Who Have You Become?

“Morning smiles, like the fear of a newborn child, innocent unknowing. Winters’ end, promises of a long lost friend.” The haunting voice spills from the radio, reverberates inside my skull. My tongue feels swollen, sticking to the roof of my mouth as it chafes the sides of my cheeks. My head pounds mercilessly, beating in time to the rocky movements of the car. I pry my eyes open, the nerves screaming in pain and resentment. The world in front of me is out of focus, blurred around the edges, maintaining a dreamlike quality until I blink furiously. The dusty gray upholstery comes slowly into view. My arms ache, hands tied behind my back, the rope carving rings into my wrists. “Winter's end, promises of a long lost friend, speaks to me of comfort. But I fear, I have nothing to give. I have so much to lose.” A strangled moan escapes my lips, tears prickling my lifeless eyes. My legs, curled underneath my bound hands, cramp and burn with pain and sorrow. The haunting music turns to static, then the sound cuts out altogether.

“Clara! How wonderful to see you’re awake.” The distinct Southern twang I heard all throughout my childhood strikes fear into my heart. “I really thought the drugs I gave you would have worn off hours ago. Luckily it seems like you slept through your withdrawal of the morphine drip the hospital had you on.” My mind is spinning. desperate to recollect the lost thoughts.

Jack. A gunshot. My husband’s body, crumpled in pain on the hospital room floor. Pangs of fear at the thought of my orphaned daughter. My father’s wretched face. A needle. Darkness.

“Where are you taking me?!” The demand came out as a helpless cry, my throat sore and voice hoarse from underuse. A dark chuckle emerges from the front seat.

“When we get there you’ll know.” My father’s eyes flick towards the rear view mirror. “I’ll take those ropes off you once we’re well hidden.” The car speeds up, the motion lurching my body forward. “I didn’t really want to tie you up, darlin’. But you were struggling something fierce, so it became necessary.” My teeth click together, despite the sweltering heat within the car. I swallow over the lump in my throat, desperately trying to calm my quivering stomach. The car comes to a dead stop, hurtling me into the bottom of the front seat. I hear my nose crack on impact, and the pain explodes full force across my face. I cry out in agony, unable to process my surroundings.

The door by my feet creaks open. Sunlight and a wall of clean air rushes towards me. I breathe in, desperate to focus on anything but the pain branching from my nose. My father stands at the edge of the door, that sadistic grin dancing across his weathered cheeks.

“Damn shame. Such a pretty face. So much like your mother looked at your age.” The pain in my nose spreads to my chest. Images flood my mind, my breath becoming rapid and forced.

A pool of blood spreading beneath her lifeless body. The crimson color covering my arms, hands, clothes. A man, my husband, looking younger and more naive, carefully pulling me from the floor. A thin blue blanket wrapped gently around my shoulders. The flashing lights of the police car illuminating the ink-black night sky. Grief gripping my lungs, breathing becoming impossible. Jack’s arms encircling my waist, shielding my body from the other officers.

“Come on. Get up.” My father’s voice pulls me from my memories. The knife clutched between his fingers glints under the harsh sun. He reaches down, sawing through the bindings encircling my wrists. He grabs my ankles, dragging my body from the car. I crumple onto the dusty ground, blood spattering onto the dry earth. My father snatches me from my position, throwing my body over his shoulder. Darkness creeps into my vision, and I stop fighting it, craving the relief it will bring me from all this pain.

A rush of reality pulls me from my daydreams, from the fitful sleep that disguised the pain. My father’s shadow flickers on the bleak gray wall, illuminated by the pale light hanging from the ceiling. I touch my hand to my nose, and it comes away crusted with dried blood.

The sirens finally fade from my forehead. My hands shake around the styrofoam cup of lukewarm coffee someone placed on the table in front of me. The oversized sweatshirt slips off my shoulders, pooling around my wrists. Jack sits across from me, an older officer in the chair next to him. He fires questions at me, and I force myself to look at Jack, his kind eyes encouraging and comforting.

