Amy Chelsea Stacie Dee (19 page)

I'M SO USED TO
not talking that when they start to ask me questions, I don't say a word at first. I'm in the backseat of a police car, and they say it's for my protection, but I don't know what they're protecting me from. Kyle is in the ambulance. I saw them put him on a stretcher and wheel him in. He was still screaming while they did it. In the movies, when the cops shoot someone, he falls down dead, but Kyle didn't die. It took one hit on the head to kill Dee, but somehow Kyle survived being shot twice.

There is a puddle of blood on the ground where he fell. Some of his blood is on me. It's on my pants and on my arms and on my hands.

He can't kill anyone,
I think. He can't kill me and he can't kill them. But instead of relief, I feel nothing. I stare at the blood on my arms, and I can't believe it. I can't believe that after six years, after what seems like my whole life, they're taking him away. I don't know what to do if he goes to jail. Everything in
my life has revolved around him. Fear of what he might do. Needing him to bring us food. Needing him to tell me when to stand and when to jump. And what not to say.

“Amy?” a woman cop says, gently.

“Yes, my name is Amy,” I say.

The kids are still in the car. I can't see them, but I did see Lee as they were putting me in here. She was trying to get in front of the girls, to make sure they didn't see. They'll be sad. They'll cry and cry, and they don't know any better. They'll blame me. I killed their mommy, and now their daddy will be going away. They may never see him again.

Vinnie is talking to one of the cops. He keeps looking over at me.

I feel like everything is far away.

“Amy, what is that man's name?” the woman asks. It's the third or fourth time she's asked that.

“Kyle,” I say.

She waits.

“That's it,” I say. “Just Kyle.” But the cops have searched through Kyle's pockets. One of them is holding his wallet. I've seen that wallet a million times, but I've never looked inside it. I've never wondered what Kyle's last name is. “His birthday is February seventh,” I say. We celebrated his birthday every year. I cooked a special meal with extra meat, and the dolls sat in my chair. It was the same way for Stacie's made-up birthday. I never had a birthday, the whole six years. But I remember what day it is now. December 9th. This year I'm going to celebrate.

“Yep,” says a cop, leaning in the window. “Says here February seventh, 1985. Kyle James Parsons.”

The name rolls around in my head.
Kyle James Parsons.
It doesn't sound like him at all. It sounds like a stranger, like a minister's son, like the kind of person who wears a crisp button-down shirt and gets a regular haircut.

“What happened tonight, Amy?” the woman asks.

“I went back for the kids,” I say. “He said that if I ever told anyone, he would kill them, but I couldn't leave them alone. So I went back, and he was asleep, so I took them.” I've made it sound simple, as if I made a coherent plan.

“What kids, Amy?” the woman asks.

I look over at Vinnie's car. Lee and the kids are still inside it. Nobody has made them come out. Maybe no one even noticed they were in there. “My cousin Dee had two kids,” I say. “Because Kyle raped her. Lola is five and Barbie is three.”

The man with the wallet follows my gaze. The man and the woman both stare at me.

“What did you think would happen after six years?” I ask.

The woman swallows. There is no other sound.

“I didn't have any,” I say. “He didn't rape me; he just hit me a lot.” I look up at the woman. “But I'm their mom.”

The male cop walks over to the car. He knocks on the window.

Lee's head appears. She opens the door, and she steps out. Behind her, I see Lola and Barbie. They look like they're crying, of course. But they're safe. They're going to be safe now. Lee helps them out of the car.

The cop kneels down and says something to Lola.

Lola says something back. She looks at me.

I give her a little wave and as much of a smile as I can manage. Everyone is looking at me now. The male cop, Lee, Vinnie, the woman cop, and Lola and Barbie. It's like they're waiting for me to do something. The ambulance is gone, I realize. I'm not sure when it left. My heart begins to pump fast. Did I lose time again? Or was I just not paying attention? I can't keep losing time. I'm their mom. I have to be here. Here. I take a deep breath and let it out.
Here. Here. Here,
I think.

Lee takes Lola by one hand and Barbie by the other. She comes toward us. I push down on the door handle, but it won't open. The woman cop does something from her seat. The door opens. Lola is there. I hug her. I pull her up into the car.

“Chel, are we going home now?” she asks.

I lift Barbie up, and I see Lee behind her, Lee crying. “Yes, I say. But it's going to be a new home.”

“What about the dolls?” Lola asks.

“We'll see,” I say, because I can't tell her that I'm never going back there and that I hope they burn down the cabin with everything in it, dolls and all. Right this second, I vow to throw the Stacie doll away. She isn't my connection to Dee; she's something terrible that Kyle owned. I never want to see that doll again.

“I'm so glad we found you,” Lee says, wiping her eyes. Vinnie is behind her now.

“Thank you,” I say.

“Thank you, Uncle Vinnie!” Barbie pipes.

“Oh, I'm Uncle Vinnie now, am I?” Vinnie says, leaning down.

“Auntie Lee says so,” says Barbie.

“Well, Auntie Lee knows,” says Vinnie. He's trying to pretend he isn't crying, but he is.

“Is Daddy coming?” Lola asks.

I don't answer. I just put my arm around her. There will be a time to tell her, but it isn't now.

•   •   •

It takes a lot less time than the bus did, with its meanders and its many stops, but it takes longer than it took to get here; at least, it seems longer. Vinnie has driven his rented, possibly stolen car back to the sketchy guy at the mechanic's shop, and his car has to be towed away, so Lee ends up riding with us in the back of the cop car. It's illegal to ride this way, two adults and two kids with no car seats, but nobody says anything. I guess the cops don't want to ask any questions with the kids here, and I'm glad. I don't want to give any more answers. Even now, my throat is closed up, choking on what's left of the truth.

