Page 92 of Jar of Hearts
She focuses her gaze on her son. “How do you want this to end, Dominic?”
“Oh, so now I have a choice?” he says with another terrible smile. “You’re letting me decide what happens to me? That’s rich. You should have aborted me, by the way. Why didn’t you?”
“Because I loved you,” she says, and it’s true.
He doesn’t believe her, and she doesn’t blame him. He doesn’t know what love looks like. He doesn’t know what love feels like. Love—healthy love, the kind that doesn’t hurt or bruise or take away someone’s sense of self-worth—is like anything else that’s important in life. It has to be taught.
“I hate you,” Dominic says, and his voice chokes. But not from sadness. From fury. It colors his words, punctuating each syllable. “I fucking hate you so much.”
“I’m sorry,” she says.
Calvin watches them both, saying nothing.
They’re at a standstill. She doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t know if she can shoot either of them, but neither can she let them get away. Especially her son. Hurt people will always hurt people, and the wounds gouged into Dominic over the years can never heal. They’re too deep.
“Well, this shit is hilarious. After eighteen years, I finally have both my parents,” Dominic says, and he’s laughing. It’s hysterical laughter, the laughter of someone who’s laughing even though nothing is funny, an expression of pent-up, toxic emotion. “You assholes. Look what you’ve done.”
He laughs even harder, his whole body shaking. In the distance, there are sirens. They grow louder, their wails filling up the normally quiet neighborhood. The police are getting closer.
Dominic throws his head back, almost convulsing. “LOOK WHAT YOU’VE DONE!”
It’s not quite a howl, not quite a roar; it’s something in between, animalistic and predatory and insane, and it fills Geo with a sadness that goes way beyond grief and guilt.
“How did you know?” she says, directing her question to Calvin. “How did you know to come here?”
“I came back when I read about the first pair of murders,” Calvin says. “I knew then. Buried in the woods, their bodies cut up the same way… of course I came back. It felt like someone was trying to call me home.”
Their eyes meet. It’s the one secret they still share, after all these years. He never told the cops the whole story of that fateful night—about the saw, the vomit, how Geo took over and finished it—none of it ever came out at trial. And Calvin could have revealed it, could have told the whole truth, not only about himself, but about her. But he never did. He never said a word. Instead, here he is, a silly heart tattoo on his wrist with her initials inside it, even though they will never, ever end up together. It was classic Calvin, just like the jar of hearts, full of candy he’d given her that only he ended up eating.
She stares at the two of them. Her first love and her last love. Was this what love was? Wasthiswhat it looked like, demented and malformed and diseased and monstrous?
“I understand it now,” Calvin says, looking at Dominic. “Why you killed the children, too.Mychildren. You did it to hurt me.”
“No, you fucking idiot.” Dominic lets out a mirthless laugh. “I did it to hurther. Why did your other kids get to have good mothers? Why weren’t they fucked with? Why me? I want to finish what I started,Father. Want to help? I’ll let you go first.” He laughs again, and the sound is as humorless as the first. “Oh wait. You already did.”
“Georgina, go,” Calvin says, not taking his eyes off his son. “Leave right now. I won’t let him hurt you. Go out the window.”
“I can’t leave it like this,” she says. She’s shaking now, the weight of nineteen years of secrets and lies threatening to crush her from the inside out. “He’s our son.”
“Yes, he is. And people like him—likeme—shouldn’t exist.”
He’s right, of course. And if she leaves, Geo has no doubt they’ll kill each other. The looks on their faces are identical. They’re beyond reach, beyond hope. And for the first time, she makes the decision she never made all those years ago.
“I love you,” she says, the words choking in her throat. “And I’m sorry. I am so fucking sorry.”
She aims the gun, and fires.
Then aims it again, and fires once more.
Her fingers go numb. The gun falls to the floor, landing soundlessly on the bedroom carpet. She collapses beside it, sobbing so hard she feels her insides might break, crying even harder than she did the morning after she gave birth.
She crawls toward Dominic, reaching for him, and cradles his head in her lap. Her chest heaving, she strokes his sweaty mat of hair, moving the loose strands away from his face. Caresses his cheeks, his chin, the bridge of his nose, the arch of his brow. Puts her nose to his forehead and breathes him in. His eyes are open. Through the blur of her tears, she can see her son looking up at her.
They’re her eyes. Her mother’s eyes. Brown. Soft. And dull now, from the absence of life behind them.
Her son. Her beautiful boy.
She opens her mouth and wails. The shriek is guttural, unlike any sound she’s ever produced before, and at first she doesn’t realize it’s coming from her. Beside them on the floor, Calvin twitches. His leg moves, then his arm. He’s down, but he’s not dead, despite the hole the bullet punched in his chest.
