Once I had made up my mind to kill him, it didn’t take long for me to track him down. To my amazement, a couple of phone calls, a short drive, and a few hours of staking out a faded old motel were all it took to come face to face with my past.
When I called her up, Aunt Julia was surprised that I even remembered “uncle” Dan, and it took a bit of skill and subtlety to work his name into the conversation without arousing her suspicions. Why would I be interested in knowing where her old good-for-nothing boyfriend was living now? If I told her the truth, she might even believe me enough to try to stop me.
I know I’m doing the right thing. He deserves it, for everything he did to me: for every strike and every bruise; for every one of the hundreds of nights I have woken with fear and panic from the vivid dreams reliving childhood memories that I can't erase.
I have tried. When I realized that the nightmares wouldn't fade with the simple passage of time, I sought to banish them through counselling and therapy, but talking through my problems just etched them all the more indelibly into my being. I tried forgiveness, to be at peace with the world, but how could I forgive when he was still out there, unrepentant, and for all I know abusing others? I still hold on to my religion, but nothing in the Gospels resonates as clearly to me as the words of Ecclesiastes:
God will call the past to account
What has been done will be done again
There is a time for everything…A time to love and a time to hate…
…A time to kill…
We all grow up. The privileged, the poor, the abused and the loved; we all have our stories to tell. But my story is not quite finished, for I will not be defined by what he did to me. I will not be the adult version of that frightened little girl, tattooed with bruises and cowering under him as he lifts his hand to strike again.
From across the street I watch silently as the sun plays across the front of the motel, its grimly dated façade an ugly mosaic of weather-beaten concrete and metallic panels dappled with a patina of rusted paintwork. It comforts me that he has been living here in this dilapidated surrogate home for the last few months, his life reduced to a deservedly lonely and rootless existence. But I know that it is not enough to think of him suffering. He has to die: for then and only then will my story be complete, and my nights filled with peace instead of terror.
My heart jolts suddenly as I see a familiar figure crossing the motel’s parking lot towards the main block. Could it be? That greasy uncut hair, those unkind eyes and the unrepentant swagger, they are all too familiar. It’s him. I reach into my glove box and feel the reassuring weight of my gun as I take it out and tuck it into my belt, all the while keeping my eyes on him as he gets to the foot of the stairs and climbs towards his room. I stay in my car until he gets to his door and goes inside. A deep breath and a silent prayer follow, then I open the door and head across the motel car park.
At the foot of the stairs is a fire notice, a schematic of the hotel. I look up at his room, and back to the notice. Room 8/7. With a grim smile, I remember Ecclesiastes chapter 8, verse 7:
Since no man knows the future, who can tell him what is to come?
I can. Somehow I feel that just for today I have that ability, that I am wielding the power to change the future. I climb the stairs slowly and deliberately towards the second level.
Room 8/7. I knock on the door and wait. My heart is pounding, my mouth is dry, and yet the world suddenly becomes calm, hyper-real and vivid, like a movie in slow motion. I feel a soft and reassuring breeze gently caressing the left side of my face. What would normally be a background hum of traffic behind me down on the street I perceive now as the engine of each and every vehicle travelling at its own pace. Even the door in front of me, despite its paint being old and flaking, looks more intensely blue in the late afternoon sunshine than a spring morning sky. There are sounds within, shuffling footsteps heading towards me, then the latch turns and the door opens just six inches or so.
A face appears at the open door. “Yeah?” he asks. It’s him. I have the advantage – he is squinting out into the bright light at the silhouette of an adult woman he does not expect to know. I am looking straight into the eyes of my abuser, at the face that has haunted my dreams for fifteen years. He’s older, a little heavier maybe, but it’s him.
“Room service” I say, almost amazed that the words make it past the tensile steel of my throat muscles. The door opens a little wider, his face contorts into puzzlement. “I didn’t ask for room service.”
“Oh you asked for it, Uncle Dan,” I smile, with genuine happiness, and raise the gun to his face. Time slows to a fraction of its normal pace and amidst the fear in his eyes I see a flicker of recognition. It's an intimate moment.
Our little secret.
I hold his gaze as I squeeze the trigger and wait for the hammer to strike.