THIS STORY IS DEDICATED TO
THOSE WHO ARE HEARD AND NOT BELIEVED, SEEN AND NOT PERCEIVED;
AND TO ISABELLA FALL, WHOSE FLIGHT HELPED ME GROW MY OWN WINGS
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~•○●:TRANSIMUS MAXIMUS:●○•~
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“Praise Jesus!” pastor Stephen Beckler shouted into his earpiece microphone as the band members started playing the final song for that Sunday’s service. Twenty-one year old Daniel Woodcock was dutifully fingering the bass line to “Open the Eyes of My Heart” along with the rhythm of the drummer. He didn’t want to play bass for the City Central Church’s praise and worship band, but it paid a little, and it at least allowed him to forget how much his other job sucked for a little bit. Plus, the parishioners couldn’t tell the difference between Daniel just playing the bass in boredom or being enthralled by the Holy Spirit as he stared up at the ceiling because he had the chord progression inscribed onto his heart (or, as was the case with him, burned into his brain from playing it every other week for the past two hundred weeks).
Daniel’s other job, his real job, was at a cable company customer service call center. Always business casual. White short- or long-sleeve button-up shirt, black slacks, black shoes, and a black tie. Just like a Mormon Missionary. Or a Secret Agent if he were to wear shades and a black coat. It paid well enough, considering he was still living with his parents and able to save for a house of his own. His only real complaints were the monotony of it all and the complaints on the other end of his phone line. He didn’t want to hear senior citizens whine about missing that day’s re-run of Matlock or whatever misinfo was being peddled by The 700 Club. Or worse, one of the cable news channels. He only needed to know what the problem was to walk them through the troubleshooting, focus on the troubleshooting please, so he could get them off his line for the next whiny, entitled customer complaining about missing that day’s episode of The Price is Right.
On the way home from City Central Church in the back of the car with his 17-year-old sister, Charlotte, Daniel tried to block out the rest of his family with Porcupine Tree. His phone wouldn’t play the music loud enough to not hear his father, Chad, ask “That was a great sermon, wasn’t it?” to anyone who’d answer.
Karen, Daniel’s mother, nodded uncomfortably and said “Yes. I suppose it was.”
Chad adjusted the rearview so he could see the kids in the reflection. “What did you two think?”
Daniel removed his left earphone and gave an obligatory response, “I liked it,” before returning to In Absentia.
Charlotte went directly for the jugular. “Why do we have to listen to that garbage every Sunday? It lacks substance and doesn’t teach us anything new! This Sunday was no different!”
Chad wagged his finger in the rearview with a stern expression as the car rolled down the street with increasing speed, “Not one more word out of you, Missy!”
Karen reached over and put a worried hand on Chad’s arm, quietly saying his name.
“Or what? You’ll send me to conversion therapy some more? Ooh! I’m so scared!” Charlotte’s mockery of her father enraged him further such that he put his foot harder on the accelerator.
Karen glanced repeatedly between what was coming down the road and her husband, grabbed his arm harder, and said his name louder.
Chad shouted at Charlotte “You should be grateful we don’t send you away to a camp for deviants like you!”
“What I should really be grateful for is that I only have to put up with these threats for one more year because I know mom won’t let you!”
“CHAD! STOP!” Karen shouted. Chad shifted his focus from his daughter to the road and realized there was a red light ahead. The car’s tires screeched to a halt inches before the second crosswalk line. Just in time for the pedestrians crossing to give Chad a dirty look and for him to wave faux apologetically with a saccharine smile. “This is why I said no arguments in the car,” Karen said as she fixed her hair.
“I’m sorry, honey,” Chad said, looking over at his wife. He shifted his gaze to the rearview mirror, raised his finger defiantly, and said, “We’ll finish this at home.”
Charlotte raised her finger just as defiantly as the car began to roll.
Sunday lunch was the same as it always was. Waffles Inn. Fun. Excitement. Waffles.
As the Woodcock family got seated, the waitress, a middle-aged white woman named Marlene, brought menus, ice waters, Coffee for Chad, diet cola for Karen, Mountain Dunk for Daniel, and green tea for Charlotte. The menus were only brought for the sake of ritual. The Woodcock parents pretended to look over their menus while making small talk and Daniel and Charlotte did not. All of them proceeded to order their usuals, 8 oz sirloin well done for Chad, Fish Filet for Karen, and waffle stacks for Daniel and Charlotte. After the orders were placed, the weekly agenda began.
