Seri’s face has gone completely white, rivaling the color of the snowbank covering the cabin.  I never meant to say the words I had just spoken, and my chest tightens up so much, I jump to my feet to make sure the airholes are still unobstructed.

I stand off to the side of the room with my hands on my hips, staring at the ceiling and refusing to turn around.  If I turn, I’ll have to look at her face as she realizes the implications of what I have just said and that I’m no different than the two guys who killed her sister.

I wish I had brought the whiskey with me.

“Was it an accident?”  She speaks so softly, I can barely hear her question.

Whispered or screamed, the question pounds in my ears.  I stalk back toward the fire, grab my glass, drain it, and then go to the kitchen to pour another drink.  My hands are shaking, and I spill a bit on the counter.

“Fuck!”  I grab a towel and clean up the mess as the tension continues to build.  I’m always so careful that I never drop or spill anything.  Spills are accidents.  Accidents are wrong, and messy, and dangerous.

It wasn’t an accident.

I throw the towel into the sink and step back. My hands are still shaking, and I cross my arms and pull them tightly against my chest in a vain attempt to still them.

Why did I even say anything to her at all?  Because she asked me to open up?  Because she told me about her sister, and I felt the need to return the favor?  If I had just kept my fucking mouth shut, I could have gone back to reading a book.  Now that I’ve said it, there is no taking it back, and there is no way Seri will just let that bit of information go.

As if to prove my point, she asks again.

“Bishop?  Was it an accident?”

I stare at her with my jaw clenched.  The color is back in her face, and her expression is one of curiosity, not contempt, but that’s only because she doesn’t know the whole truth about what I did.  Maybe I should just come out and tell her.  Maybe then she would keep her distance and stop asking me a bunch of questions I don’t want to answer.

“No,” I finally say as I drop my hands to my sides.  “It wasn’t an accident.”

 “Was he abusive?”  Again, her voice is barely loud enough to hear over the crackling of the fire.

Abusive.

The word doesn’t begin to describe it.  “Abusive” makes me think of someone who yells a lot or occasionally smacks a kid.  The word conjures up images of someone locking a child in their room, sending them to bed without supper, or telling them they are useless and generally bad.  It’s a word that doesn’t even begin to describe the things my father did.

Terrorism—that might be more accurate.

“My father was an asshole.”

I grind my teeth together, trying to understand why I don’t just shut the fuck up.  This isn’t camaraderie or a good way to get to know one another.  She lost someone, and I took someone.  No amount of explaining myself is going to change that.  We have nothing in common here.

Seri stands and comes toward me slowly.

“It’s okay, Bishop.”  Seri reaches out and takes my hands, pulling them toward her.  “You can tell me.”

“I don’t think you really want to know.”

“I do.”  She squeezes my hands.

I stare at where our hands are joined and realize I’m not shaking anymore.  I’m not even sure when it stopped.  Slowly, I turn my hands over and lace my fingers with hers, and my shoulders slump.  Seri pulls me over to sit back down by the fire, retrieves my whiskey, and lowers herself beside me.  She hands me the glass, and I take a big swig.

“Please tell me, Bishop.”  She reaches over and takes one of my hands in hers again.

“Are you sure?” I ask softly.

“Yes.”   There is no hesitation in her voice.

I close my eyes for a long moment and try to focus on nothing but the sensation of her hand pressed against mine.  I swallow another mouthful of whiskey before I begin.

“When I was young, I thought getting smacked around was just what happened when you screwed up.  When I spilled something or left my toys out, I got punched.  Not smacked.  Not spanked.  Punched—closed fist and with all his weight thrown into it.  When Mom didn’t have dinner ready in time or if she got caught talking to the neighbor Dad didn’t like, she got smacked around, too.  That was just life.  It wasn’t until I was older that I realized other kids’ fathers didn’t act like he did.”

“Did he drink a lot, too?” Seri asks.

“Honestly, no.  He had a few beers now and again, but he wasn’t a drunk.  He didn’t have that excuse.  He was just a garden-variety dickhead.  I think he just liked hurting people.”

