The dark within them, p.9
The Dark Within Them, page 9
“Bu…bury her?”
A palm tightened around the back of his neck.
“It’s the right thing to do. For closure. This is a family matter, after all.”
Anger ignited in him, a lit flame. He was boxed into a corner. The man he idolised was now a killer. Amber had lied—omitted—the existence of her children from him. And look where it had brought them. Look what the role of guardian had brought to his door. And the flame flickered with guilt. Guardian. Parent? He had sworn to protect Amber’s children. His fists flexed.
Brett placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “I know you, Chad. But anger won’t serve you best here. Be angry at me later. But think about this: when the Lord challenges us, and that’s exactly what this shock is, right here, right now, we have a choice of how we react, don’tcha think?”
He grunted and stretched out his fingers, looking down at his blood-spotted boots. Where was this going?
“Here, you’re doing the brave thing. Putting the church community beyond the personal. The sanctity of the Mormon church…Right now, you’re protecting it. Can you see that?”
Chad looked up at Brett.
“But I don’t feel brave, Brett.”
“It’s not a feeling. Bravery is an action.” He took both Chad’s shoulders in between his palms. “And you’re a brave man, Chad. I’m telling ya.”
And something warm spread in his chest. Brett’s pupils were soft, reassuring. In them, he saw the community that guided him. Security. He imagined a world in which he removed the rug from under the feet of the whole Lehi church…They would be lost without Brett. All because of an accident. And he, well, he would never be able to go back. After they knew of what he’d done to help his Momma; after they knew he had removed Brett from his rightful place as leader of the church…He’d lose everything, then. For someone who wasn’t even his flesh and blood. Perhaps this way, he could keep his church and the only woman he had ever loved?
He heard a patter of rain hit the top of the truck, and then felt it dripping through his hair. He glanced up. They both did. The clouds seemed to have dropped down on them. Lightning flashed over the mountains, as the floodgates opened.
A door opened in the distance, slammed. A smattering of voices spilled from the party. They were heading their way. Both men’s eyes flickered to the trunk.
“Go now, Chad!” Brett was jogging towards his car.
“But when people ask where—”
“You’ll work it out! You’re a smart man.”
Smart was the last thing he felt. But brave? He wanted to be brave for Brett. For his family. He ran.
*
He drove through three red lights and a marked crosswalk, as the rain drummed down hard on the roof of the truck. He tried to reverse into the garage…stalled. Once parked, his limbs froze, lost their capability for all movement. He knew he should call out for Amber, but couldn’t think how to. It was the electric garage door closing which brought Amber out of bed to find him.
She looked vulnerable—fluffy bunny slippers and a towel dressing gown, her eyes narrowed. He couldn’t look at her directly, hands glued to the wheel. She knocked on his window.
“Do you know what time it is, Chad? Where is Gilly?” Chad’s mouth felt sticky; it refused to open. His eyes flicked nervously to the back of the truck. Amber appeared in the back window, yawning and scratching at her head. Suddenly, her eyes widened. “Did you let her stay at the party?” She pressed an accusing finger against the glass, her hot breath frosting the pane. He turned to look at her, an injured rabbit resigning itself to a hungry predator. Unlocking the door, he gently led her away from the truck.
“I need to tell you something, but I’m going to need you to be calm.”
“Don’t do that, Chad.” She brushed his hand away from her arm. She was always more irritable when she was tired. Sometimes he thought it was cute.
“Do what?”
“Tell me how I should feel!”
“Right. Well, I want you to focus first on how happy...how solid we’ve been since the endowment ceremony.”
Her eyes focused on him, confused. “Why are you talking about our wedding right now? You’ve not been answering my calls. Did you not look at your phone?”
He gave her what he hoped was a charming smile. “I’m just saying, we’re good together.” He felt he needed to build something before she saw Gilly. Remind her of the man she married.
“Chad. Can you just answer my question, please?”
“Ah. What was it?”
“Where is Gilly?” There was no tolerance left in her tone.
