Left for Garbage

further, and make me appease and cover for her even more frantically.
    But , of course, it wasn’t enough, as nothing has ever been enough, and I should have known. I did know . Still, old habits die hard and the habit of choosing my daughter was too deeply ingrained, so that’s just what I did: I chose her over someone too small to even have a chance against her.
    When I began to kn ow Deeley was dead, I clung ever harder to the beautiful damaged monster I had created, never seeing another way, not until Keith reached out for me on that boat, and now that I can see a different life, a better one, Denise has demanded more sacrifices. She wants Keith and Seel to take her place in the pit. She knows they will look to me to help push them there.
    For a long moment after Mr. Gutierrez finished spewing his bile, my daughter’s bile, and after I couldn’t vomit up any more shame and my husband couldn’t shed another tear, I felt them both watching me, me … Margaret Brown … wife of Keith … mother of Seel … grandmother of Deeley … and, of course, mother of Denise … wondering what I would do.
    There was no choice really. I’ve never made any other choice.
    So, feeling Keith’s eyes on me, I nodded to Mr. Gutierrez and said, “If this is what she needs, it’s what we’ll have to do.”
    Gutierrez smiled. Keith didn’t. He turned to me, staring at me w ith dead eyes. “And Seel, too? Our son, too?” he asked.
    For the first time since Denise’s birth, I could actually visualize what the pit i nside my daughter looked like - black, yawning and bottomless, with winds screeching through it. They sounded like people screaming and I recognized their voices - Deeley’s, Keith’s, my son’s. It was so loud I had to squeeze my eyes against the vision and put my hands over my ears to block out the sounds.
    When I released them , I saw that Keith and I were alone in Mr. Gutierrez’s office. Maybe he had left to give us privacy or maybe even he couldn’t stand to see the wreckage. Keith stood and I rose too, holding out my hand to him again, trying to reach him across the pit, but he shook his head and put his hands behind his back like a child, like Deeley used to when she didn’t want to touch something that looked wrong to her.
    “Keith , I … well … what I want to say is thank you, thank you very much. As you’ll see in the end, it’s right and …”
    He looked over my shoulder , out the window behind me, and his voice sounded as far away as if there was an ocean between us. “No, don’t you dare thank me. It’s too early to thank me, Margaret, because I haven’t said yes. Not this time, Margaret, maybe never again. I’ve tried so hard for you and I’ve loved you so much, but right now all I can see when I look at you is Deeley lying dead, left like a sack of garbage, and standing over her is our daughter. Do you know, I’m afraid I won’t ever be able to look at you again without seeing Denise’s shadow hanging over you, and why do you think that is?”
    It’s been five days now since that meeting and Keith hasn’t been unkind to me but he hasn’t touched me either, and after all these years of hating him for his easy tears, I wish he’d cry now. God knows , there’s plenty to cry about, but his eyes are dry and have been, except for yesterday, when he had to call Seel and tell him. I wonder if he’s finally figured out there’s no one left here anymore worth his tears.

End in sight

    Eight weeks before trial, 2011

    Denise sat sullenly in the day room of the women’s jail, in her new home. She had been moved here a week ago after Salvatore Gutierrez won the ruling to have the trial moved out of Orlando. Then the judge decided, instead of moving the trial, it might work better to bus in the jurors from out of town, but she hadn’t been returned to the Orange County Jail. No one, least of all her suddenly quiet, big-shot attorney, could tell her why.
    Denise reflected sourly that he had bragged to her for months they would probably end up in trial in West Palm Beach, and catching Salvatore’s excitement, Denise had even let herself get hopeful about it - hopeful until one of the bitches back in Orange reminded her that it didn’t matter where the trial would be held because “you’ll be spending your nights and weekends in some shit hole jail that’s exactly the same, if not worse, than the shit hole jail we’re currently in.”
    As it had happened, the freak of a judge