Page 96 of Release

Chapter Twenty-Two

Then

I guess after several months of leaving me alone, combined with his recent success, my father felt brazen enough to try again overnight Sunday once Momma had left for work. I had sort of counted on this, I suppose. Call it intuition, call it instinct.

Call it wishful thinking on the part of the new, dark voice in my head, which was honestly looking for any excuse, I suppose.

Regardless, I knew I’d be ready for him.

Whatever the reason, the voice talked to me, walking me through it countless times in my head.

You see, my father always did the exact same thing.

He waspredictable.

One of uswoulddie tonight.

That meant I would have only one chance to make this happen if I didn’t want it to beme. Although, I think part of me was ready for it to be me. Maybe not ready, exactly, but I was at peace with that possibility. I’d be outside his grasp at last if it was me.

Ironically, there was a massive storm brewing, air warm and sticky with humidity and that metallic scent of approaching rain growing. I could hear the thunder in the distance, that deep, bellowing sound that marked a building tempest which would last for hours once it swept in. The wind picked up, too, and thick clouds had obscured the sky since dusk.

I took it all as good omens.

Tonight, I left my bedroom door unlocked on purpose. I laid there unable to sleep, on my stomach, my right hand tightly clutching the handle of the knife under my pillow. The hardest part of my plan was, after hearing him moving around in our tiny house, I had to lie there and pretend to be asleep.

Even after I heard him try the knob to my door and slowly ease it open.

Even after I heard his heavy breathing as he approached my bed, louder even than the sound of the wind picking up outside.

Even after I smelled the stench of his cigarettes as he climbed onto my bed.

That’s when I rolled over, sat up, and plunged the knife into his stomach. I think he was in too much shock that I dared do that to realize I was killing him.

He let out a strangled cry as I threw all my weight into it, shoving him over onto his back on my bed. I jerked the knife out and then brought it down, stabbing him in the chest several times until I finally sat back on the bed and stared at his still, bloody form where he lay sprawled across the end of my bed with the knife sticking out of him.

That dark voice kicked in again almost immediately, whispering to me.

I climbed out of bed and hit the wall switch with my elbow so I didn’t smear blood there. It was all over my hands, some on me.

An explainable amount.

I returned to the bed, grabbed my father’s hands, and put them around the knife handle, moving them up and down on it to smear any of my prints that might have been on it.

“Officer, the man wore gloves…”

My bedroom door was still open. I walked into the bathroom and carefully washed the blood off my hands, making sure I wiped the faucet handle with toilet paper.

Which reminded me.

I returned to my bedroom, reached into my father’s pants pocket, and found the condom, still in its wrapper.

I took that back to the bathroom and flushed it with the toilet paper. I flushed several times, just to make sure it was gone.

Moving quickly, I stepped outside, grabbed a pair of old gardening gloves that had been on the back porch, and used a small paver brick from the edge of the garden to break out a pane of glass in the back door, right over the knob.

From the outside, of course. So the glass fell inside the kitchen.

The wind had really picked up, the smell of rain in the air. It would likely start storming any minute. Lightning flashed not too far away, followed almost immediately by loud crashes of thunder.