Page 9 of The Ghostwriter

Friday, June 13, 1975

11:30 p.m.

I lie on top of the covers in the motel, the cheap scratch of the bedspread poking through my T-shirt. Not the one I put on this morning, that I wore to school, then later to the carnival, the one that had blood all over it but still smelled like laundry detergent when I’d pulled it off. The one that was now burned to ashes beneath a pile of trash.

The walls of the room are thin, and I can hear my mother sobbing next door, the low voice of my father trying to console her, grief thick and heavy in his words. The sound of her rakes across me like sharp nails, making me want to jump out of my skin. I wish she would just be quiet for one blessed minute.

Would you kids be quiet for one blessed minute?

That won’t be a problem any longer.

My eyes are dry as I stare at the ceiling, speckled and bumpy, a slash of light from the streetlamp outside casting a stripe across it. The adrenaline of the evening still pumps through me, my heart rate refusing to fall despite the fact that it’s been hours. My head pounds with every heartbeat in the spot where Danny had slammed it into the wall, a lump I can feel just under my hairline.

I imagine the police, still swarming all over our house, the bodies of my brother and sister now removed in a silent ambulance—no flashing lights or loud siren, just a slow acceleration down the cul-de-sac, no need to hurry. I can see in my mind the giant pools of blood left behind—Danny’s in the hallway and Poppy’s in her room. I doubt it will ever come out, though I hope we’ll never live there again.

The police will be looking for evidence. Trying to figure out who could have committed such a horrific crime—the brutal murder of two kids—a stabbing so much more personal than a gunshot. More barbaric than poison. They will find clues, but they will never see the truth.

This morning, I woke up the weird middle child—the volatile, moody one everyone is just a little bit afraid of. And less than twenty-four hours later, I’m the only one left. The one my parents already can’t bear to look at, a sharp reminder of who else is no longer here.

My mother’s crying softens through the wall, and I breathe a little easier, hoping she’ll stop soon. But then it ratchets up again, a loud wail that must have everyone in the motel knowing that we’re here. Thinking about us and what’s happened.

I roll onto my side. I can’t think of Poppy, about what she must have been thinking in her final moments. It’s easier to think about Danny, how hard he fought. How I was almost the one who’d died in that hallway.

The truth I can never say aloud is that I’m not sad about Danny. I’m glad he’s dead.