I thought about everything you told me: how I didn’t have to decide right away, how I needed to be sure of my expectations and reasons for wanting to know more about my past. I even made a chart of all the pros and cons like we used to do together. This time I put everything in neat little columns, but I still didn’t have an answer, so I stomped out to my workshop, cranked Sara McLachlan, and sobbed my heart out while I attacked an oak armoire. With each layer of paint I stripped off, I felt calmer. It didn’t matter whether she lied or where I came from. What was important was my life now.
I’d called Evan the minute I fled my reunion with my birth mother, so when he came home that weekend he brought me chocolates and red wine, an early Valentine’s surprise — that man’s no dummy. But smartest of all, he didn’t lecture, just gave me a hug and let me rant and rave until I ran out of steam. And I did — run out of steam. But then the depression kicked in. It had been so long since I’d had one I almost didn’t recognize it at first, like an ex-boyfriend you bump into and you can’t remember what it was about him that made you feel so awful, so angry at everything. It wasn’t until a couple of weeks later that I almost started feeling back to normal. I should’ve stopped there.
Evan had headed back to his lodge, and Lauren’s husband, Greg, who works for our dad’s logging company, had just left for camp, so Ally and I hightailed it over to Lauren’s for dinner. I do all right in the kitchen department if I’m not obsessed by my latest project, but Lauren’s roast beef and Yorkshire puddings put my stir-fries to shame.
While Lauren’s two boys — towheaded, with big blue eyes, just like her — chased Ally and Moose around the backyard, Lauren and I took our coffees and dessert to the living room. I’m glad we’re having a mild winter this year, although it never really gets cold on the island, but it was nice to curl up in front of her fireplace and catch up on our kids’ latest events. Her two have usually just broken something, while mine is generally in trouble at school for bossing the other kids around or talking when she’s not supposed to. Evan just laughs and says, “I wonder where she got that from,” whenever I complain.
When we’d scraped the last trace of chocolate from our plates, Lauren said, “How are the plans coming for the wedding?”
“God, don’t get me started. My file is huge.”
Lauren laughed, tilting her head back and revealing a scar on her chin from when she fell off her bike all those years ago. Of course, Dad gave me hell for not watching her properly, but nothing could spoil her natural beauty. She rarely wears makeup, but with her heart-shaped face, honey-gold skin, and lightly freckled nose she doesn’t need to. And Lauren is one of those rare people who are as nice as they look — the kind of person who remembers what brand of shampoo you like and saves the coupon for you.
She said, “I told you weddings are more work than you think. And you thought it was going to be so easy.”
“This from the woman who wasn’t stressed about hers at all.”
She shrugged. “I was twenty. I was just happy to be married. Mom and Dad’s backyard was all we needed. But it will be beautiful at the lodge.”
“Yeah, it will. But there’s something I have to tell you.…”
Lauren glanced at me. “You’re not getting cold feet?”
“What? Of course not.”
She let out her breath. “Thank God. Evan’s so good for you.”
“Why does everyone say that?”
She smiled. “Because it’s true.” She had me there. I’d met Evan at a garage while we were waiting for our vehicles — his was in for a tune-up, mine was on its last legs. I was worried they weren’t going to be able to fix my car and had no idea how I was going to pick up Ally, but Evan assured me everything would be fine. I still remember how he put the cardboard sleeve around my hot cup before he handed it to me, how relaxed and steady his movements were. How calm I felt around him.
Lauren said, “So what do you want to tell me?”
“Remember when I used to talk about finding my birth family?”
“Of course, you were obsessed when we were kids. Remember that summer you were convinced you were an Indian princess and tried to build a canoe in the backyard?” She started to laugh, then looked at my face and said, “Wait, have you been searching for real?” “I found my birth mother a couple of weeks ago.”
“Wow. That’s … huge.” Lauren’s expression changed from surprise to confusion to hurt. “Why didn’t you tell me?” It was a good question and one I couldn’t answer. Lauren married her high school boyfriend and had the same friends she’d had in elementary school. She had no idea what it felt like to be rejected, to be alone. But the other reason was her husband. It was impossible to talk when Greg was around.
“I needed to process everything first,” I said. “It didn’t go very well.”
“No? What happened? Does she live on the island?”
I filled Lauren in on the whole mess.
She made a face. “That must’ve been awful. Are you okay?”
