Hansel 4(25)

“What?”

“They started yesterday.” His eyes slide sideways, finding mine. “I hope you’re not too angry.”

“Angry? Why would I be—”

“Because,” he says. “You didn’t get to see your room.”

I bark a laugh. “Fuck that. I couldn’t be happier to see it go. That’s freakin’ great, Luke. Best thing I’ve heard today.”

“I’m glad you’re not upset.”

“No—not at all.” I look around us, at the sprawling houses on narrow, one-way streets. “Where are we going?”

“Have you ever heard of Observatory Park?”

He slows the car as we start to pass a grassy field, framed by four streets. Near the north edge of the field, there’s a little building with a domed top.

“An old observatory,” he says. He parks along the curb, and I look down at my hands, feeling confused.

“Why did you bring me here?”

“This isn’t where we’re going. Just a stop.”

I look up at him. “I’m totally confused.”

He looks out the window. Silence twines between us. Then he clears his throat.

“You know…I could have killed her sooner. Any time almost, if I had…wanted to. But near the end, things changed. She started…talking shit about you, Leah.” His wide, stark eyes move over mine, then boomerang back to the driver’s side window.

“Talking shit?” My heart stutters.

“She knew about the hole in the wall. She knew I liked to hold your hand, and she was crazy. She was jealous of you. She started talking about you too much. It made me nervous.”

“So you killed her? That seems like a stretch.” There’s obviously more to that story, but whether he’ll want to confide in me is anybody’s guess.

I watch him shift his shoulders, as if the memories are aching inside him, and he can’t get comfortable with them. He rubs his hand along the bottom of the steering wheel and speaks in a low rumble.

“One day, after we— One day, I slipped her some of her own medicine. I got her to sleep, and I went looking around. I went all around the house, in some places that I’d never seen before.” The color drains from his face, and his right hand, moving lightly along the steering wheel, locks around it.

I try to imagine what he’s going to say. I wish frenziedly to stay a step ahead of him, but I can’t even guess. “You looked around…” I prompt softly.

“And I found someone I’d never seen before.” He swallows, and still, his voice cracks when he goes on: “It was a little girl. Not very old, like only one or two. One,” he corrects.

His gaze grabs onto mine, but quickly flits back toward the field. His hand, around the wheel, tightens, and he speaks through gritted teeth.

“She had my eyes. My eyes and dark blonde hair, like Mother’s.” He puts a hand over his face and breathes in deeply. “She was living in a closet. In that room where—in a big closet off that bathroom. And Mother was passed out in the tub and Blue was in the other room and she was crying. And her voice was hoarse. So hoarse I almost couldn’t even hear her.” He squeezes his eyes shut and takes a deep, long breath. “It was disgusting, Leah. Filth. The way they cared for her…” He grits his teeth so hard I hear it. “I saw fucking red. I found some food and fed the baby. Cleaned her up. She was so sad. So fucking beautiful. She was my child. Mine. A child I didn’t even know I had—neglected like that.” The last word squeaks. A lone tear falls from his eye down to his knee, and my hands flutter with the want of touching him.

“I got her to go to sleep, and when I did, I found Mother, waking up in cold bathwater.” He turns his upper body, so he can look right at me. “I didn’t do it fast, Leah. I made sure she was scared.”

He broke her neck. He called the cops. And then he came to me.

“It had gone on too long,” he says. “I was weak, or else I would have done it sooner.”

“Luke, you killed her. That’s not weak.”

“I was crazy,” he says, from low down in his throat. His voice drops so soft that I can barely hear it. “For a long time, I wanted that bitch to love me.” He turns his blood-shot eyes to me. His mouth wavers before he presses his lips into a small, hard line.

More silence drifts as I try to absorb what he’s told me. It’s…so shocking.

“I have a daughter, Leah. She is fifteen now. She loves Grape Ape donuts from Voodoo, and once a month, I bring them to her.”

Holy shit. It hits me, where we are now, and I’m floored. “She got adopted.”