The sound of the gun was still ringing in my ears. The smell of smoke and burnt gunpowder lingering in the cool night air. I would even venture to say that there was still some small hint of surprise upon Beverly’s cold lifeless features but I’d be lying to myself wouldn’t I. Dead is dead after all and there was no expression to be found there, nor even a hint of recognition in those dark empty eyes.
It was at that moment that I realized that I was not just holding the gun. I had been holding my breath as well. Watching, perhaps even waiting for her to do something more that would require me to shoot her again.
That feeling of expectation, you know how it is with those types like Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers. How they always seem to be down for the count and yet are somehow able to give you one more good scare before the hero hacks off their head or pumps a few dozen additional rounds into them.
It’s all bullshit of course but when you grow up watching enough movies and late-night television. You start to get these ideas into your head and even start to believe that shit like that really happens. In reality, it doesn’t.
I was finally able to count to ten and take a long, slow, deep breath to calm myself down enough to do what needed to be done next. After all, there was a party just up the road that I needed to get to. I had to be there before the Sheriff and deputy dickhead showed up to shut it down later tonight like they did every year.
–
It had been just before my 10th birthday that Beverly, my mother, disappeared for the first time.
They had been fighting the night before and most of that morning so Daddy had simply assumed that she’d needed the time and space to cool down.
It was only after my birthday had come and gone that the fear and panic had begun to settle in and Daddy finally contacted the Sheriff and started calling anyone and everyone that he could think of to try and find her.
Beverly was only gone for a few months that first time. Eventually, she turned up, telling anyone who would listen about what had happened. I won’t bother sharing the details given that her story was so impossibly fantastic that you’d need to be on more than just a few drugs to even believe half of the shit she went on about in the days that followed her return.
It was at that young age that I learned the true meaning of the phrase “Love is Blind” because Daddy never challenged or even questioned anything she said. He simply welcomed her back with open arms promising that he’d take care of her and that everything would be the way it was before.
Of course, nothing would ever be the way it was before because it was not even six months later that she was gone again leaving no clue as to where she had gone or even if or when she’d ever return.
–
I cleaned the gun and placed it in her lifeless hand taking that extra step to make sure that her finger was pressed firmly on the trigger before slipping out the passenger side of the Impala. Than grabbing my sports bag out of the back seat of the car.
Honestly in those moments, I was still trying to digest what I had done as well as the fact that she had been stupid enough to have even gone along with it in the first place. Her willingness to be the one to drive me out to the Elder Lake campgrounds for the Seniors end of year party. An action seemingly so out of character for her and yet how easy it had been for me to call upon that old and tired line about us needing Mother-Daughter bonding time. The very same line that she had used with me to get her way time and again and how surprisingly easy it had been to use that very same line on her to achieve that same end and for a brief passing moment I even wondered if she had gone along with it out of some sense of nostalgia.
I had picked that spot on Loggers Road for several reasons. The first being that it was the very same road that led down to the lakeside cabin that Daddy had once rented for us during those Summer vacations back in the days before Beverly had started her little disappearing act.
The second was because the road was ideal for what I had planned. Set at a fairly steep incline that at one point turned sharply at the bottom of the hill. It was there that if you timed things just right and had built up enough speed that you could easily miss the barrier and put the vehicle a fair distance out into what was by all accounts the deepest part of Elder Lake. In the end, all you really had to do, was start the car and put it in neutral. Then, just aim the front end down the hill. The rest was simply a matter of gravity and momentum.
–
I’m surprised by the things we learn to refer to as ‘normal’ in our lives and how we use them to explain away or simply ignore the bad or uncomfortable truths.
Beverly just appeared back in our lives again about 18 months later. I just woke up one morning and there she was. She and Daddy were talking and laughing with one another at the breakfast table acting as if nothing had happened and all was right again with the world.
I was twelve by then and honestly didn’t know how to feel or even what to say but Daddy was the happiest I had seen him in a while so I played along. Acting out the part that had been picked for me and playing along because as long as Daddy was happy then so was I.
For the time being, we were once more, what I guess you’d call, a happy family. Or at least we were all acting that way. Each of us seemingly content to play our parts. Beverly was once more full of joy and laughter. She was back at playing the role of a loving wife and adoring mother. All of it seemed almost normal and until they weren’t anymore and Beverly was gone again.
This time she hadn’t just left. She had taken Daddy’s car. Along with, as much cash as she could get her hands on and his company credit card.
The worst news came however when the Sheriff showed Daddy and me the video footage of Beverly taking money out of a cash machine and making purchases at some store two towns over. All in the company of another man whom both Daddy and I recalled seeing around the neighborhood in the weeks prior.
–
It was nothing like what you see on television or in the movies which I’ll have to admit was kind of a letdown.
The Impala just sort of rolled quietly down the incline and then drifted off the edge of the road just shy of the barrier like I had planned and then it was just gone. No roaring explosion, No great crashing sound, Not even the sound of it slamming into the water a hundred or so feet below. It was just; gone and with it Beverly.
