Cause, Silly, It’s Mine

Cause, Silly, It’s Mine

Donna and Ian had met in college. They had a mutual interest in serial killers and met in the stacks at the university library. Donna was looking for a book about H. H. Holmes, Ian was searching for a biography on John Wayne Gacy. They started talking about their mutual interest, compared knowledge, and talked about how it would feel to murder someone. These meetings in the library evolved to discussions over coffee, then conversations over dinner, and finally as debates over who was the deadliest killer before bed.

Over the course of their relationship, they went through all the milestones: graduation from college, marriage in 1995, purchasing a house, developing a group of friends, and parenthood. Their daughter Penelope was born in September 1999. One of their mutual interests had also evolved. They frequently talked about what it would be like to kill, how they could do it, and how they would get away with it. Through these morbid discussions, their dark impulse festered and became a possible reality that they had to fight to resist. At the same time that they had dinner parties and attended book clubs, their dark sides slowly became something they struggled to suppress.

The outward appearance of loving young parents starting a family covered the darker truth – their daughter would be their first victim. Not because they did not love her, but because they had unfettered access to her. The icing on their atrocious cake was that they would commit the ultimate crime on their daughter’s birthday. The pain of losing a child is one that cannot be understood by a parent who never experienced that tragedy. Unless, of course, it was the parents that caused the tragedy.

***

Penny had waited in restless anticipation for this day. If she was asked, she would say that she has been waiting forever. To a 5-year-old girl, 364 days does seem like forever when something fun is at the end of the wait. It was finally her 6^th birthday! Her long blonde braid swung wildly as she ran through the house screaming, “It’s my birthday! It’s my birthday!”

Donna was putting up brightly colored streamers for her daughter’s party later that day. “Penny, please stop running around the house. You’ll fall.”

“I can’t help it, momma. I’m so excited! Cake, ice cream, and presents!!” Penny answered, dancing around the dining room table. “I hope I get a bunch of Barbies!”

“Yes, because the 20 you already have are probably lonely,” Donna chuckled. “You need to rest now anyway; your party will start in a few hours. Do you want to take a nap?”

Penny huffed at her mother, “Don’t be silly, momma. I’m not a baby, you know.”

“You will always be my baby, Penelope,” Donna said lovingly.

Penny wrinkled her face in disdain. “Don’t call me that. My name is Penny.”

           The party came and went. Donna and her husband Ian were exhausted. There was wrapping paper and balloons all over the house. Empty pink Barbie boxes littered the floor. There were paper plates of half-eaten cake on nearly every flat surface. It was a successful party.

           Penny was currently outside with all of her friends, showing them how fast she could run with her new glittery light-up sneakers. The tired parents realized that the other parents would be there to pick up their daughters very shortly. Thankfully. Donna got up from the couch and leaned out the front door. It was a crisp September evening, but that did not hinder the tribe of girls from going outside to run, cartwheel and somersault on the manicured lawn.

           “Girls! It’s time to come in! Your parents will be here soon!” Donna hollered out the front door.

           The girls stopped playing and filed in past Donna, their cheeks rosy from the crisp autumn air. They grabbed random cups to get a drink of juice, not remembering exactly where the4y placed their cups before they went out to play. One by one, the other parents arrived to get their tired kids. After all of her friends left, Penny excitedly took her new toys to her room. Ian went out to the shed to lay out plastic and fuel up the chainsaw while Donna ensured the kitchen knives were honed to a razor’s edge.

***

           For weeks after Penny disappeared, Donna and Ian acted as if they were distraught. Donna was in daily contact with the detectives investigating the case. She would hound them about progress, new leads, anything to further the guise of a concerned mother. Ian took a leave of absence from the architectural firm and spent most of his time plastering the town with fliers. It was tedious, but it was part of the scheme of being concerned parents. Their family and close friends were constant fixtures, preparing meals for them or helping to put up fliers, anything they needed. Donna and Ian enjoyed the company but relished the fact that no one knew the truth.

           Months passed and it seemed like the search for Penny became less important to the police. Just as they hoped, the case of the missing girl became less important. Donna found that she only needed to contact the detectives a few times weekly, and they were offering no new information. Ian ran out of fliers and went back to his regular work schedule. The disappearance of their daughter had become a cold case, and time was unrelentingly moving along.

           The months turned into years, and mundane daily life again became the norm. Everything seemed to slowly return to normal as the disappearance case grew colder and Donna and Ian’s need to kill again grew hotter. Penny’s birthday, the anniversary of her disappearance, came and went year after year. The possibility of finding the culprit grew more improbable.

“She would have been 16 this year,” Donna said with a slight smirk.

           Ian smirked as well.

Three weeks before what would have been Penny’s 23^rd birthday, the couple were eating a nice supper of homemade lasagna. Ian’s phone rang and he grabbed it. He hit the green answer button and said, “Hello?”

The other end of the line was static, with a deep, repetitive thumping in the background. Thinking it was just a bad connection, he repeated, “Hello?”

Through the static, a female voice arose. “Hello?”

“Hello? Is anyone there?” Ian said with mounting frustration.

“Hello? Daddy?”

