“I need to go upstairs and get my phone,” I told Stefan. I mouthed, call nine-one-one. But he didn’t seem to understand what I was saying. “Okay. I’ll wait here and watch her.”
Upstairs, I got my phone, pulled on a bra and some sweatpants and shrugged back into my nightshirt. And I almost called the police in that moment. But I knew that when I did, they would take over. I would never be able to ask Esme anything on my own. Rummaging in my medicine cabinet, I found the last couple of painkillers I’d been given after the woman split my lip in the lobby of the lecture hall. I got out a kit with first aid cream and a bandage roll. When I got back downstairs, I dabbed a thickness of the cream on the girl’s stomach and wrapped the bandage roll around it, tying it securely.
“How do you even know her?” Stefan said sharply to me. “You act like you know her. How do you know who she is?”
“I do know her, kind of. I’ve never met her, but, well, it’s a long story. Just give me a minute to talk to her.”
“Talk about what? I know why she tried to kill us on the highway. I didn’t know it was her, but she tried to kill me once before, Mom. And I really am aware that I didn’t need her help to fuck myself up with drugs, but she did help, Mom! She was the supplier! Always. For Belinda and me. She made it easy for us to get wasted. She hated me. That night, what she wanted was for me to die.”
“I know for a fact she wished you would die. She was obsessed with Belinda, but so were you, Stefan! So were you! It was like a bomb waiting to go off, the whole situation.”
“I loved her,” he said.
“I loved her too,” said Esme and then, “I’m going to throw up. Please.”
I stood quickly and ushered her into the bathroom. We could hear her retching, water running, more gagging.
“Wait,” I said, in a low voice I hoped would still command him. “Look at me. I have to tell you something.”
But just then Esme came back out into the kitchen. I gave her one of the painkillers with a glass of milk. Then I made her a piece of toast to eat so she wouldn’t throw up the medicine.
Finally, I sat down. “If you loved Belinda, why did you kill her?”
“Kill her?” Esme struggled to her feet, gasped at the pain and fell back down in the chair. “Are you serious? Why did I kill her?”
“I’m completely serious.”
Stefan said, “What the fuck are you talking about, Mom?”
Esme cried out, “I didn’t kill Belinda! I would never have hurt Belinda!”
“Then who did kill her?”
“Are you out of your mind? He killed her.”
“Were you there when he killed her?”
“I wasn’t in the apartment. You know he killed her. Look, I came here to say how sorry I am. I came because it’s my Healing Project, right?”
Stefan said, “How do you know about that?”
“I saw it on TV, like everybody else,” Esme said. “And I thought wow, you’re doing such a good thing. So I wanted to do something good, too. I wanted to admit it. It was partly my fault. I got him into a frenzy. I told him that Belinda was breaking up with him. And everything else, since he got out, that was my fault too. I just came to tell you that it wasn’t my idea. It wasn’t my idea to scare you, ever.”
“If it wasn’t your idea, whose idea was it?”
“It was Jill’s.”
“Why did you…why would you…” I stammered. “How do you even know Jill?”
“Jill is like a mother to me,” Esme said. “She doesn’t know about me and Belinda. Our relationship. She doesn’t know about me giving Belinda and Stefan drugs, I hope you never tell her. It would break her heart.”
“What?” I still couldn’t comprehend all this. Esme knew Jill, but Jill didn’t know who Esme was to Belinda?
“She just knows that I was one of the first volunteers,” Esme said, with a lilt of pride she couldn’t seem to suppress. “I helped her with it from the beginning.”
“Are you really from Chicago?” I asked her. “Did you come up here just to torment us?”
“I was born there. My dad is still in Chicago.”
“Do you live in Black Creek now?” I asked then.
“I did,” she said. “Not now. I live with Jill. Or I did, until tonight.”
Trying hard to get a good breath, I looked down at the phone. Then I thought, ten more minutes won’t matter.