Of course, even having watched the car roll down the hill and disappear I had to be certain… I needed to be certain that she was gone and that this time she would not be coming back. Collecting my sports bag from the ground I ran down the old road to the barrier to take one final look over the edge and make sure.
–
Daddy had always been a big man but even a man as big as he was, he could not help but be crushed and brought down by the news of Beverly’s betrayal.
The realization that the woman he loved and had called his wife had not only used him but had fled with some stranger had left him broken and weeping for hours afterward.
There were no frantic calls this time nor attempts to reach family and friends for answers. That night my Daddy just held me in his arms apologizing again and again between choking sobs believing that Beverly’s betrayal was his fault.
It wasn’t though and I knew it. I swore to myself that I would look after him and take care of him from that moment forward. I would never ever let another woman hurt Daddy the way Beverly had hurt him again.
Never Again I promised to both Daddy and myself that night.
–
The Impala was gone, having almost disappeared entirely beneath the water by the time I’d gotten to the barrier. Only the faint red glow of the taillights could be seen from where I stood watching, as it sank into the deepest depths of the lake and finally disappeared entirely from view.
There were tears of course. Although, I could not be certain if they were tears of sadness shed for the loss of the woman who had been my mother or tears of joy because I had kept my word.
I had no time for tears however. Wiping the tears from my eyes I turned my attention to what needed to be done next. In this case, getting my ass to the old campgrounds.
Thankfully, I wasn’t dumb enough to try and hike out using the back roads. I’d be walking a good 10 miles with God only knows how many possible delays and chance encounters with unwanted witnesses. Thus, my plan was to follow the shoreline for a mile and a half or so and then swim across the lake at narrows. I’d be saving myself both time and grief though clearly a path that was not without its own risks.
–
I wish I could say that her running off with that unknown man would prove to be the last time we ever saw her but it wasn’t. Beverly, turning up again at the worst of all possible times.
This time being the middle of my fourteenth year just before the Christmas Holiday.
It had been the end of the school day and with the holidays fast approaching I was more than a little excited to find out what Daddy had planned for this year. As I was walking out the main entrance intent upon heading home for the day, I was more than a little surprised to discover Beverly there waiting for me.
She was sitting on the hood of what looked like a shiny new car with her shiny new boyfriend in tow, waiting for me.
Even at fourteen, I knew enough to feel a sense of dread at her sudden and unannounced appearance. Saying that I was still young and stupid, would perhaps be an understatement. I knew Beverly was bad news but she was still my mother. I just never really grasped how bad she was until that day.
As always she was all plastic smiles and sunshine talking a mile a minute about the great day she had planned for us. About me and her sharing some quality Mother-Daughter bonding time together while she promised an evening of shopping at my favorite stores and dining out together at my favorite restaurant.
What I didn’t know or even suspect was that as soon as she had gotten me into that bright and shiny new car of hers, she had taken my Daddy’s number from my cell phone and had started texting him threatening messages swearing that if he didn’t do exactly as she said or she’d see to it that he’d never see me again.
It was the money of course, with her it was always about the money and Daddy gave it to her, no questions asked, even though it cost him every dime he had saved up. I was so stupid that I didn’t even know what had happened until after it was all over and Daddy had given her the money and she had disappeared again into the night.
It was the next day that Daddy pulled me out of school altogether. We packed up everything we owned and were on the road bound for a new home on the other side of the state, near the lake where we used to spend our summer vacations. Daddy having sold both the house and the business he had built so that we no longer had any ties to the town or the people in it that could be exploited again in future.
It was some years later when I was older that Daddy explained to me that it wasn’t just the money she had stolen from him but also any belief that he still held that he could protect me from her. In that town or any other town as long as she knew where to find us.
He never said it but I knew deep deep down that I was the one who had failed him this time.
–
If you wanted me to say something major had happened between Logger’s Road and the senior party at the old campgrounds or that there was some dramatic moment in which I was almost discovered and my carefully laid out plan was unraveled; I’m afraid that this isn’t that kind of a story.
It was a short and uneventful hike along the shoreline of Lake Elder until I finally caught sight of the bonfire they had set up at the campgrounds. From there I paused just long enough to strip down to nothing before pulling the waterproof bag with my bathing suit and an extra set of clothes and shoes I planned to change into at the party.
The ‘why’ is simple enough. My research online had turned up that gunpowder residue only really lasts between 4 to 6 hours on human skin but on things like clothes and shoes it tends to stick around considerably longer.
Then of course what they don’t tell you online (I wonder why) is the fact that gunshots at close range are messy as hell and that when you put a hole into somebody’s body that shit tends to come out of that hole. In the case of our beloved Beverly, we’re not just talking about her losing control of her bowels and shitting her pants. We’re talking arterial spray followed by roughly about 1.2 to 1.5 gallons of blood and that shit goes everywhere and gets on everything.
