Page 56 of The Ghostwriter

June 13, 1975

7:00 p.m.

I’m fading in and out of consciousness. I open my eyes in time to see Vince jump Danny from behind. As if from a great distance, I hear their bodies hitting the wall, careening down the hallway. Vince screaming, “What the fuck did you do to her?”

I can’t feel my hands or feet, just a dull ache at my core. My mouth doesn’t work, my voice nothing more than a whisper. I want to tell them who did this to me before my brothers destroy each other.

More moments flicker through my mind—laughing with Margot at lunch in the fifth grade, my parents dancing to Sinatra in the living room last Christmas. My brothers at the breakfast table—years ago—passing the Sunday comics between them, the sound of cartoons on the television in the background. And later, their fighting. Always the fighting.

I never should have gone to that party. Or had those beers, which hadn’t made me feel lighter. They’d made me angrier, amplifying it like the megaphone Mr. Stewart used in PE.

Mr. Stewart.

I’d been looking out the kitchen window waiting for Vince to arrive. Mr. Stewart must have come in through the front door because one minute I was alone and the next, he was standing next to me.

“I think we need to talk. Clear the air,” he’d said.

“Get out of my house. My parents will be home any minute.”

Mr. Stewart had shaken his head. “I saw them as they were leaving. Going to the movies in Ventura. Your dad told me how much he hated the first night of the carnival. So many people. So much traffic.” He peered out the back window and then back at me. “Looks pretty quiet around here though.”

As he spoke, my hand had inched to the left on the counter, slowly landing on the knife drying there. When I had a good grip on it, I sprinted from the kitchen, down the hall to my room.

The pain is almost gone now. My brothers tear at each other in the hallway, and I hate that my last moments will be spent listening to them fight.

I should have run out the back door. I see that now. Screamed the whole way back to the carnival, telling anyone who would listen who Mr. Stewart really was. What he’d done to Danny. What he’d certainly done to others in that equipment shed.

But I’d run into my room instead. The place I’d always sought refuge, where I’d always been safe. Mr. Stewart crashed in after me. Too big. Too strong. He’d grabbed my wrist and twisted it, angling the knife away from himself and plunging it into my stomach. I felt the blade slip in, sharp and hot, passing through the softest part of me, until all I could see was the handle. Then Mr. Stewart had pushed me back onto the bed, still holding the knife, and it slipped out of me, the spot where it had entered pooling with blood. I’d pressed my hands to the wound, as if I could have held it all in, but there was too much.

“You did this to yourself,” he’d said, wiping the handle of the knife with his shirt, then dropping it on the floor. Then he stepped backward, away from the mess. I blinked, and he was gone. I blinked again and it was Danny standing over me, holding the discarded knife in his hand. Crying. Knowing what had happened, what I’d set in motion that he’d tried so hard to prevent.

A loud crash comes from the hallway, pulling me back to the present. Then the sound of a body hitting the floor. Heavy breathing, effort spent. My brothers will never see each other clearly. What a tragedy that Danny cannot see Vince’s tender side. Cannot appreciate his dark humor or his sharp wit. And Vince will never see Danny’s honor. The sacrifices he’s made that allowed us to believe in a world that never existed. Vince will never know Danny’s secret because I never had the chance to tell him. And now, without that last roll of film, there won’t be anyone left who can tell.

It’s quiet now, the fighting stopped. I hear the back door open and feel a panic surge through me. Was Mr. Stewart back again? Then an inhalation. A gasp. A cry.

Lydia’s voice, shouting, “What did you do to him, Danny?”

I wish I could apologize to her. I’d been so focused on exposing her mistake, her misdeeds, never looking toward the men who’d put her in that position. And now I can never make that right for her.

I don’t want to die. And yet, this is exactly how it’s supposed to happen.

It’s okay.

I’m okay.