Alan-Michael sat slumped in Mara-Joy’s living room chair, sipping his rye and ginger ale. The ice made clinking sounds in his glass. He was feeling warm and fuzzy from the alcohol and his eyes began to droop.
“Wakey, wakey, Mikey!” Mara-Joy’s shrill voice startled Alan-Michael out of his coma.
“Christ, do you have to be so loud?” he asked, raising his glass to his forehead. It felt cool on his damp brow.
Mara-Joy smirked and sat down on the sofa, lounging back and lighting a smoke. She was wearing a silk black robe with oriental geisha girls dancing around the hem. It clung to her figure perfectly, tracing out the small bulge just beginning to emerge from her mid-section.
Alan-Michael averted his eyes from her growing belly to hide his revulsion.
He didn’t share in the rest of his family’s joy over Mara-Joy’s pregnancy. In fact, the very thought of her with child nauseated him.
“Now, brother, is that the way you talk to a pregnant woman?” Mara-Joy teased, tossing her high-heeled slippers off her feet and onto the floor.
“Must you always talk about your condition?” Alan-Michael demanded nastily.
“No. If it bothers you we can talk about something else. What would you like to talk about, Mikey? School?” she said, sarcastically, “Girls?”
Alan-Michael glared at Mara-Joy. “Stop it,” he said, downing the rest of his drink and standing to make himself a fresh glass. He didn’t like it when Mara-Joy teased him. Especially after just having a terrible evening.
Alan-Michael had been out on a date with a young girl who slightly resembled Mara-Joy. “Slightly” meaning that she had dark hair. That is where the similarities ended. He wined and dined the young woman and she was charmed by his good looks and manners. That was until he it was time to take her home.
He’d stopped at a make-out location and proceeded with the usual kissing and petting that went with a good date; but then he became increasingly forceful and demanding, nearly raping the poor young girl, who fled from the car, crying. Alan-Michael, driving slowly beside the frightened girl as she walked, tried to persuade her to get back into the car. She refused, claiming Alan-Michael was sick and she never wanted to see him again.
What Alan-Michael didn’t understand was that the girl had even more reason to be afraid of him than he was aware of. While he was forcing himself on the terrified girl, he called out Mara-Joy’s name, saying he had done it, he had killed her.
Confused and scared, the girl had maneuvered herself out of the car and ran from Alan-Michael, spooked.
His eyes had terrified her most. They were glazed and fixed, not focused on anything in reality. They were the eyes of the insane and she knew if she valued anything normal, she must flee from Alan-Michael and never have anything to do with him again.
She told him as much while he followed her in his car.
Angry and humiliated, not understanding the bitch’s’ attitude, he came to the one place he always felt drawn too, Mara-Joy’s.
Mara-Joy, not surprised to see him, filled him with booze as she played records from her favorite singer, Al Jolson.
“Toot, toot, tootsy, good-bye,” Mara-Joy sang along, wiggling her toes.
Alan-Michael rubbed his temples, his headache pounding behind his eyes. He gulped down his drink and refreshed it once more.
“Please, Mara-Joy, do we have to listen to that music?” he whined, sitting back down in his chair with a thud.
“As I recall, it was you who came to my house,” Mara-Joy said joyfully. She loved to torment him.
“Ha. Ha. Very funny.” Alan-Michael melted back into the chair and slurped his drink. The strong bitter taste burnt his throat and he felt himself relax.
“Ma got a letter the other day from Pauline,” Mara-Joy said, sitting up. It had been two months since Pauline left for Africa.
“I know,” Alan-Michael said dully.
“Can you believe it, our Pauline off in Africa living with a bunch of barbarians!” Mara-Joy said with pride as she took a drag of her cigarette.
“They are called ‘pygmies’ and they are not barbarians. They are hunters and gathers, or so Pauline writes,” Alan-Michael said, bored, his fingers massaging his temples.
“Well, whatever they are, it is very interesting. Pauline seems to have found a good calling in life,” Mara-Joy said, smiling to herself. “I can’t help but feel responsible for helping her life change.”
