A new pain, deep and dull, throbs in my lower back, right where Wes tucked his gun into my waistband before the cops showed up.
I squeeze my eyes shut tighter and silently thank him for this last gift.
“Rainbow, I know you’re upset, but when you’re feeling better—”
“I will never feel better.”
And as soon as you leave, I’m gonna put a bullet in my head to match the one you just gave Wes.
“I remember feeling that way too, when I was expecting Sophie. I thought I’d never feel better. But after the first trimester, you’ll get your spark back.”
I hear metal scraping wood just a few feet away from my head and realize that Mrs. Renshaw must be picking up the key that I dropped. The one Wes placed in my palm right after we got here. A few minutes—that’s all it took for this woman to rip my future away from me. A few minutes is all it ever takes.
“Is that my front door? It is, isn’t it? Goodness gracious! If that ain’t a sign from God, I don’t know what is. It’s like he’s sayin’, Welcome home, Agnes!” Mrs. Renshaw’s voice cracks, and she sniffles back a sob.
“We’re gon’ be all right, baby girl.” Her weathered hand pats my exposed shoulder. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”
“Get out,” I manage to rasp even though my lungs feel like they’re going to collapse under the weight of my despair.
“You’re right. I should go. You probably want some alone time. I’ll be back to check on you a little later, dear. Be sure to drink your water.”
Just as I hear her footsteps retreat toward the door, they stop a moment later and return to my side twice as fast as they left. “Oh, I almost forgot …”
The back of my tank top lifts, and the revolver Wes tucked into my waistband is jerked free. I hear the click, spin, clack of Mrs. Renshaw checking the barrel for bullets on her way out the door.
Then, I pull my knees to my chest, wrap my arms around them, and sob myself unconscious.
No dreams come to distract me from my thoughts of death. No visions of my parents or Wes arrive to soothe me. When I wake up—minutes later, hours maybe—I am empty. I am alone.
I am dead.
I just have to muster the strength to get up and make it official.
I push myself onto my hands and knees and crawl over to the stairs. The third one creaks under my weight. So does the fifth. And the sixth. This is the only home I’ve ever known, and it feels like it’s saying goodbye with every squeaking floorboard and groaning joist.
For the first time since I heard those shotgun blasts, I’m not afraid to go into my parents’ room. Nothing can hurt me anymore.
Not for long, at least.
I turn the corner into the master bedroom, but this time, I don’t find the faceless body of my mother lying in a pool of blood with the shades drawn shut. I find an empty wooden bedframe, illuminated by the afternoon sun. The curtains are wide open. The mattress and bedding, long gone. All traces of what happened here … erased. It almost makes me feel bad for what I’m about to do. For leaving another bloody mess in the house that Wes spent so much time cleaning up.
Maybe I should do it in the backyard, I think.
Maybe it doesn’t fucking matter anymore.
I flip the light switch in my parents’ walk-in closet out of habit and am surprised when the overhead bulb actually comes on.
The second I see their clothes, the smell of them hits me like a sledgehammer.
Stale cigarettes and hazelnut coffee.
I want to wrap my arms around my mother’s hanging dresses and make them hug me back. I want to sway with them and stroke their sleeves against my cheek. But what would be the point?
To make myself feel better?
Or to make myself feel worse?
Instead, I reach in between them and find a vintage briefcase I know will be there, hanging from a nail on the wall behind Mama’s church clothes.
I set the brown tweed case on the floor, spin the numbers on the little dial to 503—my birthday—and pop the dull brass tabs open with a click. Inside is foam lining, molded around a small black handgun. Daddy used to let me shoot cans off a tree stump with this one, back before he turned scary. He said this one didn’t have much “kick.”
I hold my breath and slide the magazine out, just like he showed me. It’s empty.
But not for long.
Crawling out of the closet and into the master bathroom, I sit cross-legged on the floor in front of the vanity. I open the cabinet doors and dig all the way to the back, knocking over bottles and boxes and brushes until I find it—the jewelry box where Mama hides Daddy’s bullets.
Hid.
My heart pounds against my ribs as I pull the whitewashed wooden container out, both because of what it holds and because of what I find hiding behind it.
A hot-pink cardboard box.
With a picture of a manicured hand holding a pregnancy test on the front.
I set the jewelry box down beside me and reach for the pink rectangle with wide eyes and shaking fingers. The plastic sticks inside rattle when I pick it up. Opening the box, I notice that one of the tests is missing. I know Mama was pregnant for a while back when I was a kid, but she lost that baby after a bad fight with Daddy. She told me it was God’s will.
I knew better.
I check the expiration date. Then, I blink and check it again.
These tests aren’t twelve years old. They’re current.
“Oh, Mama. What did you do?” I whisper, tears blurring the date on the side of the box.
Whatever that test told her, it went with her to the grave.
Like mother, like daughter, I think, sliding a stick out of the
