Page 33 of Eternally Devoted

“That might have happened, had I waited long enough. But… even in his delirium, he wouldn’t stop being a total asshole.” I close my eyes and picture the wood-walled home, the old hearth, the green shag, and the copies ofHustlerlittered over the worn coffee table. “So I used one of his barstools, and pulled down hisSaturdays Are For The Boysflag off the wall, and smothered him with it.”

Silence. Sterling stares at me while Dash studies his pie crust.

“Those flags are stupid,” Sterling finally says.

“So douchey,” Dash agrees.

A tiny smirk lifts my lips.

“Everything about him was horrendous,” I admit, “but he didn’t deserve to die. I should not have done that. It wasn’t really self-defense as it was defense of all future women from a person so…offensive.”

Sterling nods, as if it makes perfect sense to him. Dash stacks one arm over the other, bringing a curled fist beneath his chin. “What did you do with his body?”

For a moment, I forget I’m coming clean because the discomfort is completely gone. They’ve made me feel like I’m notsharing my darkest secrets but rather, chatting memories in a safe place.

“I wrapped him in that very flag and dragged him out into my van, then buried him under the oak tree out front.”

Their heads swivel to the window above the kitchen sink, which gives a portrait view of the old oak. The one we all love. Dolly paints it all the time. Bear climbs it as Honey claps. I think Ace, Ev and Deuce’s son, buried his first hamster under that tree, too.

While they’re still processing that the iconic tree is also a gravesite, I backfill details. “As he…decomposed,” I say, uncomfortable with the word. “The oak tree got sick. Bark started falling off, leaves weren’t coming in, something was wrong. And I knew why. I knew Justin was beneath the ground, rotting the tree with his toxicity.”

“And the chemicals being emitted from his decomposition,” Dash adds logically.

“That, too.”

“Is he still under there?” Sterling asks, still peering at the oak, looking ethereal as ever with moonlight cascading over its branches, peeking through in poetic streaks.

I nod. “Yes and no. He’s under there, but now in pieces. I was afraid we’d lose the tree and that Hudson would have someone remove it, and find the body. So I dug him up and… Boiled his remains, buried him again. That way if Hudson dug the tree up, it’d just look like we buried some childhood dog or something.” I pause. “I admit, it wasn’t well-thought-out.”

Dash pales.

Sterling grips the back of his neck for comfort. I can’t tell if he’s squeamish or stressed. I hate that I’d bring him either emotion.

“There wasn’t much left by the time I dug him up, and I used my old 10-gallon pots I keep in the barn.”

“What did you do with the…runoff?” Dash asks, burping around the last word as if struggling to not get sick.

“I made him into jam, and sent the jam to inmates convicted of hurting or killing children.” I think back to the day I spent researching who the jam would go to, and having to read all the legalities of what these men had done made me sick.

“You fed a person to other people?” Dash croaks out the question. He’s ghost white again, gripping the edge of the counter like he can’t find his equilibrium.

“Smart,” Sterling surprises us both with the singular word. He sits up a bit straighter, no longer focused on the tree out front. Instead, his gaze finds me, intense and deep. “There’s not a single trace of him to be found, and I’m assuming you didn’t deliver the jam yourself and used a dummy label?”

I nod. “I actually made it look like Smucker’s, which is a whole other legal thing but hey, once you murder, the rest feels… unimportant.”

“I can imagine.”

“Anyway, that brings us to number two. Mark. I met him in line at the art supply store in Oakcreek when I took Ivy to get new pencils. He mistook Ivy and I as a romantic couple and called us a bunch of dykes and said we are what’s wrong with the country.” I adjust in the barstool, finger-combing my almost now completely dried hair. “Two do not make a bunch. I looked it up. For anything to be considered a bunch, it takes five.”

“I know you didn’t clobber some idiot bigot in an art supply store, so what happened?” Sterling asks, pushing around the last bit of pie with his fork. I noticed Dash has gone between tea, pie and toast, likely looking to soothe his stomach any way possible. I want to tell him that time is what he needs to take his mind away from the idle worry, sickness and concern. Time and love. That’s what always does the trick for me. But instead, I answer Sterling’s question.

“I asked him to apologize for the rude things he said. I told him that Ivy is my sister, and even if she were my lover, that wouldn’t give him the right to say a single word, much less blame an entire country’s worth of issues on one singular couple.” Leaning in, I also lower my voice, not proud to put this in such crass terms, but it feels necessary. “He wasterrible.”

“Sounds like it,” Sterl says, motioning for me to continue. “So what next?”

“He refused to apologize so when Ivy was putting her stuff in the van, I ran back into the art supply store. I told Ivy I had to pee. But I asked the woman at the counter what the name of the man in line was. Told him I think I got one of his bags, and that I wanted to call him to return it. She told me his name and the internet gave me the rest, easily.”

I can’t remember much about what Mark looked like, not now, all this time later. But I do remember how stubborn he was, even until the end.

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