With one final gulp, I finish my whiskey and stop talking.  Releasing her hand, I head to the kitchen to grab the bottle.  I hold it up in offering, but Seri shakes her head, so I just pour myself another glass before sitting back down next to her.

“When I got bigger, he started beating Mom a lot more.  Also as I got bigger, I learned how to take a punch.  I wouldn’t fall with the first one, and it took more effort to knock me off my feet.  It just wasn’t as much fun for him to hit me anymore, so he spent more time fucking Mom up.  He started accusing her of hanging out with other men though I’m sure she never did.  She was a stay-at-home mom and rarely left the house except to do the shopping, go to church, or pick me up from school.

“One Friday night, I came home after hanging out at the park with some friends.  I called out for Mom, but I didn’t get any answer.  When I went into the kitchen, there was a frying pan on the floor and bits of fried chicken all over the place.  I turned off the stove and called out again.  When I didn’t get an answer, I went upstairs, and that’s where I found them.”

I stop and take a huge swig of whiskey.  The alcohol is going to my head, and the feeling isn’t one I’m accustomed to.  On the rare occasions I drink, I usually have only one glass.

“I might need to lie down,” I say as a wave of drunken dizziness hits me.

Seri nods, takes my hand again, and we both move to the bed.  I lie down, and Seri pulls the blanket up over me as she sits up close to my head.

“I’ve never told anyone about this,” I say.

“I know you haven’t.”

I look over at her, wondering how she could possibly know this, but I don’t question her on it.  She nods, encouraging me to continue.  I close my eyes for a moment as I try to recollect what happened without actually remembering the details.

“He was…he was holding her head down in the toilet.  She was kicking her legs out and struggling, but he just stood there with one hand on the back of her head.  He looked completely emotionless and casual about the whole thing until I started screaming at him to stop.  He glanced back at me and grinned, then pushed her head in farther.  I kept screaming, and when he wouldn’t stop, I jumped on his back.  He let go of mom and reached back to grab me and throw me against the door.

“He took off his belt and beat me black and blue after that.  I didn’t even bother to resist or fight back because if I did, he might knock me unconscious and go after mom again.  I just covered my head and took it.  The whole time, he kept screaming that I needed to stay out of their business and not interfere.  He said Mom was a stupid whore and deserved everything she got.  Mom was on the floor, coughing and gasping, but alive.  When he was done with me, he left the house.  I don’t know where he went, but he didn’t come back home that night.

“The next night, he brought two men home with him.  He talked to Mom first, and then she came over to me and told me to leave the house.  I didn’t want to go, but she forced me out.  I wandered the neighborhood for a couple of hours until I saw the men leaving.  They stood on the front porch and handed my father cash before they got into their cars.”

Seri gasps as she realizes what must have happened while I was gone.  I close my eyes and clench my teeth before I go on.

“I just…I couldn’t…”  I stop talking.  I don’t know if I can tell her what comes next.  I spend all my time trying not to think about it, and here I am, spilling my guts to a woman who is, without a doubt, nuttier than I am.

“It’s okay, Bishop,” Seri says softly.

“I couldn’t deal with it anymore.”  I take a deep breath.  “I couldn’t live with the constant fear.  I’d spent months walking through the front door after school and immediately looking for her to make sure she was okay—that she was still alive.  Honestly, I don’t know why I didn’t do it sooner.”

“What did you do?”

“The Monday after those men were there, I stayed home from school.  I still had way too many marks on my face to go out in public without someone saying something about them, so I just didn’t go.  I spent the whole day in the shed in the back yard, just thinking.  At one point I looked up, and I saw the axe my father used to chop firewood, and I knew what I needed to do.

“I planned it all.  I had to wait until Mom wouldn’t be home when my father returned from work, and that only happened twice a month when she went to Wednesday night Mass.  I usually went with her, but I faked being sick so I could be at home when he got there.