Even now, there are things no one can know.

Aunt Hannah is going to want them. She's Dee's mom, but I'm only her cousin, and I'm only sixteen. It doesn't matter how old I feel or how long I've been their mother. No one is going to care about that. But at least I can see them. I will still be their cousin. But what if Aunt Hannah finds out what I did? She won't want to hear the reason why. Who Stacie became—that's something I can never tell her.

I'm standing in the middle of the cabin.

Dee is screaming.

Kyle has the girls. He has one hand on each, pushing them behind him. He's wearing a black shirt faded to gray and orangey work pants with a hammer loop. There's a rip in the left leg the length of my foot. He steps back, pushing the girls against the wall.

I open my eyes. I thought Kyle was behind Barbie. And he was holding Lola. That's how I remembered it, before. He had them, but they were exposed. The back of the seat in front of me is a dark brown. There are holes in the vinyl, like someone else who was back here ripped it with claws. I don't like being back here, even if I'm not in handcuffs, even if they're doing us a favor driving us home.

If Kyle was in front of the girls, then why did I pick up the lamp? He's so big, he could have stopped her from hurting them. But I was only going to stop her. She wasn't supposed to die. She wasn't even supposed to be badly hurt. He was . . . I try to remember how he was standing, but I can't. That part of the picture goes blank in my head. Then I'm shoving clothes into the Safeway bag. I'm outside the cabin.

Dr. Kayla said, when something traumatic happens, you remember too much, so often that it hurts you. She said that was my problem—remembering. But now I can't remember. It's slipping away from me. I need to remember that they were in front of him and he wasn't protecting them, because then I had to do it.

“I had to,” I say out loud.

Nobody answers. Lee looks at me like she wants to ask what I mean, but she won't.

“I didn't want anyone to die,” I say.

Lee looks down at Lola, who is asleep under her arm. I am bursting with something, some need to tell everyone the truth, as far as I can remember it. I need to tell someone before it all flows away. Lee thinks I'm talking about Kyle, but I'm sure he won't die. I can't tell them what I really mean. Kyle is going to jail and I still can't tell them.

Tears leak from my eyes. I still don't feel like we're safe. I feel like he's still here. He is still leaning over me with those big ears and that floppy hair and big grin that turns into a grimace and the voice that coos at dolls and snaps before the fist follows. I can hear him through the bathroom door, his breathing when Stacie was silent.
She's mine,
I hear him say. But he took two bullets and didn't die. She's dead and he isn't and it's not fair.

The tears flow now. I didn't run. I didn't tell anyone, but it still happened. She died.

The woman cop stares at me. Her eyes squint; her mouth twists. She thinks I'm crying for Kyle. She thinks I care that he's hurt. I look up at her.

“I'm not crying for him,” I say.

She keeps staring, like she doesn't believe me. Lee stares at me, too. Lola shifts. I pray she can't hear us. But she's heard so much. This is just one more terrible night in a life of nights that should never have happened.

“I'm crying for Dee,” I say. And what about Dee I'm crying for is impossible to say because there's so much. If only I could really go back in time. But I feel Barbie leaning against me, and I feel guilty just for thinking it. There are two
beautiful lives here because of Kyle. Were they worth losing one? If I could go back, I would.

If I could not get in the car. Just not get in the car. Run and tell somebody. Send the cops after her.

If I could not have picked up the lamp.

“At least she's going to have justice,” Lee says softly.

I just cry. And the woman cop keeps staring at me, even though she turns back in her seat. I can feel the corners of her eyes, still judging my tears, still believing I was sorry to feel Kyle's blood on me, to hear his screams as he slipped toward the pavement. But I'm not sorry about that.

•   •   •

Aunt Hannah is at our house when the cop car pulls up. She runs out of the door, and my parents run out behind her, and then Aunt Hannah stops, and my mom almost runs into her, and my dad almost runs into my mom, and he stops himself with two hands on her shoulders, and Mom grabs one of his hands in both of hers, and the car comes to a full stop in the driveway. The male cop turns the engine off, and the silence washes over us.

I'm glad that I can't get out of the backseat because I'm in a locked police car. I don't want to face this. Now I'm their mom, but once we get out of the car, I'll be their cousin. Aunt Hannah will tell them that I'm not their mom, and I'm not even Chel. And they'll tell her . . . It hits me for the first time. I'm not the only one who knows my secret—Lola and Barbie were there, too. Maybe I should tell everyone now, since the rest of the truth is out. But even if my parents understand, Aunt Hannah won't.
She's been through enough, and she doesn't need to know what happened to Stacie, what she did. I tell myself that I'm keeping this secret for Aunt Hannah's sake, but I know that's only partly true. I can't face what I did, and I can't face her. If I tell the truth, I'll never be able to face anyone.

“Barbie,” I whisper. “Barbie, honey, wake up.”

Barbie stirs.

“Daddy?” Lola sits up.

“Lee, can I talk to them alone for a minute?” I ask. “This is going to be so strange for them.” I look up at the female cop.

She still doesn't look as if she trusts me, but she nods. Lee's door opens.

“I'll hold them off,” Lee says. She walks toward our parents. I turn away. I can't watch what they're doing, or I'll break down again. There is still a secret I have to keep, and I have to keep my mind on that.

The cops both get out of the car. They stand outside; whether they're protecting us or keeping us inside, I'm not sure.

“Lola, Barbie,” I say. How do I say this? What will make them understand? “What I did to Mommy, it was an accident. A terrible accident.”

“I know,” Lola says.

“You are about to meet Mommy's mommy,” I say. “She's your grandma.”