“I’m disappointed. Especially that she didn’t tell me anything about my biological father — she was my only chance of finding him.” Most of my daydreams growing up were of my birth father whisking me away to his mansion, where he’d introduce me to everyone as his long-lost daughter, his hand warm on my back.
“You haven’t told Mom and Dad, have you?”
I shook my head.
Lauren looked relieved and I stared at my plate, the chocolate now sour in my mouth. I hate the wave of guilt and fear that comes whenever I worry about Mom and Dad finding out, hate myself for resenting it.
I said, “Don’t tell Melanie or Greg, okay?”
“Of course.” I searched her face, wondering what she was thinking. After a moment she said, “Maybe your father was married and she’s scared of it coming out after all these years?”
“Maybe.… But I think she even lied about her name.”
“Are you going to talk to her again?”
“Hell, no! Pretty sure she’d call the cops on me. I’m just going to drop it.”
“It’s probably for the best.” Again she looked relieved. I wanted to ask who she thought it was “best” for, but she was already picking up our plates and moving toward the kitchen, leaving me alone and cold in front of the fire.
As soon as we got home Ally and Moose tumbled into bed and I tidied up the house — I have a tendency to let things get a little out of hand when Evan isn’t around. After my chores were done I wasn’t in the mood to hit my workshop like I usually do when I’m wired on coffee and chocolate, so I turned on my computer. I’d planned on just checking my e-mail, but then I remembered Julia’s words.
My parents died in an accident.
Had Julia told me the truth about anything? Maybe I could at least find her parents’ names online. First I Googled “car accidents, Williams Lake, BC.” A few results popped up, but only one fatality involved a couple, and they’d died recently — wrong name, too. I expanded my search to all of Canada but still didn’t find any accidents with my birth mother’s last name. If they’d died years ago the article probably wouldn’t even be online, but, not ready to give up yet, I Googled “Laroche.” Odd hits, random mentions here and there, but other than the university directory I’d found before, nothing connected to Julia.
Before I packed it in for the night, I decided to look up Williams Lake. I’d never been there, but knew it was in the heart of the Cariboo — the Central Interior of BC. Julia hadn’t struck me as a small-town girl and I wondered if she’d escaped as soon as she graduated. I stared at the screen. I wanted to know more about her, but how? I didn’t have any contacts at the university or with any government agencies, and Evan didn’t either. I needed someone with connections.
When I Googled private investigators in Nanaimo, I was surprised to see there were a few companies. I browsed their Web sites, growing more confident when I realized they were usually retired police officers. When Evan called later I ran the idea by him.
He said, “How much do they cost?”
“I don’t know yet. I was going to make some calls tomorrow.”
“It seems pretty extreme. You don’t know for sure she was lying.”
“She was definitely hiding something — it’s driving me nuts.”
“And if it’s something you don’t want to know? She might have a good reason for not telling you.”
“I’d rather deal with that than spend the rest of my life wondering. And they might find my birth father. What if he doesn’t know I exist?”
“If you feel like it’s something you need to do, then go for it. But check them out first. Don’t just hire anyone out of the phone book.”
“I’ll be careful.”
The next day I called the private investigator with the slickest Web site, but as soon as he told me his fees I knew how he paid for it. Two numbers led straight to an answering machine. The fourth, TBD Investigations, had a bare-bones Web site, but the man’s wife was friendly when she answered, telling me “Tom” would call me right back. And he did, an hour later. When I asked about his background, he said he was a retired cop and did this to keep himself in golfing money and his wife off his back. I liked him.
He told me he charged by the hour, with a five-hundred-dollar retainer up-front, and we agreed to meet that afternoon. Although I felt like a cliché as I pulled alongside Tom’s sedan in the public parking lot, I was more comfortable after we talked for a few minutes and he told me anything he discovered would be confidential. I filled out his forms and drove away with mixed emotions: guilt about invading Julia’s privacy and giving out her address, hope I might find my real father, and fear he wouldn’t want to meet me either.
Tom had told me I might not hear anything right away, but he called a couple of days later when I was cleaning up after dinner.
“I have that information you were looking for.” The friendly grandfather tone was gone, replaced by serious cop.
“Do I want to know?” I laughed. He didn’t.
“You were right, Julia Laroche isn’t her real name — it’s Karen Christianson.”
“That’s interesting. Do you know why she changed it?”
“You don’t recognize the name?”
“Should I?”
