Caring

“I care about you.” Jennie said, her voice still held the fury her eyes revealed.
“Then you have such a funny way of showing it,” I said with irritation. "I hate the way you've become. You walk around here like a zombie. No matter what Nikolai says I must do, you agree with it. Mothers don't do that. I'm your daughter, that should matter." By the time I concluded my voice was dead.
Jennie sighed in frustration and took a step back... scared? “All I ever did was to protect you.”
“Protect me?” I took an impulsive step towards her and stopped. If I got any closer I might do something I'd regret. My hand was tingling. “When the kids at school bullied me, that’s when I needed protection, when your boyfriend sends me to sleep with men old enough to be my grandfather…” I paused as a sudden fresh wave of hatred attacked me. I glared at Jennie. “Mother" — I snarled the word — "that’s when I need protection, and then I had to put my life in danger by spiking drinks of men so that they don't have sex with me.” I shook my head in disbelief. "How could you risk my life like that Jennie? You knew my virginity meant everything to me. That I wouldn't be able to give it up to just any one. And if one of those men would've slept with me, do you realize that you'd be to blame for that rape?"
"What are you saying, Nuru?" Her voice was frightened. "Do you realize that Bill—"
"What the hell, Jennie?" I threw my hands up in disbelief and then sank to the floor, my back against the wall. "Wow.. even when it's supposed to be about me, you worry what Nikolai —" I cut short, staring at my horrified mother.
"Nikolai?" she asked in disbelief. "You know about Nikolai? About Carmine?"
I shook my head. "I said Bill — what about dad?"
"I'm pretty sure you said Nikolai."
"No I didn't."
"How did you find out?" she yelled. She was suddenly right in my face.
This completely derailed me. "Jennie, you knew?"
"Of course, I know," she responded, and her voice had a strange, bitter edge. "We share everything, Nick and me."
"Who's in the basement then?" The betrayal in my voice was nearly tangible. "Where's dad?"
Jennie leaped to her feet and began to walk towards the door. "Don't you ever ask me that again!" she said with sudden urgency. Her eyes were blank, completely void of any emotion as she disappeared behind the now closed door.
The hole my father's death left in my heart opened up again. I felt the blood run out of my face. I had done a great deal of self healing to get to the point where I could think about him, about our times together without breaking down.
I didn't move from where I sat cross-legged glaring out of the window into the dark overhead. Sometime around midnight the sky finally let out its cry. The rain was just a light drizzle.
My body was sore, stiff from having sat in the same position for hours without moving. I tried to think of calming thoughts that would make my body comfortable enough to sleep.
Nothing came at first, except, horrifying scenarios that made me stare, wide eyed into the night. I was worried, betrayed, craving Jennie's arms around me... I was completely alone.
In my terrified state I remembered the silver gray new freezer as Nikolai wheeled it into the room that unforgettable, unfortunate Saturday, and then I saw the flash of blond hair covered in blood... blood that was my father's.
And then I saw a girl, young, frightened, curled up at the corner watching with wide, horrified eyes. Her chin was resting on her knees, her arms wrapped around her trembling legs, her sobs beginning to rise higher as a note of hysteria settled into her. Sometime during the vicious screaming that led to Carmine losing his life, the young red haired girl had grabbed her brown teddy bear for comfort and she'd started chanting 'it's going to be okay'. That's when I'd started talking to myself.
It had started innocently enough — the fight. Carmine had borrowed Jennie's phone to make a quick phone call... one he never got to make, instead, a text from Jennie's lover had caught his attention.
I could see it all clearly, as if it was happening again, I could see our old two bedroom cottage that had been in Carmine's family for years. My father hated city life and we had settled in a farm in Marfa, a small town in Texas.
Houses were few and far in between, I thought back to the house, it's fresh faint green paint, it's wooden fence, it's yellow kitchen, and my bland bedroom — single bed, white walls, navy bedding, and a chair that used to be my great grandfather's favorite.
Carmine had instructed me to go to my bedroom and plug in my earphones. He'd reassured me everything was fine, that he'd call me when dinner was ready, but, for some bizarre reason I couldn't fathom, I believed this was goodbye. That after tonight I was never going to see him again.
I'd walked out of the kitchen with uncertainty, I was aware that a storm was brewing, that something huge was about to happen.
Jennie's voice was loud, high pitched as she screamed, I'd stopped short — about to enter my bedroom and took the steps two at a time on my frantic way back to the kitchen. When I'd walked in, Jennie had a gun, a very small gun that was no larger than her hands.
"Go sit on the corner baby," Jennie had told me. "And close your eyes— close them nice and good. Close them tight. Don't peek, mommy and daddy are playing a game. Hide and seek."
"You don't want to do this in front of the child, Jennie." Carmine had said.
But my eyes were wide with terror, watching everything unfold.
"Don't patronise me, Carmine."
"Just give me the gun, Jen. We'll forget all about this."
"I'm not stupid." Jennie's eyes were lifeless, curiously dead. "I know one of us is dying tonight and it won't be me."
"If you —"
"Shut up Carmine... or I swear to God."
Carmine took a step closer to Jennie. His hands held up above his head. "Shouldn't I be the one with the gun?"
"Stop," Jennie yelled. "Don't make me do this, just stop..." her voice cracked. "Carmine, drop to... stop... stop—"
And then two shots were fired.
Silence.
My eyes were staring into my father's as the warm glint eventually turned cold. He made a gagging sound that lasted a second but to me it lasted longer. It was a sound that haunted me for years after that night.
But as my mother had said, "Get up, get some ice packs and help me clean up this mess. Don't be weak. And remember none of this happened."
And like the good daughter I was, depending on which parent you asked, I did what was expected of me. Mopping the floor without question, watching my father's remains get tossed into a small freezer, and if that wasn't evil enough I even watched Nikolai drain the buckets of bloody water down the drain.
I never cried. My mother had taught me better.
"If you cry, people start asking questions," she always reminded me when she saw signs of panic approaching.
But now, five years later, as I stared into the downpour and dark night, tears streaming down my face, screams of pain escaped my throat. Agony twisting my heart into a icy stone one minute and then burning it in blazing heat the next. Now I could allow myself to grieve the one person I loved more than anything else, before Roman anyway. It didn't even matter that the man in the basement had stolen my father's identity but he'd played the father role without fault. He'd loved me regardless of what the biology said. Now, I could allow myself to reflect back on the injustice my father was subjected to.
As time passed, I could feel the soreness of my eyes, they had squeezed every last drop of tears they held. Now only my screams remained, even closing my eyes was painful, a sharp needle-pickle like feeling stabbed me every time I tried to close my eyes. I was exhausted, drained. But still not tired enough to sleep. The heart to distressed to calm down.

