How She Died

We sat, each to a chair, fighting against our own hands, our backs, our bodies as they cowered under the Inspector. Were we tied? Or were the black almond eyes of the Inspector seemingly wanting to lunge down our throats and take from us everything, anything, keeping us there, leaning back past each of our own undulate spines? I see them all, looking at me, looking at her, begging me not to look at her. Because if I did, would she be able to pull my soul out of my body and brandish it before us all, and with that cadaver of all I’m made of hanging and lolling and beating against her claw-like fingers, would I finally know myself? Would they finally know me? Dominic would tell me to trust in purification, the cleanliness rendered only unto those who are for God. But does he know what my clean hands have done? And as he sits there to my right, eyes boring into the Inspector, yelling louder than his cut-throat lungs can bear, does he truly believe he is not guilty? 

Somewhere in between Dominic’s raging spurts of saliva and guttural squalling, I mutter, “You took part, as did we all.” 

The Inspector leans forward, the glint of her yellowed teeth peeling her mouth open. Was it not only you?

No. I couldn’t have done it on my own. “Jude knows that.”

But when Jude’s eyes seer into mine just as deeply as Dominic’s, does he believe I did it on my own?

“I couldn’t have.”

And just as Michael saved me that night, he saves me now as he speaks. Because Michael knows I did nothing alone. And it’s the truth. “Jude, you know that.” But what does it matter if I didn’t do it on my own? Does God spare sinners who sin with others? When Jude spoke that September night, when he breathed his hatred into each of our lungs and when he made us look at her as he did, was it my fault that she died? Was it my fault that we killed her?

Emilia. Michael loved Emilia. But he loved me now. Was it better that way? He, who was pure before God even touched him. Where Dominic swore allegiance, and Jude swore compliance, Michael swore love. Unto God, his God, the God who would one day condemn me to Hell. And this Inspector, who would die to drink my blood out of my skull with a straw, why does she look at him that way?

“Emilia died because of her eyes, would you like to as well?”

The Inspector smiles and far to my right, I hear Jerry laugh. He would kill me if he could, he would kill us all. Because that night, when we tied Emilia to her leather office chair and forced her to ask God for forgiveness, he grabbed a hammer and smashed her head in before she could even speak. And he knows that just like her, God would never forgive us. Why would He? Was it not Jude who saw him pick up the hammer? And was it not me who saw him teeter towards Emilia when we placed that Bible in her hands? Jerry didn’t believe in forgiveness. And if he couldn’t forgive her, what were we to him? The Inspector sidles her arms over the table and with a hideous sneer she asks Michael if he loves me. But she doesn’t look at him, she only ever looks at me. And when finally, he speaks, she waits to see what my face will tell her. He is honest, he loved Emilia. She was pure, she was kind, she wanted to help us. And I know that when the Inspector reads my face, all she sees is the burning question clanging against the walls of my evil brain: Who would I have to kill for him to finally love me? The Inspector? One of the five of us? God Himself? And who would I be after it all when I’ve rid the world of everything but myself? 

“Emilia was kind.”

The Inspector frowns, digging her nails into the sleeves of her suit jacket. Why would you kill someone who was kind? Dominic says she never repented. Jude says she meant to cure us. And why would we need to be cured? But Michael, oh precious Michael, who cried and never stopped crying when we killed our therapist and who, I know deep down never forgave us, never forgave me, says what we all thought that night. What Jude told us would happen. What Dominic begged God wouldn’t. And what Jerry never forgave Emilia for.

She wanted to rid us of each other. And there was no death, no God-made Hell, no sin-rank being who could hurt us more. Was she there when I was a child and God made the devil out of my father’s flesh? When he beat us and beat us all the while begging God to forgive his sinful child? Oh Heathen! 

Did you save me like my brothers did? Did you make a home out of this sordid mind!? 

“Heathen! Heathen!” 

It is not just me this time, it is all five of us as one yelling like we did that September night. Banging our hands against the tin chairs, a gong-like rhythm clanging in unison. And our eyes, all boring into the Inspectors like they did Emilia’s because somewhere behind her eyes was the same truth we found in Emilia’s. But no! No! 

Suddenly, Dominic stands up, raking his hands through his hair, yelling louder. But the Inspector only looks at me. Jerry slams his head on the table. Still, she only looks at me. Michael sobs and sobs, his whole body shaking, but those eyes, her eyes are only for me. And Jude, the most intelligent of us all whispers the words I swore never to hear again. 

“Why won’t she look at us?” 

The Inspector smiles, saliva crawling down her chapped lips. “What’s wrong? Did they leave again?”

Did they leave again? What could she mean? Jude? He’s nowhere to be seen. And Jerry, and Dominic and Michael! I gasp, thrashing this way and that. Where did they go? Where did they go? 

“Where did they go!?” 

The Inspector breaks into a cackle, her eyes never leaving my own. “They left you this same way the night you killed Emilia!” She spits. “With a hammer in your hands and the caved-in-head of your therapist lying dead in her office. They always leave you to deal with the worst, don’t they?” 

She leans forward, “When exactly did you figure out your condition? Before or after you killed Emilia?” 

She laughs, “Didn’t think I’d know so much, did you? She told me everything. I should kill you! I’ll kill you!” The Inspector rages, her eyes bulging out of her head, “Murderer!” 

I see nothing, I breathe nothing, I am nothing. All I am like all I ever was without them, is a void swallowing every word I am told to be: sinner, murderer, lunatic. And somewhere under the pool of her eyes and her trembling fingers that she keeps clenched in a fist, I finally understand my place. I understand what God made me for, what my dad beat me for, what Jude, Jerry, Dominic and Michael existed for but most of all, what Emilia died for. So that one day I would quit being anything other than what I really am. 

And when the Inspector eyes me again, I find the mask of her anger fall and something like terror enshroud her face. 

Her eyes glisten under the yellow lamp-light of the interrogation room. “Look at those eyes.” And suddenly I can hear my brothers emerging from the vacuous emptiness, laying their hands on my shoulders and placing that same hammer and Bible I’ve used so many times before. Was I tied down or was she? And why oh why, does she whisper Emilia’s name under her breath between every shuddered breath? Emilia. Emilia. Emilia. 

And finally, when at last she closes her eyes: my daughter.

Would the Inspector ever love me as she did her daughter?

Oh well, I'll ask Michael.