Ian’s blood ran cold for a moment, then he became visibly angry. “That’s not funny! Who the hell is this?” He quickly switched to the speakerphone so Donna could hear the conversation. He repeated, “Who the hell is this?”

“Daddy? It’s me, Penny,” came the response through the static.

Of course, it could not be her. Penny was dead, with pieces of her buried under the many manicured flower gardens that Donna tended.

This was not the first time they had gotten a prank call like this. They both had to change their phone numbers every couple of years because they would get random calls from people saying they knew where Penny was. Sometimes they said they had a solid lead, or they would say she was kidnapped by a strange van seen in the area, some had her lost in the forest near their home. Some people, who were on the fringes of reality, said she was abducted by aliens. Occasionally, they would get calls like this – a call with lots of static and a female voice saying it was Penny.

The first time it happened was only three years after she disappeared. Penny would have been nine. They were watching a western on TV one evening and Donna’s phone rang. Without taking her eyes off the television, she grabbed her phone and flipped it open. “Hello?”

The connection must have been bad, she thought, because all she could hear was static and a deep, repetitive thumping. “Hello? Whoever this is, we have a bad connection. Hello?” she repeated, still engrossed in the movie.

A voice emerged from the static, saying, “Hello? Hello? Is anyone there? Momma? Hello?”

Donna was suddenly less distracted by the movie, fumbling with her phone to turn on the speakerphone as she moved it to her left ear and leaned in toward Ian, who just looked confused. It had been a while since Donna had to use her distraught mother’s voice. “Penny? Is that you baby? It’s momma. It’s momma, baby.” Donna shouted into the phone, hoping that whoever was on the other end believed her voice quivering.

Ian was leaned in and said, “Penny? It’s daddy! I’m here! Where are you?”

“Daddy” the staticky voice questioned.

As Ian was getting ready to respond, the line suddenly went dead. The static had ceased, the thumping had disappeared, and the questioning voice had silenced. Ian looked at Donna with a confused look, and her puzzled look was asking what her mouth could not – was that Penny? They both stared at each other for what felt like an hour, and Donna finally spoke up, asking, “Did…did that really happen? Was it her? I mean, it couldn’t be. Could it?” She crumpled into Ian, a shaking, crying mess.

“Babe, that couldn’t be her. We killed her. We cut her up into chunks and buried the pieces in the backyard,” Ian said in the most comforting voice he could muster.

These calls repeated every few months, and their reaction gradually went from one of inquisitive shock to one of anger. That is how they felt when this call came in. Their lasagna grew cold, and their anger grew heated. Ian repeated again, even more angrily, “Who the hell is this?”

“Daddy? Can I come home now? I’ve been gone for so long,” said the submissive adult voice on the other end.

With artificial hopefulness in her voice, Donna blurted out, “Yes, baby. Yes. Come home. We’ve missed you so much.”

Ian flashed her an angry look. They did not know who this was or what their intentions were, but it actually being their dead daughter was impossible.

Suddenly the voice in the static was stronger, less submissive. “I’ll be home soon,” is all it said.

***

It was a cool, windy September day, but they had to keep up appearances. Today would have been their daughter’s 23^rd birthday, and they were going to make their annual pilgrimage to her grave. It was empty, of course, since there was never a body recovered. But they splurged for a fancy headstone, complete with a picture of Penny at the top, just to give the look of distraught parents. The grave was always littered with Barbies, stuffed animals, and more flowers and balloons than any florist shop.

They arrived at the cemetery and parked on the narrow road that ribboned its way through memorials and mausoleums. They climbed out of the car, each carrying their offering of flowers and a Barbie. As they made the short walk towards their destination, they noticed a young woman sitting on the ground with one hand on the fancy headstone. She looked to be about 25 and had long blonde hair cascading down the back of her wool overcoat. As Donna and Ian got closer, they could hear that the young woman was crying.

When they were within speaking distance, Donna greeted the woman, introduced herself and Ian, and asked if she knew their daughter.

“Yes,” the woman sniffled. “I was at the birthday party. You know, the year that…” Her voice trailed off, not wanting to complete the sentence. She added, “I come out here a lot, you know, to like, keep the grave looking nice.”

“I’m glad that you got to know her, even for the short time that we had her,” Ian said with a feigned low, sad voice.

As she sat, the woman was straitening the tributes and memorials; standing up some of the toys that had fallen over and fluffing up the bouquets in the fancy stone flowerpots attached to the headstone.

“What’s your name, dear?” asked Donna. “We may remember you.” The memory of that day would linger in her mind forever. The blood, the pain, the satisfaction.

The woman continued fidgeting with the toys as if she did not hear Donna over the moaning wind.

“Thank you for tending to Penny’s grave. It means so much to us that someone cares enough to do something like that,” Donna said in a louder voice. She expected that this woman and Penny had been friends in their youth. “How could you devote so much of your time to keep our daughter’s grave neat? I’m sure you have a job and your own things to do. Why would you do this?”

The woman looked up at Donna and Ian for the first time. Her pale face wore a somber and mournful look. The eye sockets were pools of nothing, but the voice that answered was that of a happy, carefree child.

“Cause, silly, it’s mine.”

END