Little Girl Gone: The can’t-put-it-down psychological thriller. Alexandra Burt

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СКАЧАТЬ inside of her. Her lips searched for its comfort and came up empty. Her face contorted.

      The front door slammed shut. Jack was gone and so was Mia’s composure.

      I held her inches away from my body as if distance between us could soothe her; take the edge off her discontent with my presence. She broke out in a wail, its volume increasing with every passing second. I turned to place her on the changing table when my eyes caught a glimpse of a shiny silver object. The light and the turning blades of the fan created ghostly shadows that prompted me to pick up the scissors and cradle them in my palm. Her body seemed to be vibrating, her crimson face determined to ignore the need to fill her lungs with air.

      I willed myself to ignore the scissors, but they seemed to pulsate as if they had a life of their own. I pinched my eyes shut, yet the scissors floated up and towards me, first only inches, and then farther up, turning their sharp points towards Mia’s skull, determined to release the glowing demon underneath its connective tissue.

      I gently placed Mia in her crib. As I pulled my hands up from under her body, I prayed that she would survive. Despite me.

      That day, I knew I was capable of anything; capable of silencing her cries. That’s when I knew her life was at stake. And I screamed and for the first time the volume of my screams topped hers.

      Jack’s ‘few hours’ that day turned into a full twelve-hour work day. I did the only thing I knew how to do; remain on autopilot all day. As I pressed my forehead against the window that night, waiting for his return, I tried to recall for how long he had been avoiding my company. Jack was becoming more and more detached, icy even, barely talking to me. Working late was no longer an exception but a rule and his distance added more insecurities to my already frazzled thoughts. He never answered his cell, hardly ever returned my calls at all. There were files he closed when I entered the room, the phone he tucked in his pocket when it rang and he had been shunning all physical contact. When was the last time he had hugged or kissed me, and for how long had he been secretive?

      I watched Jack exiting a sleek black town car. When he walked through the front door his eyes were two seas of silent reproach.

      ‘Sorry, I’m late,’ he said meaning if you had picked up the dry cleaning, I’d have been on time. And with all the time you have, why isn’t dinner ready and why is the house still a mess?

      ‘Took me forever to get a cab,’ he added.

      His briefcase was already open, his BlackBerry in his hand.

      ‘A cab?’ Hadn’t I just seen him exiting a town car?

      We stared at each other for a moment, then I lowered my eyes. I knew I had changed physically, I could see it in Jack’s eyes every time he looked at me. I weighed about as much as I did in high school, maybe even less. My facial features seemed to have corroded and I had aged a decade in the past two months. Before Mia, I had a haircut every couple of months. I used to go to the gym, yoga, Pilates, you name it. Now, I never seemed to have any energy anymore.

      ‘You said you’d be back in a couple of hours.’

      ‘What the hell, really?’ Jack said. ‘Can you tell me what you want from me? I just want to understand because I can’t see how making money is not the right thing.’

      I tried to work out what to say. How could I explain when my head felt so cluttered and fragile? For a fraction of a second he looked like a little boy about to listen to a parent preach, and I saw how afraid he was that I was going to say something else, would question him further, something neither one of us had the energy for. Even if there was another woman, I didn’t have the energy to even entertain the thought for long periods of time. What else could it be? I wanted to ask him why he’d tell me he took a cab when he got out of a town car, and if he was having an affair, but I wasn’t sure I really cared. His distance paled in comparison to whatever crazy I had living inside of me.

       Hey, honey, welcome home! Guess what, there’s a demon trapped inside of our daughter’s head and with every passing minute it’s getting harder to resist the temptation of jamming a sharp object into her fontanel.

      ‘She cried all day, Jack. I don’t know what to do anymore.’

      It’s because of the demon.

      ‘Did you take her out?’

       You haven’t left the house in days.

      ‘All she does is cry. Why would I take her out?’

       The demon is making her cry. If I can get to the demon, everything will be okay.

      ‘Well, what did you do?’

      I didn’t answer.

       Help me Jack, help me. I’m afraid of hurting her.

      ‘She doesn’t cry all the time, Estelle. She’s not crying right now, is she? She cries sometimes, all babies do, that’s how they communicate.’ He plopped on the couch and opened his briefcase. ‘I have work to do, let’s talk later, okay?’ Jack absentmindedly jabbed chopsticks at Chinese leftovers while hacking away on his BlackBerry.

      ‘It’s okay,’ I said more to myself than Jack. I stared out the window, my reflection nothing but a distorted body in a sea of darkness.

      Jack’s mood tended to improve the sleepier he became. Later, in bed, he caught me staring at the ceiling. He asked, his voice now soft and gentle, what I was thinking about.

      ‘Dark, horrible thoughts,’ I answered but kept my voice light and cheerful. ‘Demons. Blood. Murder. That kind of stuff.’

      He brushed my words off with a half-hearted smile. ‘Well then … as long as it’s nothing serious. You can always get a sitter a couple of times a week. I’ll help out as much as I can.’

       Which means what? You hold her while I get a bottle?

      ‘Sure,’ I said. Our conversations had turned into a distorted reality we both liked to believe in. There was nothing he could do for me.

      ‘Well, then let’s not dwell on it.’

      ‘Yeah, let’s not,’ I said and felt a cold fist tightening around my heart.

      ‘I’m sorry about earlier, how was your day?’ Jack said, flipped over and pulled the blanket over his shoulders.

      ‘Just the usual.’

       Let me see. I haven’t slept longer than one hour continuously for the past five months. I use wet wipes more often than I shower. The thought of tomorrow being just like today makes me want to jump off a bridge. Any moment I’ll hit rock-bottom which I imagine to be similar to the bottom of a dark well. Murky ankle-deep water, toad cadavers floating atop the slimy water’s surface, spider webs full of dried-up cocooned bugs and beetles. And that’s before I light a match and look closely.

      Jack’s breathing was slow and steady. I didn’t have to look at him to know that he was asleep.

      But it really didn’t matter because even if he was awake, he couldn’t bear half of what I had living inside of me.

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