***

When I got home, I heard chopping when I opened the door. The living-room was dark, which was disappointing because I couldn’t see the portrait of me, Beth, and Marley I had commissioned and hung over the mantle. It was supposed to class up the place from the moment you walked through the door. Instead, the only light came from the kitchen.

Chopchopchopchopchopchopchop.

I took off my dreadlocks and draped them over the couch. I hadn’t time to change when I left Charlottesville. I drove back to the motel, threw as much as I could in my bag and left. As I pulled out of the parking lot in my rental car, Benito’s Miata pulled in, Benito driving, Bart and Beatrice in the passenger seat. I floored it.

Chopchopchopchopchopchopchop.

In the kitchen Beth chopped vegetables with a brand new Samiriatanium Professional Kitchen Knife. It was crafted by laser from a single piece of Japanese steel, then meticulously inserted into its hand-carved handle which was made from some extinct Chilean wood. In all the on-line videos it had chopped through everything, soda cans, copper pipes, you name it. I had no idea when it had arrived, having ordered it weeks ago.

Beth finished chopping a carrot and pushed it into a pile of chopped carrots next to a pile of chopped zucchini, next to a pile of cucumbers, squash, bananas, heads of lettuce, lunch meat, cartons of milk, books, t-shirts, autographed footballs, digital gadgets, and other stuff that was still in its box and packaging.

Carrot-less, Beth grabbed the only thing in reach, one of the three apples in a bowl. Marley sat in her highchair, giggling and grabbing at the air.

Chopchopchopchopchopchopchop.

“Hey honey,” I said, walking in the kitchen.

She finished one apple then went for the next.

“How was your day?” I said.

Instead of little frantic chops, she raised the knife a foot off the block.

“I don’t think that’s how you’re supposed to use that knife,” I told her.

She brought the knife over her head.

CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP

“Beth, do you know how much that thing costs?”

The knife missed its target and slid across the counter. Beth grabbed handfuls of apple chunks and threw them at me.

“Do you think!”–she threw–“I give!”–she chucked–“A shit about how much this thing costs?”

At Mommy’s screaming, Marley screamed.

As I followed them upstairs, I took off my sash and set it over unopened boxes of electric ab exercisers and industrial handy-vacs. I unbutton my ruffled shirt and threw it over an antique chair in the upstairs sitting cove. The chair was still in its protective plastic because we never used the cove because we didn’t know what a cove was used for. It sounded fancy and dignified when the realtor showed us the place. As Beth entered our bedroom, the digital motion calendar said in its robotic voice: Today is Thursday, the time is 9:04pm.

“Get away from me,” Beth said as I followed her. Marley turned red as she howled.

“What’s the problem?” I asked.

“I don’t want you to do this anymore.”

“Do what?”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

I pulled off my peg-leg boot and untied my knee breeches. I tossed them in the corner, next to a framed Nolan Ryan jersey and the SWINGtron 3000, the only golf club in the world to have digitally programed voices of Masters champions advise the club’s swinger on their every stroke. I didn’t even know how to golf.

“I don’t want you doing this,” Beth said. She bounced Marley and tried to shush her.

“Doing what?” I said. “You don’t want me to keep giving us a better life? You don’t want me to be a provider? You want to go back to folding sweaters, is that it?”

“I said I don’t want you doing this,” Beth said.

“What am I doing?” I said.

“You’re making friends with these people so you can destroy them.”

“I’m not destroying anyone Beth, come on.”

“You killed Sam Johnson!”

“Sam Johnson killed himself!”

Beth rocked Marley in her arms. Our baby wouldn’t stop.

“When you go off, and you’re gone for days, I get it,” Beth said. “I don’t like it, but I just try not to think about it.” Marley turned purple. “But I can’t do this. I know what you did, what you’re doing, and I can’t lie to myself anymore.” Tears came down her cheeks. “You can’t lie to yourself anymore.” I tried to approach her. I tried to put my arms around her, but she stepped away. “When my father fired Sam, you told me he asked you to tell him what Sam did. That he wanted to keep tabs on what was going on at the motel.”

“So?” I said.

“So I didn’t like it, but I didn’t blame you. I didn’t blame you for him firing him.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Then how come when I called today, when I told him about Sam, he said he never said any of that? That you just started telling him everything Sam did. That you somehow felt inclined to just spill the beans?”

I couldn’t believe so many screams could come from such a tiny baby.

“Sam made his decisions,” I said. “These people made their decisions.”

Beth laid Marley on the bed and began changing her.

“I don’t understand how you can justify this.”