InSight

all you can do. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.”
    * * * * *
    Luke had been staying at Abby’s, going to his own house for a change of clothes when his needed cleaning. While he gathered his things, Abby picked up the picture she knew sat on the mantle.
    “Lucy told me about this picture.”
    “It’s the only photo I have of my mother and brother ― the only remembrance that I once belonged in a family.”
    “Do you think she left because she had a lover?”
    Luke didn’t speak for a long moment. “I was ten years old. Who thinks about lovers at that age? I only knew at the time she left without saying goodbye. I kept that picture hidden so my father couldn’t destroy it like he did all the others.” He took the frame from her hand and placed it back on the mantle. “Why do you keep bringing this up? It happened a long time ago. Let it rest.”
    “No, Luke. I can’t see you, but I know with all my other senses that you’re holding back something inside that’s eating you raw. If you don’t let it out, you’ll never be free.”
    “You can’t stop being a shrink, can you? Take Jeff’s advice. Some things are better left buried.”
    “Not true.” She found the frame again and turned it to him. “You know everything about my life. Things I’ve never told another soul. But you’ve locked me out of part of yours.”
    “You’re not going to leave this alone, are you?” His voice cut with the sharp edge she’d heard twice before and had hoped never to hear again.
    “Not this time. We’ve come too far.”
    “Okay, Abby. You want to know everything about me? I’ll tell you what you think you want to hear. I killed my father. There, I said it. Happy now?”
    Abby expected to hear about a verbal confrontation or even a physical one, but Luke’s admission hit her like a car crash. Just another thing she didn’t see coming.
    “Still interested? You should be. This is what you’ve been digging for ever since we met. Want to hear the whole story or have you heard enough to drop the subject?”
    Words failed her. She stood motionless at the mantle, wishing for that one moment she were as deaf as she was blind. How does one react when the man you love, the man with whom you share your bed, confesses he’s a murderer? She managed to find the words.
    “I…I can’t drop it now. I want to know. I have to know.”
    Luke took the picture frame from her hand. “You can’t see this picture, but she was beautiful, my mother. Sweet and delicate, like a perfect rose. But she suffered from melancholia. That’s what they called it then. Nowadays doctors call it depression or bi-polar disorder or whatever term fits the day. Later, as an adult, I put it all together. She took pills and they helped, but when she stopped taking them, she’d get sad again. Around Joey and me she put on a happier face, but we saw into her sorrow.”
    Luke stopped, the catch in his throat a warning sign to her ears. Abby heard the pain but waited him out.
    “My father didn’t understand her moods. He accused her of faking to buy sympathy. She tried. Oh, how she tried to be what he wanted, but she couldn’t. She apologized for everything when she did nothing wrong. He’d come home from work and she’d be sleeping. He’d have a fit, prodding her to get up and do whatever. The more she sank into her claustrophobic world, the worse he got, badgering her until she couldn’t think. Sometimes in the morning, her face or arms would be bruised and swollen from where he’d hit her, but she always said she walked into a door or fell. Always protecting him with some lame excuse.”
    The room went silent, and Abby thought he wouldn’t finish.
    “The day she left, she had a doctor’s appointment. Joey and I went to school and when we came home, she wasn’t there. We never saw her again.” He paused, caught his breath. “My father ordered us not to ask any questions. He told everyone she’d left him, walked out. Then he tore up all the photographs and carried on as if she’d never existed.
    “Life changed after that. I told you before how he was. Joey and I survived by doing what he wanted. If we rebelled, he beat the crap out of us, especially me because I bucked his authority. My brother took it.” This time Luke paused longer. “Joey was more like her. Sensitive and fragile. He inherited her illness, I think. I never should have left him.”
    Abby found the side of his face and stroked it. “Why did you?”
    “My