I’m Not Sorry

“The snow is so white”, Maggie exclaimed, pushing her nose against the cold window. She slowly drew circles in the frost her breath seemed to make and stared out at the large expanse of white blanketing the front of their house. Her eyes seemed to grow wider. It was almost as if the snow stretched for miles and miles, as far as her eyes could see.

“Meeh..it’s no big deal. This is nothing. Sometimes it snows so much they close off the streets because the roads are slick and icy. There are accidents… and let’s not talk about the cold, brrrr…I hate winter,” Chris chimed in a bored voice from where he sat in the corner, doodling. Chris was always doodling or drawing. Maggie thought it was strange how he could never sit still without his hands doing something.

She shrugged, the snow and ice fascinated her, seemed to draw her in, “we didn’t have ice where I’m from..just sun, lots of hot sun and rain, lots of rain…when it was not hot, it would rain.. our streets would also be closed off but because the roads had been washed away…hmm where does all this ice go to when the sun comes out?”, she directed the question to Chris but he gave a non-commital shrug because he was once again lost in his doodling.

Lost in his demons, her grandmother would say. Don’t trust people who always want to keep their hands busy, hiding something or running away from something. Maggie narrowed her eyes. Chris was only 15, what possible demons could he have? You are only 15 and you have many, her inner voice retorted. Maggie balled her fists and rubbed circles around her heart. It was heavy again, she supposed this was a price to pay, a burden she would have to carry for the rest of her life.

“I killed my father, “ Maggie whispered, matter of factly, to fill the silence that had suddenly descended over the room.

“What?” Maggie jumped as she heard Chris’s voice next to her. When had he moved? And did I really just say that? Out loud? To another human being?Nooo.. but it was as if her mouth had a life of its own.

“I killed my father..stabbed him because I hated him..I hate him..and I think I will always hate him,” Maggie said looking directly at the window, at the snow but not really seeing it. She was back in that hot, dusty town. The sun was scorching, she could feel it burning down on her. And she could hear his voice, rising with each word. Sitting outside on the little bench she was always told to go to when her parents began their ’daily discussion.”She always wondered if her mother knew she was not stupid.. the discussions always began with words thrown back and forth, the sound increasing with each syllable then moved on to a slap.. and a thud.. her mother’s stifled cry and her father’s blame game…I wish you would just die, Maggie recalled the first time she thought these words and the horror it had brought.

Good children love and honour their parents..atleast that’s what the priest at that little church her mother diligently took her to every Sunday preached. If you are bad, God will punish you..imagining her father’s death was surely a bad thing and she would go to hell for it…Maggie imagined the flames were just like the sun that beat down on her in January, you could not escape it and it always left you so thirsty no matter how much water you drank…so she asked God to forgive her for these bad thoughts and to change her father…and perhaps change her mother so that she could take them away…

“ My grandmother said I have a cold heart..unfeeling, dead, just like this snow,” Maggie said, tracing lazy circles on the window once again. She could feel Chris standing still beside her, feel his horror at her words. Hmmm perhaps my demons are bigger than his. And perhaps grandmother was right, maybe her heart was dead and in its place was a dark, empty space that did not have feelings or emotions. Did it matter that she wanted to protect her mother, to stop the noise and the shouting? To show her mother peace was possible?

“Am I bad because I don’t feel sorry?” Maggie half whispered, more to herself because there would be no redemption here, no understanding, no love.

“Did you want to do it?” Chris whispered back.

Maggie turned, the numbness in her chest growing but the answer definite in her mind,“Yes.”