Laura McHugh - The Weight of Blood

“There’s a way,” he said, “to see who her father is. A test you take. I wanna know.”

“What does it matter?” I sputtered. “She’s mine. She’s Carl’s. You get to see her, what more do you want?”

“It matters,” he growled. “I got rights.”

“You don’t want Carl to know what you did to me. Why would you want to do something like this?”

He chuckled. “You haven’t had any trouble keeping that secret. I think you don’t want Carl to know. Maybe he’ll think you cheated on him. Or be mad at you for lying. Maybe he’ll be mad enough to kick you out, send you back where you came from, and keep Lucy here with us. I already know he’ll forgive me—are you sure he’ll forgive you?”

“What if I won’t do the test?” I hissed.

“Oh, I don’t really need you,” he said. “I just need Lucy.”

My skeleton tingled inside my skin. If he was her father, I never wanted her to know. I didn’t want anyone to know. “Please,” I said. “Don’t do this. Don’t.”

“You can’t stop me,” he said.

The ice cream was numbing my fingers. I wanted to get back to Lucy. “I can’t even talk about this right now. This is her birthday party .”

“It’s gonna happen,” he said, “unless you got something to convince me otherwise. Maybe we can find a way to work this out. Huh?”

“Never.”

“Suit yourself,” he said. “But if you change your mind, you can meet me out at the cave Monday noon. Nice and private out there, no chance anybody’ll see us. I’ll give you one last chance to talk me out of it. I told Carl I got a nice little birthday trip planned for Lucy later this week. Figured she’d like to go to Springfield with her uncle and see the zoo. Then we can swing by a doctor’s office and see about that paternity test.”

I turned and walked away from him. “Monday noon,” he repeated. I rejoined the party in the kitchen, scooping ice cream with trembling hands. I plucked Lucy out of her high chair and hugged her tight, her frosting-covered fingers knotting in my hair, her sticky mouth smearing my cheek with kisses.

That night I rocked Lucy in the bentwood chair, singing softer and softer as her body relaxed into sleep. I was reeling from my encounter with Crete and didn’t know what to do. If I told Carl the truth, that Crete had raped me, would he believe me over his brother? I wanted to think that he would. But he’d been loyal to his brother his whole life, and I knew how Crete could lie. It would be easiest, I thought, to go along with the test. Maybe if Crete found out he wasn’t the father, he’d back off and quietly accept the role of uncle. Yet I couldn’t risk it turning out in his favor, granting him legal rights to my child.

I wondered if Crete was serious about meeting in private to “work things out,” or if he’d suggested it because he enjoyed watching me squirm. Did he really think I’d be willing to trade sex for his silence? That was what he’d implied. More likely, he thought I’d show up for one last desperate attempt to talk him out of the paternity test, and once he had me there, he’d take the opportunity to intimidate me, hurt me, remove me from his family the way I’d wanted to remove him. Why else would he choose such a secluded location? Whatever he was planning, he didn’t want anyone to see him near my house that day, didn’t want anyone to spot us together. But that could work to my advantage, the two of us alone in the cave. No one knowing we were there. Crete possibly unaware that I was smart enough to bring a gun or strong enough to use it.

I thought of the long-ago night when I’d slashed my cousin’s face with a kitchen knife as he reached under the covers to touch me. I was capable of hurting someone else to protect myself. I could live with blood on my hands. Crete had the advantage when he attacked me in the garage, but this time I was ready for him. And I had something more to fight for now, something bigger than my own life. My daughter. Lucy. I could go to the cave and put an end to the one thing that threatened to destroy my family.

I dropped Lucy off at Birdie’s Monday morning, kissing her little pink mouth and giving her an extra-long squeeze. I told myself that when I came back for her, everything would be different. She’d be safe, and we could live our lives without Crete’s shadow hanging over us. I didn’t allow myself to think I might not come back. That wasn’t an option.

The ice had all melted, and the sun shone in a pale sky. I’d been to the cave a couple of times with Gabby when we were out in the woods, but we’d never gone much farther than the cavernous room near the entry. She’d shown me the passageways that funneled into the darkness, warning me that any of them could be dangerous but that one in particular plunged down to an underground river. A conservation agent had fallen through a false floor in that tunnel, and his body was swept away in the current.

I pulled the winter hat Birdie had knitted for me down over my ears and reached into my coat pockets, seeking reassurance in the flashlight and the gun. The confidence I’d felt with Lucy in my arms had waned, and I was nervous. I believed that I could shoot Crete if he gave me the chance, if I had time to aim and pull the trigger, but that wouldn’t be enough. I couldn’t just shoot him at the entrance and leave him there in plain sight. It was possible that no one would suspect me; Crete surely had other, more capable enemies. But I figured I’d have a better chance of getting away with it if his body wasn’t found right away or ever. As much as I wanted to protect Lucy from Crete, I was selfish; I wanted to be with her. I didn’t want her to grow up visiting me in prison. Crete’s body would be too heavy for me to move very far, and the only way I could think of to get him deeper into the cave and out of sight was to lead him there. I knew that he wasn’t stupid, that he might not follow.

As I approached Old Scratch on wobbly legs, not knowing whether Crete was already inside, I wondered if it would be better to turn around and run. I could go straight back to Birdie’s and wait there with Lucy, then tell Carl everything when he got home from work and hope for the best. Then I thought of Crete with his hands on my throat, the look in his eyes, and I knew I had to go through with it.

I stepped into the darkness. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. Enough light seeped into the wide entry that I could see the old beer cans and cigarette butts that littered the floor of the cave. I walked farther in, eyeing the passages that gaped open like throats on the far wall. They looked more similar than I remembered, and I searched my memory for the one Gabby had singled out. I slid my hand into my pocket and gripped the pistol.

“Didn’t think you’d really come.”

The voice, so deep and familiar, so entangled with fear in my brain, came from behind me. I spun around, pulling out the gun, my hands shaking. My plans scattered, like papers dropped in the wind.

“Don’t be dumb,” he said, grabbing for my wrist. I stepped back just in time, out of reach, and he lunged at me. I wheeled around and ran for the nearest opening, knowing, and fearing, that he would follow.

When Dad headed back to Springfield on Monday morning, Birdie came to pick me up in her truck, which was hardly necessary. She rarely drove anywhere, let alone the short distance to our house, and I had only one bag to carry. I could have walked. Then I wondered if she didn’t trust me to go down the road alone without taking a side trip into trouble. Would she have her eye on me every moment of the day and night? I didn’t know what Dad had told her, but she clearly took the task of watching over me seriously.