My Liege

I used to find the sound of the lake in the night to be calming, lovely even. My daughter and I would go down on chilly autumn mornings and I would read her some of her favorite stories, spending hours curled up together on the rickety bench that was only comfortable because we were together. Before I knew it, we would just be sitting together, her reading on her own, quietly snorting to herself as I just sit and listen. To the lake. To her.

Now I find the lapping of the beach unsettling. The view is the same but much less vibrant. The bench feels more worn and more uncomfortable every passing moment. Even when I am in our home fifty-eight steps from the sand, I find that I just feel the waves batter against the wood. Not just of the deck, but of the house, the floor, the bed. The waves sweep and pull on me in my restless stupor.

And when I sit up in bed and look out at the lake, look at the force that is constantly questioning me, I can almost always see a figure looking right back at me.

How can I sleep?

The people in town send their condolences. Every few months another parent of a classmate or another Mom & Pop Shop owner realizes that there is a massive hole in our household and attempts at gift-giving. The chocolates they send taste sour. The flowers are wilted. The fruit rots in the basket.

I continue to pack boxes years later. Most of the time I just switch which room I store them in. I reminisce on the forts I would build with her when we first received the cabin. On the days when the water was too rough or the bite of the wind was too fierce and I would let her sleep in as I made us hot chocolate. She would slowly come down the steps, dragging all her bedding behind her as if she were a great monarch. I would bow to my liege and she would ask what I longed for in a benevolent ruler.

“I long for warmth, my queen, and for sweets,” I would say, ever so politely.

“Then,” she would always pause before her decrees, relishing in the moment, “we will drink. What else do you need, my loyal knight?”

“I long for keep, my queen.” I would say as I served our first dose of cocoa.

“Then,” she said, wielding a royal hot chocolate mustache, “we shall build the largest and coziest castle in the world!”

We would pour out countless boxes of old volumes and albums, photos of years long ago and lives long since lived. Our fortress would rival the oldest wonders of the world. Not only would the resilience of the walls hide all traces of the rain, but they became the canvas for all the ink in every marker we owned to become a renaissance painting or a light fixture or a bookshelf or a window to a world not drowning in thunderstorms.

We would sit, and draw, and read, and perform for audiences that would only be so lucky to exist.

We would collapse in absolute exhaustion, and I would sit and listen. To the settling house. To her.

How can I sleep?

The house has not smelled like hot chocolate in a long time, and there is no fortress to keep the rain at bay. I have left a drip unattended for a few months now. I think of it as the lake seeping in, and this thought worries me.

How can I sleep?

She got along with Jonah pretty well. He lived about a quarter-mile down the beach. She was about 13 when they first started playing together. I think Jonah was a little younger, maybe 12. She was the visionary; he was the force. Pretty soon our forts became their forts, and their forts reached for the stars as a complex network of treehouses and bridges connected along the shoreline was constructed.

I liked Jonah too. He was very particular about things, which I found comical. But he was also very polite and respectful to me.

Even after I stopped liking him.

Even after he assaulted my daughter.

They had just graduated high school and I guess his true colors showed.

It was a particularly tense dinner. I had ordered some pizza to celebrate our little graduates, but she wouldn’t touch any of it. Her eyes had a thousand-yard stare straight past me, through the walls, and into the lake. I noticed.

So that’s where I hid his body.

How can I sleep?

I of course went to the police right after. Don’t get me wrong; it was not to confess to my actions. I told the officer that my daughter had been assaulted. I told the officer that when I confronted the young man—when I begged to know why he would do such a heartless and inhuman thing—he looked at me with cold eyes before running away. I told the officer that he had to do something, he had to catch him. I told the officer that justice must be served.

The manhunt lasted for months. Jonah’s parents were devastated, and the town was split between sending their condolences or their condemnations.

How can I sleep?

I eventually moved Jonah’s body. I couldn’t stand his proximity to me. His filthy being was lingering on my house and I wanted him to be far away. What remained of Jonah was moved to the mountains a few hours away. People went missing in the snow all the time.

How can I sleep?

My little girl, who was now a grown, scarred woman, continued on with her education. She would come home every month or so, but I never saw her smile again. Jonah had robbed her of that. He had robbed me of that.

How can I sleep?

I missed the little girl who would smile as I read her favorite stories.

How can I sleep?

So:

I took her back down to that dock.

How can I sleep?

I watched as she sank into her new eternal fortress.

How can I sleep?

How can I sleep?

How can I sleep?

How can I sleep?

How can I sleep when I am so excited to read her another story?