I turned the player off. All that remained was the whirring of the fan in my parents’ bedroom. The door was closed, which was unusual. I figured they could be having sex. I wondered if part of sex was licking someone all over, as the man—Wilt—had done to me. It bothered me to think of what they might be doing behind the door. I also thought it was possible they were discussing where I’d been in the afternoon. I wouldn’t have expected police to be involved, but I did think they were discussing whether or not to send me away to a boarding school. My mother often threatened this when I was being bad. She told me they would ship me off with a small suitcase, to a place up in the mountains, Castelrotto, where you had to drink goat’s milk every morning and suck down raw egg yolks. Once she went so far as to drive me to the train station with my little She-Ra luggage packed haphazardly with shirts and socks and my favorite doll, Marco. I was seven or eight then and didn’t know you couldn’t get to Italy by train. I shivered and sobbed and began to hyperventilate as my mother strode up to the ticket seller. She took out her huge burgundy wallet and I thought I was going to die. I began to scream. Even though my father was at work and would have had no idea of this cruelty, I screamed DADDY! so loud that nearly everyone in the vast hall turned to look. One of my mother’s fears—the disapproval of Americans. She came away from the counter, brought my chin up close with her sharp nails, and hissed, You ere me, if you ever touch my jewelry again without asking, I vill come straight ere with you. I von’t tell your father and he will think you ran away. You ere me!
I don’t think I did anything wrong for the next three years. Nothing of note until that day when I got into the man’s car. And now I was expecting the biggest punishment of all. I couldn’t wait any longer. I rapped the door lightly. Nothing. I knocked again, this time louder. Still nothing. So I turned the knob ever so gently and pushed open the door.
I can’t describe what I saw without going through it all over. I don’t mind as much now. It used to be that even thinking about opening the door, cheap cedar-stained mahogany, would send me retching into the nearest toilet.
It was him, my beloved father, on the bed. The sheets were a tweedy brown, so the blood was merely a dark stain. My mother’s reading light was on and illuminated the room just enough. Later I would learn that there were slashes in other places, but I only saw the knife in his throat. I knew exactly which knife it was. She used it on bread and meat. In wealthy houses in the future, I’d learn there were knives for bread and knives for meat and knives for fruit. All different kinds of knives. My mother would have considered that spoiled. She used one knife for everything, her good knife. She had one good knife in each house, one in New Jersey and one in the Poconos. It had a wooden handle and its blade was smooth and thick. My father’s beautiful blue eyes were open, staring.
Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!
I used to call his name every night. There was a tradition, a routine. I waited near the window in the formal living room we never used, with the antique furniture and the fireplace maned in stucco. I watched through the drapes for his headlights. If they were nine minutes past six, I thought for sure my life would be over. At the same time, I couldn’t conceive of the worst thing in the world—to lose my father. I’d make my way to the garage and begin clapping and calling his name, high-pitched, one clap for Da, one for Dee. Then he would get out of the car with his briefcase and the smell of hospitals and his eyes would flash at me and he would smile the happiest, kindest smile. He would take me into his arms, no matter what he was already carrying.
What I saw then was impossible. But that’s what happened that night. I learned that the impossible was possible. In a way, there can be nothing more liberating.
I ran to the bed and tried to lift his body. Of course he was too heavy. The knife was in very deep. Do you believe that I pulled it out? I would have done anything for him. I’ll never forget that feeling. I believe he came alive for a second when the knife came out. His blood was all over my Rainbow Brite pajamas. I thought my mother would be angry about the mess on me, and that was the first time I thought of her. So I screamed for her. Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!
The bathroom door was open and I didn’t want to leave my father but I did. I ran with the knife in my hand to the bathroom and there was my mother, in the bathtub, with her wrists slit, but she wasn’t dead. She was only almost dead. Her eyes blinked, her mouth moved. And I don’t know, I think about this every day, never less than once a day, though sometimes up to a hundred times a day, I think, If I had called for help right away, she might have been saved. But I didn’t call right away. It wasn’t on purpose.