“Karen Christianson was the only survivor of the Campsite Killer.”
I sucked in my breath. I’d read about the Campsite Killer — I’ve always been interested in serial killers and their crimes. Evan says I’m morbid, but when Dateline or A&E features a famous murder case I’m glued to the TV. They all had lurid names, like the Zodiac Killer, the Vampire Rapist, the Green River Killer, but I couldn’t remember much about the Campsite Killer — just that he’d murdered people in the Interior of BC.
Tom was still talking. “I wanted to be sure, so I drove down to Victoria and took some shots of Julia at the university, then compared them to online photos of Karen Christianson. It looks like the same woman.”
“God, no wonder she changed her name. So she must’ve met my father after she moved to the island. How long ago was she attacked?”
“Thirty-five years ago,” Tom said. “She moved to the island a couple of months later and changed her name.…”
Something cold and dark was unfurling in my stomach.
I said, “What month was she attacked?”
“July.”
My mind raced to calculate dates and times. “I’m turning thirty-four this April. You don’t think…”
He was silent.
I stepped backward and collapsed into a chair, trying to grasp what he’d just told me. But my thoughts were all over the place, fragmented pieces I couldn’t pick up. Then I remembered Julia’s pale face, her shaking hands.
The Campsite Killer is my father.
“I … I just — are you sure?” I wanted him to contradict me, to tell me I heard wrong, made a mistake, something.
“Karen’s the only person who can confirm it, but the dates match up.” He paused, waiting for me to say something, but I was staring at our calendar on the fridge. Ally’s best friend, Meghan, had a birthday party on the weekend. I couldn’t remember if I’d bought a present for it yet.
Tom’s voice sounded far away. “If you have any more questions, you have my number. I’ll e-mail the photos I took of Karen with your receipt.”
I sat in my kitchen for a few minutes, still staring at the calendar. Upstairs I heard a cupboard door slam and remembered that Ally was in the bath. I’d have to deal with this later. I forced myself off the chair. Ally was already out of the bathroom, leaving a trail of raspberry bubble scent and damp towels behind her.
Normally I love bedtime with her. When we’re snuggled up she tells me about her day, part little girl as she mispronounces words, part little woman as she describes what the other girls are wearing. Back in my single days I let her sleep in my bed all the time. I loved the closeness, loved feeling her breathing next to me. Even when I was pregnant and Jason was out partying, I could only fall asleep with my hand on my stomach. He usually didn’t come back until the wee hours of the morning. When I flipped — and I always did — he’d push me out of the room and lock it. I’d scream at him through the door until I was hoarse. I finally left him when I was five months pregnant, and he never got to see his daughter — he wrapped his truck around a tree a month before she was born.
I’ve stayed in touch with his parents and they’re great with Ally, telling her stories about Jason and saving his things for when she’s older. She spends the night at their house sometimes. The first time, I worried that she’d wake up crying, but she was fine. I was the one who couldn’t sleep. Same with her first day of school — Ally sailed through it, but I missed her every minute, missed the noise in the house, missed her giggles. Now I crave this little window into her life outside our home, want to know how she felt in each moment: “Did it make you laugh?” “Did you like learning about that?” But that night Tom’s words kept flashing in my mind: The dates match up. It didn’t feel real, couldn’t be real.
After Ally drifted off, I kissed her warm forehead and left Moose with her. In my office I turned my computer on and Googled the Campsite Killer. The first link was a Web site dedicated to his victims. While the site played haunting music, I scrolled through photos of all his victims, with their names and dates of death below each picture. Most of the attacks were staggered every few years from the early seventies on, but sometimes he’d hit two summers in a row, then go years without surfacing again.
I clicked on a link that took me to a PDF map that had a little cross marking every location where he murdered someone. He’d moved all over the Interior and northern BC, never killing in the same park twice. If the girls were camping with their parents or a boyfriend, he murdered them first. But it was clear the women were his real target. I counted fifteen women — healthy, smiling young women. All told, they believe he’s responsible for at least thirty murders — one of the worst serial killers in Canadian history.
The Web site also mentioned the only woman who ever got away: his third victim, Karen Christianson. The photo was grainy, her head turned away from the camera. I went back to the Google home page and typed in “Karen Christianson.” This time numerous articles popped up. Karen and her parents were camping at Tweedsmuir Provincial Park in the West-Central region of BC one summer thirty-five years ago. The parents were shot in the head while they slept in their tent, but he hunted Karen in the park for hours until he caught and raped her. Before he was able to kill her she managed to hit him in the head with a rock and escape. She’d been lost in the woods for two days when she stumbled out of the mountain and flagged down a passing motor home.