He gulped. “It was an accident,” he pleaded, stepping backwards. Amber’s eyes followed his. The trunk. She approached it and her eyes asked him, is this it? Yes. “Amber, don’t open that. I really want us to go inside the house. Amber, just look at me—” he held out a hand for her to take; made soothing noises of encouragement as she assessed his offering. It seemed as though she was about to agree with him. Then she pressed the button to release the trunk.
Chad would only remember this moment as a howl. Plaintive. Guttural. She was seizing up, heaving, grabbing at the garage’s tin walls. Her nails clawed at its metal, a cat desperate to bolt. Then there were chunks of spittle and fragments of digested food onto the floor, catching in her hair. The howl transitioned to a hoarse exhale. Chad felt sure the whole neighbourhood would wake up, but he kept his distance. His head cried a torrent of apologies but he knew their inadequacies. He kept his mouth set in a grim line.
When Amber turned to look at him, her expression was unreadable. Delicately, he came to kneel beside her. She grabbed a hold of his jacket’s material, the whites of her eyes rolling. He rumbled around in his pocket and found a dishevelled tissue, dabbing at her hair where chunks of vomit clung to it.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, you’re okay, we’re okay,” he said as he detangled. Her eyes were a film of tears: he was not their focus. “Amber, look at me. Look this way, okay?” Then she did. A snap. A slam. She used her hold on his jacket to mash his head into the corrugated door. Chad’s natural reaction to confrontation was to fight back. This time, there wasn’t even a flicker of fight to be found in him. She released him immediately, disgusted at his limp body, turning her back on him. He massaged the base of his skull, breathing heavily.
“Can I—” He could understand her need to lash out, but he needed to explain.
“Shut up!”
“Amber, take my hand and take some deep breaths, okay? That’s it, close your eyes. Close them. Okay.” She sucked on her bottom lip and tried to regulate her breathing.
“Whose fault?” she hiccupped.
“There was another car,” Chad stammered. She slammed her fist against the garage’s metal door. He winced. Her hand bled, but she didn’t seem to register it. Just stared at him.
“I couldn’t have stopped it,” he told himself. “No. It came out of nowhere. Look, this isn’t how I wanted you to find out. I’m really…I’m a mess. This is a mess. But Amber, you need to listen to what really happened.”
She puréed her fist into the metal repeatedly and he winced, leading her away.
“Look at what you’re doing! Does it not sting?” he cried, but she was mute. Just narrowed her eyes at him.
“You blinked, maybe. You blinked, and she was slow crossing the road, in those little kitten heels. Maybe she didn’t…” She went silent, watching his hands, which were locked, pushing down on the skin of one with the other. “But if it was an accident, why is she fucking slung in your truck like that?” she wailed, crumbling to the floor. He grabbed her from behind and rocked her, babbling.
“She might have been drinking, she starting running away from me…maybe she thought it was all some big joke, but then there was a car—but it wasn’t like I registered it, wasn’t like I let her…It’s not like that, Amber, it was just…” He trailed off in a whimper and felt Amber’s jaw tighten against his neck.
“Get away from me, Chad.”
“Where should I go?”
“Anywhere, Chad! But look me in the eyes, like a man.” He did so, palming his knees with nervous fingers. “What shall we do?” she whispered. “Did you call the cops already?” He shook his head, guilt forcing droplets of sweat to the nape of his skull.
“No because…because I was going to call an ambulance, and then I realised it was too late for that. And I didn’t get the license number so…” He cowered under Amber’s gaze. “I know. And now I’ve made it worse. I just—she was there. Like…broken. No one was around to help me and I wanted…I wanted her to be with you.” Chad peered up at her, swiping his damp neck. Her eyes were like traffic lights, flashing like a warning. He scrabbled. “Remember the deer, Amber? You didn’t want me to leave it there—”
“Stop, I’m going to be sick again—”
“You wanted me to do the right thing by it. That’s what I thought I was…” He swallowed a glob of saliva. “Look. It was too late for the call. I just took her and drove. I just took her.” He scrubbed viciously at a line of snot, which was gathering and threatened to spill out. He was such an idiot. Hopeless.
