Emily and Peter. A few feet from the trailer, near the door, the snow was
stained with blood. Something had died there.
From Mother I would later learn it was Diego, a German shepherd Shawn
had purchased a few years before. The dog had been a pet, much beloved by
Peter. After Dad had called, Shawn had stepped outside and slashed the dog
to death, while his young son, only feet away, listened to the dog scream.
Mother said the execution had nothing to do with me, that it had to be done
because Diego was killing Luke’s chickens. It was a coincidence, she said.
I wanted to believe her but didn’t. Diego had been killing Luke’s chickens
for more than a year. Besides, Diego was a purebred. Shawn had paid five
hundred dollars for him. He could have been sold.
But the real reason I didn’t believe her was the knife. I’d seen my father
and brothers put down dozens of dogs over the years—strays mostly, that
wouldn’t stay out of the chicken coop. I’d never seen anyone use a knife on a
dog. We shot them, in the head or the heart, so it was quick. But Shawn chose
a knife, and a knife whose blade was barely bigger than his thumb. It was the
knife you’d choose to experience a slaughter, to feel the blood running down
your hand the moment the heart stopped beating. It wasn’t the knife of a
farmer, or even of a butcher. It was a knife of rage.
I don’t know what happened in the days that followed. Even now, as I
scrutinize the components of the confrontation—the threat, the denial, the
lecture, the apology—it is difficult to relate them. When I considered it weeks
later, it seemed I had made a thousand mistakes, driven a thousand knives
into the heart of my own family. Only later did it occur to me that whatever
damage was done that night might not have been done solely by me. And it
was more than a year before I understood what should have been
immediately apparent: that my mother had not confronted my father and my
father had not confronted Shawn. Dad had never promised to help me and
Audrey. Mother had lied.
Now, when I reflect on my mother’s words, remembering the way they
appeared as if by magic on the screen, one detail stands above the rest: that
Mother described my father as bipolar. It was the exact disorder that I myself
suspected. It was my word, not hers. Then I wonder if perhaps my mother,
who had always reflected so perfectly the will of my father, had that night
merely been reflecting mine.