“He won’t hurt us,” my mother said. “He won’t. He won’t hurt his family.”
“With all due respect, ma’am, but this is a serial murderer we’re talking about. A man suspected of killing six people.”
“If anything happens that makes me think we’re in danger, we’ll leave immediately. I’ll call the police and have one of the officers come to the house.”
And so her decision had been made. We were going home.
I could tell from the look on Sheriff Dooley’s face that he was wondering why—why was she was so adamant about going back to my father? We had just presented him evidence that all but proved that her husband was a serial killer, and still, she wanted to go home. But I wasn’t wondering; I knew. I knew she would go back because she had always gone back. Even after she brought those men into our home, into her room, she still went back to Dad at the end of every night, cooking him dinner and carrying it over to his chair before ducking silently into her bedroom and closing the door behind her. I glanced over to my mother, to the stubborn expression on her face. Maybe she was having doubts, I thought. Maybe she wanted to see him, one last time. Maybe she wanted to say goodbye in her own subtle way.
Or maybe it was simpler than that. Maybe she just didn’t know how to leave.
Sheriff Dooley sighed in obvious disapproval before getting up from his desk and opening his office door, allowing my mother and me to walk out of the police station in numb, mutual silence. We rode for fifteen minutes without speaking a word, me strapped into the front seat of her used red Corolla, sputtering toward home. There was a hole in the cushion, and I stuck my finger in it, ripping it wider. They made me leave the box at the police station, the box with my father’s trophies. I liked that box, with the chimes and the ballerina twirling to the music. I wondered if we’d ever get it back.
“You did the right thing, sweetie,” my mother said at last. Her voice was comforting, but somehow the words felt hollow. “But we need to act normal now, Chloe. As normal as possible. I know that’s going to be hard, but it won’t be for long.”
“Okay.”
“Maybe you can go into your room when we get home, close the door. I’ll tell Dad you’re not feeling well.”
“Okay.”
“He’s not going to hurt us,” she said again, and I didn’t answer. I got the feeling she was speaking to herself that time.
We pulled into the long driveway toward home, that gravel road that I used to run down, my shoes kicking up dust, the shadows from the forest moving in the trees. I wouldn’t have to run anymore, I realized. I wouldn’t have to be scared. But as our house inched closer through the bug-splattered windshield, I had the overwhelming urge to open the door and fling myself out, scramble into the woods, and hide. It felt safer in there than out here. My breath started to quicken.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” I said. I started to suck in quick, hollow breaths, and soon I was hyperventilating, my surroundings growing spotty and bright. For a second, I thought I might die right there in the car. “Can I at least tell Cooper?”
“No,” my mother said. She looked at me, the way my chest was rising and falling at an alarming speed. She released the wheel with one hand and turned my face toward hers, rubbing my cheek with her fingers. “Chloe, breathe. Can you breathe for me? Breathe in through your nose.”
I closed my lips and inhaled deep through my nostrils, letting my chest fill with air.
“Now out through your mouth.”
I pursed my lips and pushed it out slowly, feeling my heartbeat slow just slightly.
“Now do it again.”
I did it again. In through the nose, out through the mouth. With each successful breath, my vision started to return, until finally, once our car pulled up to our porch and my mother killed the engine, I found myself breathing normally as I stared at our home looming before us.
“Chloe, we tell no one,” my mother said again. “Not until the police are here. Do you understand?”
I nodded, a tear dripping down my cheek. I turned toward my mother and saw the way she was staring, too. Staring at our house as if it were haunted. And it was then, looking at her hardened features, the feigned confidence masking the terror I could see in the depths of her eyes, that I realized her true intentions. I understood why we were here, why we had come back. It wasn’t because she felt like she had to; we didn’t come back because she was weak. We came back because she wanted to prove to herself that she could stand up to him. She wanted to prove that she could be the strong one, the fearless one, instead of running from her problems the way she had always done. Hiding from them, hiding from him, pretending they didn’t exist.