“Karen? What do you have this week?” Chad asked, taking a sip of his coffee.
“Oh, you know me. Same as usual. Work work work,” Karen said with a wry expression, looking up from her phone.
Chad marked that down in his calendar and said “Yup. Same here. Along with a Deacon’s meeting at the church on Tuesday evening,” before shifting his attention. “Daniel. What does your week look like?”
Chad’s face was as firm as it always was. It was now or never. Daniel would have to tell his dad. “Well, my day job shifted my hours,” he said. It was as if the whole diner stopped in response to the announcement.
“They did what?” Chad asked quietly.
Daniel cleared his throat. “They shifted my hours. Just this week,” It wasn’t a total lie on Daniel’s part. “And I’m working second shift on Saturday, also.”
Chad and Karen crossed glances as he wrote down the hours on the calendar. “Huh. It’s been a long time since you’ve worked second. You’re gonna miss practice at church,” Chad said, with a sigh. “Are you gonna be able to play on Sunday?”
“Yeah,” he nodded and finished sipping his drink. “I’ll be fine.” He could play those songs in his sleep. The reality was, he swapped shifts with a coworker as an excuse to skip band practice for the week and get some more time at the house during the day to himself. Also, he signed up for extra hours on Saturday for the overtime which paid more than the church band gig. Since they were voluntary hours, he could call in and not get hit with an attendance infraction should something come up.
“Okay, and Charlotte?” Chad asked. She had her nose in the February 2022 Teen Vogue. Chad reached across the table with his butter knife and pushed the magazine down slowly so he could peer between himself and the magazine at his daughter. “Learning any good fashion tips that you would care to share with the rest of us?”
Charlotte blinked a few times slowly before replying “No, but I was reading an excellent article about the necessity of racial justice action from us white people instead of empty black history month rhetoric.”
A moment of tension hung in the air between them with Charlotte staring smiling at the face of her father, which was slightly angry but not yet contorted enough to spew vengeance before Karen waffled her way in to diffuse the situation and remind them of the reason they were staring at each other. “Charlotte, did you have anything going on this week? Just play practice and the play besides regular school stuff, right?”
Charlotte’s smile brightened as she closed her magazine and put it in her purse. “Yes. The play is running Thursday, Friday, and Saturday!”
Chad was marking down the info on the calendar as Karen asked, “And what was the play, again? Antigone?”
Charlotte giggled, nodding with excitement. “A slight variation on the original, but yes!”
“How exciting,” Karen exclaimed. “You must be very proud of yourself!”
Charlotte nodded and said “Yes! I am! I’m playing Polynices! I’m getting killed!”
Chad lifted an eyebrow from the calendar. “But isn’t he the brother who’s just dead the whole time who the sister is trying to bury?”
Karen intervened, as if she sensed trouble brewing and sent it expertly elsewhere with her White Mom Jiu-Jitsu. “I wonder what’s holding our food up! I’m starving!”
“Yes! And my coffee has been empty for three whole minutes! Marlene?” Chad called.
Charlotte told her father that he had better tip Marlene well on account of him not being very nice to her. Some argument ensued about tipping etiquette while Daniel slouched down in the booth, sunk back into his headphones, and stared out the window.
Later that afternoon, Daniel could finally be alone. Being alone wasn’t what he really wanted, but he didn’t want to be around his family. He wanted a girlfriend for reasons he couldn’t quite explain. He didn’t want kids. He didn’t like talking. He didn’t want to connect with someone emotionally. It was all about touch for him. Just the feeling of that skin on skin. Maybe the hope that he could escape his body through someone else’s. He had a fascination with women that at once made perfect sense and was easily explainable but was also perplexing in ways he could never put into words. He was a man. They were women. That’s just how things worked. Right?