In most of the photos she was hiding her face, but some industrious journalist found her senior year picture from the high school yearbook, taken just months before that fateful summer. I studied the photo of the pretty dark-haired girl with the brown eyes. She did look a lot like Julia.
The phone rang, making me jump. It was Evan.
“Hi, baby. Is Ally already in bed?”
“Yeah, she was tired tonight.”
“How did your day go, any word from the PI?”
Normally I tell Evan everything — the good, the bad, and the ugly — the second he walks in the door or answers the phone, but this time the words caught in my throat. I needed some time to think, to sort through it all.
“Hello?”
“He’s still looking into it.”
That night I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling, trying to get the horror out of my mind, trying not to think about Julia’s face turned away from the cameras, turned away from me. Hours later I woke from a dream, the back of my neck soaked with sweat. I felt hungover, my mouth dry. Snippets of the dream came to me — a girl running through dark woods in bare feet, a bloody tent, black body bags.
Then I remembered.
I turned and looked at the clock. Five-thirty a.m. No chance of falling back to sleep after that nightmare. Like metal to magnet I was sitting at my computer again. I studied the photos of the victims, every article I could find on the Campsite Killer, my body filled with fear and disgust. I read every newspaper article on Julia, every scrap of information in every magazine, examined every photo. The reporters had hunted her for weeks, staked out her house, and followed her everywhere. The media frenzy was mostly in Canada, but some American papers had picked up the story, comparing her to one of Ted Bundy’s victims who had also escaped. When Karen disappeared the articles changed to speculation about where she was, then gradually the coverage disappeared.
That morning I also got the e-mail from Tom with Julia’s photos at the university, walking to her car, outside her home with Katharine. I compared hers to online photos of Karen Christianson. It was definitely the same woman. In one shot Julia was touching a student’s arm, smiling encouragingly. I wondered if she touched me after she gave birth, or just told them to take me away.
This week I went through the motions, but I felt flat, disconnected — angry. I didn’t know what to do with this new reality, the horror of my conception. I wanted to bury it in the backyard, far away from anyone’s eyes. My skin crawled with knowledge, with the evil that I’d looked into, that had created me. I took long showers. Nothing helped. The dirt was on the inside.
When I was a kid I used to think my birth parents would come back if I was just good enough. If I got in trouble, I worried they’d find out. Every good grade in school was so they’d know I was smart. When Dad looked at me like he was trying to figure out who let me into his house, I told myself they were coming. When I watched him play piggyback with Melanie and Lauren after telling me he was too tired, I told myself they were coming. When he took the girls to the pool and left me to mow the lawn, I told myself they were coming. They never did.
Now I just wanted to forget they existed. But no matter what I did or the million ways I tried to distract myself, I couldn’t get rid of the dark, heavy feeling pressing down on my chest, grabbing at my legs. Evan had been out of cell range for most of the week with a group. When he was finally able to phone I tried to listen about the lodge, tried to make the appropriate responses, tried to share about Ally’s day, then I ended the call after a while, claiming fatigue. I was going to tell him, I just needed more time. But the next morning he picked up on it right away.
“Okay, what’s going on? Don’t want to marry me anymore?” He laughed, but his voice was worried.
“You might not want to marry me after you hear this.” I took a deep breath. “I found out why Julia lied.” I looked at the door, knowing Ally would be up soon.
“Julia? I don’t know who—”
“My birth mother, remember? I heard from the PI last week. He told me her real name’s Karen Christianson.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you found her?” He sounded confused.
“Because I also found out my real father is the Campsite Killer.”
Silence.
Evan finally said, “Come on. You don’t actually mean—”
“I mean my real father’s a murderer, Evan. I mean he raped my mother. I mean—” I couldn’t say what else has been driving my nightmares: My father’s still out there.
“Sara, slow down. I’m trying to take this all in.” When I didn’t say anything, he said, “Sara?”
I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me. “I don’t … I don’t know what to do.”
“Just start at the top and tell me what’s going on.” I leaned against my pillow, clinging to the strength in Evan’s voice. Once I was done explaining everything, he said, “So you don’t know for sure Julia is this Karen person?”