“I took the axe and walked back into the house to wait for him.  I knew mom wouldn’t be home until late, and I’d have time to…to…well, I don’t know what.  Clean up, I guess.  I hadn’t really thought it all through.”

“What happened when he got home?”

“I heard the car pull up, and I waited in the hallway near the door.  He came in, hung his jacket up, and started walking into the living room.  His back was to me, and I stepped up behind him and swung the axe.”

My body jerks involuntarily as the memory floods through me…of the axe in my hands and the sensation of swinging it above my head and then down again—and again—and again.

“I probably killed him with the first hit.  I don’t know for sure.  After that, I couldn’t stop.  I just kept hitting him and hitting him until I couldn’t even recognize what was lying on the floor anymore.”

I pause and glance at Seri.  Her eyes are wide, and her mouth is slightly open.  She’s pulled her hands into her lap, pressed up against her stomach, and she looks like she’s ready to vomit.

 “Everything gets a little fuzzy at that point,” I tell her.  “I know I stood there for a while and that my heart wouldn’t stop pounding.  I remember running to the bathroom and throwing up, but I’m not sure when that was.  I had planned on dragging his body out in the back yard and burying it, but there was just no way.  I knew Mom would be home in an hour, and it wasn’t possible to cover up what I had done.  There was blood everywhere—the carpet, the walls, the ceiling, me—and I…I would have had to carry out the…the pieces.  I knew I didn’t have a chance of cleaning it all up, so I just called 9-1-1 instead.”

“You called the cops on yourself?”  Seri gasps.

“It’s not like I could hide any of it.  I wasn’t a sophisticated criminal with an understanding of how to commit a crime and not leave any evidence.  I hadn’t worn gloves.  My clothes were covered in blood.  I just froze for a few minutes afterward, not knowing what I should do.  At some point, all that school training about what number to call if you need help just took over, and I dialed.”

“Did they arrest you?”

“Yeah.  Two cops got there before the ambulance.  I opened the door and let them in.  When they asked me what happened, I just picked up the axe and handed it to them.  I didn’t say anything, not even when they started asking me questions.  At some point, they put me in a car and read me my rights.  I was brought to the police station where they questioned me again, but I really didn’t know what to say.  Eventually, a public defender showed up, and they stopped asking me what happened.

“I didn’t talk to my attorney much either.  He was young, and I’m pretty sure he was in way over his head.  I don’t think he really wanted to know what happened.  He just wanted to get me the best deal he could.  I suppose he did, too.  They didn’t try me as an adult, at least.”

“How long were you in prison?”

“Juvenile detention until I was eighteen.  Then I was moved to a state prison until I was released seven years, three months later.  I was sentenced to fifteen years, and I should have been there longer, but there were overcrowding issues.  I got paroled early.”

Seri nods and stares down at her hands for a minute.

“Bishop?”

“Yeah?”

“How old were you?”

“Fourteen.”

“Oh my God!”  Her eyes go wide again.  “You were just a child.  You spent your whole adolescence in prison.”

“Pretty much.  According to the prosecutor, I should have gotten life.  Maybe that would have been for the best.  It’s not like I belong among the common folk.”

“That’s why you keep yourself isolated.”

“Yeah, so much for being your knight in shining armor.”  I let out a short, sharp laugh.

“He didn’t leave you a choice,” Seri says.  “By all rational thinking, what you did was self-defense.”

I stare at her in disbelief for a moment.  Obviously, she didn’t pay attention to everything I said.

“I ambushed him, Seri.  I waited for him with an axe in my hands, and I hit him seventy-four times, or so said the medical examiner.  I really don’t know.  He had to be identified through dental work.  It wasn’t self-defense.  I murdered him in cold blood.  Just ask my mother.”

“Was she angry?”

I laugh again.

“Angry?  She testified against me at my sentencing.  She asked for the death penalty and yelled at the judge when he told her that wasn’t applicable in a juvenile case.  She said I ruined her life and wished I had never been born.  I can’t say that I blame her though, not now.”

