It always started the same. The paper grocery bags on the side. Unpacking the family size cereal boxes. Storing the Quik, the Pop Tarts that Jeremy is obsessed by ever since Doug bought them by mistake. She hates the fucking things. The volcanic insides, molten flow of sugar and something that might once had been fruit oozing out of a covering that she could hardly believe held any nutricial value but familiarity had won over including her perceived exhaustion at the arguments that would ensue if they weren't present. Choose your battles her mother had once told her and this was one she'd picked to lose. Hauling the quarts of milk into the icebox and then the noise. Running feet, frantic staccato beats against the floor upstairs punctuated by breathless laughter.
"Kids, no running in the house ok."
Silence for a moment then scampering, banging doors and then the scream. High pitched strangely emotionless and yet paralysing in its fear. For a moment her eyes flick to the clock on the wall. 8.37am. And then she's running, running up the stairs. But these are not her stairs, they are some other stairs from another house a house that is newly familiar. The scream has ended, the house has been plunged into silence and yet the echo of it remains embedded into the very plaster of the walls, into the wood of the floor boards and the treacle thick air. She is running, running in the house against the rules to find the children. Her children. Her departed children. But she knows that it is not really them she is looking for. That scream is the catalyst for what she is really running towards. Running towards the thing that will enable her to run away. Run away forever because isn't that what all this was about, running away to safety. And what is safety but ultimately departure. The ultimate departure.
She wasn't sure if it was Lily who woke her or the sound of Kevin downstairs trying to get the faucet to work. For a moment she'd panicked to find herself alone in the bed which every time it had happened recently had spelt so much trouble. The handcuffs that she'd insisted they wear to demonstrate she supposed as much to her as to him that they were in this together had been left off that previous night. Their love making had been frantic the sweat shining on his inked skin and she could almost still feel the press of his hard body as it had borne down on her pressing her deep into the mattress the bones of their hips clashing together. The tenderness she felt between her legs was welcome too. Doug had always treated her like porcelain especially after the birth of Erin and although nice it was not what she'd ever really wanted or needed. Kevin fucked, fucked hard and that's what she needed. He had a heart from hell and she could feel it beating inside her when they fucked and that is what she needed. Needed to feel.
She slipped out between the tangled sheets the smell of their sweat and his cum a welcome reminder of the passion she now was party to. Lily seemed to have gone back to sleep if she'd ever been away, her long dark lashes curled against the dusk of her cheek. She listened again and could hear the sound of Kevin moving downstairs hopefully making coffee, so when the dream came filtering back she knew she had time. Knew this time where to go.
She couldn't be sure if she found the gun or it found her. It seemed so easy. Too easy but there it was lying between the crumpled clothes of some unknown person. She knew they hadn't departed. No-one had from this miracle town but did this unknown one ever think of what they'd left in that trunk in the attic of that house. Did they miss the feeling of it, heavy, deadly against their palm? The tantalizing scent of oil and gunpowder. The smooth, sleek power of it. Or had they left it there to forget? To forget what it was, what it could do? What history did it hold in its silver skin what damage had it done? Or was it the future that marked it out - was its history yet to come?
Just the look of it so innocently lying there awoke in her something that she thought had died. Died under the pounding of his flesh on hers, the press of his mouth hard against her skin. But suddenly that wasn't enough. The sight of it made her ache bone deep. She wanted to experience again the power of feeling utterly powerless. To stand in front of someone who in their hand wielded the essence of her demise. But a paid stranger was not as it always had been, enough. She knew whose finger she wanted on the trigger, whose eyes she wanted boring into hers. She wanted him to do it.
Persuading Jill to take Lily out had been relatively easy but asking her to keep her out for the couple of hours she knew she needed had been trickier. Jill was canny. Those wide blue eyes feigned innocence too easily obscuring the keen mind beneath. But Nora knew the power of the harmless looking woman, wasn't she one herself and hadn't she hidden behind its armour for years? She had considered just telling her the truth. Jill knew about the needs of her past. She'd been the relentless pursuer of the truth when it came to the original gun. But the words, "Look Jill I want you to fuck off out of here with the baby because I need your dad to shoot me so I can feel something," sounded even to her mind bordering on the hysterical. The promise of the loan of the car and some other favour at an undisclosed time had to suffice although she worried what she'd let herself in for at the barely suppressed smile that danced over the lips of the younger woman as she had made that promise.
