She closes the door. I stand there for what feels like centuries. Connor is still out at the car; I can see the hood of the trunk sticking up from here. My breath is shallow. I feel dizzy. I can back out, I think. I can stop. I can put them in the car even now and go home, tell a whopper of a story to Bill and their parents about getting hopelessly confused on the freeway, driving in the wrong direction without realizing it, not understanding until I recognized that we were fairly near our cabin, deciding to go there to give the kids a bathroom break and me a driving break before returning home at last. I can do that, I think. I can do that. The bag drops from my hands, sags on the floor. I’ve been standing here for centuries and yet Connor hasn’t come in, I haven’t heard a thing from Kylie in the bathroom. Centuries. Sweat pours down my face although it’s cool in the room, cool and musty. I find myself wondering ridiculously if there’s any food in the cupboards, if I could offer them anything to eat. But no. Hurry up please it’s time.
I turn, step into the bathroom, lock the door behind me. Kylie is standing at the toilet, having just pulled down her pants. They’re around her ankles, the jeans and the little white panties with red hearts she has on under them. I’ve caught her in the moment before she sits down. She looks at me with such astonishment that she doesn’t make a sound, doesn’t act embarrassed or cry out, “Ms. Straw!” or cover her privates with her hands or anything. She just looks at me through her glasses, head tilted back, mouth open. For a moment I realize why people generally dislike her, she looks so stupid standing there like that, she looks like a two-legged cow, like a brainless doll with nothing but white plastic between her legs, no hair at all. In the instant I move toward her she suddenly realizes that something is very wrong and tries to turn away from me but her pants tangle up her feet. She nearly falls but I catch her from behind, pull her head back, tighten my hands around her throat. “Shh, shh,” I say, my voice ragged and strange, “don’t make a sound, Kylie, shh.” I squeeze as hard as I can. The only sound she makes is a little gurgling noise. Her hands fly this way and that, like they did the moment Connor started the slow dance with her. She tries to reach me behind her but can only flail backwards at my shoulders and thighs. But I can’t get enough pressure on her neck, it’s almost impossible this way. I’m choking her but she’s managing little breaths. She tries to wrench loose, weak little girl, stumbles over her pants, nearly drags both of us down, I lose my balance, too much of her weight is in my hands and suddenly we’re on our knees, I’m on top of her from behind, my hands are on fire with the pain of the squeezing and yet she’s not dying, she’s kicking and pulling at my fingers and managing quick gasping breaths and I suddenly know that this isn’t going to work, she’s stronger than I realized, I should never have tried from behind, I use all my strength to force her down flat on the floor, implant my knee on her back, take my hands off her throat, she inhales hugely with an odd high-pitched sound like wind whistling in a canyon, I grab her mousy hair in my hands and slam her face onto the bathroom tile as hard as I can. Twice, three times. Suddenly I realize I’m wet, my pants are wet, my leg pushed against her back and bottom, she’s peeing herself, great waves of piss pouring out from between her legs and somehow this makes me angry, makes me slam her head against the tile harder, harder still, ten times, twenty, until finally her body seems to shiver hugely and her fluttering arms drop to the floor, make only weak spasmodic motions. Incredibly, piss is still coming out of her. I turn her over, both of us covered in urine. Her eyes are rolled up in her head and her face is covered with blood: her nose is smashed, I realize, pouring sticky red tendrils everywhere across her face. Her forehead is covered with ugly raw abrasions. One of her front teeth is split nearly in half. Yet the thing I notice the most, more vividly than anything else, is how odd she looks without her glasses on. They’ve flown off her face and landed I don’t know where. But as I lean down to her I realize she’s not dead. Her breathing is ragged, shaky, she’s moaning. She’s not dead. Connor’s voice suddenly, so close that for an instant I think he’s come into the room: “Where are you guys? Kylie? Ms. Straw?” With his voice I begin again to hear the rain, in mad torrent now, a deluge slamming down on the cabin, surely we’ll all be swept away. I wrap my hands around her neck again, this time from the front, and press down. Her face turns red, then blue, then an odd, sick gray. My fingers ache but now my thumbs can completely crush the soft part of her throat, press, press, a small high-pitched sound like a trapped rat comes from her and then I feel something collapse in her throat, my thumbs push through something, her body bucks for a second or two, her arms twitch, and she’s dead. I know it the instant it happens. She’s dead.
I lean back, breathing heavily, looking down at this stranger, this little person who is a stranger to me. The room smells of piss. I’m soaked with my sweat and her pee. I move aside, look away from her as Connor knocks on the bathroom door. “Is one of you in there? Kylie? Mona?”
You called Ms. Straw ‘Mona’!
I feel too weak to stand. I drag myself to the bathroom door, unlock it. After a moment Connor turns the knob and pokes his head in. “What…?”
I drag myself to the wall, lean my back against it, close my eyes, try to catch my breath. For a moment I don’t know what he does, how he looks. Then I hear a high-pitched wailing sound and for a moment I think she’s come back to life, I haven’t killed her, I haven’t set Connor and me free. He pushes through the door, I open my eyes, he steps in and immediately his feet fly out in front of him and he crashes down, a classic Buster Keaton pratfall, right on his bottom on the piss-slick floor. He doesn’t seem to notice me. He stares at Kylie, his eyes saucer-round, his mouth open as hers so often was. The high-pitched sound comes from him again, wavering, not loud. We don’t move for a moment. Then Connor stands, his pants wet now, backs out into the bathroom doorway. Finally he looks at me. I wait for him to say something but he doesn’t, just makes the sound, backs away a little further until he’s out of the bathroom entirely. He’s wringing his hands, literally pacing and wringing his hands like some old woman in a Russian novel. Finally I manage to stand. I splash water on my face, drink a few handfuls, then step out to face Connor.
“We need to make some decisions now,” I say.
He looks at me as if I’m the vilest creature on the planet, something unclean, beyond redemption. I wish he’d close his mouth. I wish he’d stop pacing. He looks silly.
“Connor, there are some things we’ll need to do now,” I say.
He covers his face with his hands for a moment, realizes they’re covered with urine, wipes them on his pants, turns away from me, turns back again.
“I need you to be a man now, Connor.”
His wail begins to form into words. The first word is “I.” It takes him a moment to get out the rest. Finally he screams: “I—I—I—I hate you!”
This sets loose a flood of tears as he paces, paces, slaps meaninglessly at the walls, turns again to the bathroom and then quickly away.
I move to him, wrap my arms around him. “Cry it out, sweetheart. I know this is hard for you.”
“Get away from me!” He backs up, eyes wild. “You’re—you’re crazy!”
“I know you’re upset, sweetheart.”
“Don’t call me ‘sweetheart’!”
“Try to calm down, Connor. If you think about it you’ll know why I had to do it.”
He covers his ears, just like a little boy, grits his teeth, turns away. Then he turns to the bathroom again, looks in, as if to convince himself that it’s real. I take that moment to grab his arm, turn him to me.