“But we can ring them now?” she sniffled.
He shook his head. “I don’t think we can, honey.”
Her forehead crumpled. “What are you saying?”
He looked at the space in between her eyes. That way it was easier. “I’ve messed all of that up. I just wanted to take her home to you but…She’s in my truck, Amb. Like that. And the car just drove off. So no one would vouch for me.”
“You’re putting yourself first in this? FUCK you, Chad,” Her voice was full-bodied now, her breathing heavy but levelled. He swallowed, knowing how it seemed. But he knew how the cops here would jump to their conclusions. And even if he told them about Brett, who were they more likely to believe? Some red-neck over a church leader? Not likely.
“We need to deal with this ourselves. This is…a family matter. Do you see? Involving the cops right now, it doesn’t solve anything. An accident…It was no one’s fault!”
“Why won’t you let me fight for my daughter?” Her voice broke. He closed his eyes for a moment to gather his thoughts and then fixated on a space behind her, remembering why and what he was protecting.
“I know you think you want justice, Amb. But it won’t bring her back. And I’m thinking of you, of our family. How it looks for me right now…I could face a jail sentence. Who knows what they’ll believe?”
She wrapped her arms across her chest tightly and turned away from him.
“Then there’s the church to be thinking about. Reputation is important. I don’t want anyone speculating that you’re a bad mother, you know? None of this is your fault. I can sort this out,” he said, but he felt his heart pumping wildly.
And it was the wrong thing to say. Her eyes sparked and she flew at him, a sharp slap across the face. His reflexes had always been excellent: he caught her flailing arms before a second scratch landed and they locked heads.
“My little girl is not yours to sort.”
He wrinkled his brow. “You want to help?”
She breathed out heavily. “I can’t think straight. I can’t…I can’t process this. I’m…How do I trust you?” He felt her shaking and released her arms. “I don’t have a choice, do I?” She dragged a hand across her face.
He nodded, looking doubtfully at her slippers but saying nothing. “I’m sorry it has to be like this.” He felt her tension ease and he slid her arms around him into a tight hug.
“Was she possessed, Chad?” She said into his damp neck. “Was my girl bad? Drinking? Letting boys…Will she go to hell?” Chad lent backwards and held her face in his hands. He considered the question, but in all honesty, he had no idea. He hadn’t known Gilly for very long. Did good girls go to parties? Did good girls’ mothers let them? Gilly had never been to church with them. They had asked her but she had sweetly said she was in the middle of a history assignment. Chad had noticed the TV flickering from her window when they returned though. Everyone knew TV was a sure-fire route to corruption.
“What do you think?” he said eventually, aware that it was a feeble effort.
“I think she was just a baby, Chad,” she said, letting snot dribble down her chin. “She was just mine.”
Chad took her hand in both of his. He felt that the night was moving towards him: it wanted to catch him out.
“I know this all sounds crazy.”
“It is crazy.”
“But what’s most important now is honouring Gilly.”
That sprung tears again. Pulling her hand from his clasp, she tore at her eyes, pressing her fists into the sockets.
“It will get light in a couple of hours or so. I’ll get some spades.” He kept his voice steady, firm, it was what she needed from him, but a panic took hold of his body and sent his chest into sporadic seizures. They both gazed at the trunk.
*
Chad could hear the rain smack on metal behind the garage door. The noise circled his head like a disturbed wasp nest. The trunk was open and, from this angle, just a few locks of strawberry blonde hair were visible, tangled around painted fingernails. He tried not to look at it, clear his mind.