He’d had a few girlfriends in the past. None of them lasted. Rebecca Johnston was a white girl he dated early in his junior year of high school. He was 16, she was 14. It only lasted two months. Then Charlotte wrecked everything with a copy of Teen Vogue. Three years later there was Susan Jacobs. This was a woman who was technically Daniel’s supervisor at work, which he wasn’t sure about, but he was definitely interested in the possibility of sex. She was in her mid twenties, and Daniel couldn’t tell what her interest was in him. They went on a few dates before she stopped returning his texts. A year after that, there was Taylor Hanson, a white woman who Daniel met while playing bass at church. Sex was out of the question because she was a True Believer(TM) type of Christian and he knew from the involuntary celibacy sites he found himself on by that point that he should just drop her since she was not going to put out without a ring, and he definitely wasn’t sure about that. He gave her some limp-dick excuse about feeling uncertain about romance and wanting to devote himself to worship more fully. She ate that shit up. Daniel didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but he also knew that honesty in this case would probably lead to the worst possible outcome for all involved parties.
Every moment not spent at church practicing, at school studying or doing homework, or at work, Daniel spent in his room at the house in incel forums, chat rooms, and social media spaces. Red pill this, virgin that, with the thought of the black pill crossing his mind occasionally. He knew there were some terrible men on these pages that said some really awful things. He didn’t agree with most of what he saw in these spaces. At the same time, it was almost like he couldn’t look away. Like there was some force pulling him in. Since this particular vice of his didn’t come with the earmarks of a particular smell like cigarettes or weed did, or other telltale signs like a drunken stupor or changes in pupil dilation, no one really picked up on what he was doing on his computer in the privacy of his bedroom. It didn’t register to him or anyone around him as such since it stayed safely tucked away in the silent sanctuary of his man cave. Never to be acknowledged, examined, addressed, or discussed. That is, until this Sunday evening, when that sanctuary was punctured unannounced by Polynices.
“Charlotte?” Daniel scrambled to close everything on his monitor and turn it off. “There’s a sign on the door for a reason!” he said, pointing to the sign on his door about knocking before entering. He then wondered why he didn’t start by simply turning the monitor off to begin with.
Charlotte nodded and bowed. “I’m aware.”
Bewildered, her older brother asked, “And?”
“I have elected to ignore it given the circumstances,” she said. “Your presence is requested. I was told not to yell. I extrapolated that other noise would be unwelcome,” she explained with a perfect finishing school curtsy.
Daniel shooed his little sister out of his room before exiting himself, closing the door behind him and descending the steps to go find out what his parents wanted. Charlotte waited for Daniel to be out of eyesight and earshot, and then quietly re-entered his room. She knew what she saw. A few key words and phrases before he closed the browser windows. Daniel didn’t have time to delete his history, he didn’t log out of anything, and no one doesn’t have passwords saved on their personal computer anymore thanks to Daddy Google. By the time Daniel was done and plodding back up the stairs, Charlotte was seated in his computer chair with her legs crossed and her hands stitched over her knee. When her brother entered, he did so with a start.
“What are you doing in my room?” he asked quietly.
Charlotte cleared her throat with her fist over her mouth. “I think a better question would be ‘What have you been doing in your room?’”
Daniel’s eyes narrowed. “What I do in my room is my business.”
Charlotte knew that, technically, he was correct, so she’d have to be more precise. “Tell me about Vintologi.”
Daniel’s expression went from one of annoyance and mild anger to one of terror. “No.”
“Tranny Maxxing?” Charlotte asked, before standing up, and backing her brother proverbially and literally into the corner. “What kind of loser incel shit have you been up to, weirdo?”
Daniel looked at the floor, and then out the window. Nighttime. A possible escape. “You have school in the morning!”
“I don’t give a damn if the world is ending tomorrow, Daniel. I knew you were a loser, but I never thought you were involved in incel shit,” Charlotte was shaking her finger in his face at this point. “Don’t you know about Elliot Rodger? Tres Genco? Jake Davidson? Are you going to end up like those fuckers and go on a killing spree?” She gave him a hard poke in his tit for good measure, to which he responded with a flinch. “And for you to be involved in a race stripe of this shit that makes a mockery of one of the most misunderstood and maligned sexual minorities out there? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Daniel started crying.
Charlotte stepped away to grab the tissues on the desk and said, “Jesus and now the waterworks start because I poked a sore spot,” before tossing the box toward him.
