The Last Housewife (47)
JAMIE: And Clem did it?
SHAY: Of course. I’ll never forget the way it looked, Clem rolling through the glass shards, smearing blood over the kitchen floor in these long, crimson swoops, like a snow angel.
(Silence.)
Rachel got on her case even more than Don, though. After a few months, I finally understood that she was his lieutenant. Her favorite thing was to catch us. You would think you were alone in the kitchen, that it was safe to have a sip of water, because you were thirsty and Don wasn’t around to ask, but as soon as you nudged the tap, watched that first drop trickle into your glass, Rachel would appear right behind you. And then you were in trouble.
She lived to punish. With Don, hurting had a purpose, taught a lesson. But Rachel didn’t care about that. She only wanted our pain. When he was really angry at something we’d done wrong, he’d let her hit us with his belt. One night, he asked me to bring him something from Rachel’s room, and I saw her notebook open on her desk. She was listing ways to punish us, each one more inventive than the last. For a moment I thought of stealing the notebook and throwing it away, but that wouldn’t have solved anything. It would have just given her another excuse to hurt me.
JAMIE: She sounds disturbed.
SHAY: It became more and more obvious. You know that famous Man Ray photograph, The Enigma of Isidore Ducasse?
JAMIE: Uh, I think so. Mysterious object covered in a dark blanket, tied with string?
SHAY: It’s a sewing machine, but yes, that’s the one. Coming to understand Rachel was like watching a veil being pulled off inch by inch, until one day you’re suddenly staring at the thing itself. And somehow it’s both ordinary, a thing you recognize, and more monstrous than you ever imagined.
JAMIE: For fuck’s sake. You were trapped in a house with sadists. Why didn’t you run?
SHAY: The truth is, for long periods, things were normal. We were living in the suburbs, in a beautiful house, ten minutes from school—still going to school—a few blocks from a fucking Walgreens. The lines were blurry, and when you’re in the moment, all you can see is the context, the justifications.
JAMIE: It sounds like Clem was Don’s scapegoat, though. The one who couldn’t do anything right.
SHAY: She questioned him, so she was the biggest threat. One night, senior year—I think it was senior year, because our hair had grown to our waists and it was freezing out, so it had to be winter—Don went to a dinner party. That sort of thing had started happening more frequently, Don having nights out with business partners.
Rachel was watching us, and she made a mistake: she left us unsupervised to take a shower. The minute the water ran, Clem burst out the front door and took off down the street. I had no idea what she was thinking. Maybe she’d been planning it a long time, or she was just seizing the chance. I don’t know.
I also don’t know how Rachel realized. She had a sixth sense, I guess, or maybe she could hear Laurel gasping all the way in the bathroom. She barreled out of the shower after Clem, soaking wet and naked. I was so stunned, I didn’t think. The front door was wide open. So I ran.
I’ll never forget how the air felt on my skin, or the grass under my feet. My heart was beating like it had wings. When I looked up at the sky, I stopped in my tracks. By then, it must’ve been a year since I’d been outside at night. I’d forgotten how the stars blazed down at you, like a million sparkling fires. The wonder you could feel.
But then Don slammed into me from behind and I fell face-first into the grass, biting the dirt. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, mouth full of that bitter taste. He must’ve come home just in time to catch us. He dragged me by my ankles across the lawn. I watched the stars the whole time. When he pulled me into the house, Clem was already lying on the foyer floor.
Things were very bad after that. Don beat me with the belt. I had to lay in my bed for a whole day, completely alone, without food or water. Before that night, I’d honestly thought living with Don was a choice I’d made. It didn’t hit me until then that we were being held.
When I finally got up to search the house for Clem, I found the rest of them in the library. Don was in his armchair, Laurel and Rachel at his feet, pretending to read, and they all looked up at me the minute I walked in. The tableau is burned into my brain. Laurel’s skin was practically translucent by then, and she was so skinny you could see every bone. Rachel was fidgeting, practically foaming at the mouth. I guess they’d been waiting for me to start.
JAMIE: Start what?
SHAY: Don said Clem was a betrayer. If she hadn’t run, I wouldn’t have followed. She’d corrupted our family. He handed Laurel and me steak knives from the wooden block in the kitchen. But he made a show of taking his precious dagger from the wall, the Roman pugio, and giving it to Rachel, like a reward. He led us down into the basement, where the only light came from a bulb that hung from the ceiling. When it flared on, there was Clem, naked, her hands tied around a structural beam, head hanging. Don always complained she wasn’t losing weight fast enough, but as far as I could see, she was nothing but sharp lines and shadows.
He said it was a lesson in accountability, for her and for us. We would each make one cut, somewhere Clem’s clothes would hide. Rachel would go first.
JAMIE: You didn’t.
SHAY: I’ll never forget the way the air smelled. Like iron and animal, rich and tangy, so thick you could practically taste it. Or the way Clem looked at me when I faced her. I’d expected her eyes to be vacant, like they were when Don punished her. But they were burning. Accusatory.