SCARS (13 page)

              “Of course this is our tradition. Christmas Eve dinner and gifts.”

              “So tell me, what does this man look like underneath it all?”

              I blushed, a huge smile on my face.

              “Man, I have to say Rayna, I am a bit jelly. But it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving girl.”

              “Or guy.”

              “I’m beginning to see what you see when you look at him. I’m not just talking about how he looks.”

              “Oh?”

              “He sought me out. He said since I meant so much to you he knew things would be better for all concerned if we could bridge the gap between the two of us.”

              “Did he manage to do it?”

              “I don’t know, why don’t you ask him?”

              From the back of the house he appeared. His hair was neatly cut and he wore slacks and a crisp, button up, white, long sleeved shirt.

              He came up to me and took my hands.

              “Rayna, I know we’ve only known each other a short time, but when I’m with you nothing and no one else matters. When you are happy, I am happy. When you ache, I ache. And when there is pain in your eyes I want to extinguish it. I have loved before. But your love has healed parts of my soul I never thought would ever heal again. When you found me on the bridge I was ready to say goodbye and join Lana. But then you did something I didn’t deserve. You faced your fear. A phobia I had no right to challenge. Yet you faced it and saved not just my life but my heart and soul as well.” He got down on one knee and produced a small, royal blue, velvet box. “You’ve given everything to me. Your heart. Your mind. Your body and soul. Will you make it permanent?” He opened the box and produced a large emerald cut sapphire ring. “Will you be my wife?”

              I trembled and nodded as I held out my hand and as he slid on the ring we both rose to our feet and kissed. It was beautiful. It was magical. And for me, having Ellen’s approval and blessing made it perfect.

Chapter Eighteen

              The presents had long been open. The dishes were clean and the food put away. I looked at my ring. James had taken the gifts and left. He had brought my meds over when he came so I could take them with dinner. I would be home to spend Christmas Eve and engagement night with him. But I really needed to get honest with Ellen. She had to know the truth. I feared her reaction.

              Her disdain for my family was always a sure bet. However, she didn’t know about George. Not everything. She knew he was a child molester. She knew of how he dangled me over the bridge. She knew he’d raped me in the woods. She did not know that before the car exploded, before James pulled me out, I had cut his throat.

              His screams were in my head as we sat there, me enjoying a rare glass of wine, Ellen imbibing freely and already in her pajamas. We had A “Christmas Story” playing on the television. It was a stark reminder of how Ellen and I, even though we were very similar in many ways, had gotten to that night differently.

              We were engrossed in that movie. I loved it because it spoke to all of these hopes, wishes and desires I fantasized about. I had a family yes, but it looked nothing like the one playing out on the screen. Although, as I wrestled with how and when exactly to tell Ellen the darkest of my secrets, I worried about the fallout.

              She had been and remained such a crucial part of my support system even though the dynamic had been changed somewhat by a man who was at first perceived as a threat, but who was now in our family and would become my husband.

              But she needed to know this secret. Although, I questioned myself even as I tried to talk about it. For her to have knowledge of my actions would put her in the crosshairs of Georgia and therefore the threat of legal charges. She, on more than one occasion, had proclaimed she wasn’t going to jail for nobody. It was this that had kept me from spilling my guts before. But I was afraid if I didn’t tell her she would feel betrayed in some way. Georgia would no doubt celebrate the loss of such a crucial support person in my life.

              I loved Ellen. She was a weird combination of mother, sister, friend and ally. She knew almost everything. I knew I had to tell her. As much as I didn’t want to, I had to.

              I opened my mouth to tell her the story as in the movie Ralphie lost his shit and beat the crap out of his nemesis drawing blood and making him cry. My father’s screams echoed in my ears and I visibly shuddered.

              Ellen muted the television with the remote. “Rayna?”

              My mouth was dry and my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. How was I going to do this? How was I going to tell her?

              “You okay?”

              “No,” I said, managing to speak. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

              “You’re scaring me. Just out with it. Is it your health? Rip that band aid off fast so that I freak out and get it over with.”

              “The night of the car crash. And I told you I didn’t know what happened to George?”

              “I figured he died in the fire and you didn’t remember it. Have you remembered something?”

              Her innocent question made my stomach churn and my palms sweat. How would she handle knowing the woman she had lived alongside for so many years was a killer?

              “Well,” she pushed.

              “The car had flipped. And the car was on fire. I took a jagged piece of glass and cut his throat open. He died before the car ever exploded.” The blood drained from her face and she had the look of a deer in the headlights. I stood up. “Maybe I should leave, give you time to think about this.”

              She swallowed hard and said, “No. Sit down.”

              Slowly I did so.

              “Why are you telling me this now? Why tell me at all?”