“Why do you say that?”

In a flash, the whole night repeats itself in my head.  My stomach churns, and pressure builds behind my eyes.  The whiskey hits me full force, and I can’t stop tears from spilling onto my face.

“Because she’s right!  I never should have been born!  She said everything was fine with him until I came along and ruined it!  I was fucked up from the beginning, and he must have known that too!”

I’m crying and I can’t stop.  I shove myself out of the bed, get my feet tangled in the blanket, and fall to the floor in a heap.  Seri is beside me half a second later, wrapping her arms around me and pulling me against her chest while I sob.

I have no idea how long I stayed there on the floor, wrapped in Seri’s arms and bawling like a baby.  I do know I’ve never cried like this before, not even the one time I was sent to solitary for a week, though it had been tempting.  I never let myself go like this.  Never.

What is this woman doing to me?

I pull away from her slowly.

“Bishop…”  She reaches out for me, and I shake my head.

“I’m all right.”

“You’re not.”

“I just need to…to step outside for a minute.”  I feel like I could puke at any moment, and I don’t want to do that in front of her.

“It’s freezing out there,” she says.  As if I need a reminder.

“I’ll be fine.  Really—I just need to be outside.  I’ll be right back.”

“Be careful.”

I nod and pull on my coat, boots, and gloves.  I grab the snowshoes from the wall by the door, climb out the hole in the snowbank, and head out into the dark landscape.

It’s nearly pitch black outside, and the cold wind burns my cheeks and my lungs.  I pull my facemask up over my mouth and nose and give myself a moment to get used to the change in temperature.  I strap on the snowshoes and make my way across the crisp, icy top of the snowbank and head toward the shadowy image of the barn in the distance.

I stop halfway to the barn and turn back to look at the cabin.  Dim light shines from the single window over the kitchen sink, and I can see the shape of Seri’s head as she peers outside.  I take a deep breath of cold air and blow it back out again, warming the fabric around my face.

I stand in the snow, staring at the window until she moves away.  The whiskey is still making my head spin, and I just want it to stop.  My stomach is doing flip-flops, and bile rises to the back of my throat as the memories play through my head over and over again.

Whack!

Blood hit my arms and face as he dropped to his knees without a single scream.

Whack!

Warm liquid spattered the walls, the television, and the coffee table.  He fell face-first onto the carpet.  I had to lean over and straddle his legs to hit him again.  My back ached with every stroke, but that didn’t slow me down.

I grab my facemask, yank it down, and then drop to my hands and knees to vomit.  Seri’s meal exits my mouth along with the whiskey.   I keep heaving until my stomach is empty.

I wrinkle my nose at the frozen pile of vomit in front of me and then push myself up.  I take a few steps backward, nearly trip over the ends of the snowshoes, then lean over and retch again.  There’s nothing left inside of me, and I turn away from the mess I’ve made on the snow to get some fresh air back into my lungs.  The dizziness subsides, and I slowly make my way back to the cabin door.

Inside, Seri greets me with a glass of water.  I take it, grab my cigarettes, and sit down by the fire.  I stare at the flames and puff on the cigarette without saying anything.  Solo rubs up against my leg, and I reach over to stroke his fur as I toss the butt into the fire.

“It’s late,” Seri says quietly.

“If you want, I can sleep in the chair or on the floor or something,” I say.  My throat is raw, and my words sound scratchy and forced.

“Why would you do that?”

“Now that you know…well, I figure you don’t want to be in bed with a murderer.”

“Bishop…”  She sighs and shakes her head at me.  “Just come to bed.  It’s late, and you have to be exhausted.”

She must be right because I don’t have the energy to argue with her.  She takes my hand, pulls me to my feet, and leads me to bed.  I lie down close to the wall, and she climbs in beside me.

I don’t know why she’s doing this.  I don’t understand why, after hearing that story, she is still tucking the blanket around me and pulling my arm around her waist for warmth.  I can’t fathom why she seems to be so calm after everything I have told her.

What else has she been through?