I Love You More: A Novel (36 page)

He was digging in the moat.

I handed him his Coke. He drank almost half of it.

“It’s really deep,” I said.

“Climb inside it.”

The water was clear up to my waist. “Cool.”

Daddy was busy building up the walls, and I was working on the keep, when we heard Mama come up. We were so absorbed that we didn’t even notice her come out of the water. Daddy talked to Mama for a while as I worked, and before I knew it Mama was yelling something at me from up on the patio. I couldn’t really hear her over the sound of the waves, but I was betting she was mad I took her towel again.

Then Mama and Daddy disappeared inside the house. If it wouldn’t have been for me just showing up a little later, I’m pretty sure there wouldn’t have been any lunch.

Later that night, while Daddy and I were playing Scrabble, Mama started acting strange, like she told Daddy she needed to go into town because there was no salt at the beach house, but there was. I’d seen her shove it into the dishtowel drawer. Then she said she needed a new book, but she’d just started reading the one she’d brought along. I was pretty sure she was leaving so she could call Jewels. I started praying inside again, this time that no matter what Mama meant to say, that God would make her say “The meeting is off.”

After Mama left, Daddy said, “Your mama’s sure been lying a lot lately.”

“What?” I was stunned.

“I used salt on my eggs this morning. Do you know where she’s going?”

For the first time ever, I was really scared of Daddy. It wasn’t just the unsmile. It was the way he looked, like he was a whole different person, the flat tone of his voice, and his eyes. The cold, blank emptiness of his eyes.

I shook my head, maybe a little too fast. “No, Daddy.”

“I know all about her little meetings with Jewels and Bert.” He started laughing, a laugh I’d never heard him make before. It sounded like a crazy person’s laugh. “How long have you known they were planning to kill me?”

“I … I … They’re not, Daddy.”

It was like he didn’t hear me, like he was so mad he couldn’t hear me.

Then he said something really scary. “I don’t think jail is good enough for your mother, do you? You and I will be just fine without her, right?”

He must have seen how scared I was then, because he changed back to himself again, and said, “I was just kidding, Perry Mason (a fictional defense attorney who was the main character in works of detective fiction by Erle Stanley Gardner; also a TV show that ran from 1957 to 1966).”

I couldn’t sleep that night. I worried over what Daddy said. He hadn’t said anything else about Mama after he called me Perry Mason, and he was completely back to normal Daddy when Mama got home, but I couldn’t get that image of him laughing out of my mind. I knew I had to warn Mama, but since Daddy was next to her the rest of the night, I’d have to tell her before she went for her morning swim. I remember thinking it was good I couldn’t sleep.

But I must’ve dozed off because I woke to the sound of the sliding glass doors opening and closing. I bolted to a sitting position, got out of bed, and since it was conveniently lying there in a ball on the floor, climbed into my brown swimsuit and headed down to the beach. By the time I got there, Mama had already swum out pretty far. I panicked. My thoughts were all over the place. What
if I couldn’t tell Mama about what Daddy said? What had Mama told Jewels? What if Bert was on her way to kill Daddy? What if she actually did and Mama went to jail? All I knew was that the first thing I needed to do was find that gun. Since Daddy was still in bed and I couldn’t check to see if the gun was still in the drawer, I ran to the crawl space, hoping the entire time that I wouldn’t find it there.

The gun was perched on a ledge next to a couple of old paint cans, a rusty hammer, and a beat-up kid’s sand pail, green with a yellow handle. I reached for it, carefully wrapped my hand around it, lifted it from the ledge, closed the blue door, walked back around the house and through the side door, and went back into my room.

A few minutes later, Daddy’s alarm went off. I heard him go to the bathroom to do his business, flush the toilet, head into the living area, then the gurgle of the coffee maker, the tap of a closing cabinet, the clink of the porcelain cup being set on the counter, the splash of poured coffee, the patter of his footsteps on the tile floor, squeak of the floorboard under the carpet, flip of the lock, and swishing of the sliding glass doors opening. I imagined him sipping his coffee as he looked out to the ocean and waited for what I’d always thought was one of his favorite daily activities: watching Mama come out of the water.

