Never what you think

(First published here)

Sadness fills me and I have no words of explanation for her. I don’t know where to go from here. Doing what you have to do never felt so damned shitty.I have killed my brother-in-law.

Granted, there were others around and no one has quite caught on yet. It is the moment before realization creeps into her eyes. The moment before her illusions are shattered. She hasn’t yet made the connection, because I have told her nothing. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone else had to point it out to her, even when she is given the facts. That’s shock, I suppose. Not that she isn’t quick; quite the contrary. The thing is, she would not even consider the possibility. She loves me and is loyal to me as a junkie is to his dealer and his drug.

I’ve often wondered about loyalty. Where it comes from, exactly, what cements it to the point that it interferes with logic, considers emotion and feelings. I’ve often thought of it as a strength, because it gives you strength to do things you otherwise wouldn’t have done or thought of doing. I know she would say it is a derivative of love. I’m not sure if I believe that. Actually, I’m not sure what to believe anymore. All I know is what I did. And that I had to do it.

Someone once told me there is no right or wrong. Only what we do or don’t. I’ve thought about that at length and though it seems contradictory, it is, in essence, the very same thing. Right or wrong, do or don’t.

I wonder how far her loyalty will go. I wonder if she will ever be capable of looking at me with anything but loathing when she learns what I have done. I wonder if she can know what it means to me to have had to do it. I wonder if it is possible to be happy ever again, knowing your sister has destroyed your family forever.

Ok, maybe it sounds like I am being melodramatic. Hey, free country, think what you like. It can’t possibly measure up to what is in store for me.

“Ava.” her soft brown doe eyes search my face. She knows me and knows there is something she doesn’t know. I wish there wasn’t. I wish I could change series of events and erase choices she made the way I can see into peoples’ hearts. I have never allowed myself regret before. Always thought it was a self-indulgence.

“Ava,” she says again, although my attention has not wavered from her face. “Tell me how.”

Of all the statements she could have chosen, naturally she chooses the how. The one question I will be able to answer more completely than she can imagine. I touch her shoulder, turn her grief-stricken eyes toward the window, where Channel Four has seemingly parked a third of its considerable staff on her front lawn. She draws the deep purple curtains.

“Tell me how this was possible.” My eyes jerk back to hers, fleetingly noticing how pale she seems, and how composed she is for a woman who has just been informed of the murder of her husband. She keeps staring at me, looking for something; an indication that I am protecting her, perhaps, from a harsher truth? She has no idea. But I do what I must. I decide to tell her what I can. she has a right to know, after all. He was hers long before he was ever mine. If I can call him that.

“Me. That’s how, Liv. It was me. I made it possible.”

She frowns, blinks hard, looks at me, wringing her hands.

“I don’t understand.”

I don’t expect I will really truly ever be able to explain it to her. How do you tell your sister that her loving, devoted husband died at the hand of his very own sister-in-law without dying inside?

“I killed Greg.” I whisper. The light of confusion fades to be replaced by suspicion, disbelief, fear, then, as shock takes over, blinding grief returns. She falls to her knees and me with her, tears soaking her collar. Her attention moves to the coffee table, not focusing. Not speaking, but I hear the silent accusation. And then, she shakes. She looks at me with disbelief again, ready to say something, catches my expression and the words die in her throat. She gets up and looks down to where I have not moved.

“Go. Leave me. Leave me. Alone. I want.. go.” Her voice is a shadow and her eyes are empty. I’m unsure of what to do next. So lost, both of us. She understands now. She understands the beginning. After absorbing the intensity in my sister’s hate-filled eyes, I leave the room. Out the front door, look down the street to see no one in the crowd, put on my black helmet over hair so black it often looks blue, snap the visor over what I have been repeatedly told are piercing grey eyes, and speed out of the neighbourhood.

I think of how she left the room, brokenly, to go upstairs where I know she will to sit in the corner of her enormous closet with silent tears wracking her grief-stricken body.

I think of another time, long ago, when two little girls were found in another closet.