16

Amazingly I had forgotten to be afraid of the dark until I reached the driveway. When I got out of the car I bolted toward the side door and up the steps until I reached my back door which was still standing open and I turned on the ceiling light and slammed the door behind me and fell back against the door and slid to the floor. I held out my hands and was astonished at my trembling fingers. I could have thoroughly shaken a martini but I could not have brought the glass to my lips to drink it.

I was in deep trouble and I knew it. So was Sarah. We were doomed. The police would not be far behind. Once Melanie was able to give them her home address they would be coming for me. My first instinct was to grab Sarah and put her in the car and drive away. But the police knew what my car looked like and they had my license plate number. I could have taken Melanie’s car but it would not have taken them long to figure out that her car was missing and we would have been caught. I had no money. Melanie had deposited all of my money into her account as I could not have my own account. We were cornered like rats.

And then there was Sarah. How long could I go on consciously allowing her to kill people? To stop her we would either have to live on a deserted island or I would have to turn her in to the authorities and she would grow up surrounded by doctors in a psychiatric ward. And if she was designated a sociopath she would be incurable. She would never be permitted to leave and both of our hearts would be eternally broken.

I pushed myself up from the floor and I walked into her room. I stood over her bed and looked down upon her warm innocent pink face; at her little mushroom nose and her round little cheeks and the maturing stretch of her face. She looked so harmless in her sleep. Tears streamed from my eyes as I came to realize what I ought to do. What I had to do.

I knelt down beside her on the bed and I rested my head on her little chest and I listened to her heart beat and I felt the warmth of her body. Hers was the only unconditional love I had ever known. She was the only person who I had ever trusted to be loyal to me and to love me as much as I had loved her. We had been inseparable since her birth. She had grown up lying on my chest or in the company of unfamiliar faces she had attached herself to my leg; and when we walked she held my finger or I carried her or pushed her in the stroller. Every happy moment of my life since her birth involved her. I squeezed her little body and then I stood and kissed her forehead before backing out of her room.

I went to the living room and I paced from there to the kitchen and back several times. Sarah was my life. The police would soon be coming. I could not let them take her.

I was always of the mindset that where there was a problem there was always a solution. There had to be some way out of the mess we were in. Someone we could turn to. Some way to live with Sarah without letting her hurt anyone.

I returned to Sarah’s room again and once again I studied her face; it was no longer round but rather longish; her brow, her lashes, the cut of her nose foretold of the blossoming of her forthcoming womanhood; of a not so distant day when she would be more independent; more capable. She was nine years old…almost ten. She was still so little. She was so loving to me. How could she be a monster when she was still my baby?

Fuck the world, I thought.

But then I thought about the life that she would lead; the murders she would commit. She would kill again. She would live a life on the run until she was caught and then she would be caged. She would be miserable. And what of the many victims she would leave behind. What of their families. What if she killed some little girl at her school who refused to share a toy or who was foolish enough to taunt her? What then?

I walked out of Sarah’s bedroom slowly with my head slumped down. I no longer felt the urge to release my anxiety by pacing the floor. I went into the living room and I slumped into the sofa and I stared out into space and wondered what I had done so wrong and tears began to pour like drizzle from my eyes.

I just sat there for a while trying to convince myself that I had other options. Finally I got up and I walked to the kitchen.

In the kitchen I found Melanie’s purse hanging from the back of a chair and I sifted through its compartments and found a full bottle of sleeping pills. I had seen the receipt on her dresser for the new bottle of pills and knew that she had refilled her prescription. I pressed down on the child-proof cap and I twisted the lid until it sprang open. I held out my palm and spilled six capsules from the bottle; but then I slipped them back into the container and resealed it. I restored the bottle to Melanie’s purse. I couldn’t do it. But then I pondered which was the lesser of the two evils: letting Sarah be caged or letting her fall asleep…forever. I pulled the bottle of pills from Melanie’s purse once again and I spilled six pills into my palm and then I resealed the lid and returned the bottle to Melanie’s purse.

The large clear glass pitcher in the refrigerator was filled with Sarah’s favorite drink: cherry Koolaide. Sweat formed on the glass as I removed the pitcher from the icebox and placed it on the table and then I plucked a small drinking glass from the cupboard and placed it on the table. I carefully cracked open the first capsule and poured the powder into the glass. One by one I severed the sleeping pills and poured their contents out until there was a miniature mound of white powder in the bottom center of the tumbler. The red dye in the Koolaide clouded up as I spilled it over the powder but the drug quickly dissolved and disappeared.

I slinked to the bathroom and I dropped the empty capsules into the toilet and I flushed. I put the Koolaide back inside the refrigerator and I carried the glass to the living room and placed it on a coaster next to the wooden rocking chair that sat near the fireplace. I rekindled the ashes from the previous fire and then placed a fresh log on the fire.

As I stood at Sarah’s bedroom threshold

I wondered how Abraham must have felt as he carried Isaac to the altar. I wondered how he could have brought himself to sacrifice his only child. He must have loved his god as I loved Sarah or he could not have done it. I knew that what I was doing was for Sarah’s benefit. I knew that if I failed her that she would be miserable for the rest of her days. I stepped into the bedroom and I carefully picked Sarah up from her bed, her blanket still wrapped around her body. I carried her into the living room and I sat down on the rocking chair placing her on my lap. Sarah stirred but she was still sound asleep. I kissed her on the forehead and her skin warmed my lips and tears began to stream again like a thick heavy summer rain down onto Sarah’s face. I prayed for God to come down from heaven and substitute my sacrifice with a lamb, but God was nowhere to be found. Sarah was a damaged human being. She would kill and kill and kill and there was nothing short of her demise that would protect the world from her or protect her from the world. It was my duty as a father to protect her from the wrath of the living and my obligation to the living to protect them from my Sarah.

I stroked Sarah’s face with my hand and I nuzzled her cheek to my whisker covered face and her eyes fluttered open.

“What are you doing daddy?” her voice was dry and scratchy.

“I just wanted to hold you honey.”

Sarah smiled up at me, but as tears once again filled my eyes and I felt my face collapse as I tried to hold back the flow that had welled- up inside of my head, she frowned.

“What’s the matter daddy?”

“Nothing sweetheart.” My voice broke and I turned my head away and sniffled and wiped my eyes on my sleeve, “I just wanted to hold you honey.”