I tiptoed out to the kitchen; Daddy was standing by the sliding glass doors with his back to me. I checked the time on the stove clock. Ten minutes after seven. Bert would be there any minute. As stealthily as a ninja, I climbed up on the blue shell chair nearest the side door so I’d be as tall as an adult, held the gun with both hands, raised my arms, steadied myself, curled my forefinger around the trigger—

I couldn’t do it.

All at once, as if they were fighting over which one got there first, the memories came. Daddy being home less and less. Jewels
showing up at our door. She and Bert in the blue sports car in the church parking lot. Mama getting into the car. Their matching blond hair flying in the wind like wings as they drove away. The phone call from Jewels. The three of them swimming naked at Rainy Cove Park. That weird chanting they did. Daddy and I working on the sand castle. Me catching Daddy and Mama kissing and him asking me why I was standing there. Daddy calling me Picasso. Me peeing in my swimsuit. Me finding the gun in the top drawer. Daddy saying all those things about Mama when she went to call Jewels. That crazy laugh. The unsmiles. Me finding the gun in the crawl space behind the little blue door. Bert coming to kill Daddy. Mama going to jail. Me going to foster care. And then all these thoughts merged together into two words:
synchronicity
and
threat
. I mean, weren’t all the events leading up to me standing there pointing a gun at Daddy’s back obviously meaningfully related, and hadn’t what Daddy said about Mama indicated that he intended to seek retribution? Maybe even physical retribution? A vision flashed before my eyes of Daddy’s hands tightening around Mama’s neck—

I remember feeling the tears tickling my cheeks before I even realized I was crying, and I also remember feeling trapped, like I had no choice, that
I
was Daddy’s destiny, not Bert. And I remember I started praying to God, who by then I really hoped existed, to please, please make it all go away, turn back the clock, but he didn’t. And then, for some reason, it was like I was a little girl again, like when I thought there were monsters in my closet or goblins under my bed waiting to devour me, and I knew with certainty that only one person could save me, so I called for him—

“Daddy,” I said. “I’m scared.” And I was.

“What are you doing up so early, Primrose Path (the pursuit of pleasure that brings disastrous consequences)?” Daddy asked as he turned. His eyes got really big.

And then, I
saw
it. Before it even happened, I saw me firing
the gun, Daddy dying, my entire life after Daddy was dead, and I knew I was Daddy’s destiny, and he was mine—

I pulled the trigger.

He held out his hand, as if it could block the bullet from hitting him, and said, “Don’t—”

I almost fell back into the chair but caught myself, widened my stance for better balance. Daddy stumbled when the bullet hit him, reached toward me, took a few steps.

I shot him again.

A high-pitched screech, like chalk scraping against a blackboard, came from his mouth. Both of his hands pressed into his stomach as he bent forward. He stayed like that for what seemed the longest minute ever, staring at me in disbelief, and then he fell, quickly, body over knees, like an exploding building, and landed on his belly. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t because it was like his eyes had locked mine into position. Then he started saying that phrase, the one I don’t much like, and definitely don’t trust, but he only got out the first four words before he coughed up blood and stopped breathing.

It was like I was being given a sign, an it-will-all-be-okay sign, because even as Daddy lay dying, he’d lied to me, he didn’t love me more than anything or anyone, especially himself, he didn’t love me at all, and so right then and there I stopped being afraid and I did what I had to do.

I looked out the sliding glass doors; a cool breeze swirled past me. Other than the red speck in the ocean that meant Mama had begun her swim back to shore, there was no one in sight. I ran out to my sand castle. Stepped out of my swimsuit. Wrapped it around the gun. Burrowed them into the moat as far as I could—I remember thinking how lucky it was that since the suit was brown it pretty much blended right in with the sand. Jumped in after them in case any of Daddy’s blood got on me. Got out. Filled the moat with sand. Ran naked to the outside faucet. Washed off my
feet and ankles. Dried myself really well, especially the bottom of my feet. Went back inside through the sliding glass doors. Closed and locked them (later, I wondered why I did that). Stepped over Daddy. Took the money out of his wallet. Hid it inside the cardboard tube of one of the extra toilet paper rolls. Headed to the bathroom. The purple swimsuit I had peed on was still hanging on the door hook. I climbed into it, wiggled it up over my hips, stretched the armholes over my shoulders, and went back out to the living room.

