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The dreams came back, and I’d ignored them. I’d convinced myself they weren’t true.
It was time to confide in Lori. I wanted someone else to know, and she would understand without judgment. Or, if she judged me, she wouldn’t be alone. Hate lingered in my heart, hate for myself. The things I did were unforgivable.
“My brother-in-law was going to take the family to the lake for “the swim”. BeLew were living with them at the time. He didn’t say what he was doing, but my sister found the tonic. She heard him talking to his counterparts about the date and location. She cut the battery lines to their cars. I went over to help them but he made them walk. He had completely lost his mind by then, convinced if they didn’t take that fucking tonic and drown themselves, it would damn them for eternity. I had my gun and, well, he had his.”
Lori stood next to me without speaking. The flour bag was empty, and I was staring at the bowl of powder. My chest hurt like a broken part of my heart had re-opened.
“We fought. I don’t have to tell you what about.” My shallow breaths made it hard to speak. Lori’s eyes were wide as she stared at me, touching her fingertips to my arm. “BeLew ran back to the house at some point. Everyone was screaming at each other. It got really chaotic. He raised his gun to the boys, and my sister got in between. I shot him. He shot her. It happened really fast. It’s not like in the movies. You hear bullets, but people don’t bleed right away. They kind of fall to the ground and it takes a while for your brain to register what’s happening. You can’t understand that they are dead, that they are gone. Then there’s the denial part, where you just stare at someone. You look at the body of a person you loved every day for your entire life, and you wonder if it truly happened. Then you wonder how you keep loving people.”
Lori had a tight grip on my arm. “That’s horrible, Row.” We said nothing for a moment, and the mixer buzzed, an awful sound breaking my trance.
“There’s nothing you could have done, Row. That group had them all mind fucked. He’s responsible. Luckily, nothing happened to the boys. No - not luck. You saved the boys, Rowan. Do you understand that?”
“I’m just not so sure about that,” I winced, my voice a few octaves too high. I saw the scene in my mind, as clear as it was that day. My sister lay crumpled in the dirt, her breaths muddled with blood. BeLew had stopped their run in the distance, their little legs frozen, not knowing which way to go. I remembered how heavy the gun had felt in my hands, but I kept hold of it, afraid to let it go. Then the fear washed over me, the fear that I had made a terrible mistake.
“The thing is Lori… I can’t tell you. That is, I’m still not sure… who shot first.”
