L Sellers - The Suicide Effect

Calix came into the back yard, carrying the gun as if it were a poisonous snake. Her dad put Patches on the grass, took the pistol from Calix, then told her to go inside. Sula turned away from the window. The gun blast was a short, loud pop. Sula wondered if their neighbors had heard. The Crawleys were about a half mile away.

Sula turned back and watched her father retrieve a shovel from the shed. He began to dig. The “chunk, chunk, chunk” sound seemed to go on forever, but Sula could not tear herself away. She wanted to know the minute he was done. She wanted to be ready for whatever came next. Part of her brain said to leave the house, to get far away, but she couldn’t. She loved her mother in spite of her drinking and would stay to protect her if she could.

She returned to the kitchen where her mother sat at the table eating Sula’s sandwich. She no longer wanted it, but it annoyed her anyway. Calix’s dinner was also unfinished. Her sister was in the living room watching TV.

“Hi honey. I’m sorry about the dog. Was this your sandwich?” The smell of gin hung around her mother like a cloud.

“You can have it.” Sula watched for signs of awareness or concern but didn’t detect any. “Dad has been a little high strung lately.”

“I know, honey. That’s why I went to the bar with the girls.”

“This may set him off.”

“It’s only a dog.”

“Maybe we should go for a walk.”

Her mother laughed. “No thanks.”

As Sula started to sit down at the chipped formica table, her mother jumped up. “I’m going to take a shower.” She sashayed away, her jeans hugging her lithe body and her long hair gently swinging. She looked too young to have teenage daughters. People always said so.

The back door slammed. Sula jumped, then glanced over at Calix. Her sister’s gaze never left the TV, but her eyes watched their father as he moved past both of them, gun in hand.

“Dad?”

“Not now, Calix.”

Down the hall, he plodded. The muscles in Sula’s back began to ache from the tension. She stood and started to follow.

“I wouldn’t do that.” Calix stood too.

“We can’t let him hurt her.”

“He’s more likely to hurt himself.” Calix moved toward the hallway as the shouting began. “Let me talk to him. Maybe he’ll listen to me.”

Sula stopped and let her sister move ahead of her. From the bedroom, their mother cried out. “Jake, no. Don’t do this. Think of the girls.”

Calix began to run. Sula followed.

The bedroom door was open. Their mother stood by the dresser in her underclothes, clutching a towel. Their father was a few feet away, the gun pointed at his own head. He didn’t take his eyes from his wife as they entered.

“I can’t live like this, Rose. I used to just hate myself, but now I’ve made you miserable for so long, I hate you too.” He turned to look at his daughters. “I’m sorry, girls. I love you.” He turned away and closed his eyes.

“No!” Calix lunged for their dad’s arm just before the gun went off. She knocked him askew as the blast echoed around the room. Sula covered her ears, but she should have covered her eyes. At the edge of her vision, she saw her mother fly back against the wall. Her slender body slid to the floor and a hole opened in her chest. Blood, the color of summer berries, poured out of her.

Time and motion ceased to exist. The three of them were frozen, mouths open, as a dull hum filled the room. Their father broke free. With an anguished cry, he rushed to his wife. Sula edged in behind him. If she did not see the destruction, it would not be as real.

Her father was no savior. He could only weep as blood flowed from her mother’s body. She tried to speak and a trickle of blood oozed down her chin. Her eyes closed and she slumped over.

Calix knelt down beside her body and wailed. “I killed my mother!”

Dad pulled Calix away. Grabbing both arms, he lifted her to her feet. The movements seemed slow and choppy, like an old reel film.

“It’s not your fault.” He shook Calix as he cried. Sula could see by his expression that he was shouting, but his voice seemed far away.

Calix would not be calmed. Sobbing hysterically, she jerked free and backed away. “You bastard.”

Her father’s face went slack. “Tell them I did it.” He looked at both of them for compliance.

Sula was too numb to process what he meant or anticipate his next action.

He spun around and grabbed the revolver off the bed where he’d dropped it in his rush to his wife’s side. He put the gun to his head again. “Tell the cops I killed her, you hear me? I don’t want Calix blamed for this.”

He pulled the trigger.

Sula was still on her knees holding her dead mother’s hand when she saw her father’s brains spray into the room and fall to the white bedspread. She looked at her sister, as if to confirm it was really happening. Calix’s face went deathly pale and her mouth fell open.

Sula felt numb, as if her brain had been injected with anesthetic.

Calix screamed. “Look at what I’ve done! I’ve killed them both.” She pulled her own hair and began to keen, a never-ending sound that didn’t seem human.

Sula wanted to comfort her, to say the right thing. Their parents had been headed for this tragic outcome as long as she could remember. Her father had craved death and her mother had no respect for life. When Sula envisioned her future, they were never there. Yet her mouth would not open; her body would not move.

Calix was alone in her guilt and it was more than she could bear.

All at once the wailing stopped. Before Sula could process why that scared her more than anything, Calix lunged to their father’s body and pulled the gun from his dead hand. She shoved the weapon into her mouth, looked at Sula with eyes that begged forgiveness, and pulled the trigger.

The blast sent the room into a spin and Sula’s mind went dark.

For a few minutes, Sula’s mind floated in darkness, unwilling to re-enter either her present reality or the anguish of her past. Finally, the searing pain in her head and arms pulled her, trembling and cold, into full consciousness-where she was bound and gagged in the middle of an open dirt field with a madman nearby digging her grave.

For a moment, she lingered on that fateful day in her fifteenth year. Part of her had wanted to die as well, to join her family in their exodus rather than live with the grief of losing them. Yet she hadn’t even picked up the gun, nor had she managed to kill herself later with drugs and alcohol. She had clung to life, in all its anguish, again and again.

Sula listened for Rudker’s activity. The digging sound had slowed and lost its steady rhythm. She kicked violently against the tape around her ankles. It gave a little bit. She realized the new strip on her mouth must have come from her leg binding, leaving it less secure. She kicked again. And again. She also began to inch away from Rudker, pushing with her feet and shoulders.

She kicked and pushed until she ran out of oxygen. A tremendous effort for such a small gain. With her mouth taped, she could only breathe through her nose, limiting her air supply and making her weak. Sula rested for a moment and listened for Rudker. She heard nothing except the wind in the poplar trees up the hill. In that instant, she knew where she was. She’d heard that musical sound many times while having lunch in the Prolabs courtyard. She figured she was in the open construction site adjacent to the factory. Fortunately, she had been inching herself in the direction of the road.

Rudker sat on his pile of dirt and took long slow breaths. His heart pounded in his ears and he felt dizzy. He needed to lie down. Staring into the two-foot by six-foot crevice, he wondered what it would feel like to lay in a grave.