Daniel flinched again, causing the box of tissues to hit the floor. He sniffled, picked up the box, grabbed a tissue, and tried to explain, “You don’t know what it’s like. It’s really hard.”
Charlotte stopped him and explained reality, pointing again. “I’ll tell you what’s hard! The dicks in my inboxes from total fucking strangers because I felt cute and decided to post a photo of my outfit on any of my socials! The leering gazes from grown ass men because sometimes I like wearing nice clothing and not sackcloth, burlap, and ash! But for some of those men, even that wouldn’t stop their creeper asses from staring at me! What’s hard is having our grandfathers and uncles and cousins finding every reason they can to put their hands on me!”
Daniel could feel an inexplicable revulsion welling up within him.
“What’s hard is having my teachers, bosses, coworkers, and classmates all treat me like some kind of fucking three ring sexual distraction when I’m just a girl trying to fucking exist! And whenever I protest, I’m just a psycho bitch who’s causing problems!”
Daniel ran to the trash can by his desk, dropped to his knees, and threw up. Heaving for air, he replied, “I’m sorry. I never realized…”
There were feet running up the stairs and a light, quick knock on the door. “Is everything okay in there?” Karen asked.
Charlotte opened the door enough to stick her face out and say “Everything’s fine, Mom. Just some sibling time. That’s all,” with the sweetest smile she could muster.
Karen brushed Charlotte’s cheek and said, “That’s so wonderful! I hope you both have fun! Just try not to rough house too much, okay!” before giving her a kiss on the forehead.
Charlotte closed the door, and asked “Can I ask you a question?” She sat on the bed as Daniel nodded. He rinsed his mouth out with the glass of water he was drinking from earlier and spat it into the trash can. He’d deal with it when he recovered. “You and dad, for all your and his flaws, are the only two men who haven’t pulled that with me. That’s not the case in other families. What’s more is, you seem to believe me. Dad didn’t,” Charlotte said, softly, tears of her own starting. “And I just want to know why.”
“Why?” Daniel laughed through his own tears. “Why what?” he asked with a scoff. “Why anything?” he made a sweeping, grandiose gesture toward the heavens.
As if she heard the bell of the elevator door to her brother’s heart ring, readying itself to slam shut and leave for the pits of hell, never to return, Charlotte jammed herself into the crevice before it closed off completely. “Something happened, didn’t it?”
Daniel stared up from his vomit-filled trash can in proud, emotionless, anger-filled defiance, like a raccoon guarding a particularly bright and shining piece of trash.
Charlotte knelt down to get on his level and look him in the face, and said, “It’s okay to talk about these things. I’m not here to laugh at you, and I’m sorry for lashing out at you. I’m just angry about a lot in the world. I care about you. I want the hurting to stop. For all of us.” She reached out to put her hand on his arm and asked, “Is touch okay?” He shook his head, and she pulled away, placing her folded hands in her lap. “I’ve had to deal with a lot of this stuff on my own and learn from a lot of places I wasn’t expecting,” Charlotte was beginning to feel repulsed by the smell of her brother’s emissions. “Can we possibly get this cleaned up, right quick? And then talk some more?” Daniel rolled his eyes and complied. Charlotte asked a few questions, but Daniel wasn’t forthcoming with details. Which didn’t surprise her. She didn’t press.
Work and school the next few days were especially challenging for Daniel. His normal operating routines had been shattered, after all. He was forced to think about things he thought he’d left far in the past. Confront realities about himself that he’d hidden away. Ask questions about his future that were previously clear but now were shrouded in secrecy and mystery. The easy answer would be to blame his sister for entering his room without his permission, but he knew that would only lead to chaos later. Daniel stared at himself in the mirror after everyone else had left one morning during the work week and could see himself morph into his father, angry at everyone and everything, destroying the world around him. Grotesque and hideous. He didn’t want that. He knew he would have to face this monster head-on. With actual honesty and integrity, and not the fake stuff that was talked about by Pastor Beckler every other Sunday.
Early Friday morning after his Thursday evening shift, in a repeat of what happened on Sunday evening, Daniel opened his door to see that Polynices had once again punctured his sanctuary. Less startled by this intrusion than the first one, Daniel asked calmly, “Am I going to have to put a lock on my door?”