For a few moments she thought she might back out, might give it up, the helplessness was surely just another indication of her living in the past but the sight of the Kevlar vest, so sturdy so dark, the strapping that would embrace her body in security was enough to convince her that she had to do this – she still needed to do this.
The reddish cami she wore underneath the vest was so unsubstantial that it was almost as if she were naked under it her breasts flattened by the stiff, unforgiving material. The fact that apart from the vest there was barely anything else was somehow exciting. Nothing else to stop the bullet from tearing into her chest, puncturing her heart. That very heart that was beating in an elevated rhythm as the adrenalin washed through her body heightening every sense. The mood was different than before. The fact that he would handle the gun meant more both in terms of safety but also purpose. He knew how to handle a fire arm. How many countless times had he pointed gun, used it in defence and maybe attack. He wouldn't flinch from her need as those faceless few she'd thrown thousands of dollars at before. Although they'd always carried out the job the last thing she'd seen in their faces was fear and she'd always woken alone. When he pulled the trigger it would mean something. In his face she'd only see understanding and she knew he'd be there when it was over. So she waited for him, sitting on the end of the bed for him to return from his run. Not at any point had she doubted that he would do this for her. She knew that he understood better than anyone the need to feel, to dabble in the dark. That his hardly hidden fight with his own demons would equipped him to fight hers.
When she heard his key in the door she got up and hit the button on the stereo. The music roared through the room filling it with fracture chords and screaming voices disorientating her after the almost total silence of the previous hours. She could feel it like abuse pounding though every cell in her body and knew that his feet would fall into step with the thrashing beat as he came up the stairs. She wondered if he'd make the connection, if he'd realise what was happening if he'd remember that conversation when she'd admitted her sin or if he'd think Jill was going through some kind of metal head phase.
Although she could barely breathe or think with the relentless noise tearing at her every fibre she knew almost instinctively before he got to the door that he knew what he was walking into. As he appeared, his face still beaded with sweat and flushed from exercise it lacked the confusion or anger she might have expected to see. In fact he looked so unfazed that this could have been an everyday occurrence and she had to fight down a sudden burst of slightly hysterical laughter that threatened to erupt out of her. Although she now knew his reaction any flicker that her need wasn't desperate could change this and that scared her more than anything.
She had wondered if he would make the first move but it quickly became clear by his lack of impetus that she would need to set all of the wheels in motion. In a way this disappointed her a little. She'd thought more, expected more of him and she hoped when the time came and their positions were reversed that she'd need no direction. She picked up the gun from the bed where it had been laying by her side and walked over to him keeping her eyes all of the time on his looking for any emotion, refusal - but there was nothing. In fact the only movement came from his chest heaving with exertion from his run. As she reached him she picked up his hand and laid the gun into his palm. As expected he clutched it and automatically went through the checks that came as naturally to him as breathing. It was then she finally knew without doubt that he would carry out what she wanted, would give her what she needed no questions, with the acceptance that she required. She moved then, breaking eye contact for the final time laying her head against his and mouthed against his skin a single word - 'please.'
As she drew back her eyes automatically found his again and she watched the almost imperceptible nod of his head as if he'd understood her mouthed request and the whole scene set in front of his. She smiled then for the first time and it was then she saw the understanding in his eyes. He accepted her request as nothing more than the need to feel that it was because that is what he struggled with every day of his life. Maybe in his eyes she saw just the vestige of jealously that she could be so easily satisfied whereas his needs lay far deeper and darker and had not yet even started to be understood or even acknowledge.
As she reached the end of the bed she turned to face him. He raised the gun. She raised her arms. He fired.