Page 97 of Release

I left the brick there on the porch, roughed myself up so that dirt from the gloves was smeared on my throat and face and arms, slapped myself in the face, hard, punched myself in the forehead almost hard enough to make me see stars, and hurried back into my bedroom.

There, I touched the knife handle with the gloves, punched my father in the face a couple of times as hard as I could—that felt good—and made sure to get blood on the gloves.

I even checked to make sure I hadn’t tracked blood anywhere, but most of it was on my bed, or on him, or on me.

Which was fine. I wanted at least some of it on me. Tracking a little inside the house would be okay. It’d help the story.

I just didn’t want there to be any to give away my actions.

I slipped on my father’s flip-flops, which were on the back porch just beside the door, and wore them while I dropped one of the gloves right at the bottom of the back porch steps. The other I carried across the backyard and tossed over the back fence. Neither of our neighbors on either side could see into our back yard, fortunately. Not with the fences on either side. Behind us lay a deep, wooded ravine that bordered the railroad tracks.

I left the back door standing open, kicked off the flipflops where I’d got them, rinsed my feet in the tub and washed it out, then returned to my bedroom.

Maybe three minutes had passed, if that, the quiet voice whispering to me the whole time.

I touched my hands to the blood and started screaming.

“Daddy! Daddy! Help!”

I hit the floor, as if I’d fallen out of bed, and scrambled up and off the floor, running into the living room. By now I was finally crying, except they were tears of relief and joy.

Not that anyone else could tell the difference.

Grabbing the phone, I punched in 911 and sat there sobbing as the operator answered and I started babbling at them.

The first officers arrived minutes later, a man and a woman, the woman wrapping her own jacket around me as she sat with me on the front porch while the man raced through the house and out the back door, his gun drawn. As they arrived the rain began pouring down, a massive deluge.

I sat there rocking, crying, covered in my father’s blood and filled with happy, secret guilt.

My own rebirth. I’d entered my new life kicking and screaming and covered with someone else’s blood.

Not a bad chosen baptism, I suppose.

Praise God.

* * * *

They called the auto parts plant to notify Momma, who said she’d be right home. The voice whispered in my ear as I told the officers the man was a skinny white guy, taller than my father, red hair, and that he had a tattoo on his neck. When they asked about how long his hair was, I said I didn’t know, that I wasn’t sure, that it happened so fast and he’d been wearing a knit cap. That between when my father switched on my bedroom light after I screamed, and when the struggle happened, I didn’t get a better look at him because I was too scared.

I was hoping there wouldn’t be anyone matching that description picked up and falsely accused of the crime.

Because of the storm, which lasted for hours, the tracking dog they finally brought in later didn’t pick up any scents.

They blamed it on the storm.

The voice whispered to me as they questioned me, and I lied and said no, the man didn’t have a chance to molest me.

That my father died saving my life.

The adult lawyer can look back and see my privilege. Adorable white tween girl, sobbing for her dead father, who was heroically murdered trying to save her.

Yeeeeaaah.

They didn’t question me very much. All I had to do was think about how relieved I was to never have to worry about locking my bedroom door again, and I didn’t even have to fake my tears.

And as the voice faded in my head over the next days and weeks, I made sure to never change my story, never embellish beyond what I’d already said. To always stick to the bare essentials.

It was hypothesized the man must have spotted me one day when I was riding to the library, or to or from school.