Yours Truly 2017 / Cascadia College / Bothell, WA 2017 YT Online Book | Page 65

tears that she was sorry, please don’t hurt her, but
he shouldn’t have come home and now she would
call the police and he would never see Sarah again.

That last of it was what clicked the tumblers
into place.

Then the door flew open and the rage came
out and for the next three and a half minutes, the
Thomas Brighton that you and I know was gone-
baby-gone and it was a man named “flame-eyed
madness” that choked Yvette.

Now here she was, just as stunning as the
day he married her. Nearly 28 years had passed
since he’d kissed his bride and she should’ve been
as grey and leathery as he. It spooked him bad to
see her so young. She had not changed one bit.

“Yvette,” he tried to say, but his throat felt
like tree bark. She wore a dress of black chiffon with
a high collar and his stomach turned to think of the
bruises it hid. She was covered from just under her
chin to the tips of her black leather shoes and the
folds were so neatly interlaid they made hardly a
rustle.

“I can’t . . .” he started, but he was taken
by her silky black hair, feathery around her face
and sleek over her shoulders. She looked at him
only with the corner of her eye and then he
realized that she was different in one way: her
eyes no longer shone blue, but were a brown so
dark as to be almost black. The dark irises were
indistinguishable from the pupils, making her eyes
seem like deep brimming pools, or hard obsidian.
And she never blinked.

“Love, you came, I . . . I know you can’t
forgive me, but I think maybe I can finally explain.”
She flicked her head to the right and took a few
steps in that direction in quick jerky motions. Still,
she didn’t look right at him.

“Yvette, please, you need to know I never
meant for it to be the way it was, I just . . . things
got out of hand. I was losing control but I tried to
keep you from it, it from you, I mean . . .”

She lifted her arm and smoothed the fabric
beneath it, preening, then twitched her head again
and cleared her throat, but it sounded like a caw.

“Listen, please, I loved you, that never
changed, but there was something that wasn’t me
sometimes and it jumped out. I didn’t hurt you,
Sweet, that wasn’t me. You gotta believe me, I
never wanted to hurt you — or Sarah — god! Will
you tell her? Tell her I just wanted to know her,
I just needed to remember her to take with me
when I go. Please tell her for me!”

Yvette was hopping around now, she hardly
seemed to be listening at all. He dashed for the bars
and thrust his hand through, hoping to catch her
hand, but she squawked again and leapt away and
she was gone in a flurry of glossy black feathers.

“Yvette!” he screamed after her. “Tell her,
TELL HER!!”

But Yvette was gone, flying over the exercise
yard and over the fence, out of sight.

“Do you think she’ll tell her?” he asked
woefully to the eight-legged man slumped in the
corner.

But the eight-legged man didn’t answer,
and in fact hadn’t moved for weeks.
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