Mercy

Mercy is invited to go to Kodiak, Alaska, an exboyfriend just moved there for a job in the woods in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. The pictures are breathtaking, she writes in an email, even though he wrote her on paper with a pencil so when the letter finally arrived some of the words were faded, she had to read it under a microscope. There is no wifi in the mountains of Kodiak, where he is, but she insisted on writing an email anyway, dating it as if it mattered, addressing it to him in the corner of the screen to his cabin. He said he only got his mail every two weeks, anyway. Dear Patrick, Mercy writes, Dear Patrick.

Dreams of killing. Stab. Repeat. Stab. Repeat.

When she was in high school, the feeling of wanting to kill one of her mother's many husbands, replacements for her father. This one in particular. The night her mother and this man yelled at each other in his big house for hours until he came downstairs where Mercy was, in a rage, and grabbed something from his tool room. Remember, Mercy. Mercy remembers the feeling in her body of acquiescing to a trade-off: her life for her mother's. She remembers resigning in those moments. What did he grab and where is he going. He is mad. Madder than she had ever seen him get. So, so angry.
A man like that, of privilege, white, he can get away with things, she thought. Mercy thought, he can get away with so much. There are three mine shafts on his property alone. Three.

Mercy remembers grabbing a pair of scissors and a claw hammer. She is shaking, she is involuntarily crying, not weeping, but choking back tears, not calmly at all. In this moment, I resign my life. Tonight is the night, I will go to prison forever. Tonight is the night I go to prison forever. Tonight is the night. Good-bye future, good-bye college, good-bye boys that taste like Southern Comfort in black hooded sweatshirts that blend with the sky around the bonfire parties. Kiss me, kiss me, c'mon they say. They always prod. They always have to prod. Mercy freezes. Kiss me, kiss me. Mercy does not know how to say no yet. She doesn't say it often. She will learn someday but she does not know yet so Kiss me kiss me becomes hands up her shirt. Becomes.

Tremble. Choke tears. Skip one step. Skip two steps. Many leaps. On top of the stairs. Looking down. What if he fell. Accident. The dogs are barking. Skip two more steps. Listen. Top. of. Stairs. Listen. What. The clink of the claw hammer, it hits the wall. Accident. Two more steps. Back against banister. Shadow. Listen. Yell. Slam door. Tears blending into hair. Moist hair. Tremble. Choke.
Bark. Yell. Slam. Bark. Yell. Slam. Bark. Her mother is fine. Mercy, look, your mother is in the guest bathroom washing her face with a towel, cursing under her breath about that man she married. Mercy doubles over as if in pain, the claw hammer hits her knee lightly before landing silently on the stair below her. This awful carpet with piss and shit stains everywhere, it smells like a pet store in here she told her mother once. Her mother is fine. Her mother's husband is outside, drinking vodka from the neck of the bottle, in his undershorts, in his Gander Mountain beach chair, waiting for everything to pass over.

Mercy feels this feeling again tonight, Dear Patrick, do you remember one of my mother's exhusbands has three mine shafts on his property, do you think there are bodies in those mine shafts? Patrick once told her that there are things every man on the planet carries inside of him that he does not let anyone in on, he said that his are particular in that he can't even speak about them, there are statutes of limitations on certain things but not others, what does that even mean, Mercy said but Patrick did not answer and was quiet a long while.