Chapter 55: 65. The Weapon

Pak

(Grandmother’s House)

 

She creeps closer, kneels before me, and speaks into my crinkled, flame-kissed ear.

 

“Pak…”

 

Her breath is hot and rancid, words wriggling in like worms into an apple.

 

“Look at me.”

 

I drag my face across the rug and lift my head obediently. My eyes are so swollen and mottled by tears that when I open them, I still can’t see. Her freezing, dry hands cup my cheeks and force me to face her. Her fingers trace the dimples and ridges of my scar, reading my suffering in braille.

“My poor, idiot boy…”

My head goes limp in her palm. I’m so tired.

“Is that a serious question? What did you do?”

I blink. She looks down her nose. An expression crosses her face that could almost be described as… loving, or gentle. I shut my eyes…

“Your father killed her.”

My eyes snap open.

“You were just the weapon.”

She tightens her lips and sighs through her nose. She’s smiling.

“So, of course I hate you.”

I whimper. A long silence passes. She shakes. A drop falls, splattering on my forehead.

“All I had left of my daughter…”

She sucks in a scratchy, gravelly, windy gasp.

“…was the ugly thing that snatched her life away.”

She strokes my cheek and scrapes my eyelid with her jagged fingernail, digging it in.

“Your first breath,” she whispers, “was her last.”

My ears ring. It’s the endless, high-pitched whine of a mind too broken to think.

“I told everyone that you died with her. Your headstone is right next to hers.”

She chuckles. I feel nothing. She wilts, like a flower, head drooping, hands limp in her lap. She sways like grass in a soft breeze.

“I’m sorry…”

I don’t know if she hears me. My voice is just air, no wind left to fill it. She sinks her forehead into the soft spot of my shoulder, just below my collarbone.

“Where is he?” I creak. “My… The one who killed her…?”

She drools into my shirt.

“I don’t know,” she says. I can barely hear her.

“I’ll find him,” I whisper.

I wrap one arm around her. She’s so small. It only takes one arm to hold her up. She mumbles as one would before falling into a deep sleep.

“Get him… out of my sight…”

 

The words mean nothing. I am numb, drifting.

From above, far away from my body, I watch.

 

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ba-dum. ba-dum. ba-dum.

 

Pip.

The weapon finds the gray child’s hand,

the hand that rests between them.

It glides into her abdomen, through the space below her ribs,

and meets her heart without resistance.

It’s quick, nearly painless. She shudders and gasps.

Blood fills her mouth. It paints her chin red. It paints his chest red.

The last remnant of air flees her lungs, never to return.

He holds her and rocks back and forth.

Time passes…

 

Morning comes.

The deep purple sky softens to a light periwinkle, submerging the stars.

From the horizon, pink and orange and red cut through the space below the clouds,

like knives heated by the barely-cresting sun.

 

He brings her body to the bed. She’s so small.

He lays her down gently,

covers her up with her daughter’s blanket.

He folds the stuffed dog into her arms.

He closes her eyes, smudging blood on her eyelids.

He wipes his hands off on the sheets.

 

Time is short.

He starts to head for the closet—

But the letter on the desk catches his eye.

 

(The symbols don’t make sense. I feel like I should understand them, but I can’t. When I try to read them, they become unfamiliar, like I’m looking through the eyes of the child again…)

 

He folds it up and tucks it into his pocket,

taking great care not to stain it.

It’s still early…

 

He disappears through the secret door.

 

ba-dum.

ba-dum.

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