In the Dead of Night

Dear Diary,

I can’t sleep. I don’t know if I will ever sleep again. I see it every time I close my eyes. I shouldn’t even write what happened in case someone reads my diary, but I don’t know how I can keep something like this a secret. I will write it out once and then I will burn the pages. I need to get it out just once.

They were fighting again. They were always fighting. Can you call it fighting when only one person is doing the yelling? He was yelling at her. She didn’t wash his favourite shirt and he had an important meeting tomorrow. She just got off a double shift, but that doesn’t matter. He wants his light blue shirt clean.

Jack, before he left for college, always put music on when they fought, to block out the noise. But I always listen. It’s like if no one knows what he does to her than it doesn’t happen. But I know. I listen.

She tries to calm him. She always tries to calm him down. But he can’t be calmed, not when he is a one of his moods. She tells him that she will wash the shirt right now, even though she’s been on her feet all day and it’s after ten. I think he hit he then. It’s hard to remember the order now. It feels like this happened years ago instead of hours. He says if she washes the shirt now it won’t be dry by morning, it can’t go in the dryer.

He calls her names, she apologises. I guess it doesn’t really matter what the fight was about, it is always the same. I can hear him hit her again. She barely even cries anymore. I suppose a person can grow used to anything, even pain.

She never tries to protect herself, she only ever tried to protect me and Jack. She just lets him hit here until he’s tired. Sometimes she’ll cry then. After he has fallen asleep or left the house. She locks herself in the bathroom. She turns the shower on, she thinks that we can’t hear her that way, but I always know.

He’s hitting her and then there is silence. There is blood, but for once it isn’t hers. My mom starts crying. I remember thinking that she always cries when he leaves.

I don’t cry. I just stare at my mom. I wonder if she is actually sad that he’s dead or maybe it’s fear, or relief.

She pulls herself together. She tells me to clean the knife. Bleach. We can’t have a knife missing, we have to clean it.

I felt like I was floating. Like I was in a dream, nothing seemed real anymore.

She kept asking what we should do with the body. She was hysterical. I was calm.

I realise now that neither of us suggested calling the police. The thought had never occurred to me. But what have the police ever done for us? When have they believed us? We made the right decision.

I was the one who figured out what we should do with the body. The property at the end of the street is going to put in the concrete tomorrow. It’s a big house being built. The basement is all dug up, they aren’t doing any more digging. My father always talked to the builders. That’s the kind of guy he is. Was. He talked to everyone. Everyone liked him but his family. We were the only ones who knew him, the real him.

We just had to move the body. That was hard. He was heavy and you can’t just walk down the street with a dead body in your arms. Mom found Jack’s old hockey bag. It was big enough to fit him. We kind of had to squeeze him in but he fit. We put it in the back of his truck, so we didn’t have to carry it all the way to his burial place. We drove to the end of the street. We dug in the dark. It was silent between us. We only had one shovel, and then we had one of those little gardening shovels. I can’t remember what they’re called.

We dug for a long time. Mom kept saying that the hole wasn’t deep enough. In the end the hole was plenty deep enough but she’s right to be paranoid. We worked in complete darkness. We didn’t want anyone to see any lights.

We also had to make sure that it wasn’t obvious where we dug the hole. So, when she was burying him, I sort of dug up the rest of the area, just making it all look the same.

When we were finished, I went to shower. She was putting all of our clothes in the wash. And then she looked at me, dad’s favourite shirt in her hand. She gave a sort of smile and put it into the machine.

After my shower she was just standing in the kitchen looking at the blood-stained floor. At first, she didn’t notice that I had come in. She was so lost in thought. I wish I knew what she was thinking.

She finally noticed me. She told me to go to bed. She would clean up the blood. I needed sleep since I still had to go to school tomorrow. It would be suspicious not to. We have to pretend that nothing happened.

I think it was then that I really realised that we had committed a crime. It didn’t feel like a crime. A crime is something bad and his death doesn’t feel bad. What he did to us was bad. What we did was necessary.

I can still hear her downstairs. She is crying. She never likes to be interrupted when she is crying. It is something she likes to do alone. Part of me wants to go down and comfort her. Tell her that we did the right thing.

But I don’t.

I don’t know why.

That’s not true. If I’m going to write the truth about what happened tonight, I should write the whole truth.

I am scared that she is actually sad that he is dead. I am scared she will tell me what we did was wrong. What I did was wrong. I am scared that she will blame me. Call me a killer.

I am a killer.

I am a killer.

I am a killer.

No matter how many times I write it down it doesn’t feel true. But I was the one holding the knife. And the wound was in his back. She was standing in front of him.

I had to have been the one who killed him. But I don’t even remember leaving my room. I just remember hearing the fight and then I remember him dead.

A killer should feel guilt, but I don’t feel guilty. Only a true sociopath doesn’t feel guilt for their crimes, but I’ve never thought that I was a sociopath.

The truth is I hated him. I really really hated him. I am happy he is gone. He can’t hurt us anymore.

Maybe I’ll feel guilty tomorrow, but tonight I feel happy, happy that he is dead.