What Lies Between Us

by John Marrs

‘Why do you keep trying to leave me?’

I blink so hard that my eyes want to roll back in their sockets and when I open them again, the blood has disappeared. There’s no trace of it anywhere or the knife she was holding. There’s only Maggie, begging me not to douse her with bleach.

Does she have frequent hallucinations? If so, is it a result of her childhood trauma or something else entirely?

When the rage reared its head for a second time, I wasn’t there and I’ll regret that for the rest of my life. But I mopped up the aftermath. It’s a mother’s duty to protect their child from themselves.

So they are calling them "blackouts".... Huh.

For a minute there, I lost it. I actually lost all control of myself and I don’t know how it happened. It was more than just anger or blind rage. It was something much, much darker. And I’m frightened.

I thought that having a baby meant that I would always be loved by someone until the day I died. I was wrong. Being a mother is no guarantee of anything.

I know for sure that I can’t let anyone inside her head. Because if I do, they might release something that I have spent the last twenty years trying to contain.

We have both got this so very, very wrong. Bobby isn’t my half-brother. Bobby is Dylan. And Dylan is my son, not the lost daughter I have pined for all these years.

She was in fact born a he, and he is still very much alive. The baby my mum told me was stillborn was no such thing.

I push away soil and stones with my hands until I can make out what I am seeing. It’s the ribcage of an adult. I am standing over my missing father’s body.

I cannot kill as she has killed.