Never Knowing

“But you’re not sure if you can trust me yet, right? It’s the same for me. If you genuinely want to get to know me, you can’t flip out like that. And if you get mad you can’t just threaten me. You have to tell me what’s bothering you and we’ll try to deal with it, okay?” He was quiet for a bit, but I waited him out. Finally he said, “I can’t stop it.”

“Can’t stop what?”

“Losing my temper. It just happens.”

I tried to think of something to say, but how could I give advice on something I can’t control in myself? Then I wondered why I wanted to help him. Did I actually think there could be a man in the monster? And what would that prove? That I wasn’t a monster? I pushed the thought away.

“It’s the same for me, John, but I—”

“It’s not the same.”

“Because you kill people?” My pulse sped up at my daring, but he didn’t answer. I stepped farther out on the limb.

“Sometimes when I lose my temper I hurt people too. I’ve done some crazy things.”

“I’m not crazy.”

“I meant sometimes I can understand what you might feel like when you do it. How you just want to control them and how angry they must make you feel.” I thought back to that moment on the stairs with Derek, the smug look on his face. The thud when he hit the floor. I did understand, more than I wanted to.

John was silent again, but his breathing had sped up. Probably time to pull back, but something in me wanted to push harder, wanted to make him squirm.

“You said your dad was violent. Did he ever touch you sexually?”

“No.” His voice was disgusted, but I couldn’t stop the next words coming out of my mouth.

“What about your mother?”

His voice was loud in my ear. “Why are you doing this, Sara? Why are you saying these things?”

“This is how it felt when you asked questions about Ally.”

“Well, I don’t like it.” He sounded nervous, worried.

“Well, I don’t like it either.” When he didn’t respond, I opened my mouth to launch another verbal attack. Stop, think. What was I doing? My breath was coming fast, my face hot. I’d been so caught up in the moment, so alive with power, I forgot who I was talking to. I just wanted to hurt him.

Then it hit me: this was how John felt.

I was frozen for a moment, coming back into myself, wondering how much damage I’d done. I imagined Billy and Sandy freaking out in a room somewhere. I was supposed to be gathering information, not provoking him. John hadn’t hung up, though. There was still a chance to get things back on track.

I lowered my voice, struggling to sound calm. “Look, I don’t think this is easy for either of us. Maybe we could play a game?”

His voice was cautious. “What kind of game?”

“Kind of a truth-or-dare thing. I ask a question, you have to answer it honestly. Then you ask a question and I’ll answer it honestly. You can even ask about Ally.” I closed my eyes.

“You already proved you lie.”

“You lie too, John.”

“I’m always honest with you.”

“No, I don’t think you are. You want to know everything about me, but you have this whole other world you won’t talk about. Maybe I’m more like you than you think.”

“What do you mean?”

What did I mean? I thought back to a few minutes ago, how heady and exciting it felt walking that dangerous edge between reason and emotion. All my senses heightened, my body keyed up and ready to fight.

“I told you, I’ve hurt people when I’m mad. I even pushed someone down the stairs.” If I made it sound worse, would he open up more? “He broke his leg and there was blood everywhere. I don’t like feeling that out of control, and something tells me you really don’t either.” He was silent.

I said, “I’m willing to go first.…”

After a moment he said, “We can try it.”

“Okay, ask me anything you want.”

There was a long pause. I held my breath.

Finally, he said, “Are you scared of me?”

“Yes.”

He sounded surprised. “Why? I’ve been nice.”

I didn’t even know how to begin to answer that.

“It’s my turn now. Why do you make dolls with the girls’ hair and clothes?”

“So they stay with me. Were you happy with your adopted family?”

His question caught me off guard. No one had ever asked before. And there had been moments of happiness, but always wrapped in worry of when it would be taken away. I flashed to a memory of baking a meat pie with Mom when I was thirteen. The kitchen was warm and fragrant with the scent of meat cooking, garlic, onion. Her hand soft on mine as we rolled out the crust, laughing at our mess. We had just popped the pie in the oven when she rushed to the bathroom. She emerged pale and weak, saying she needed to lie down and asking me to watch the pie. I carefully took it out when the top was golden brown, excited to show Dad.

When he came home an hour later he glanced at the stove, then slammed his hand down on my shoulders and spun me around. “How long has the stove been left on?” His face was red, his neck corded.

I was so scared I couldn’t answer. From the corner of my eye I saw Lauren take Melanie’s hand and leave the kitchen.

“Where’s your mother?”

When I still didn’t answer, he shook my shoulder.

“She’s … she’s sleeping. I forgot about the stove. But—”

“You could’ve burned the house down.”

He released my shoulder, but I could still feel where his hand had been. I rubbed at it. His voice was mean and hard as he pointed down the hall. “Go.”

But I didn’t tell John any of that now.

“I was happy sometimes. My turn. Why do you want the girls to stay with you?”

“Because I get lonely. Did you wonder about me when you were younger?” He started to say something else, then stopped and cleared his throat, like he was uncomfortable. “Am I what you wanted for a dad?”

He couldn’t be serious. But he was.

“I wanted to know who my real father was, what he was like, yeah.” How was I going to answer the second part? “You … you have a lot of the qualities I would’ve liked in a father.” As I said the words, I realized they were partly true — he had given me something I’d wanted from my dad most of my childhood, something I didn’t want to admit I still needed: attention. Change the subject, Sara. “Why do you always kill people in the summer?” He was quiet for a little while. Then, his voice cautious, he said, “The first time it happened, I was hunting. I came across this couple in the woods and they were … you know. The man saw me.” His voice sped up. “And he comes at me, and he’s swinging. So I have to fight back, and we’re down on the ground and he’s hitting really hard with these sucker punches, and he got a couple of good ones in, but I had my knife and smack it goes in right up under his rib cage.” “So you killed him?”

“One more thrust did it. But the girl, she’s screaming. Then she sees me looking at her and she starts to run — I only ran after her because she ran. So she’s running harder, but I just wanted to explain that it’s not my fault, it was self-defense. Then when I caught up to her…” A long pause, then he said, “Maybe a father shouldn’t talk to his daughter about this kind of stuff.” I didn’t want to hear any of what he was telling me, but I said, “It’s okay, John. It’s good to talk about it.” I kept my voice casual. “What happened?”

“I didn’t want to do it. But I had her pinned down and she kept screaming. I wasn’t feeling well that day — it was really hot out. But after she was dead I felt better.”

He paused, waiting for me to say something. But I was mute.

“I stayed with her for a while. But when I left, the noise came back, so I visited her again and it went away.