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He turned away. I stood there

for a moment and then hurried out to the SUV.

All the way back to the house, I thought about Del’s reaction to hearing his mother had died. How would I have reacted to such news? What did running away like this mean anyway, if not a total break with my family? What did I expect them to do once they had discovered what I had done? Forgive me? Wish me luck? Tell me they understood? Once I left the house with Daddy’s money, it would be the same as hearing they had died. I’m sure it will be similar for them in relation to me, I thought.

I had been dreaming and fantasizing about this for so long that now that the reality of our actually going ahead and doing it was here, it still seemed like an illusion. It wasn’t until I pulled into our driveway and confronted our big home that I began to feel afraid. Could I pull this off? Could I really do this? Was I a terrible person for giving Del such assurances, such hope?

I sat for a moment in the SUV with the engine off and the lights off, my body trembling. I almost wished I would be discovered, but no lights went on in the house and no one came to the front door.

Back in his house, Del was packing, getting ready to start a new life with me. His grief was being smothered with the fresh new prospects I had given him. I had to succeed now. I had to do what I had promised. I got out quietly and scurried around the house to the window of Daddy’s den. There, I took a deep breath and then climbed back through it into his office. For a long moment I stood listening, half expecting to hear the sound of footsteps on the stairs, but I heard nothing. The maids were in their rooms. It was eerily quiet.

I went to Daddy’s desk drawer and felt for the safe key. When I had it, I paused again to listen. There was just the sound of something creaking in the walls, a pipe or maybe just the house itself settling into a cozy rest for the evening. My heart started to thump so hard, I could actually feel the blood being rushed through my body when I opened the safe and felt inside for the cash box.

If there was any chance of Daddy forgiving me for my past actions, it was soon to end, I thought, but I had long gone past that moment. I had to harden myself against him, Mommy, and Carson in order to continue. I thought about the way Daddy looked at me now. I thought about Carson’s washing his hands of me, and I thought about Mommy telling me I was too far gone for her to interfere. As far as they’re concerned, I rationalized, I’m no longer part of the family anyway. What am I risking?

I opened the cash box, took out the money, and stuffed it into a manila envelope on Daddy’s desk. Then I closed the box and put it back in the safe. I locked the safe and replaced the key in the top drawer. Once again, I paused to listen and heard nothing.

Good-bye Daddy, I thought as I stepped up to the window. Good-bye to seeing all the disappointment in your face, to hearing your voice harden with threats and the imposition of new punishments. In the end you will be happy I’m doing this. Think of all the relief I will bring you.

And good-bye to you, Mommy. I’m sure you’ll be upset for a while, but some new social event will come up, and then you will have all the pressure of Carson’s wedding. That will take your mind off me, won’t it? It seems to do it for you now, to the extent that I’d just as well not be here.

And Carson, my reluctant brother, how happy you will be. Just think, you no longer will have to make up any excuses for me or try to avoid me. You can go on and believe you were an only child after all. Your sister was a fiction. What sister? Never heard of her.

You’re all going to be happier, and there is no question in my mind that I will be, so good-bye, good-bye, good-bye, I thought, and went out through the window. I closed it behind me and walked slowly around the house and back to the SUV. For a moment I stood by it, looking up at the darkened windows and thinking about Mommy dreaming her happy dreams and Daddy feeling safe and contented beside her. I wondered just how long it would take them to realize I was gone.

I even imagined the scene at breakfast.

“Henderson,” Mommy would say after sitting awhile and discovering I hadn’t come down to breakfast. I hadn’t even made a sound: no shower going, nothing.

Daddy would lower his Wall Street Journal.

“What?”

“Teal hasn’t come to breakfast, and she has to get to school.”

Daddy would sigh in annoyance and call to the maid to tell her to knock on my bedroom door. She would, and then she would return to tell them there was no response. Now, infuriated, Daddy would get up and pound up the stairs to my bedroom. He would thrust open the door and stare with confusion at my still-made bed.

“Teal?”

He would look into the bathroom and see I wasn’t there. Confused, but more angry than worried, surely, he would come flying down the stairs and announce I wasn’t in my bedroom. The bed, in fact, looked unused.

“What?” Mommy would say. “That’s impossible. She didn’t leave the house, and she certainly wouldn’t make her bed.”

Daddy would stand there a moment thinking, and then he would turn and march out to look for the SUV. When he saw it was gone, he would come stomping in, screaming about me. He would go to the phone, vowing to have me arrested again and this time, put into jail for years if he could.

Mommy would try to calm him, but soon she would feel she was getting too stressed over it and retreat. After all, she had to be ready for some luncheon or another and she couldn’t very well go looking like a ragtag woman.

Daddy would call Carson and they would console each other and repeat to each other how terrible I was, how utterly hopeless I was.

“Don’t get sick over her,” Carson would advise.

“I won’t do that,” Daddy would vow, and he would gather his wits, call the police, and then go to work.

I played this whole scenario in my mind as I drove back to Del’s house. In a way it made me feel good about what I was doing, and in a way, it made me feel even sadder.

Whatever, I told myself. It doesn’t matter now. It doesn’t matter anymore.

It’s too late to turn back, and it’s too late for regrets.