“Welcome back, darlin’.” My father’s shadow disappears from the wall as he advances towards me. He reaches out to touch my face, chuckles when I flinch away, drawing my knees to my chest. “If you’re done being afraid of me, there’s a bathroom down the hall where you can get cleaned up. I put some fresh clothes on the floor, and I have some food in the kitchen when you’re done. Don’t be too long.” He saunters away, headed down the hall. I rise carefully from the thin mattress, disbelief clouding my mind.  Done being afraid of you? Are you serious?! Should we discuss the murder of my mother over tea?! I stumble into the bathroom, close the door gently. No lock, shocker. I turn to face the mirror, and my stomach drops. I don’t even look like a person, much less myself. My once straight nose is black and blue, veins blossoming from my cheeks. Running my hands under the water, I wash the blood from my face, the sink turning crimson.

The drain runs red, my clothes becoming waterlogged with grief. I scrub until my skin turns pink. Scrub until there is no blood to be found. Until the memory of my mother’s death covering my body is the only stain that remains. I scrub until the water runs cold, and the warmth is leached from my bones. I scrub, knowing I will never feel clean again.

I drag myself from the memory, pulling on the fresh clothes. Nothing can be done about the clearly broken nose, and the growing pain that comes along with it. I open the door, shuffle softly down the warmly lit hallway, finding my father at the end of it. He stands at the stove, stirring something in a saucepan. When he sees me he smiles, the same smile that lit up his face when he shot my husband. He gestures to the table, placing a plate of pasta by the open seat. Raising my guard, I settle into the large wooden chair, stare at the steaming plate in front of me.

“Go on, eat. You must be starving, you’ve been sleeping for almost a full day.” My mind scrambles, rushing to calculate how far from the hospital, from Jack, we could have gotten in a full day. Struggling to keep my face passive, I push the food around my plate as my father keeps talking. “I wish you hadn’t run last time. It made everything so dramatic. The hospital, all those police getting involved.” He stares at me with actual disappointment in his eyes. “You really shouldn’t have run. Gotten the hopes of that pretty little granddaughter of mine up.” Heat rushes to my face at the word “mine.” “Annabelle’s certainly a well behaved little thing, huh?” I finally meet his eyes, fury coming out of my pores.

“How. Dare. You.” The words hiss out between my clenched teeth, my fingers wrapping tightly around the fork, food sliding onto the plate. “How dare you talk about her like you know her? Like you care!” Rage seeps between my words, fills the air with tension as I force myself to breathe. “Whatever you did to me when you stole me from my life last time destroyed my memory. I can’t even remember my own daughter! So don’t you dare, don’t you dare talk about my little girl like you have some claim to her. You STOLE her from me, you bastard!” Tears flood my cheeks, only adding to my pain and bitterness. “And I swear to whatever God I used to believe in, when I get away from this you will never see the light of day again. I promise you that.” I lean back in my chair, trying to maintain my composure. A hand grabs my face, clutching my chin and yanking my neck to the left. I cry out in pain as my father’s face fills my sight. I can see every crack and crevice, every freckle, each speck of stubble sprouting from his chin. A sick smile unfurls, his lips tugging desperately up at the corners.

“I suggest you settle down, darlin’. Or you might just find yourself without a daughter if you ever get away from me again.” His hand tightens on my chin. “Which I really don’t see happening anytime soon.” I tug my face away, and he unclenches his hand, but I can still feel the bruises thriving along my chin. I spit at his back, shocked to see blood when it lands.

“Why did you do it?” The words escape with a pleading tone, desperation flowing from my lips. His body tenses, hands gripping the kitchen counter. “Why did you kill her? Was she going to leave you? Did you hate her, or did you not want to deal with me anymore? Or did you just want to watch the life drain from her eyes? ‘Cause guess what, dear old Dad, you missed that part. But I didn’t.” He spins around to face me, surprise evident in his face. “Oh you missed that part, did you? The part where I sat in a pool of my mother’s blood, heard her take her last breath, and watched everything that was her slip through my fingers!” I jump up from the chair, animosity flowing through my veins. I watch his hands clench, his breath becoming rapid and furious. “So tell me, Dad,” the word spewing from my lips and leaving a trail of fire, “just what did she do that was worth ripping away her life?!”