“Only if you want to,” Charlotte said, before waving her hand to the bed. “This is for you, Amy.”
Daniel looked at her quizzically before shifting his gaze over to the bed and his jaw dropped. “What is all this?”
Charlotte stood and crossed the room. She placed her hand on her brother’s shoulder, maintaining eye contact. “I’m not playing Polynices again until tonight.” Making sure there was an understanding, she pulled the dying man in for an embrace. “I’m playing Antigone, now. It’s okay to rest, brother. I imagine you’re very tired.”
Then the tears started. First for the newborn sister. Then the elder. They lasted a while.
Later, Charlotte explained, “I took some guesses based on the sizes of clothes that I saw fit you best. Anything that doesn’t fit, we still have tags and receipts.” It was 3:03am. They were leaning against Amy’s bed, sitting on the floor. “I took guesses on specific fashions and stuff based on stuff I know you like.”
“But, how did you-?”
Charlotte shrugged and took a swig of Mad Dog before passing the bottle to Amy. “I was just watching you. And I reached out to some friends and then did some reading.” Amy took a swig. “My friends, they were all like ‘Yeah, she’s probably a woman and she doesn’t even know it. She sounds like she’s really hurting. Just be super gentle with her.’”
Amy took another drink, looked at the floor, and had another drink. “Damn.” This was something new for her. The realization was hitting her in waves, like a tingling starting in the center of her chest and moving through her body to the tips of her fingers and toes. This was the first time someone actually demonstrated they cared about her in a real way. Up until now, this kind of thing always felt like grandiose gestures designed to elicit specific conditioned responses. “Mom and Dad are gonna be pissed,” Amy said. Swig.
Charlotte grabbed the Mad Dog, took a swig, and said, “Dad will be pissed. Mom loves us.”
Amy chucked quietly. Grab. Swig. “Dad’s always pissed.”
Charlotte mocked Chad with a raised finger, “Not one more word out of you, Missy!” to which they both laughed.
Amy made the same face and finger motion, then released them and laughed. “That was you on Sunday night, kinda!”
“Oh, come on, that’s not fair!” Charlotte said. Grab. Swig. Pass.
“You’re right, you’re right,” Amy acknowledged, smiling. Swig. She put the lid on the bottle, and tucked it under her bed. “It was for a good cause,” she admitted.
“Y’know?” Charlotte asked.
“No,” Amy replied. “I don’t.”
They both giggled. “I can’t remember the last time you’ve-” Charlotte paused, “we, now that I think of it, have just sat and laughed together this much.”
“I know, right?” Amy laid her head back against the mattress. “Probably just the booze.”
“You think?” Charlotte asked. “When was the last time we did this?”
Amy had to think. “You were thirteen. I was seventeen. You were always getting the drinks. Even now.”
“Yep,” Charlotte nodded in agreement. “And I was always drinking more than you.”
It would have never occurred to Daniel why that might be the case. To Amy, now blessed with the gifts of knowledge and hindsight, it made perfect sense. “Fuck.”
“Yep.” They shared a moment of shared silence together before Charlotte spoke again. “Uncle Paul.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Charlotte affirmed. “He was the first. I was eleven. The Christmas party. I tried to say something to mom, and she believed me. Mom told dad, and he said to keep quiet. Makes me wonder if those stories about Aunt Denise cheating on him are actually true.”
Amy tried to remember. That was six years ago. She was fifteen. And had a pair of headphones on to block out all the noise. “Black metal.”
“What?” Charlotte asked.
Amy nodded. “That was my black metal phase. That’s probably why I never found out.” She started crying. Through the tears she said “If I could have dealt with my own shit, I could have helped you!”
Charlotte wrapped her arms around her sister and pulled her in. “Shh. It’s okay. It’s not your fault. You didn’t hurt me,” she began to rock her sister back and forth. “You were being hurt, too. If either of us knew about what was going on, I’m sure we’d have done something about it.”
After a few more moments, Amy said, “It was dad.”
Charlotte figured as much, but she didn’t say it. “Wanna talk about it?”
Charlotte could feel Amy shaking her head.
