A Mother Would Know (86)
She wasn’t pleased to see me. I ended up getting into it with some stranger who told me to leave Molly alone. But the guy was too late. I’d already opened two capsules into her drink. I couldn’t risk giving her a weak one like I’d done with that chick the other night. This time it had to work.
They hit her hard. She started slurring her words and had trouble standing. Browning got so drunk he had to get an Uber home. After he left, I offered to walk Molly to her car. She was in no condition to drive, so I took her keys, placed her in the passenger seat and took off.
Once at her house, I’d taken her inside and laid her in her bed. I’d wanted to talk sense into her, but that clearly wasn’t going to be an option. The least I could do was put her to bed.
I’d undressed her slowly, pleased by her matching lilac bra and panties. She might have been self-sabotaging when it came to dating, but she clearly took care of herself in other ways. I was about to tuck her in when she woke up.
Her eyes frantically ran down her naked body, her clothes discarded on the floor.
“What the hell?” she screamed, the words sloshing together. “How did you get in here?”
I’d tried to calm her down. “It’s okay. You invited me.”
She grabbed her head, shook it. “No. No, I didn’t. Oh, my god. You drugged me, you sick fuck.”
“No, I just wanted to talk, but then you passed out,” I’d insisted.
But she wasn’t listening. She was fumbling around, looking for her phone. If she found it, I was done for. She would call the police, and I knew exactly how that would look. I couldn’t afford to get in trouble with the law again.
“Stop.” I grabbed her by the arms, pinning her to the bed. “I didn’t do anything to you. You drank a little too much. That’s it.”
“No,” she slurred. “You’re lying. Get the hell away from me.”
“Shut up,” I said, frustration burning to the surface.
“Get off me!” She was writhing now. Kicking with her legs and thrashing her head around. I had to make her stop.
“Calm down.” I grabbed her around the neck, held her tight. “Just calm the fuck down.” I couldn’t stand the look on her face, so I screwed my eyes shut. I should have known this wouldn’t go well. I thought of Natalia and her restraining order; of Kendra pouring boiling water over my hand; of Mom leaving me night after night to Dad’s drunken neglect and my sister’s whispered threats. Finally she stopped fighting. Stopped moving altogether. When I released my hands, I heaved a sigh of relief. Until I realized she was too still.
Oh, god.
Her eyes stared vacantly up at me.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Panic threatened to overtake me, but I couldn’t let it. My life would be over if anyone found out. And there would be no one to take care of Mom—no one to tell her what Kendra had been doing. I had to think.
This was Theo’s fucking fault. Which meant it was really Kendra’s damn fault. She was the one poisoning our mother with “vitamins.” She was the one freezing out her own husband to the point he’d started sleeping around and then introducing his mistress to his brother-in-law. How sick was that?
And that’s when I came up with a plan.
I could kill two birds with one stone. I could get myself out of this mess and finally make my sister pay for all of the horrible things she’d done to me over the years.
I could become the tiger.
They were her pills, after all.
I left a couple of the pills behind, but cleaned up all traces of myself, wiping down doorknobs and places I’d touched.
Sneaking in late that night, I realized I couldn’t tell Mom what I knew about Kendra’s vitamins, so I put them back. But I encouraged her to make an appointment with her doctor, so she would find out the truth that way.
Everything would’ve been perfect, too, if that fucking bitch Leslie hadn’t seen me come home from Molly’s that morning. I’d had to walk back since I’d driven Molly’s car. And when I got to the driveway, there was Leslie standing in her goddam front window. She never could mind her own business. She started watching me all hours of the day and night like some stalker. It’s not like I was doing anything shady, but clearly she knew something. Why else would she be following me around? I couldn’t chance that. I had no choice but to silence the old bitch once and for all. I knew it would be easy. Mom had a key to her house, for god’s sake. Planting one of Kendra’s favorite earrings was icing on the cake. It was so easy to get it. Kendra had practically presented it to me. On that Friday night when she and Theo had come to dinner, it had fallen out of her ear. I didn’t notice it until the next day. A shiny little pendant on the floor. I tossed it on my dresser, planning to tell her the next time I saw her. But then I kept forgetting, and eventually I found a better use for it.
It had all gone perfectly. The police were taking longer than I’d hoped getting to Kendra as a suspect, but then, her downward spiral earlier today—completely unexpected, but absolutely perfect—had wrapped the whole thing up with a giant bow.
Now I flip through the channels on Mom’s ancient TV before deciding on The Office. Then I open a beer and take a long swallow. Bowie curls up in the corner. There is a creaking noise coming from the top of the stairs. I turn and look up, but no one’s there. I think about Grace Newton and her infamous fall. Picture her small body tumbling down the steps until she stills at the bottom. Over the years, I’ve often wondered if it was really an accident or if she’d been pushed. It would’ve been so easy for someone to do. I should know. It had only taken one swift thrust of my arm to shove Heather off that cliff. She hadn’t even seen it coming.