“I looked at her photos online myself. It’s her.”
“But there’s no proof the Campsite Killer is your father. It’s all just speculation. She could’ve hooked up with a guy after.”
“Rape victims don’t usually just ‘hook up’ with someone right away. And there was a woman at her house — I think she might be gay.”
“She might be now, but you don’t know what she was into back then. For all you know she was pregnant at the time of the attack. This private investigator could be scamming you.”
“He used to be a cop.”
“So he says. I bet he calls and tells you he can find out more for a price.”
“He wasn’t like that.” But was Evan right? Had I jumped to conclusions? Then I remembered the look on Julia’s face. “No, she was seriously freaked out.”
“You showed up on her doorstep and demanded she talk to you. That would scare anybody.”
“It was more than that. I can feel it — in my gut.”
Evan paused for a moment, then said, “E-mail me the links — and the photos that guy sent you, his Web site too. I have some time this morning, I’ll read over everything and call you at lunch. We’ll talk about it, okay?”
“Maybe I should call Julia—”
“That’s a really bad idea. Don’t do anything.”
I didn’t answer.
“Sara.” His voice was firm.
“Yeah.”
“Don’t.”
“Okay, okay.”
Ally was now talking to Moose in her room, so Evan and I said our good-byes. I tried to be cheerful for Ally as we made toad-in-a-holes with ketchup smiley faces. But every time I looked into her innocent eyes I wanted to cry. What will I say when she’s old enough to start asking about my family?
After I drove Ally to school I took Moose for a hike, thinking the fresh air might help. But I knew it was a mistake as soon as I stepped into the woods. Normally I love the scent of fir needles in the air, of earth rich and fragrant after a rain the night before. All the different woods: red cedar, Douglas fir, Sitka spruce. But now moss-covered trees loomed over me and blocked out any light. The air seemed thick and quiet, my footsteps loud. Every dark corner of the forest caught my eye. A gnarled stump with one branch reaching out, a dead tree with ferns growing from it, the gap behind it blanketed by rotting leaves. Did he rape her in a spot like that? Moose, running ahead, startled a deer and it bounded off, its brown eyes wild with fear. I imagined Julia fleeing through the woods, her body cut and bleeding, her breath frantic, hunted down like an animal.
I came home and tore apart my workshop. The plan was to organize my supplies and clean my tools, then hang them back up in some semblance of order, but when I saw the mess I’d made — chisels, rubber mallet, clamps, orbital sander, brushes, rags, and paper towels piled up all over my workbench — I couldn’t think straight enough to hang a ruler. I picked up a broom and started sweeping up shavings.
Evan phoned at lunch as promised, but his cell kept cutting out.
“I’ll call when … off … water.… Following … pod … humpbacks.”
Back in my shop I concentrated on sanding a mahogany Chippendale-style chest. As I smoothed away years of scratches and grooves, I reveled in the fresh wood scent, the rasp of sandpaper. With each stroke my muscles relaxed and my mind began to calm. But then the mahogany wood made me think of Julia’s office. No wonder she didn’t want to talk to me — she was still traumatized by what had happened, and seeing me brought everything back. But she didn’t have to be scared of me. Maybe she was just afraid I might expose her secret? I stopped sanding. If I reassured her I wouldn’t tell anyone …
The phone was on my desk. Julia’s number at the university was still on a Post-it stuck to the base of my computer.
After four rings I got a computer recording: “You’ve reached the mailbox for Professor Laroche in the Art History Department. Please leave a message.”
“Hi, it’s Sara Gallagher. I don’t want to upset you again, I just…”
The silence stretched out. I started to panic. What if I said something wrong? Stop, calm down. I took a deep breath and said, “I wanted to tell you I’m sorry I came to your house like that, but I understand now why you were so upset. I just need to know my medical history. I was hoping we could talk?” I rattled off my number, twice, and my e-mail. “I know you’ve been through a lot, but I’m a nice person and I have a family and I don’t know what to tell my daughter and—” To my horror my voice broke and I started to cry. I hung up.
I just about had to break my hand to keep myself from dialing back and leaving another message apologizing for the first, then another filled with all the things I’d wanted to say but didn’t. For the next hour I went over the call in my mind, my embarrassment greater each time. When Evan finally called last night, I felt so bad for going against his advice, I couldn’t even tell him. He’d checked out the links and agreed that Julia Laroche did look a lot like Karen Christianson, but he still wasn’t convinced the Campsite Killer was my father.
