Time after Time

Mom saw him. He slipped out of the room, a satisfied smirk on his face. She stopped dead in the hallway, home early from her book club. He saw her see him. He waved his hand at Mom like she was an annoying fly and walked into their bedroom. She did not go into the room she had painted pink years ago. She stood there forever, listening to the muffled sobs.

Miranda crawled out of the room. Mom still did not move, looking instead at the torn shirt and missing panties. Then she helped Miranda into the bathroom and cleaned her up. “First time,” was all Miranda gasped as Mom drew her a bath, bathed her, and comforted her. They went to the drugstore and purchased a single dose of Plan B. Mom whispered in Miranda’s ear, “I will be waiting.”

Miranda was the prettiest baby, with huge blue eyes, cherry-colored lips, and the most flawless skin Mom had ever seen. Even as a baby, Miranda’s blonde curls proliferated. As a sixteen-year-old, she was spectacular. She was a head-turner with a stunning figure. She was an intelligent, quiet, decent kid who knew how to keep secrets.

Dad was a well-respected third-generation surgeon. His family arrived on the Mayflower. They had the most prominent house in the development. He drove the latest model luxury car. Miranda attended the best private school. Her mother married her dad when she had just turned seventeen. He was thirty-seven.

Dad brought her Mom’s parents a house. Miranda was born before her mom’s eighteenth birthday. Miranda was ten before she knew the truth about her dad. Her Dad hurt her Mom. Time after time, he took Mom to the basement, where he tortured her in a custom-built soundproof room. He told the contractor the room was for recording medical dictation. The first time he hurt Mom was on their wedding night.

Mom tried to leave with the girl. He found them in a few weeks and had them delivered to his cabin deep in the mountains. Dad punished Mom in front of twelve-year-old Miranda. He put Mom outside, beaten senseless and naked, near the frozen pond. Mom thought she was going to die, but no, only one toe was amputated from frostbite. Time after time, he told them they would never leave him. And now, he intended to have two wives — two wives, to torture and beat at his leisure.

Mom’s schedule changed after the hallway incident. She no longer attended the book club. Mom did not work. She stopped her charity work. She dropped off and picked up her teenage daughter from school. After church, she asked Miranda to help count the offering instead of heading home with Dad. They were together all the time.

He scheduled a trip to the cabin two weeks after the Miranda incident. Mom and Miranda prepared for hell. Mom didn’t wait long. On their first night at the pond, Mom killed Dad. She poisoned his favorite dinner, prepared precisely the way he liked it. His preference was a rare steak, over-easy eggs, and pan-fried potatoes—homemade banana cream pie and a whisky sour for dessert. Dad died screaming, gasping for air, and throwing up blood.

Miranda and Mom took his body high up a nearby mountain and pushed it off a cliff into a deep narrow, inaccessible ravine off a remote trail. They waited five days, then called the sheriff and reported him missing. When a deputy arrived at their cabin, they told the deputy Dad had not returned from his hike.

The sheriff noted the wife was so devastated by the loss of her husband, she dropped to her knees and sobbed uncontrollably when they called off the search. He said a big storm was moving in, and it was too hazardous to continue. She told the sheriff she had told her husband, time and again, to take his GPS tracker or his cell phone with him, but he stubbornly refused. He said it wouldn’t be in the spirit of the wilderness to have them on a hike. Now she had nothing. The daughter helped the wife off her knees, and together they walked back into the cabin.