“For crying out loud Mara-Joy, you sent her to school and she took off with
the first weirdoes she met, leaving you high and dry to explain it all to Ma and Pa,” Alan-Michael said jealously.
What was wrong with Mara-Joy? Since when had she taken such an interest in that idiot’s life? Pauline had always been an imbecile and Mara-Joy had once thought so too.
“You are just being a jealous green-eyed monster, Alan-Michael, and I won’t let you ruin my good mood,” Mara-Joy replied and swung her feet onto the ground.
“Jealous of what? Of being an idiot?” Alan-Michael asked, sitting up.
“Yes,” Mara-Joy said, standing up and touching her bud of a tummy affectionately. “That idiot is doing more with her life than any of us. It is that idiot who will accomplish more than you or I could have dreamed of having achieved.”
“You have got to be kidding,” Alan-Michael snapped waspishly, draining his once more. He was beginning to feel considerably drunk. “You mean to tell me that you honestly think that no-brain Pauline--”
“Stop! I am tired of hearing your resentful words,” Mara-Joy said, raising her hand.
“Fine. Since you are so fond of what our sisters are up to these days, I thought you would like to hear the latest news on your favorite sister.” Alan-Michael smirked, sensing he had Mara-Joy’s attention.
“What favorite sister?” Mara-Joy asked, strained, settling back on the couch and lying down.
“Oh you know the one,” Alan-Michael said going over to Mara-Joy. He sat down beside her and placed a cold hand down onto her firm round belly. Mara-Joy tensed and let out a gasp. Her hands went protectively over Alan-Michael’s strong hold.
“Remember the sister?” Alan-Michael said, slowly rotating his hand around on her stomach. Mara-Joy felt herself become rigid.
“Stop, Alan-Michael,” she said through clenched teeth.
“You know the sister I’m talking about. The sister who stole your husband right from under your nose.”
“Alan-Michael, stop it, I mean it,” she said, trying to pry his hands from her tummy. He held on firmly, her attempts futile.
“The sister who bore your husband’s bastard children when you couldn’t even carry one to term.” Alan-Michael was dazed, his eyes glassy. A humming had begun deep inside his ear and he could hear nothing over the sound of it.
“Seems our fertile sister is full of baby again,” he continued. Mara-Joy’s head shot up, surprised. Heat raced to her face.
“I wonder whose baby it is.” Alan-Michael droned on. “Maybe she is preparing to give Larry a son, in case something should happen again to yours. Joanna is always ready to supply your husbands with the children you can’t have.”
Mara-Joy struck Alan-Michael forcefully across the face. His head flew sideways easily in his muddled state. A red handprint began to surface on his pale skin. Alan-Michael raised his hand off of her stomach and placed it to his hot cheek.
“How dare you!” Mara-Joy said, scrambling up and advancing on Alan-Michael like a madwoman. He sat unmoving, clutching his stinging face. “How dare you spew that filth in my house! You have some nerve!”
“What hurts you more, Mara-Joy,” he asked, rolling his glass casually in his free hand, “the thought that Joanna is once again pregnant with your husband’s bastard, or that she might have another child where you will be left with none?”
“Get out!” Mara-Joy said, protectively draping a hand across her belly. “Get out of here and never come back. You are no longer welcome in my home, Alan-Michael.”
Startled, Alan-Michael looked numbly at Mara-Joy. He had intended to get her riled up but not to get himself thrown out, exiled from her presence. He had only wanted to get her blood boiling about Joanna.
“Come on, Mara-Joy, you don’t mean it,” he pleaded, tilting his glass to his lips. She grabbed the glass from his hands, banging his teeth in the process.
“I do mean it, Alan-Michael. You don’t make fun at the expense of my baby!” she snarled, her voice getting louder. She was shaking, she was so angry.
“You don’t come into my home and say Joanna will bear another child and mine will never be born! Do you hear me?”
