded.
She dropped the impotent weapon to the floor. Her immediate reaction was great joy. After all, she was still alive. She had stared death in the face, and in the end, she had the guts to truly sacrifice herself to save her children.
The sense of joy lasted a split second before she realized that she had broken the rules once again.
She fixed her eyes upon Ackerman’s face to gauge his reaction. His gaze was cold, but devoid of stronger emotions. She could detect no signs of the rage she had seen burning in his eyes earlier. Now, she saw the black eyes of a shark. She wondered if this was the same look that the spider gave the fly.
Then, the darkness faded from his visage, and he smiled a warm, loving smile. It was as if a different person sat across from her. The man she saw now was handsome with kind eyes. Ackerman had transformed.
This transformation should have filled her with some small sense of hope, but she dared not let herself be optimistic. She knew what lay beneath the surface of these calm waters. Maybe this is only the eye of the storm?
“You remind me of my mother, Alice.” She thought of Norman Bates. He continued. “I believe it was Marion C. Garrety that said, ‘Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible.’ I also like a quote from some psychologist who said, ‘Mother’s love is peace. It need not be acquired, it need not be deserved.’ It’s a powerful thing, the love of a mother. I would guess that it’s just some primal instinct that mankind has yet to exploit, corrupt, or filter out—but it’s astounding, nonetheless.
“In a world where everything else will fail you, where everything else falls away and doesn’t begin to live up to our expectations, a mother’s love remains true. I can think of no other bond or loyalty that is harder to break. I sometimes wonder how different my life may have been if my mother hadn’t passed away when I was young. I don’t remember much of her. She died along with my unborn baby brother due to a complication during her pregnancy. I don’t even remember her funeral or visiting her grave. But I remember her love.”
He took a deep breath before his gaze went distant. “I sometimes think that my whole life has been just one long nightmare, and at any moment, she’ll wake me up and tell me that it was all just a bad dream.”
Ackerman stood up from the table, and she noticed the beginnings of tears in his eyes. “Take care of your children, Alice. Don’t take them for granted. Go put them back in their beds, and when you wake up in the morning, convince them and yourself that this has been nothing but a bad dream.” He turned and walked toward the door.
She was still in shock at the sudden change in his mood. Joy overwhelmed a part of her, but another part wondered if he was merely toying with them. Before she even realized the words had come from her mouth, she said, “I told you there was a God.”
Ackerman stopped dead.
Idiot. Dwight had always said that she never knew when to keep her big mouth shut.
When the killer turned around, she saw no signs of animosity. He looked toward the floor for a moment and then back at her. “For my sake … I hope you’re wrong.”
“It’s never too late,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“To turn things around. To choose a different path. It’s never too late.”
He grinned. “I have a friend that tells me the same thing. Time will tell, I suppose.” He stared deep into her eyes. “Good night, Alice.”
With those words, he turned and left as silently as he had entered their lives.
She untied her children and held them tighter than she ever had before. From that moment on, she vowed to never take her simple life for granted. Every day was a blessing, each moment a gift. As she rocked back and forth and squeezed her children, she wondered if she would ever be able to let them go.