Chapter Seventeen

I heard a knock at my bedroom door. I invited whoever was at the door in without turning towards it. The door creaked open and then just as loudly clicked shut.
There was a defining silence that lasted for a moment.
I sighed in irritation and turned towards the door. There was no one. My eyes quickly scanned the room. I was alone. Panic slammed into me. My hand flew to my throat. I was sure my heart and the contents of my stomach had relocated there.
"Hello?" My voice was shaky.
"Nuru," a familiar male voice said. It was quiet, low. And yet it was the kind of voice that made people uneasy.
“Who’s there?” My voice was barely above a whisper and it filled with fright.
The lights suddenly went off and as fast as I whipped my head to the switch, a large rough hand abruptly covered my lips. Fear rotted me in spot.
“Be very still and do exactly as I say.” The voice was still very much familiar in my terror gripped mind as it continued in a low, hard, persuasive tone — the kind of voice actors used in a love scene.
It was mesmerizing in an odd... terrifying way. The silence was too eerie. As eerie as the moment a murderer in a horror film is about to make its dramatic debut appearance. Only this moment was a hundred times more chilling.
I waited. My lungs threatening to exploded with panic.
He spoke very slowly, stretching out each syllable. “When you see me, do not scream, do not try to run — that will only make me mad. Just look into my eyes.” It was quiet for a second and then suddenly Nikolai was standing in front of me.
I was frozen in place, terrified into a cold, hard stone, unmoving. Lifeless. Scared shitless.
“That’s very good,” he praised. “Now try to relax, we’re going to try something really fun. I want you to nod just once. Do it now, very slowly.”
I nodded very slowly, his voice was very impossible to resist.
“Brilliant, Nuru, you’re doing well.” The voice was still open, welcoming. Nikolai was smiling at me. “Now, be a good girl and answer a few questions, will you do that?"
I nodded, my head bobbling.
“Ugh, follow the rules, it’s my game,” he soothed, amused. “I said nod slowly, relax, and breathe evenly. Do you think you can do that?”
“Yes.”
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Two.”
“What shape do they form?”
“V.”
“I need you to be very still, relax.” He paused and met my gaze. “Now, I’m going to hold my fingers above your forehead. I need you to look at them without lifting your head.”
I simply nodded and removed my gaze from his friendly stare to his short, beefy fingers.
“When I move my fingers up, inhale and when I move them down exhale.” He paused again and looked at something over my shoulder. “Now I want you to allow your eyes to naturally close, feel the air nurture your lungs, allow your tension and stress to leave your body as you continue to relax deeper with each breath you take.
"Now I want you to open your eyes.”
I tried but my lids were heavy.
“Brilliant! — Stop trying, just relax further.”
A long silent moment passed as I felt my mind relax and my brain become a quiet, distant observer.