My mother started to say something else and then stopped, looking lost and upset. Dad ran a hand through his thinning hair, which is a paler shade of my own. He looked angry and lost too.
“I don’t know what to say to you,” he finally said, his voice cracking, and he and Mom just stood there, looking at me.
It was so . . . it was amazing, seeing them like that, wild-eyed and upset over me (me!) but at the same time it made me think of you and your mother. It made me think of that night, of standing in the hospital staring 131
at the police officers talking to me. Their faces came at me in pieces. Forehead, nose, chin, voices. Their voices sounded so far away.
Then I heard your mother. All she said was your name but it sounded torn out of her. JuliaJuliaJulia. Julia!
I wanted a drink again. I wanted to forget today, the past few months, who I am now. I didn’t want this, all of us standing around outside acting out scenes from a play none of us knew the lines to.
I told them all of that, J. Every single word. The play bit was the best. Mom actually flinched. I liked that. I liked that they were upset. Now I know why you said things that would make your mom’s voice rise furiously and her face turn red. I know why you did it with a little smile on your face.
You owned her when she was like that. You were all she could see.
I pushed past them like they weren’t there, like all those years where they looked past me to see each other, and went inside. They followed me, and when I glanced back over my shoulder I saw them looking at me. I watched them search my face like it held answers to everything.
Finally, I had what I wanted from them. Finally, they were really looking at me. But what it took to get that . . .
I turned away and went upstairs.
132
The thing is—and you know this—is that my parents were never cut out to be parents. I mean, they’re not the kind of parents you think of when someone says something like that, people who specialize in dark closets and hard slaps, creating children who know the only way they’d be safe is if they were never born.
My parents just didn’t plan on having kids. I know that’s not that big a deal. So they didn’t want kids. I’m not the first mistake ever born.
And look, I know I’m lucky. I live in a nice house in a nice neighborhood. I live with two parents who are still married to each other. Who still love each other. I’ve never been spanked, never been called names or insulted.
They’ve never even yelled at me.
And that’s just it. I was never even worth the effort of a raised voice. I know it’s sick, bitching because my parents never yelled at me. Oh poor me, being able to do whatever I wanted. You always said I had it made, that my parents were cool. You liked them. You liked the way they always said, “Oh, hello, Julia,” when you came over and never asked where we were going or when we would be back. You said it was a lot better than your mom, who always asked about your clothes and your hair and your friends, endless questions.
I envied you.
133
Oh, my parents made room for me. They gave me birthday parties when I was young enough to want them and came to my school plays and sometimes took me with them on vacation. I always got an allowance and great presents on the holidays and my birthday. I got hugs if I asked for them and always a good-night kiss on the cheek.
But that was it. I was there. They knew it. The end.
They’d filled their hearts up with each other and didn’t need anything else. They didn’t need anyone else.
And when I stopped trying to please them by being as perfect as I could be, when I stopped getting all As and stopped participating in all the worthless after school activities I was in, they said they understood. They said sure, I could move into the attic when I asked. They said bye, have a nice time when I’d yell that you and I were going out. They said hey, it’s okay, not everyone is cut out for advanced classes when my grades dropped to average or just below. They said they knew being a teenager was rough.
They never asked how I was.
134
T W E L V E
I TAKE BACK EVERYTHING I told Julia about my parents before. I was lucky then, back when they left me alone. When Julia was around.
Mom and Dad came upstairs after dinner—which I refused to go down for, not just because I didn’t want to deal with them, but because I also wanted to think about the hanging-out-with-Caro thing—and sat on my bed.
They said (predictably, at the same time), “We’d like to talk to you about Julia.”
I ignored them and stared at my bedspread.
“We’re not leaving,” Dad said, and the way he said it should have told me what was coming. “Your mother and I feel that your behavior today—and not just that, but all of your behavior lately—has been about what 135
happened to Julia, and we want you to tell us about the night she—”
“You were at the hospital, remember? You saw me come in. You probably saw them bring her . . . her body in, and I don’t know what more there is to say.”
“We’d like you to talk to us,” Mom said. “Tell us exactly what happened. How it made you feel. We . . .
honey, we want you to know you can always talk to us.”
“I can talk to you,” I said, echoing them, and they both nodded.
Now I could talk and they would listen. Now they wanted to. Now. It made something twist hard inside me because I always wanted them to really talk to me, really listen to me, but if I’d known what would make it happen—God, if I’d only known . . .
“Please, Amy,” Dad said. “Your mother and I think this would be helpful for all of us. We haven’t pressed you, but we think you need to talk about it. It would help us help you.”
Something bitter rolled through me then. They wanted to help me now, when it was too late, when nothing could be done. I looked at their faces, so eager to be “the parents” when before they just wanted to be “Colin and Grace, who happen to have a daughter.”
136
“I killed her.”
Silence. Not comfortable silence. Shocked silence.
There’s a difference. Shocked silence hangs heavy, presses down on you.
“But you weren’t—you weren’t driving the car,” Mom said, leaning in and putting a hand on my knee. “Julia was driving.”
I moved away. “I told her we should leave, I walked her to the car, I told her to get in. I told her to put on her seat belt. I told her to drive.”
“Amy,” Dad said. “That doesn’t mean—”
“It does,” I said. “It does because I made sure she wanted to leave. I wanted—I wanted us to, and we did, and then she . . .”
And then I killed Julia.
I told them how I did it. I told them because I could see they didn’t believe me.
I knew, once I told them, that they would.
“We went to a party,” I said. “Julia’s boyfriend, Kevin, was supposed to be there. I went in first, because Julia wanted me to make sure he was there, and I saw him leading some freshman girl upstairs.”
I’d known it was coming, I knew how Kevin was.
I knew Julia loved him, but he . . . he kept messing 137
around with other girls, and she’d get mad and yell and say she’d never see him again.
But she always did. Why? I still don’t get that. She said she loved him, but, really, what good is love?
What does it do? Julia loved Kevin, and he hurt her, and I wanted her to see that. I wanted her to understand that she could do better.
Mom and Dad were looking at me. Not confused, exactly, more like . . . more like they thought they were safe.
They were wrong.
“I made sure Kevin had time to do what I knew he would,” I said, making sure I spoke slowly even as the words stung my mouth, curdled my heart. “I went and found Julia. I told her he wasn’t there, but that I’d heard he would be. So we waited.”