In the days following her death, I’d replayed a thousand scenarios
through my mind, each designed to hurt me more than the last. I pictured my
father taking a pinch of the iodine any time I forgot to bring her drinks on
time or whenever I refused to give her sweets or when I forced her to take her
medicine. She hadn’t said a word about the jar, but each time I displeased
her, it would have pushed her a little closer to death. And that was the beauty
of the punishment: I only felt its sting when it was too late to apologise and
too late to right the wrongs.
The day my Father finally died had been especially challenging for me.
I’d had a migraine—one of the bad ones that made me nauseous and blurred
my vision—and my father had been demanding. She never liked it when I
was sick—it took the spotlight off her. So she’d made me run a dozen minor
errands for her: rearranging the blankets around the stumps of what used to
be her legs, fetching a fresh glass of water because she didn’t like the taste of
what she had, and retrieving an extra pillow, which was thrown on the floor
an hour later.
I’d reached my limit by mid-afternoon. The migraine was blindingly
painful, and I couldn’t stand the sound of her voice for another minute. So I
went outside to the shady garden seat where I could lie down and drape a
cloth over my eyes to block out the light. It helped. I fell asleep and didn’t
wake for hours. By the time I roused, it was night, and my father was dead.
The memories swam through me, alternately stinging and punching at myinsides, as I popped the lid off the jar and stared at the white powder inside
for a long, sad moment.
I don’t believe my father had intended to die that night. he wasn’t
depressed and had shown no inclination for death before then. She probably
hadn’t realised the dose was enough to kill her. But she took it then wrote one
of the cruellest notes she could manage.
The words surged through me, threatening to drown me: I blame you for
the way I’ve ended up. In a fairer world, I would have had a child that loved
me the way they should.
That note was memorised. I’d read it countless times in the days
following my father’s death.
When the coroner’s report came out, highlighting iodine poisoning, it
naturally sparked a police investigation. I was ultimately cleared of blame,
but by that time, I’d fully internalised the idea that my father was dead
because of me.
I’d managed to hide her porcelain jar. Once the funeral was over and the
police investigation finalised, I took it out of hiding, opened it up, and baked
two tablespoons of the white powder into my favourite spice cake. When it
came out of the oven, I cut myself a slice, poured fresh cream into the bowl,
and sat down to eat it.
For three hours, I stared at the cake. I was weak, frightened of what
awaited me after death. What tortures did hell hold for children who killed
their parents? Eventually, I threw out the slice.
You still have the rest of the cake, I told myself. It will keep for a few
days. You can eat it any time.
Days went by. I don’t remember much of that time, except that Lucky
came to stay. He was the only member of my family who seemed to care
more about me than what was in my father’s will. He’d offered to help clear
out the house. I don’t know if he realised how close to the edge I was, but his
voice had held that careful, gentle concern that frustrated me so much.
But he’d done me some good—not just to shake me out of my fog, but by
finding the documents hidden at the back of the filing cabinet. Apparently,
my father’s will had left half of everything he owned to my father, and half
to me. My father had concealed my portion—from jealousy, possibly, or out
of a fear that I would leave if I had financial independence. She’d always told
me she’d received everything he had. But the papers showed I’d inherited a
not-insubstantial sum. It was enough to live on for five or six years. And it letme buy my own house. Somewhere far away from the town I’d grown up in.
Somewhere, coincidentally, beside a haunted building.