Let the Dark Flower Blossom (39 page)

Ro was lighting a cigarette.

He cupped his hand around the match.

He handed the cigarette to her.

She took off one glove.

She smoked.

One glove fallen in the snow.

The knot of her scarf, her white neck.

The smoke, the white sky.

I stood.

I began to walk away.

I walked.

Into the woods, in the pines.

When I came upon an old fire pit.

Among rotten branches.

With heavy rocks and blackened stones.

I picked up a rock.

It was dark and ancient.

I turned.

And I looked back.

It was snowing.

I couldn't see them.

I began to walk back.

Until I could see them in the distance.

Then I stopped.

I could see Ro and the girl.

And I watched them.

I walked back to the pond from the woods.

I was quiet.

I came closer.

I was behind them.

Ro and the girl.

Her coat undone, his hand under her sweater.

I was standing behind the girl.

I could see her breath.

And her cigarette in the snow.

I took the rock.

I hit her.

I hit her with the rock.

She fell away from Ro.

She fell to the ground.

She lay still.

Her eyes were open.

And she called out.

She was bleeding.

She grabbed my hand.

The sky was white.

The world was white.

Her face.

Her mouth.

She was trying to say something.

She took my hand.

She was going to beg—

Wasn't she?

For kindness?

Or pity?

I would have given her kindness.

If only she would ask.

She opened her mouth.

And bit my hand.

She bit through the skin.

I had no pity for her then.

I raised the rock.

I hit her again.

Ro had fallen back in the snow.

He was on his knees beside the girl.

The girl was crying.

The girl was weeping.

“Jesus,” said Ro.

She wept.

I hit her again.

She struggled.

“Jesus,” he said.

I dropped the rock in the snow.

He picked it up.

He took the rock.

And he hit her.

She stopped struggling.

She was covered in blood.

Her eyes were open.

She did not move.

She was not weeping.

I undressed the girl.

She was naked in the snow.

Ro stood. He staggered.

He fell back down to his knees.

He lay a hand on her stomach.

His bloody handprint on her bare white stomach.

I said that we had to burn everything.

“Jesus,” he said.

I told Dr. Lemon what I did.

That I hit that girl.

And she lay bleeding.

As she lay bleeding in the snow.

Ro took the rock.

He smashed her head.

He killed her.

The snow fell.

I undressed the girl.

I looked at her white body in the snow.

The doctor's eyes were gray.

With knowledge.

And he forgot.

He forgot.

He did not remember that I told him how—

We dug a grave and buried the girl in the woods.

And that night we sat around the fire, the four of us.

Roman told my story.

I told the doctor.

That I did not know who killed Roman Stone.

But I wished that I had done it myself.

I told the doctor that Roman stole my story.

First he told it aloud.

Then he wrote it on paper.

His fingers to the black keys of my father's typewriter.

I spoke.

Till there was nothing left to say but this.

Roman took my story.

His theft—his crime—was worse to me than murder.

Worse than killing the girl in the woods.

And burying her body.

And burning her clothes.

He stole my story.

The story of my childhood.

The story of the fire.

My story was a lie.

He stole my lie.

It was mine.

That's what I said.

The doctor listened.

I began again.

I had my rock.

And my hill.

Each day Sisyphus pushes a rock up a hill.

Only to have it roll back down to the ground.

And he has to start again.

And yet one must consider Sisyphus happy.

Like Inj says—

At least he has a hill.

At least he has a rock.

Some people don't even have that.

Some people live their whole lives.

Without a tragedy to call their own.

Some brothers don't even have a sister.

The days grow hot, O Babylon!

Hey Shelly
, Pru would say if she read this.

Don't be so glum, chum
.

That's what Pru would say.

I forgive you
, she would say.

If she read this.

Which she cannot.

Because I killed her.

I open the door to Dr. Lemon's room.

He is small and frail against the pillows of his bed.

The curtains are open. If he opens his eyes, he will see—

When darkness goes to black.

Descending around the edges of the day.

How even in winter the garden awaits him.

I sit beside him.

His eyes open.

Does he see?

The beauty of his kingdom?

Dr. Lemon is dying.

And with him will go his knowledge.

And every story that he has ever heard.

Though his trees will burst into bloom.

And that summer sweetness will come again.

He knows this.

His will be done.

He commands.

He whispers.

He asks.

Tell.

In the farmhouse, as the snow fell and fell, and the girl lay buried in the ground, and the ice was thick on the pond, we sat that night around the fire, the four of us. Roman told the story of the brother and sister who were haunted by a murder. We drank. I staggered to bed with Wren. Later when I woke she was gone. I lighted a candle. I walked the hallway. I heard voices, a girl. I thought that it was the girl. I thought: she is not dead. We buried her alive, and she has come back. She is back from the woods, a ghost. I went downstairs, my hand trembling as I held the candle. The wax burning my skin. There was a blaze in the fireplace. It lit, it lighted, it illuminated in shadows and shapes the room. I saw Ro and the girl—I watched them—I watched her—I did not turn away—her ghost skin; her ghost body in the firelight; the wood shifted in the fire; a flame leapt; the light caught her. I saw her face.

I saw the girl.

It was not a ghost.

She turned; I saw.

It was Wren.

Eloise was in the kitchen.

She was baking a cake.

I'll start again.

Father taught me how to type.

The metal key hit the paper.

Inking each letter.

Father taught me the truth.

Father knew the truth.

The world is a monster.

Eloise and I wrote a story.

I suppose there are worse things.

Than killing your parents.

In a story.

I planned how I would kill them.

In a story.

I set pen to paper.

Eloise ate an apple.

And then they died.

So perhaps a story is not a story.

It is the ghost of desire.

I told the story to Ro.

I'll start. I will. Again.

This is how the first house burned.

Eloise set the bed on fire.

She took our story.

Handwritten pages.

She scattered pages.

And she lighted a candle.

And she set the bed on fire.

She was named after Mother.

And I was named after Father.

She was under the apple tree, waiting.

With the typewriter.

It was fall.

And I fell.

We stood by the salt creek.

We watched the house burn.

The story should end here.

It does not end here.

One thing happened.

Then another.

We went to college.

We met Roman Stone.

Ro wanted a tragedy to call his own.

Paper covers rock.