              “Because Georgia knows. And because when I went to the nursing home because she said mom was dying and she wanted to see me I went. Mom has had a major stroke from which she may never recover. She is immobile and she cannot speak. But in that glare she gave me. She knew. And the only way she could know is if Georgia told her. Who knows? Maybe it was the news that precipitated the stroke. I don’t know in any case, she knows and I didn’t want Georgia to tell you. I thought if you found out it should be from me.”

              Ellen exhaled.

              “I wish I could say I didn’t know this. Does James know?”

              “Yes.”

              “When did you tell him?”

              “Early on.”

              “I also wish I could say I was mad and think you deserve to go to jail for this. But I’m not and I don’t. The man tortured you in ways that I think lesser people would have perished by. I do wish I didn’t know just because if the police come sniffing around I don’t have plausible denial. But you are right. I’m glad you told me and it wasn’t that cunt of a sister of yours.”

              “Are we good?”

              “Yes. I just need a night to process this. Get my head around it. I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

              I exhaled. She still had my back. Which was good because Georgia was indeed a nasty piece of work. I knew if I was going to neutralize her presence in my life I would need all the ammunition I could get. My sister of the heart and my future husband had to be in lockstep.

There was no way I would avoid a prison cell without them.

***

             
I was screaming. I was on fire. And George was there burning me at the stake. He said nothing. He simply stood staring at me. First leering, then accusingly. Then my mother stood at his side and took his hand. My sister stood on his other side shaking her fist chanting “burn her” repeatedly. Then mother shouting she must suffer. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe.
I could not breathe.

              James was cradling me in his arms, rocking me gently back and forth.

              “It’s okay, angel. I’ve got you.”

              He held me tightly as I went from limp to clutching onto him. I wasn’t crying. But I couldn’t shake the pervasive aura of fear around me, radiating from me. He stroked my hair and rubbed my back gently.

              “I can’t lose you…” was all I could manage. I just wanted to be soothed. I just desired everything to be okay. But as long as I knew someone I didn’t trust knew my secret it haunted me even more now than it did in my nightmares.

              “You’re not going to. Understand. I’m here. I’ll always be here. Nothing will keep me from your side. Not even your sister. Especially not your sister.”

              I wanted to believe that. I wish I could believe that. But every time I closed my eyes there they all were to damn me for my crimes. Real and imagined.

              I pulled back and looked at him. I searched his face. This man had never lied to me. This man had never disappointed me. He never purported to be something he was not.

              I thought back to the moment he pulled me out of the car. He called me his angel but where had he come from? Had he always been in the woods? Had he always heard my cries for help? If so what had made him come that night?

              James was the kind of man who seemed like the reluctant hero. A man drawn to terrible moments of conflicts of conscience where ultimately he did the right thing by his own code. He saw nothing wrong with what I had done because he had suffered in the same way. By protecting me he could protect himself.

              “I shouldn’t burden you with this,” I murmured clinging to him again.

              “Shhh…”

              “James I…I wish I could carry your pain the way you carry mine.”

              He kissed the top of my head.

              “But you do, angel. You do.”

              “I have leaned on you far more than you have leaned on me.”

              “Rayna, your love is all I need. Loving you is like breathing. There is no other way to describe it. It’s natural. If you wake every night because of the demons in your head I will be here to chase them down and extinguish them. There is no other way I would have it. What is it that is haunting you now?”

              “A nightmare. My family was burning me at the stake.”

              “They’re the ones reaping the whirlwind, angel. Not you.”

              “Not Georgia.”

              He exhaled.

              “She will. In time, she will.”

              “How do you deal with the idea that someone from your past will rob of your future?” I asked.

              “It’s something I haven’t allowed myself to think about. When I went to Ellen I had decided to leave the past there. The ring symbolizes something I want to make with you.”

              “You know there can be no children.”

              “Do you want them?”

              “No. But I’ve been thinking about the kind of lives we lived as children. I don’t want to bring anyone else into our world that we can be robbed of.  It would devastate me.”

              “Then we will have no children.”

              “Are you okay with that?”

              “Yes.”

              Our past in some ways would always dictate our future. In some way it made us better lovers, partners and spouses. We understood each other in ways that perhaps others never would. Not even Ellen. But then, Ellen understood me in a way perhaps James never would be able to. But in the time he we were in one another’s lives he would never fail me. And even though I would fear failing him he would always be there to reassure me that I hadn’t.

Chapter Nineteen

              The morning run was bracing. Usually James and I talked. However I managed to wake before him and didn’t want to wake him up. I left him a note telling him I would be back. The nightmare had left me shaken. James had been so good with me. So had Ellen.

              I really had no more secrets to come out of me. But then, the fact I was a murderer was no laughing matter. I thought of James’ past. He feared it. Who knew, maybe one day a familiar face would pop out of the shadows and take us from one another.

              I couldn’t think about that though. Georgia was a more pressing threat. The stunt she’d pulled with Mom was no laughing matter.