Page 76 of Burn For Me

I rocked her body back and forth as the tears spiraled into a torrent of pain I couldn’t explain. I’d barely known this woman. We weren’t family, yet it had felt like we were, and the last memory I had of seeing her alive was watching her back away with fear in her eyes when I’d grabbed her arm.

Guilt tore at my heart, ripping away the scabs from all the other old wounds it had suffered. If I’d been here with her, maybe I could’ve helped her. I dropped my head to the cotton material of her flower-patterned dress and let all the emotion I’d bottled up pour out. The memories started flowing, starting with the cruelties of my father and not stopping until that moment when I’d stared at Adalyn’s face and realized I’d only been used.

By the time the tears stopped, I felt exhausted and beaten down. It was the same way I’d felt so many other times, but this time felt different. I was being given a message—I couldn’t hang on to any part of my past, the good or the bad, if I were going to be reborn into what I was destined to become. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure what that was yet, but nothing in my life that was good ever lasted, and there had to be a reason for that. There simply had to be a logical explanation for why any glimmer of hope or joy was always stolen from me.

Pulling a semblance of myself together, I stood with Dora in my arms. As a flash of color caught my eye, I turned my head and couldn’t help but stare at the little cross stitch she’d been working on that’d been left lying on the counter. ‘You are who you are, not who you used to be,’ it read. As I read and re-read the words over and over, the pain in my chest thumped in time with the pain in my head.

Tearing my eyes away from the little piece of artwork, I walked out into the backyard to bury not only the rest of my past, but also the body of the one person that had shown me true kindness.

* * *

Many hours and bottles of water later, I stumbled back into the house. My hands were blistered from the shovel and now just as dirty as my blackened soul. I couldn’t call the cops to come and take her body away, and I knew she knew that, but it didn’t ease the guilt of tossing her body into a hole in the yard like she was a random dead animal.

I collapsed onto a kitchen chair, unable to find the motivation to drag myself to the shower, and looked down at the paperwork that she’d laid out. It looked like she’d been in the middle of paying some bills, and I found myself lifting the pages a piece at a time to read what each one was and then lay it back down.

I was about to stand and leave the rest for later, if ever when the corner of a notepad sticking out of the pile caught my attention. I pushed the paperwork sitting on top of it off and stared at the handwritten note.

My Dear Boy Derek,

I wanted to write you this letter so that there is nothing I’ve left unsaid to you, and with my muddled brain, I can barely remember the day, let alone a conversation, anymore. I know we’re not family, but I feel like you’re my son, and although I never said it out loud, I want you to know I love you as if you were my own flesh and blood.

I’d always seen you, the shy boy in pain living under the rude teen protecting himself with harsh words and a harsher attitude. There are only two things I regret in this world. The first one is not pushing harder to find you when you were taken from the Giltberts. You needed someone to fight for you, and it will haunt me until the day I die that I didn’t push. The little you’ve told me about your time at the hospital breaks my heart, but I still see you, and you’re still that little boy lashing out at an unjust world. I won’t tell you to stop because you wouldn’t listen even if I did, but I want you to know that there is another way, and that one day, someone is going to pull you out of the pain you are in. Just don’t let others define you or tell you who or what you are. You’re so much more than that.

The only other thing I regret in this life is not reconnecting with my daughter and my granddaughter, Rebecca. For all my big talk, it has taken me a long time to stop being scared to reach out to others and get over my own ego, and I guess I don’t want you to make the same mistakes that I have. Find your brother, reach out to him, and heal the wounds that lie between you. You are each other’s only family now, and all you have left. Don’t make light of that.

I wish I had great pearls of wisdom to pass on to you, but I think you already know what path you must walk. I just hope that whatever time we have left together, you know that knowing you has brought some of the happiest and most special moments of my life to me.

If you’re reading this, I’m most likely already dead and gone or my brain is so lost that I no longer know my own name. I know you promised not to let me live like that, and I thank you for that. It meant the world to me to know that I wouldn’t end up staring at a wall with shit in my pants. Don’t laugh. I know you just pictured that.

You will find on the next page all the information you will ever need to get into my bank accounts and make it look like I’m still alive. Yes, I know it’s wrong, but I can’t just put your name on the accounts when everyone thinks you’re dead, my boy, now can I? Besides, by this point, I’m pretty sure you are past caring what is right and wrong.

If you happen to see this before I die, then please bury me by the lemon trees and visit me often, for I will miss you, and you will always be able to find me there. Take care of yourself, Derek.

Love, Dora

P.S. I’ve been making extra meals every day and freezing them for you because the Good Lord knows you would go without otherwise. You will find the freezer in the basement full, and yes, there’s lemon pie.

Droplets landed on the page, and I looked up at the ceiling to check for a leak before realizing it was my own tears dripping onto the page. I hadn’t cried as much in my life as I had since my escape from the asylum, and I had to wonder what exactly they’d done to me there. After lifting the page to look at the next one and see the list of accounts and passwords, I laid the top page back down. I didn’t want to see those right now.

In my life, I’d experienced sadness, loss, betrayal, fear, and of course, pain, but the grief and guilt I felt over losing Dora was new. The ache in my chest was worse than when I thought Adalyn had died in the asylum. That sweet little old woman had been the only good thing in my life, and I hadn’t spent the last few days with her out of my own cowardly fear.

I was pathetic. I was weak. I’d chosen to focus on killing dozens of people for a man I barely knew rather than taking care of the one responsibility that actually meant something to me. I didn’t deserve her money, and I certainly hadn’t deserved her kindness.

Standing from the table, I made my way to the bathroom, the last place I’d spoken to Dora. Her last moments of being with me had scared her enough to lock herself in a bathroom. I looked around the small space filled with her things and collapsed to my knees on the floor. I couldn’t breathe as the sobs wracked my body with wave after shuddering wave of aching regret.

“I’m so sorry,” I gasped out. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here.” I balled the small mat on the floor into my fists and wanted to trash the small space, but as I looked up at the pretty dried flowers and decorative jars of soap, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t destroy the last remnants of the kind soul that had touched mine.

“Stop trying to follow me,” I growled at my brother. He was being extra clingy tonight, and I had things that needed to be taken care of that couldn’t involve him. When I’d seen the couple in the store, I’d been tempted to push the tall food rack over on top of them, but Asher had been with me, and besides, they would’ve lived—they needed to die for what they did.

“No. I know you’re up to something, and I don’t want you to go,” Asher said, pulling on my hoodie.

I yanked my arm away and glared at my younger brother.

“I told you that I’m not up to anything. I just need some time alone. Maybe I’ll try and connect with a friend, or hell, get us a meal from that fried chicken place you like.”

“Chicken? That’s your big secret?” Asher stood with his fists balled as he glared at me. He was way too perceptive for his age, and normally, I’d say that was a great life skill. At the moment, it was just annoying.

“Why do you think I’m up to something?” I held out my hands the way magicians did when they wanted to show they didn’t have any cards up their sleeves. Totally trustworthy. “Have I said something that would make you think that? Have I done something to make you not trust me?”