And I do mean everything.
Transference, unfortunately, is an unavoidable reality in the act of killing someone at close range and as much as I adored my canary yellow Gucci t-shirt and loved how good my ass looked in those black Levi’s cut-offs that I had worn out the door earlier that evening. The fact remained that there was blood everywhere and on everything. Even my bra and panties had to go and by go I mean everything was tossed into my sports bag along with as many rocks as I could stuff in there and still be able to swim so that I could dump it to the bottom of the lake never to be seen again.
–
It was my eighteenth summer when I first noticed a change in my feelings for Daddy.
There had always been a noticeable physical, almost playful element to our shared affections even from an early age.
To say Daddy was handsome was perhaps an understatement in my opinion and standing well over 6′ tall he had always seemed to be so much larger than life in my eyes. He was also a surprisingly gentle soul and rather soft-spoken man and not always one to express himself or his affections very well when it came to spoken words. For him, things like love and affection were things to be expressed in a physical way and his feelings for his little girl were hard to miss given that he was not at all shy about hugging me or holding my hand in public to show the world that I was his little girl.
These public displays of his affections only grew more so after what had happened with Beverly. Now, Daddy always made it a point to keep me near to him in public. His hand always seeking out mine or holding me close to him. His wary gaze never letting me wander too far away that he couldn’t see me.
Even at night when we were alone and away from the world just doing those normal everyday things. It wasn’t all that uncommon to find his hands resting on my hips holding me close to him or his strong arm laid across my shoulders when we had settled down for the evening on the couch to watch television together. Or if he was in a more affectionate mood he’d even have me seated on his lap with those same strong arms around my middle holding me close to him.
At some point during that same summer that we had even started sleeping together in the same bed at night.
My body next to his, my head on his shoulder while my hand rested on his bare chest listening to the sound of him breathing as he slept. His arm’s always seemed to find their way around me holding me close to him. His wandering hands finding my breasts while he slept and holding them as his lips teased my neck as he whispered her name in his sleep.
Nothing ever happened on those nights. Though secretly it became clear to me that I really wanted something to. I wanted more than just Daddy’s love for his little girl. Deep down inside me I wanted Daddy just for myself. I wanted to be the woman he made love to at night. I wanted to be the one he looked at the way he looked at old photos of my Mother. I wanted him to need me the same way he had once needed her.
–
Swimming from one side of the narrows to the other only took about 20 to 25 minutes. Not my best time by any stretch but then again it wasn’t really a race was it. To be honest, dragging along a bag full of rocks a third of the way didn’t help much either.
All that said I counted myself lucky when I finally able to drag my cold and tired ass out of the lake and take a moment to get warm and dry myself off before pulling on my swimsuit followed after by a pair of comfortable black denim shorts and a sweater sporting our school mascot before combing out my hair and pulling into a bun.
It wasn’t more than five maybe even ten minutes later when I was just another underage high school girl dancing around with a beer in my hand in a crowd of underage drinkers doing pretty much the same.
–
I didn’t know what to feel or even what to say when Daddy told me that Beverly had contacted him to apologize for what she had done. Nor could I even grasp the idea that she was somehow better and wanted desperately to make amends and perhaps let her be a part of our lives again.
My first thoughts were to scream and beg him to just let her go. (Yes, I watched the movie with the Ice Queen) As well as to remind him in no uncertain terms that she was the one who had left us in the first place and that it was she who made it clear, on more than one occasion, that she didn’t want to be a part of our lives anymore.
I wanted to point out that we were happy now and that we didn’t need her in our lives anymore. But I knew that look and I knew that Daddy still loved her even after all that she had done.
It was at that moment when I knew that neither I nor Daddy would ever be truly free of her. Beverly would always come back and take what she wanted and then she would leave again and that she would keep doing so over and over until there was nothing left to take.
I also knew that as long as Beverly was still alive, I would never have Daddy for myself. She would always return and take him from me.
–
The final element of my plan to keep my ass from being suspected of any wrongdoing lay in my cell phone. Or rather the location history recorded by the apps on my cell phone.
It was actually a simple thing to just mute the thing and leave it in my sports bag with my squad uniform left conveniently in the trunk of one of my squad mates car after practice earlier that day. Then collecting my bag from her trunk during the party effectively killing two birds with one stone.
The first being a false history of my movements because everyone knows a girl my age wouldn’t be caught dead without her cellphone.
The second being a clean replacement of my missing sports bag with fresh one devoid of any possible trace evidence.
It wasn’t a perfect plan however as I soon discovered checking my call and message history to discover that Daddy had called and texted me no less than a dozen times in the last hour.
“Fuck.” was all I could think to say before I pressed the dial button on the screen of my phone and waited for him to pick up.
“Hey, Daddy. Are you okay?”
… End of Part 1