In the end, I didn’t kill him for any of the reasons that might make it right and square me with heaven. I didn’t do it for my husband or my child or because Aaron had raped me. I killed him because he killed my dog and the fact is you cannot kill a person’s dog and expect that person to let you live.
I walked, unhurried and sure, out of Jewel’s room and down the hall and stood and braced myself against the rail of the second-floor landing.
Aaron was going, had just reached the door and was passing through, when I took deliberate aim, bracing myself for recoil. I raised the barrel and fired. I shot him in the back, for no other reason than that was the side facing me in the moment. He fell forward onto his face and I knew that he wouldn’t get up again. And yet it wasn’t enough. So I cracked open the shot gun and slid the second bullet I held in my palm into the chamber and shot his dead body again. Only it still wasn’t enough. So I took the last bullet I held and loaded it and shot his dead body a third time. That was enough. It had to be. I had no more bullets. Then I laid the gun beside me and sat down on the step. Aaron was dead and the fear was gone, and with it all emotion.
From the corner of my eye, I saw a ball of brown fur, and summoning what strength I had left, I got up and went to kneel beside Old Sam. Blood had matted on his head where Aaron had crushed his skull. My poor boy. He had not the human concern for himself to know better than to give his life for mine. Poor simple-minded creature had gone after Aaron with no other thought in his dog’s brain but to save his mistress who had never wanted him in the first place. And sitting with his bloody head in my lap, I did what I had not been able to do for Jewel. I cried. I had a right to mourn him. After all, it was me had taken care of him long after the novelty of a dog in the house had worn off for everybody else. I wondered if he’d known how I felt about him, even though I’d taken his presence for granted and hadn’t paid any more attention to him than I had a piece of the furniture.
There was the creak of stairs being climbed and then a heavy hand on my shoulder. Luca was standing there.
“He killed him,” I said dully.
Luca looked at me uneasily, as if he didn’t know me.
“Why’d he do it? The dog bit him, yes, but he was so old. Hardly had any teeth to speak of. So why’d he—?”
“Stop it, Darcy.” Luca knelt beside me. “Let the dog down. You’ve got blood all over your dress.”
“Blood,” I repeated, trying to attach the word to the substance. Then a memory and I said, “Do you remember the first day you came here? I had blood on me then, too, chicken’s blood. Or was it pig’s? We ate it for dinner. Do you remember?” It seemed very important to me that he remember.
He was about to speak when Rennie’s door opened, and she came flying out of her room and into his arms. She must have heard the gunshots because she was crying and talking incoherently. Luca carried her back to bed and when he came back, I had not moved. So he lifted the dog off me and made me stand.
“Aaron’s dead.” He stated the obvious.
“I know. I shot him. Thrice.” Already it seemed like something that had happened a long time ago.
“Did he…hurt you?”
I knew what he was asking, and I clutched the front of my dress together and I said, “No.” And then to be more convincing, I added, “He didn’t have time.” I lied to him. Yes, and not just a lie of omission like with Jesse. I lied to him. But I lied for him, too. He could not have stood the truth. He would hate me for it. He would hate himself for hating me, but he was still such a boy that he would not be able to keep himself from hating me, from hating us. The truth would be unlivable. Then, like all liars, I changed the subject to something innocuous and moot: “But I had a terrible time finding the bullets. Promise me we’ll keep it loaded from now on. Promise me.”
“Darcy,” he said gently. “Tell me how it happened. You shot him in the back.”
“I had to. He’d have come back. He always came back.”
“I’m going for the sheriff.”
“No. We can hide him. We can bury him. It can be done. I know. They rot very quickly in the heat.”
He looked at me incredulously. “You don’t know what you’re saying.” His voice was losing patience. “Don’t worry,” he said more gently. “He attacked us. We’ll find justice.”
“There is no justice.” I looked at him hard. “There’s just us.”
“Don’t talk like that. It would be murder.”
“It’s already murder, Luca.”
“It’s not. You killed him to protect yourself and Rennie…and me. Didn’t you?”
I felt very tired now and everything he said seemed to come from a great distance and to take a long time to reach my ears, like something heard under water. Even the prospect of prison didn’t seem so bad so long as they let me sleep. I still had fond memories of reform school. Maybe prison would be like that. Maybe there’d be a prison