Charlotte started talking. “Y’know? This message about what family is and isn’t is pounded into our heads everywhere. At school, especially at church, almost anywhere we go to get anything done, we’re told that it’s about biology, or reproduction, or what the government says it is. We as our own selves never get a say in what that looks like to us from our own perspective. What that means to us. For all the bullshit I hear about freedom, I’d sure love to see some of it.”
“Right?” Amy scoffed in agreement.
Charlotte asked, “Did you try to tell anyone?”
“Mom,” Amy said. “She told Dad what I said, and it got worse. What started out as confusing and conflicting became horrifying. And I didn’t know how to make it stop. If Mom didn’t believe me, who else would, y’know?”
Charlotte could feel an anger burning in her chest. It began to catalyze with her memories and the stories she and her sister were sharing and crystallized into resolve. “We have to get out of here. It is not safe for us here.”
Amy nodded. “Yeah,” she agreed, softly. “We do.”
“Hey, look at me,” the elder sister beckoned. “There’s a chant I’ve heard a lot at the protests I’ve been at. It goes ‘Women united will never be defeated.’”
A mischievous smile grew on Amy’s face despite the tears as she offered her hand for a grab. “Sisters united?”
Charlotte grabbed her sister’s hand, and with an equally mischievous smile and replied “Will never be defeated!”
Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. The sisters exchanged frightened glances. A voice on the other side asked “Daniel, who are you talking to in there?” It was their mother.
Amy grabbed her sister’s hand and Charlotte nodded once, slowly. Amy shook her head. Charlotte nodded again, and replied, “It’s me, mom. I just had a bad dream. Go back to bed.” Charlotte shrugged, hoping that would be enough.
It wasn’t. Karen opened the door and saw the sisters leaned up against the bed, and immediately looked awkwardly away. “Oh. Well.” She put her hands on her hips. Then one hand on her chest, fiddling with a non-existent bejeweled cross, then the hand that was on her chest moved to fluff her hair uncomfortably as she pretended she didn’t see a strange woman with some of her son’s features and her daughter in her son’s bedroom. She turned around and walked out. The sisters stared at each other wide-eyed. And then they giggled. The giggling gave way to a soft silence where the two simply felt welcomed and understood by one another. That is, until the silence was shattered by a shout from their parent’s bedroom.
Charlotte squeezed her sister’s hand and said “Don’t worry. We’ll handle this together.”
With predictable quickness, there was thunderous pounding at the door and a tolling for the dead. “Daniel! You get out here this instant!”
Charlotte stood, walked to the door, and opened it.
“Charlotte?” Chad said with confused anger.
The elder sister said with a pointed finger in his face, “Her name is Amy, now, Dad. So you better get used to the idea!”
“Get out of my way,” Chad growled as he grabbed Charlotte by the wrist and pulled her out of the room, tossing her into the hallway against the wall. Karen stood by and watched, externally unresponsive to her husband’s violence. Amy looked up at Chad from her seated position against the bed. Chad said “This isn’t how God made you,” pointing down at her.
“How did God make me, Chad?” Amy could feel the alcohol start to kick in on her empty stomach as she pushed herself to her feet, careful to maintain her modesty.
Chad spoke sternly. “God made you a man. The Bible says-”
“The Bible?” Amy asked with a laugh. “What does the Bible say about partaking in the fruits which hath issued from your own loins, Father dearest?” she leaned in and asked with a whisper.
The briefest flash of terror crossed Chad’s face before it went back to anger. Amy knew he knew what she meant. That was all she needed. “You’ll keep your mouth shut if you know what’s good for you,” Chad said through grit teeth with his fist balled up, looking like he might put it to Amy’s jaw.
She smiled, and called his bluff. “Are you worried the ladies might find out what the guys have been up to? It’s too late for that. Us girls talk. A lot, I’m learning.” That was a mistake she would feel for at least a few days.
The crash and thud from inside the bedroom was enough to rouse Charlotte from her daze. She instinctively tried to dive into the room, but was stopped by Karen. “Mom? What the hell! He’s beating Amy!”