“Mara-Joy, I was just kidding. You know, like we always do,” he said, becoming frightened. He hadn’t seen Mara-Joy this angry since Joanna had run off with Chad. He realized he had gone too far.
He stood up and went to her. He tried to comfort her by placing his arms around her shoulders. It didn’t work. Mara-Joy turned on him, striking Alan-Michael forcefully around the head.
“Get out of here before I call the police! Do you understand, Alan-Michael? I never want to see your pitiful face here again.” She whirled on him, once more hitting him around the ears. Alan-Michael lamely tried to shield himself with his hands, too stunned to do anything more.
“You are so pathetic, Alan-Michael, with the way you moon around me!” Mara-Joy said, face full of rage. “What are you thinking in that sick mind of yours? Huh? Do you actually think I don’t know how you feel about me?”
Alan-Michael began to turn red with shame. He hadn’t known he was so transparent with his lustful feelings.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said, playing dumb in his drunken stupor.
Mara-Joy tilted her head back and laughed her cackling, evil laugh.
“You poor fool. You really think I don’t know how you lust after me? How you desire your own sister.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Alan-Michael said with little conviction.
“Ridiculous!” Mara-Joy said, pushing her fevered face into Alan-Michael’s pasty one. “’Ridiculous’ is you thinking it could possibly happen. That is what is ‘ridiculous’.”
He could take no more. He pushed Mara-Joy out of his way and fled the house, humiliated.
Alan-Michael ran until his lungs felt like they would burst. He stopped, crouching forward, his hands on his thighs, panting and spitting saliva that formed in his mouth.
He stayed in the same position for some time, until finally he could catch his breath. When he felt he had some control, he straightened his spine and breathed deeply of the cool night air.
His thoughts were dark and hateful. How could this be happening to him?
He had lost Mara-Joy forever. She had ridiculed him worse than an animal.
Why? Why had Mara-Joy turned on him?
It was plain for him to see. So obvious in his twisted mind.
It hadn’t been because of him and the things he had said. They had always been close and would have always been that way, if it hadn’t been for her.
Alan-Michael let out a deep belly yell that echoed throughout the neighborhood. Dogs began to bark and someone yelled out the window for him to leave or they were going to call the cops.
He began to walk. His feet moved faster and faster. His brain kept pulsating with hatred. The more he thought of it, the more it seemed to make sense.
He had lost the only person that mattered to him, Mara-Joy, and it was all Joanna’s fault.
Joanna didn’t hear Alan-Michael creep through the front door of her house.
How could she? She was sound asleep beside Chad in their bed. They slumbered peacefully, unaware of the uninvited guest sneaking up their staircase to their bedroom.
Alan-Michael stopped in front of Joanna’s daughter’s room. Jena slept peacefully with a doll snugly tucked under her chin.
She should have been Mara-Joy’s daughter, he screamed in his head.
He then slowly crept to the boy’s room. Charles slept with his bottom up in the air, his legs scrunched beneath his tummy.
How sweet,” Alan-Michael said sarcastically. He shut the door and walked quietly to Joanna and Chad’s room.
There she lay: the one who had destroyed Alan-Michael’s life. Rage surged through his body like never before. His mind could see nothing but hate.
The tramp! The trollop! Look at her! He screamed in his head. Look at her lying with another woman’s husband. Jezebel!
The malice Alan-Michael felt for Joanna was overpowering. It consumed his mind. Everything in his life that had gone wrong was associated with the woman who lay in that bed, oblivious to it all.
If it hadn’t been for Joanna, Mara-Joy would not have abandoned him. Everything was Joanna’s fault, everything.
He didn’t even think twice when he raised the butcher knife above his slumbering sister; and he didn’t stop plunging the knife into her soft white flesh, even when she screamed out in terror. He kept on thrusting his dagger into her body over and over again, blanking out the sounds of her screams and those of her husband. Nothing would stop him from finishing what he had started. Nothing.
A sharp object struck his head forcefully from behind and everything went black.
Chapter 47 —