Amber was holding a spade like she was going into battle. His walking boots weighed her down now, and he had draped a water-proof anorak over her pyjamas. He’d wanted her to be warm. That was what people did with shock, right? Blankets and hot drinks. Still, she was trembling. He gave her limp free hand a squeeze. Amber needed him to be a man about this. This was his cross to bear. Perhaps if he could do this right for her now, send Gilly off with love, and then went on to be the perfect father to Ivan, the doting husband to Amber, then he would be absolved of eternal damnation. This was what he told himself anyway. He needed certainty.
It was God’s judgement which mattered most, but there were also logistics. Chad knew Gilly’s head wound had seeped into the truck’s coverings, so there was DNA to be considered. That was how any criminal got caught out these days. CSI had taught him that much. The garden ground was hard, hard to carve a spade into, or a pitchfork or any other garden tool Chad happened to have accrued. How long did a grave take to dig? He wondered if Gilly’s blood had trickled away in the storm, off the road and into the shrubbery, a fertiliser for earthworms. If the rain, still pounding now, would fall into the pit and elevate her body like a drowned witch. If the rain would turn into the hand of God and strike him dead into the back of the skull whilst he worked. If the soil showers would wake the neighbours. If he would wave to them, soaked to the skin, as though gardening past midnight was a new and more eccentric revelation of married life.
Amber was whimpering over Gilly’s body, and he pretended not to hear. He shook his head. He was going soft when he needed to focus. On went his hood, sealed tight on the chin. On went a pair of gardening gloves, and a bin bag slung across his waist. The garage didn’t lead directly onto the garden. He gestured for Amber to go first.
“I’ll meet you there, darling. You just hold the gate open for us on the other side. No, no, I’ve got her, I’ve got her.”
She seemed reluctant to let go of Gilly’s shoulders, propping her up with scooped arms, so that she lay as though sleeping on her mother’s chest. Chad gently assumed the same position, prising the body out of his wife’s grasp and making encouraging sounds as she stumbled out of the garage.
“That’s it, great going. To the gate. I’ll be just a minute.”
Amber had wrapped Gilly’s head in her favourite silk scarf, and draped a knitted blanket over her.
“It was the blanket my mother knitted for me,” she had said. It seemed she was out of tears, her body drained of substance.
He heaved the wilting body around the front patio, the automatic overhead lights exposing him to the alley cats for a moment. He froze. Could anyone see him in the gloom? A quick listen betrayed no noise, not even the soft pad of a passing racoon. Come on, Chad, he chastised himself, you’re no criminal. Stop acting like one. You’re a brave man, protecting the church community. Putting the whole picture ahead of the personal. Looking after your wife. That’s all anyone can ask of you. He straightened his gait and passed through the open gate, flicking it shut with his heel as he passed. It was easiest to pretend he wasn’t handling a body.
Amber was standing in the middle of the garden, unsteady on her feet.
“Do you know, yesterday morning, I cooked her pancakes with maple syrup and blueberries. That was always her favourite,” she said.
He laid the child down gently on the grass in front of her, brushing Gilly’s hair from her face. Then he turned his back on them both and faced the the earth; the rain.
“Are you ready?”
Amber didn’t reply, and he began making the incisions into the turf.
16TH MAY, 2015
AMBER
The clang of metal. Her cell door was being opened. It was Samantha, the guard with the kind eyes.
“Amber, it’s time for group.”
She meant the group therapy sessions. They happened once a week. They were a kind of one size fits all. Some of the women scared her. The ones with vacant eyes, like they had lost their soul.
She got up and followed Samantha across the prison floor, waiting like a dog for each gate to be unlocked and she released. She scanned the room and sat next to the woman who had killed her abusive husband. She forgot her name: names weren’t important here. Only what you’d done to get there and whether you regretted it not. Really, the meetings were a suicide watch. So, when it came to her turn, and the group leader, with her rose petal pink blouse and tortoise shell-rimmed glasses asked her how she had been getting on this week, what she really meant was, do we have to spend extra resources this week monitoring you? Amber wasn’t sure what kind of penalties a prison might suffer from for producing a high suicide rate, but she felt sure there must be some. She cleared her throat.
