Notes on an Execution

by Danya Kukafka

This job was getting to her. Not the bodies, or the missing children, or the rampant opioids. It was this. Men like Lawson, who believed their very existences afforded them lawlessness. Men who had been handed the world, trashed it, and still demanded more.

She did not like to picture them here. Two little boys, playing games on the unfinished hardwood. A child, a baby. No mother had been good here. No father had been kind. Saffy knew abandonment, she knew tragedy, she knew loneliness. She knew violence, from the lifetime she had spent chasing it—she knew how it lingered, how it stained. Violence always left a fingerprint.

She had known from a young age that everyone had darkness inside—some just controlled it better than others. Very few people believed that they were bad, and this was the scariest part. Human nature could be so hideous, but it persisted in this ugliness by insisting it was good.

As Saffy wound through Tupper Lake, she let the anger flood. It was fury, yes—but it was more. She wasn’t even surprised. Men like Lawson always found a way out. She’d seen it so many times—how they squirmed through the cracks in a system that favored them. How, even after they’d committed the most violent crimes, they felt entitled to their freedom, however that might look.

There would be no story, for these girls alone. There would be no vigil, no attention at all. They are relevant because of Ansel and the fascination the world has for men like him.

Saffy believes that Tanisha is still alive. That vitality is possible even after trauma, that the path does not always lead to devastation. That not every girl must become a Girl.

There are millions of men out there who want to hurt women—people seem to think that Ansel Packer is extraordinary, because he actually did.

No one remembers Izzy like this. Her sister, Selena, does, but only when she makes herself think past the horror. Usually Izzy—the real Izzy—is invisible beneath the shadow of what happened to her. The tragedy is that she is dead, but the tragedy is also that she belongs to him. The bad man, who did the bad thing. There are millions of other moments Izzy has lived, but he has eaten them up one by one, until she exists in most memories as a summation of that awful second, distilled constantly in her fear, her pain, the brutal fact.

From wherever Izzy is now, she wishes she could say: Before all this, my shoulders burned scarlet. I peeled off the flakes, flicked them into the sink. There were things I felt, before the fear. I ate an orange in the sun. Let me tell you how it tasted.

Lila’s third child would have been a girl after all. They would have named her Grace. She does not exist, but if she did, Grace would have become the executive director of the Columbus Zoo. She would have managed eight hundred employees, ten thousand animals, and a five-hundred-acre property. Grace’s favorite charge would have been the snow leopard: a lean, dignified animal with a lush coat of spotted white. After closing one night, a sweltering June, Grace would have found herself alone in the feline wing, the cleaning staff already gone home. She would have walked down to the leopard’s terrarium, intent on admiring before she said goodnight. She’d have stood at the entrance to the leopard’s high cage, stunned by the elegance of the animal—giant yellow eyes would have met hers. An invitation. She’d have unlocked the feeding door, her heart warning a patter as she inched forward, two steps. Forward, two more. The leopard would have watched as Grace slid to the floor against the interior wall, a smile snarling at its jaw. The leopard would have stalked slowly up to her, sniffed Grace’s outstretched hand in a whoosh of meaty breath. The animal would have unfurled its limbs, curled its long body into the nook where Grace’s armpit met her ribs. Together, they’d have slept. At dawn, Grace would have woken to a mouthful of fur, the leopard’s head resting gigantic on her knee. She would have thought: How gentle, this world. How tender, this mercy.

There would have been 6,552 babies. Over a span of eighteen years, 6,552 hearts would have beat unconscious, cocooned in the blank swim of their mothers’ wombs. 204 of those babies would have been born blue, then slapped awake. 81 would have died. But 6,471 infants would have taken their first gasps of oxygen as they slid from echoing caves—they’d have stretched their thrashing limbs into Jenny’s waiting hands. Jenny would have been a blur. Their eyes, still so new, would not have been able to track her face. But 6,471 newborns would have felt the soothing capability of Jenny’s gloved palms, the humility of her fingertips as she checked their vitals, wiped them clean. They’d have heard Jenny’s voice, rumbling the same words every time she passed them into their mothers’ sticky arms. Welcome, little one, Jenny would have whispered into each precious seashell ear. You’ll see. It’s good here.