Page 20 of Kill For Me Kill For You
‘Dinner is served,’ said Wendy, sitting beside her.
Amanda hadn’t realized how hungry she was until the first bite of celery. She devoured it quickly, not tasting the vodka amongst the tomato and pepper.
‘I had fun tonight,’ said Amanda. ‘Thank you. I don’t remember the last time I . . .’
‘How long has it been? Since . . . you know?’
Amanda swallowed a mouthful of the drink, said, ‘Six months since I lost them.’
Wendy nodded. ‘I remember the first six months. And the next. It’s only the first two years that are the hardest,’ she said with a smile.
Amanda spat out a laugh. ‘How long has it been for you?’ she asked.
‘Three years, eleven months, twelve days,’ said Wendy.
‘And it’s easier?’ asked Amanda.
Wendy stood, looked out the window at the city lights.
‘It becomes different. More distant, I guess. The pain changes. It dulls. It’s always there, but it doesn’t always rip your heart out, you know?’
Amanda didn’t know, but she nodded anyway. ‘What happened to you?’ she asked.
Still with her eyes on the view, Wendy said, ‘My daughter didn’t come home from school one day. She was fifteen, used to the subways. I called the school. They said she’d left with the rest of her class. She wasn’t the type to run away. She’d been having some problems, but wouldn’t open up to me. Couple of weeks before she disappeared, I had found her in the bathroom, cutting her forearm with a razor. We talked about it, but she said it was just a thing. Nothing specific. Teenager anxiety. She even agreed to go talk to a counselor.
‘When she didn’t come home that day, I called all her friends. Her cell phone was off. Then I called the police that night. They weren’t interested at first. Kids that age sometimes wander, but they nearly always come back. Some don’t. Rebecca never came home.’
Amanda gazed at Wendy’s reflection in the window. With the backlighting, she could see her clearly, the sky outside somewhat obscured by the bright glow on the glass. She focused on Wendy’s expression. A blank, deadened look. Just for a moment, Amanda wasn’t sure if she saw rain running down the windowpane, or if Wendy was crying. She got up, put a hand on her shoulder.
‘What happened?’ asked Amanda.
Wendy sniffed and wiped her cheeks with her sleeve.
‘I called the police again. This time they put out an alert. I searched her room, found a journal I’d never seen before. It was in her handwriting. She said in the journal she was having an affair with her music teacher – Mr. Quinn. He told her to keep it quiet, that he would hurt her, or me, if she told anyone. That’s what the journal said. She was scared. My poor baby. The cops hauled him in and he denied everything. It’s a Catholic school, and they have the best lawyers. Her father took off when she was young, and I raised her on my own – best I could. I never expected this. I never expected to ID her body. They found her in an abandoned lot. She’d been strangled. The police had the journal, but without Rebecca there was no case against Quinn without some corroborating evidence. The DA said maybe it wasn’t a diary but fiction – a teenage fantasy.’
‘Jesus.’
‘I know what she wrote was the truth. It was so detailed. She even mentioned a birthmark he has on the inside of his thigh, near the groin. I thought that would be enough. How could she know that if he wasn’t raping her? The cops wanted to nail him, but the DA said there wasn’t enough to get past reasonable doubt. Quinn never even went to trial. He killed my little girl, and he’s still in that fucking school. Still teaching young girls, if you can believe that?’
‘That’s horrific. How can they do that?’
‘They have power. They have the city councilors in their pockets all the way up to the mayor. That’s why. And they don’t care about those young girls. I’ve been wondering, for the past three years, when the next teenage girl is going to get Quinn’s treatment and what he might do if she threatens to tell someone? So that’s why I don’t buy into Betty’s forgiveness. There is no forgiveness for scum like him. He deserves to fucking d—’
She stopped short of using the word. Hung her head.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Wendy. ‘You don’t need to hear my problems.’
Amanda stepped closer to Wendy and did something she hadn’t done in months. She put both her arms around another human being, and Wendy reciprocated. Amanda felt like crying again. Only it felt different. Because for once she didn’t want to cry for those that she had lost. She wanted to cry for Wendy. For some time, the two women held each other and took whatever warmth and human decency they could from that embrace.
Not long after, they finished their drinks in silence. Then Wendy said, ‘You can crash on the couch if you like?’
Amanda felt far too tired and loaded to brave the subway, and she was short on cab fare.
‘Thank you, I will. That’s really kind. I just need to use the bathroom,’ said Amanda. She put her empty glass on the kitchen counter, made her way along the hallway.
She put her hand on the door handle of the first room on the left, and heard Wendy calling out from the kitchen.
‘Don’tgo into that room, it’s ahm . . . it’s a little messy in there. Bathroom issecondon the left.’
