Paul Cleave - The Laughterhouse

On her part, at least at first, there is no recognition. He can tell she thinks she’s looking at a complete stranger. The smile on her face when opening the door is still there, and it widens when she looks down at Katy, and widens even more when she looks at Octavia, who is asleep again, resting on his chest with her head on his shoulder and his arm beneath her. He has a bag slung over his shoulder with diapers and wipes in it. Then her smile falters as she takes another look at Caleb.

“Can I help. .” she starts, her words turning to fog in the air, but then it comes to her, Caleb can see it happening as her eyes grow wider. A woman like this having gone through what she went through, he’s surprised she even opened the door.

“Hello, Tabitha.”

“Caleb?”

He nods. “I need your help.”

“My help?” Her face goes through a myriad display of emotions before setting on confusion. “When did you get out of prison?”

“A while back. I just need to talk to you,” he says.

“I’m hungry,” Katy says. “And cold. Can we come inside?”

Tabitha crouches down in front of Katy and composes a smile. Octavia murmurs something into his neck and he can feel a line of drool touching his skin but she doesn’t wake up.

“My name is Tabitha,” she says, “what’s your name?”

“Katy with a y, ” Katy says.

“Wow, does the y go at the start?”

“No, silly, it goes at the end!”

“Pleased to meet you, Katy with a y at the end,” she says, and offers her hand. Katy with the y takes it.

“I’m scared,” Katy says.

“Scared? Of me? You have no reason to be scared of me.”

“Scared of him,” Katy says, and points at Caleb, and Tabitha’s smile disappears. “I don’t know where Melanie is and my dad is locked in the car and. . and I need to pee,” Katy says, crossing her legs and bouncing up and down. “Badly.”

Tabitha stands back up. “Caleb, what is she talking about?”

“You haven’t seen the news?” he asks.

She shakes her head. “I make a point of never watching the news. Ever. Why? Who are these girls?”

“He kidnapped us,” Katy says, “and I really, really need to pee.”

“The bathroom is through there, sweetie,” she says, and steps aside and Katy disappears into the hall. They both watch her disappear, then Tabitha turns quickly toward Caleb. “What in the hell is she talking about?”

“Can we come in?”

“No. Did you kidnap these girls?”

“I haven’t hurt them.”

“Caleb-”

“They’re Dr. Stanton’s kids.”

“What?”

“Dr. Stanton-”

“I know who Dr. Stanton is,” she says. “Where is he?”

“In the trunk.”

“Oh my God,” she says. “What are you doing?”

“I’m punishing those who hurt us.”

“Us?”

“The people who didn’t defend you,” he says. “The people that let Jessica die.”

“What are you talking about?”

So he tells her about the lawyer, the teacher, the jury foreman. He tells her about Victoria Brown. Tabitha starts shaking. He tells her about taking the children to the slaughterhouse and leaving one of them behind.

“Oh my God,” she says, when he’s finished.

“These people killed Jessica,” he says.

“No, Caleb, they didn’t. James Whitby killed your daughter. Those people, these girls-”

“Please, Tabitha, let us come inside. Let me explain it to you.”

“No, no, you can’t be here.”

“Please.”

“Let me think,” she says, putting her hand up to her face. After a few seconds she starts nodding. “I’ll hear you out,” she says, “but only if you leave the girls with me.”

“Okay,” he says, knowing it won’t be the last time he lies today.

She leads him through to the living room. It’s a nice place. Nice furniture too. Not expensive, but cozy. There are lots of pictures on the walls, way more than Ariel has and these are framed, lots of family photos, lots of pictures with friends, smiles in all of them. None of them with her and a man looking intimate but there are many with her and another woman. In some they are embracing, in others they’re holding hands and smiling at the camera. In all of them her face is tilted away from the camera slightly as she tries to hide away the scar.

He doesn’t understand it. How can she be so normal?

How can she have been so happy over the years?

He lays Octavia down on the maroon-colored couch. Her eyes are still closed.

“Let me get her a blanket,” she says. She leans down behind the couch and grabs hold of a woollen blanket and is about to cover the girl up.

“First, can you change her diaper?” he asks, putting the bag down on the floor.

“What?”

“Her diaper. It’s wet.”

“Why don’t you do it?”

“I’m not very good at it.”

“What makes you think I am?”

“Because-”

“Because what? Because I’m a woman?”

“Yeah.”

“Fine,” she says, and she unpacks the bag. She lays the blanket down on the floor and undoes the nappy.

“You seem so normal,” he says. “You’ve moved on?”

“Yes,” she says.

“How can you forget what happened to you?”

“I haven’t forgotten,” she says, for the first time elevating her voice. “It’s part of who I am now.” She reaches up and traces the line of her scar, brushing back her hair in the process. James Whitby had given her that with a single slice of his knife. It runs from the side of her left ear around her jaw and under her chin. She seems to catch herself touching it, and quickly lowers her hand. “I help others,” she says. “Other women and children who have been through similar things. I’m a rape crisis counselor. I know what women have been through. I can relate to them and I can help them.”

“You surround yourself with other people’s pain?”

“Do you remember what you told me in jail?” she asks, tossing the used diaper into a plastic bag. She wipes the baby dry and throws the wipe in with the diaper before tying the bag closed. She repositions the replacement. “Well?”

He nods. He remembers all of it. She was the first visitor he’d had in a while, and the last one he ever had. His parents had visited regularly and then less regularly and then death made things permanent. His friends had visited regularly in the beginning too until it became just too awkward. Seven years ago one of the guards came and got him. Told him somebody was there to see him. He figured it would be a reporter, maybe somebody writing a book. Or a lawyer coming to tell him something he didn’t want to hear. It would kill a few minutes, and there were worse ways in jail to kill a few minutes.

“You told me I owed it to Jessica to live for both of us,” she says, “that I had to experience twice as much, to do all the things she would never be able to. You told me I had to be good to people. To help people.”

“And do you remember why you came to see me?” he asks.

“Of course I do.”

“Then tell me.”

“Why? What’s the point?”

“Because I want to hear you say it. I want you to remember that we’re on the same side.”

She shakes her head. The nappy is done up and she adjusts it, then lays Octavia on the couch. She puts the blanket over her, tucking it beneath her chin.

“I want you to remember that you were about to throw your life away for some accident that-”

“It wasn’t an accident,” she says.

In jail she told him she didn’t remember much of what had happened when Whitby took her, that the doctors told her she had repressed it and that one day it would come back. He told her that doctors don’t really know what they’re talking about, and if they did Jessica would still be alive. She agreed. He was glad she agreed. He liked her. Then she told him a week earlier she had been out shopping at the mall with her friend. She had gone to the bathroom. Standing in front of the mirror fixing her makeup had been Victoria Brown. Nobody else was in the room. She didn’t even think, she just acted, and she moved in behind Victoria Brown and shoved her head forward into the sink as hard as she could. Caleb liked her even more then. She felt bad at what she had done. She never intended to put the woman into a coma. She never intended anything. She never even knew where the rage had come from. They agreed then that the doctors had been right-that the pain of what had happened to her had all come back in that moment.