She stepped away from me again and I shook my head. This could only go very wrong. Paulina was trained in household affairs. Lieutenant Schmeiden was a soldier, trained in killing.
“No.”
We all turned to look at my mother, who was shaking her head, her cloudy eyes wild in her sunken face.
“Not that one,” she rasped, raising a shaking finger toward Catrin before turning it on me. “That one. That’s the one you can’t trust.”
“Don’t you dare,” Paulina said, her voice shaking with anger.
In the many nights that would follow, fraught with fear, hunger, and pain, I would have nightmares about the scene that played out now.
Lieutenant Schmeiden turned to see Paulina pulling the gun from her pocket. He grabbed his own pistol and two shots rang out, echoing throughout the room. I gasped and ducked, staring in terror across the room at my sister. Her eyes met mine, her fingers wrapping around the long, iron stoker beside the fireplace as a thud shook the floor beneath our feet, and the sound of someone wailing filled the air.
My ears rang and my body shook as I realized what Cat was about to do.
“Cat, no,” I whispered, taking a step toward her and watching in horror as she raised her arm and took aim at the lieutenant’s back. But he turned just in time—and another shot rang out.
Catrin jerked, her eyes widening, and then the stoker clanged to the floor a second before her body followed.
I raced toward her and fell to my knees beside her. But she was gone, her eyes, so like mine, closed forever.
Catrin. Kitty Cat.
Holding in a sob, I got to my feet and took in the rest of the room. Paulina lay on the floor, a bullet wound to her forehead, eyes open and devoid of life, the gun lying beside her.
On the bed, my mother’s emaciated body lay thrown back against the blood-spattered ivory satin headboard from a gunshot wound to her neck.
I knelt beside Paulina’s body and closed her eyes, then stood and stared at the lieutenant to await whatever came next. I couldn’t imagine he’d just let me go. As far as he was concerned, no one could be trusted with what he considered to be his. It wouldn’t matter if I promised I wanted none of it. To him, it was all worth too much to risk.
He gestured toward the door with his gun.
“You may pack a small bag while I watch,” he said. “Steal anything and I’ll shoot you too.”
I nodded silently and walked down the hall to my room as he followed close behind, watching as with shaking hands I filled a small cloth bag with underwear, a brassiere, socks, a pair of trousers and a sweater that had been my father’s, and a few items Paulina had made for the baby. In the bathroom I grabbed my toothbrush and hairbrush, my eyes moving across the counter to Catrin’s belongings still sitting where she’d left them earlier this morning.
I took my journal from the bedside table and slid it into the bag and then took a last look around my childhood bedroom, glancing at the space beneath my bed where my ring and the only picture I had of William was hidden, and then I turned and led the way down the hallway.
I paused when I reached my mother’s room where she, my sister, and Paulina lay lifeless, guilt and bile rising in my throat. Had I never come, they’d all still be alive.
“Let’s go,” the lieutenant said, giving me a soft shove in the back.
Numb, I nodded and then descended the staircase, my eyes taking it all in as I left the apartment I’d grown up in for what I knew would be the last time, a bag of borrowed clothes over my shoulder, an ID calling me Lena in my pocket, and William’s baby in my belly.
41
William
Seattle
2003
“Dad?”
I jumped in my seat and wiped a hand across my eyes before turning to stare up at Lizzie, whose own eyes looked down at me with concern.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said, my voice husky. I gestured toward the house. “How’s it going?”