I said, “So what should I do?”
“Only two things you can do — tell the cops and they’ll look into it, or just let it ride.”
“If I tell the police they’ll probably do a DNA test and I’m sure it would come back positive. What if the results got out? He could find me. I don’t want anyone to know about this.” I took a deep breath. “Does it change how you feel about me, knowing who my real father is?” I hated myself for asking, hated how weak it made me feel.
“Depends. Are you going to get him to knock me off?”
“Evan!”
His voice was serious when he said, “Of course it doesn’t change anything. If he is your father, then it’s scary he’s still out there, but we’ll get through it.”
I let out my breath, pulling his words over me like a soothing blanket.
Evan said, “But if you’re not going to talk to the police, then you have to just accept it, forget it, and move on.”
If only it was that easy.
Evan also doesn’t think I should tell anyone other than you — he’s just as afraid as I am that it will get out and all hell will break loose. I thought about telling Lauren, but she likes things light and fluffy — she doesn’t even watch the news. How can I tell her about this? I’m scared to read anything more about him myself.
When I first started seeing you after I pushed Derek — the first man I allowed myself to care about after Jason died — down those stairs, I was afraid I might have some horrible genetic predisposition, but you suggested I might be looking for something or someone to blame, so I didn’t have to take responsibility for my own actions. It made sense at the time. I wasn’t proud of what I did, even if the cheating bastard wasn’t really hurt. But it scared me.
I can still hear the words coming out of Derek’s mouth, still feel the pain of them: “You knew I wasn’t over her when we met.” And he was right. I did know, but it didn’t stop me from going after him. Did I tell you how we met? It was at a party when Ally was a few months old — I hated leaving her, but Lauren forced me to go. Derek was smart and funny, but that’s not what attracted me. The minute he said, “I’m not ready for anything serious right now. I just broke up with a girl,” I was hooked. That was my catnip in every relationship: unavailable with a high chance of breaking my heart. It wasn’t until the brutal ending of that one that I finally realized I owed it to myself — and my daughter — to get some help.
I wish I could say it ended there, but as you know, I bounced from bad relationship to bad relationship for the next few years. I guess that’s why I gave Evan such a hard time when we first started dating. You probably don’t remember the story because I stopped seeing you not long after I met him, but he sent me a message through Facebook. Thinking a man as good-looking as him who also owned a fishing lodge had to be a player, I brushed him off. But he kept sending little How was your day? notes, asking about my work and my daughter, commenting on my status updates. Because I wasn’t viewing him as a potential boyfriend, I’d tell him about my problems, my fears, my jaded view of men and relationships, anything that was on my mind.
One night we talked on MSN until three in the morning, drinking wine, getting half blitzed in our own homes. The next day he sent me a link to his favorite love song — Colin James’s “These Arms of Mine”—which I must have played ten times in a row.
After a month of talking online I finally agreed to go on a date, walking in the park with Moose. Hours sped by without one anxious moment, just laughter and the wonderful feeling of being safe while totally being myself. When he met Ally a couple of months later, they adored each other instantly. Even moving in with each other was easy: if one of us was missing a household item, the other had it. But in those early days I still caused arguments, trying to push him away, testing his loyalty. I was just so scared of being hurt again, so scared of losing myself like I had with Derek — of what might happen if I did.
When I was a kid I felt angry a lot, but I kept it bottled inside, which is probably why I was depressed so much as a teenager. It wasn’t until I began dating that I started losing my temper. But I always managed to stop myself at a certain point — until that moment with Derek on the stairs. When he told me he’d spent the night with his ex-girlfriend all I could feel was shame. All I could think was how everyone was going to know I wasn’t good enough. Then my hands were reaching out and he was falling.
Afterward I was shocked and horrified by what I’d done, even more by how powerful I’d felt. It terrified me — this sense that there was something dark inside me, something I couldn’t control. And I wanted to believe what you said, that it was the same trigger it always was: abandonment issues, intimacy issues, low self-esteem, all of the above. But now we know one of my parents is violent, beyond violent. It’s looking like maybe I was right to be scared.
This morning I was in my shop sanding that mahogany chest, trying to forget everything, and it worked for a couple of hours. Then I nicked my finger. As blood welled up I thought, I have a killer’s blood in me.