Mama was standing in the doorway; her hair and swimsuit were dripping. I wondered why she hadn’t grabbed the towel she left on the patio and then I remembered that I’d taken it. She looked scared and sad and I wanted to go to her, but I knew I needed to kneel down by Daddy. I knew that’s what Mama needed to see, what she needed to remember.

“Daddy,” I shook him. “I’m sorry, and I know Mama is too.”

For a moment I thought maybe he hadn’t died. Maybe God had answered me after all, maybe I was still in bed, having a bad dream, and any minute I’d wake up and Daddy would be standing over me asking me to go get ice cream, giving me his secret smile, telling me not to tell Mama, and I’d jump on his back, and he’d take me downstairs, and Mama would be there, and he’d hug her, and the three of us were a happy family, Daddy’s only family.

Then the weirdest thing happened. It was like I left my body and watched everything from a distance, like it was a movie or TV crime show. The actress that was playing me called to Mama, but Mama was staring intently at the painting hanging over the fireplace, as if she was searching for Waldo or some sort of hidden message. A lady was there. She said something about hearing a shot. She walked over to the girl, bent to feel Daddy’s pulse. She started talking to some man who had miraculously appeared, like the camera had stopped, stuck him there, and then went on with the scene. The girl got up and started walking toward the
hallway, and even though by then there were five people in the room, including Daddy, my eyes followed her. She disappeared into the bathroom, reappeared carrying a heap of something white and fluffy: towels. She wrapped one around her own shoulders, then walked Mama to the sofa and draped the other over her shoulders. I remember thinking that was nice of the girl. At some point, two men in suits showed up. The older one told the girl she could go outside and play with her sand castle, and I could tell she was happy about that.

That was where I joined my body again, at the sand castle.

Even with the gun right there in the moat, I wasn’t as nervous as I thought I would be when Detective Kennedy came out to ask me questions, and I was surprised how easy it was to lie. I think it’s interesting that sometimes you don’t really know yourself or what you’ll do in a situation until you’re faced with it. I could’ve lied to Detective Kennedy at the Dairy Queen, but I didn’t. I wanted him to see and hear for himself that Mama wasn’t guilty, even if that meant he’d know I was, because I knew that Mama could never have survived jail, she’d always been too fragile, and she definitely could never have survived doing murder. Murder changes a person; I should know.

Probably it has something to do with my age, but no one ever suspected me. No one tested my hands or clothes or body for blood splatter or gunshot residue. No one wondered what exactly I was doing at seven fifteen that morning. No one questioned why I was up so early when I never get up early. No one asked me if I knew where Daddy’s money was. No one looked in the sand-castle moat for the gun. In Mama’s
Taking Charge of Your Life
book, there’s this chapter on following your life path; it says you’ll know when you’re doing that because things will just fall into place and you’ll feel like you’re flying through space on a magic carpet, untouchable, at one with the world. With the exception of the actual Killing Daddy part, that’s kind of how everything felt
that day, and in the days, weeks, and months that followed. Even though I worried a lot about the police arresting Mama and did whatever I could—manifest, pray, lie—to make certain that didn’t happen, I never once worried about them arresting me. Because I believed what I saw right before I pulled the trigger, me growing up, going to college and the police academy, becoming a detective, getting married, and having a child of my own.

It’s been two years since Daddy died. Detective Kennedy transferred to the Hollyville Police Department so he could live with Mama and me. He said one day, if Mama and I wanted to, we could move to Cooper’s Island because it’s a healing place. He and Mama got married not too long ago. Mama is pregnant again. I’m not sure how I feel about having a little brother or sister, especially since he or she couldn’t possibly be as smart as me; smartness just doesn’t come around twice in one family. Ryan Anderson and Kelly Morgan aren’t girlfriend and boyfriend anymore. Actually, about a week ago he asked if he could walk me home. I said I’d think about it. Lucy Baxter and I are still best friends. Mama always says we’re “thick as thieves.” The police never did arrest anybody for Daddy’s murder, and I didn’t used to think Detective Kennedy had any idea what really happened at the beach house the day Daddy died, but then one night, while Mama was at a Junior League meeting, he and I watched a movie he rented. It was called
Murder on the Orient Express
.