“I-I wasn’t doing anything. I was just playing with it.”
“Playing with it? I watched you kill it with that knife!”
His mother pointed angrily at the small blood-covered knife still clutched in Dale’s hand.
“But I brought it right back to life! It doesn’t even know what happened to it.”
“How do you know that? How do you know it doesn’t remember? And even if it doesn’t, that still doesn’t make it okay. Do you think it was okay, what your daddy did to me? Because you brought me back? Do you think that made everything okay?”
“But you don’t even remember what happened and neither does the kitty. Look!”
Dale reached out for the kitten but this time it hissed and bit him on the webbing between his thumb and forefinger, then dashed across the garden and into the house.
“Ow!”
Dale seized his injured hand with his other hand and brought it to his mouth to suck away the blood.
“Oh, baby! Let me see that.”
Dale’s mother knelt down and took his injured hand in hers. There were two tiny puncture wounds where the kitten’s fangs had pierced his flesh.
“Dale, listen. You’re right. I don’t remember what happened to me and hopefully I never will, but that still doesn’t make it right. What your father did to me was terrible and he’s going to rot in hell for it. I may not remember the pain now but from what those police officers told me they saw, it must have been horrible. Just because you can bring me back to life or bring that cat back doesn’t make it okay for us to suffer like that. Just because we can’t remember what happened doesn’t make it any less…evil. It’s still wrong.”
Dale stared at his mother. His face betrayed his utter lack of comprehension.
“It’s like those Christians that say that if there wasn’t a God they’d be out there robbing, raping, and murdering folks. If that’s true, and the only reason they aren’t out committing crimes is because they’re afraid to go to hell, then they aren’t really good people. Deep down they’re every bit as evil as the murderers and rapists…as evil as your father. There’s this quote and I forget who said it. I’m not really good with that sort of thing. But it says that morality is what you do when no one is looking. It’s what you do when you know you won’t get caught. Do you understand? Even if no one knows what you did when you killed that kitten, even if the kitten doesn’t even know, you’ll know and it’ll change you. It’s not about what you’re doing to the kitten. It’s about what you’re doing to yourself. Do you understand?”
Dale nodded and his mother gathered him into her arms and hugged him. But Dale hadn’t really understood his mother at all. The part of him that might have understood, might have empathized, had died on those many nights that he’d watched his mother get beaten and raped by his father. It had been buried the night he watched him stab her to death, rape her, and skin her. Dale hugged his mother tight, still remembering what she had looked like bleeding on the bed until he’d resuscitated her. He didn’t understand. Not at all.
CHAPTER THREE
Dale heard his grandmother wake up in her bed screaming.
“Oh my God! He killed me! He killed me!”
He heard his mother’s slippered feet sinking into the old carpeting as she ran down the hall to his grandmother’s room. Her voice was calm and soothing, the same way she sounded when she spoke to him.
“It’s okay, Momma. You just had a bad dream.”
“It was Dale. He strangled me. He choked me to death. He killed me!”
“You’re not dead, Momma. Everything is okay. You’re okay.”
“No. No. No! He did it! I’m telling you he did it. He killed me and then he must have brought me back. Just like he did with that butterfly and that kitten you caught him torturing.”
“But why would he do that? If he wanted you dead, then why would he bring you back to life? I think you just had a bad dream.”
“It wasn’t a dream. He touched me too. He undressed me and he touched me.”
“Momma! Why would you say that?”
“He did it, I’m tellin’ you! H-he…he…urrrrlllgh.”
“Momma? Momma? Oh my God, Momma! Dale, call the ambulance! Dale! Dale, call the ambulance! Your grandma is having a stroke.”
Dale threw back the covers and stepped out of his bed. He walked up the hallway and into his grandmother’s room. His mother sat on the edge of the bed cradling his grandmother in her arms while the woman turned blue and saliva foamed from between her lips and came frothing down her chin. She must have bitten her own lip or tongue because there was blood in her saliva. Her eyes had rolled up in her head so that only the whites were visible. As Dale stood there, her eyes rolled back down out of her skull and fixed on Dale. Her eyes widened and she began to tremble. Dale smiled. When he looked up at his mother she was staring right at him. There was a look on her face of terror and disgust. She had seen his smile. Dale walked over to the phone, picked it up, and dialed 911. He continued staring at his mother and grandmother as he spoke to the emergency operator and they continued staring at him.
Later that night at the hospital Dale’s grandmother passed away. Dale was asleep when she went. He woke up when his mother grabbed him and began slapping him. It took a moment for him to orient himself and remember where he was, in a hospital, with his dying grandmother. But why was his mother attacking him? Dale covered his head to protect himself from the blows.
“Mom? Stop! Why are you hittin’ me? I didn’t do nuthin’!”
“Bring her back! Bring her back!”
The nurses looked confused when they rushed into the room and pulled her off her son. Dale was breathing heavy. There were bruises on his face and arms from where his mother had struck him. His mother was breathing hard too. She stared at him with something that looked very much like hate blazing in her eyes as the nurses held her back and she struggled in their grasp.
“Bring her back! Do it! Do it!”
“Mrs. McCarthy! There’s nothing he can do for her. The doctors did all they can. No one can help her now. She’s gone.”
“But he can. He can bring her back!” She looked directly into Dale’s eyes. Her eyes were so full of tears that he wasn’t sure that she could even see him through them. “Why won’t you bring her back? Why?”
Dale tried to think of something to say, something that would ease his mother’s mind and make him sound compassionate and wise. He couldn’t think of anything. The only thing he could think to say was the truth.
“I don’t want to bring her back. She didn’t like me.”
The two nurses turned to look at Dale. His mother’s mouth dropped open.
“You did this. Didn’t you? You did this to her. It wasn’t a dream. Was it? Get out of here! Get the fuck out of here! I don’t want you anywhere near her!”
A big, burly black orderly arrived with security.
“Maybe you should wait in the lobby, little man. Your mom is just a little upset. Everything will be all right.”
“Get out! Get out! Get out! You did this! I know you did this!”
Dale walked out of the hospital room with the orderly and the security guard. He hated to see his mother like this, but he was glad the old woman was dead. He began to whistle as he walked toward the lobby. He stopped himself, suddenly realizing how inappropriate it must have appeared. He looked up at the orderly who was exchanging looks with the security guard. Their faces were completely shocked. It struck Dale as funny. He started to laugh, which made their expressions turn to bewilderment, which caused Dale to laugh even harder. They walked him into the lobby and then walked away shaking their heads. A teenage mother sat in the lobby, bouncing an infant on her lap.
“What’s so funny, kid?”
Dale wiped tears from his eyes and looked over at the girl. She was smiling at him, anticipating a really good joke.
“My grandmother just died.” He turned away from her and continued to laugh.
