The Last September: A Novel

“Here’s where he died,” he said. Then he stood and walked to the rail. He leaned forward, crossing his elbows, and dropping his head on top of them, exactly the way I’d imagined Charlie, braced for the first blow.

“Here’s how he stood,” Eli said. His voice should have been muffled, pressed against his arms, but it came out clear. “Just before you got him with the hammer.”

I walked up onto the deck. A wintery breeze blew in from the direction of the discarded boards. It would leave a film of dew on every leaf, and then the light would come. Not impossible to imagine the scenario, me killing Charlie, so much more directly than I ever could have imagined. I was still so hurt, and so angry. Maybe I’d done it in my sleep. Maybe I’d used these past few weeks to rearrange all memories in favor of myself, forgetting this unspeakable act.

“I should have stopped you,” Eli said.

“Where were you?” I asked. I almost wanted to add, I didn’t see you there.

“Just over there. With the dog.” He looked down at his feet as if seeing Lightfoot for the first time. She wagged up at him and he knelt to pet her. “Hey,” he said, the lucidity gathering. “Hey Lightfoot.” She put her paws on his knee and licked his chin.

“Charlie was surprised,” I said. “By that first blow.”

Eli looked up. “He fell sideways. He lifted up his hands. But he didn’t want to hurt you. Neither of us wanted to hurt you.”

Eli didn’t say what happened next. Two, three. And then I turned the hammer around for the fourth blow, the one that finally killed him, but it wasn’t enough. Because how could he have done it, when I loved him so much, and when I’d tried so hard? I didn’t know Eli was watching. By now, the dog must have fled, already cowering under the front porch. I went inside, got the knife, brought it back, and slid it across Charlie’s throat. The blood flowed slowly, arteries no longer pumping.

“Except,” I said.

Eli’s window of clarity was closing, his words starting to spill forth again. The dog backed away as he got to his feet and started pacing.

“It wasn’t me,” I told him. “I didn’t do that. I wasn’t here. I was at my friend’s.”

If Eli heard me, he didn’t give any indication. In front of my eyes, shifting in his capabilities, the outside world registering or not. And who was there left to protect him? Charlie was dead, the blood-soaked boards already replaced, the world moving forward with brash insensitivity. I thought of Charlie’s wedding ring and wondered what Bob had done with it. I had to get it back from him, for Sarah. I had to figure out a way to deliver Eli to help, to safety. I had to find a way to live, and continue, and survive.

In a way, it would be easier to believe I could have been here, that I could have killed him—and let them take me away. No more decisions or responsibilities. Nothing but penance to pay.

I sat down and pressed my back against the wall. Lightfoot trotted over and plopped down in my lap. Eli stopped again, and came to sit next to me. When I saw his hand reaching out, toward me, I couldn’t help it. I flinched. But he only grasped a strand of my hair, his fist closing around it, but not ungently.

“Your hair,” he said. “It wasn’t like this.”

It seemed like morning should have arrived by now. But it hadn’t, nothing close, not even the light from the millionaire’s flagpole. He must have given up, or else the bulb had died. Eli closed his eyes, done speaking for the moment. Maybe I’d miscalculated the hour, because even this time of year, birds should have stirred as the gloaming approached. Eli didn’t say anything more about what my hair had been like, the night I’d killed Charlie. But I knew it had been long and fine and very blonde.

“It wasn’t me,” I promised Eli.