“Daniel,” Karen sounded out every letter of Charlotte’s dead brother’s name, “made his own choices. Now, he must suffer the consequences.” Karen didn’t look or sound like she believed what she said. Her mannerisms were those of a woman who didn’t want to be beaten for disagreeing. Sacrificing her beautiful son for a pittance of her own peace and safety.
Charlotte screamed her disapproval and stormed down the hallway, while Karen was enthralled by the pornography of violence unfolding before her. Almost as if she were relieved to see it finally happen to a woman other than herself… or at least, from her perspective, something resembling a woman.
Amy was on the floor in a crumpled mess. She refused to cry in front of Chad, though, no matter how much pain she was in from the blow and subsequent knock against the dresser and floor. Amy could feel the tears, but she pushed them back. She got to her hands and knees, then to her feet once again maintaining her modesty, fixed her outfit and hair, and gave her best curtsy (just like she saw Charlotte give on Sunday). This only enraged Chad further, but before he could continue his campaign of terrorism, Karen screamed.
“Get away from my sister!” Charlotte shouted. Chad turned to see a .22 rifle pointed at him, held by Charlotte. He stared back defiantly. “I said get away, Chad!” Her finger was on the trigger. The safety was off.
Chad put his hands up, his glare softened and he said, “Charlotte, I’m your father. You know I love you.” He stammered as he corrected himself, glancing from one sister to the other and back. “I-I love you, b-both.”
Charlotte tightened her grip on the rifle. “You have a funny way of showing it,” she said through enraged tears.
Karen cleared her throat. “Char, please, put the gun down,” she said from outside the bedroom, also with her hands up at chest level.
“Karen, I trusted you! Don’t even start!” Charlotte spat. “I told Amy you loved us! I told her you were on our side!” Charlotte shouted while keeping the gun’s and her own sight centered on Chad. “My whole life, you were the only man not putting his hands on me. I should’ve guessed you’d be putting them somewhere.”
“You’re going to believe that freak over your own father?” Chad thumbed toward Amy, hands still raised.
Charlotte gave a sardonic laugh. “I didn’t say anything about anyone, but you sure showed your hand, didn’t you?” she said, before calling her sister to her. “Sisters united, now and forever. Right, Amy?”
Amy took her place by Charlotte, faced down Chad, and nodded, saying “Right!”
“Poggers,” Charlotte acknowledged before speaking to Chad again. “Do not ever place your hands on my sister ever again. Is that understood?”
Chad nodded once, slowly.
Charlotte shooed Chad off with the rifle, motioning toward the door, keeping it pointed at him until he was out of the room. After Chad and Karen were away, Amy closed the door, and the sisters shared a long hug. Antigone was at last able to lay Polynices to rest.
A few moments later, the sisters were at their parents door. “We’re leaving,” Amy said plainly to Chad and Karen, both sitting on the edge of their marital bed like naughty children ashamed they’d been caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Her voice shook, but she still said what she needed to, “Given everything that’s happened, I think it’s best if we just go our separate ways.”
Charlotte, with a stone cold expression, silently offered the .22 to Chad. He stood and approached cautiously to take it. “Just like that, then? After you just had this thing in my face?” Chad asked. Charlotte pulled the clip, showed it to Chad, and then showed him the chamber. Both empty. “Huh,” he said.
“I’m an actor, not a killer,” Charlotte said. Chad took the rifle and the clip, and put them on his dresser before returning to his bed. “You both should consider therapy. Actual therapy. Not church therapy.”
“We’ll be gone by the time you get home from work. We’re only taking what belongs to us. We want nothing from you. Don’t come looking for us, try not to hurt anyone else, and listen when someone tells you you’re hurting them,” Amy said.
“Or that they’re being hurt by someone,” Charlotte added.
“Yeah,” Karen said, staring at the floor, “I’ll try my best to do that.”
Chad said nothing of what just happened, fearing anything he might have said would have revealed too much. Instead, he simply did what his father would have done, what his father’s father would have done, and what he’d been doing his whole life and moved on to the next thing without examining what had just transpired. “It’s time to get ready for work.”
The story continues in Transimus Maximus 2: The Eternal Return!
You can access the Transimus Maximus trilogy page by clicking here or over there (where it says “Transimus Maximus trilogy page“).
Our Lady of the Perpetual Metamagic 