“Come back? From where?”
Dad lifted his head, his glistening hazel eyes meeting mine across the room. In that one look, I could see what his secret had cost him all those years ago. And what it was still costing him. “Death.”
He sounded like a crazy person. I had joked about it for years, but I’d never really thought Dad might be…unbalanced. Until today. “I don’t understand,” I said, suddenly feeling wary.
Dad retold the story of “the accident”. For the most part it was the same as he’d always told it: hard rain, unstable bridge, car goes over, everyone trapped inside, Dad gets out, drags us all to shore. Only this time he filled in some crucial details, details that would forever change my life.
“By the time I could get you two out of the car and out of the water, you were already gone. Your mother and I did CPR on you for I don’t know how long. But it didn’t matter. You were both so cold and blue. And still,” he said, his voice soft and quiet and a million miles away. “So still.”
My heart pounded in my ears. “Then what?”
“Your mother and I sat with you for a long time, crying and holding you. I knew I’d have to go and get some help eventually, but I wanted to wait until she settled down a little bit more. She was…hysterical.
“When she did, I left to go find a phone or get us some help. She wanted to stay with you two, which was fine. I wasn’t gone more than an hour or so, but when I got back…” He trailed off again, leaving me on pins and needles.
“What? When you got back what?” I prompted sharply.
He paused for several seconds, obviously reliving a horror that I couldn’t imagine. “When I got back with the police, you were alive. Both of you.” His eyes met mine. I could see that he was once more in the present. “And she was bleeding.”
My stomach clenched painfully. I had no idea what that meant, but somewhere deep inside me, instinctively, I knew that it wasn’t good. “What happened, Dad?”
A frown crept across his face, followed by an expression of repulsion. “I don’t know what she’d done to herself, I just know she was bleeding and smiling and you two were alive.
“After the police dropped us off at home, I waited for her to say something, to explain what was going on, but she never offered to tell me. And, in a way, I think I was afraid to ask. I knew something was wrong, though. I could feel it. She was different,” he said mysteriously. “And so was your sister.”
A sick feeling overwhelmed me. The implications of what he was saying registered on a visceral level, even though I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. Something inside my mind, and my heart, wouldn’t allow it, shunned the very thought of what he was insinuating.
I sat quietly on the couch, overflowing with emotions, but unable to put any of them into words. I listened as he finished.
“That night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay on my side and stared at the wall, wondering what I should do. I kept thinking that you weren’t safe with them in the house. Something was telling me to get you out of there.
“Right before dawn, I felt your mother get out of bed. I waited for a few seconds then I followed her.
“She went into the nursery and got your sister out of her crib. She held her in her arms for a minute, talking to her, cooing to her. She took her blanket off her, then her pajamas and her diaper. She was mumbling things to your sister, things I couldn’t understand. Makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up just thinking about it.” I saw a fine shiver pass through him as he remembered. He raised one hand to massage his nape as he continued. “Your sister started making these terrible sounds. I thought at first she was choking and I was about to go in and get her. I had just stepped through the door when I saw her skin change.”
My breath caught in my throat. I was terrified to ask him to finish, afraid that in the next moments he might divulge what I was to become. But on the other hand…I had to know. “Her skin? What do you mean?” My heart hammered against my ribs as I waited for him to finish.
“I swear I think it turned black. And shiny. The moonlight coming through the window made it glisten, almost like it was wet. I’ve never seen anything like it. Then she started shaking like she was having a seizure, but she was still making those noises. Unnatural noises.
“Wind started pouring through the windows and doors, howling through the house. I don’t know where it came from. Don’t think I wanted to, really. The gusts were so strong they knocked me against the doorjamb a couple of times. But I hung on, stayed right there. To watch, I guess. I don’t know. I couldn’t seem to tear my eyes away from what was going on.”
I waited for him to continue, but, once more, he was lost in time. “Then what happened?”
“Then your mother let her go, just dropped her,” he said simply.
I sucked in a gulp of air, literally waiting on baited breath for the finale. “What happened to her?”
“That’s the thing. She didn’t fall. She just…hovered there. It’s like the wind was holding her up in the air.” He paused then said softly, “And she didn’t even cry.”
CHAPTER FIVE
We sat quietly for several long minutes, him reliving the nightmare, me digesting my family’s horrible history. I knew I’d have questions. It only made sense after such an astonishing revelation. But, at that moment, I couldn’t think of one. I was too shocked to think much past the sinister portrait Dad had painted.
“The next morning, I waited until your mother was in the shower. I took you and left.” He paused then added under his breath, “And never went back.”
The jingling of the telephone forced me from my shocked shell. On wooden legs, I rose from the couch and made my way to the kitchen where the phone rested on the counter.
Leah’s voice brought me back to reality like a bucket of cold water to the face. “Mom wants you to come for dinner tonight. She fixed pineapple upside down cake.”
Dina Kirby had adopted me, figuratively speaking. From the first time we’d met, she’d been the mother I’d always wanted, but never had. She took me shopping with them, she took me to the movies with them, she took me swimming with them in the summer and skiing with them in the winter. And she always invited me over when she fixed my favorite dessert, pineapple upside down cake.
I could’ve cried. Never had the longing for a mother, a normal mother, been as poignant as it was right then. Wild horses couldn’t have kept me away. Plus it would give me a chance to apologize to Leah.