“YOU AREN’T MY DAUGHTER!” The confession bursts from his tightly wound body, his muscles visibly relaxing with relief. “She lied! She cheated on me in our first year of marriage, with that Rick fellow, and she was too much of a coward to leave me.” I fall back into the chair, reeling with confusion and fear.

“So the other man, the dead man, the man that nobody could identify- was that my father? My real father?” The man in front of me nods, despair filling his eyes.

“And it was so nice to watch him die, Clara.” The despair turns to a sickening joy, and the sympathy that was tugging at my heartstrings vanishes in an instant. “It was so nice to watch his life flash before his eyes before they were no longer seeing anything at all.” I pull my knees to my chest, sobs racking my body.

“H-h-how could you?!” His head snaps up from the floor, eyes locking with mine. “How could you take her from me?! I had so much to learn, so many questions I wished I could ask her. But she wasn’t there, because you decided to play God!” I bury my head in my knees, until I feel his hand grab a fistful of hair, yanking my head back to look into his eyes.

“I loved you.” The words come out with a whispered intensity, anguish ridden. “For eighteen years I loved and care for you. Cheered for you at your dance recitals, went to your preschool graduation, taught you how to ride a bike!” His voice rises in intensity, shaking with emotion. “And she just decided it was time for me to know. You think I stole her from you? She did that all on her own. She got what she deserved, that’s for damn sure.”

Suddenly, the room is filled with light and noise. Flooded with SWAT teams and men in FBI bulletproof vests wielding guns. Shouts, the man who was once my father ordered to the ground. Instead of listening, he pulls me against his chest, presses a gun to my temple. It warms instantly against my skin, and I hear the safety click off. My entire body is frozen, the scattered memories flashing to my mind for what I hope won’t be the last time.

My mother’s head bending back, laughter pealing from her lips. Jack’s hand slipping a ring onto mine, promising to love me forever. My daughter’s face, fresh and untainted by the horrors of the world. A warm summer's breeze. A butterfly landing on Annabelle’s nose. The father I never got to know. Jack’s arm around my waist, Annabelle swinging from his outstretched hand.

“Clara?” Jack’s voice pulls me from the blissful peace of my memories. Jack.

“Jack!” The arm around my neck tightens, the gun pressing harder against my head.

“Clara you’re gonna be just fine. Look at me. Clara?” My eyes dart frantically around the room, finally landing on Jack’s calm eyes. “I promise you’re going to be okay. I’m here for you now, I’m here.”

“I’ll kill her.” His voice breaks the reverie Jack lulled me into, his hand grasping firmly at my shoulder. “I swear I’ll do it. She’s no better than her mother. She has nothing good to give to the world. I WILL KILL HER RIGHT NO-” A gunshot rings out, blood spattering onto the side of my face. The hand clutching my neck goes limp, and as a body falls to the floor, so do I. My head hits the floorboards, and my world goes dark.

A bright light pulls me abruptly from the darkness. A blanket is pulled up to my neck, the hospital gown itching my shoulder. A man sits by my bedside, clutching my hand. The nametag on his shirt reads “Jack.” As I stir, his head shoots up, eyes kind as they meet mine.

“Clara!” He jumps up, planting a kiss on the top of my head, face filled with confusion as I pull away. My face is burning, and I reach up to touch my nose, find it sore and bandaged.

“Clara what’s wrong? Are you in pain? Should I get the nurse?” I shake my head, trying to clear the fog that has settled inside it. “Clara?” The man grasps my shoulder, shaking me gently. “Clara!” I meet his eyes, unsure of who he thinks I am.

“I’m sorry, but do I know you?” My confusion grows as his face falls, tears gathering in his eyes. “Where am I? Who is Clara?”