margaret & agnes

             By all accounts and outside interviews, Margaret was the perfect woman, demure, the precise image of the ideal feminine. If she’d ever had a problem, she dealt with it gracefully and moved on with her life. She went to church on Sundays in her nicest dress, hair done all up, and volunteered with the PTA at her daughter’s school. She married her high-school boyfriend, and everyone in town knew them as high-school sweethearts. The true images of perfection, the cheerleader and the football player. After waiting a period of time acceptable to God, and more importantly their small town, they were engaged and married. After another acceptable waiting period, they were graced with a daughter, named Agnes, after Margaret’s affinity for the saint by the same name. Since they were the perfect couple, the birth of their daughter completed them and transformed them into something different, something desirable to all yet unattainable to most- the perfect family.

        A couple of months ago, Margaret noticed something deeply concerning about Agnes, who was now an eight year old cherub in the first grade. Agnes had become withdrawn, had started behaving strangely. She walked the house at night, talked to herself, and yet was mute when anyone else tried to speak with her. Her mother had begun to worry that sweet Agnes had been possessed by some demon, something unnatural, but she brushed that aside as an unlikely occurrence. Margaret had no tolerance for cynical behavior, and wanted to cure Agnes’ peculiarities at once. Despite her love to make things better for Agnes, she desired even more strongly to maintain the facade of perfection she had built.

~

          George clomped through the door with dress shoes a size too big. His suit hung off his bones, making him look like a toy, a little boy who was playing dress-up with his father’s things. Really, all adults are just that- little kids playing dress-up and pretending that they know what they’re doing. Oftentimes adults are a mimicry of what they thought that adults should be doing.

         “Honey! How was your day?” Margaret greeted him with a kiss on the cheek, leaving a red lip print on his face. Margaret was never seen without her makeup done- she always had to put her face on before going anywhere or being seen, even in her own home.

        “Oh you know, the usual… Brad is still a pain in my ass” George liked his job as an insurance agent, but he didn’t appreciate the company of the men surrounding him. Margaret, affectionately referred to as Maggie by her close friends and family, brushed off the remark in the name of keeping the positivity and called after Agnes.

       The blonde child crept in, obscuring her body behind a wall. One blue eye eerily peered out at Maggie and George, as if she was a ghost watching from afar. Agnes went rather unnoticed in the household. She was another fixture to their perfect family image rather than a person. Margaret was obsessed with maintaining her image and made it her life’s goal. Of course, life isn’t stagnant. Her goals changed over time as her circumstances did.

       George called after the child. “Agnes, sweetie. Come here and give Daddy a hug” Agnes padded over, almost felinely. Her eyes fixated on the picture frame behind her father as she was enveloped by his arms. Margaret stared at Agnes, and it was difficult to tell whether she was genuinely concerned for Agnes, or concerned for the harm that could come to their image if their daughter moped around like a ghost all the time.

          Margaret turned her nose up at Agnes, asking, “Well, what’s the matter Agnes? Is everything all right?” Agnes was released from her father’s claws and stared for a while at her mother, who returned her gaze with a smile and a penetrating glare. The girl nodded, hoping that was enough to appease her mother, at least while her father was in the room. Agnes got through life by causing no problems, as that was enough to mitigate whatever problems would come her way.

        Maggie was satisfied with Agnes’ answer, and resumed normal conversation with George. Agnes skulked her way to her room until she was called for dinner. Another perfect dinner after another perfect day with the perfect family.

~

      Maggie’s understanding that she was living in a perfect family was shattered after doing something as mundane as the laundry. To solidify her conformity into her role as the perfect wife, Margaret was solely responsible for the laundry, along with the dishes, the cooking, the cleaning, the ironing, the grocery shopping, and doesn’t this seem like an unfair burden to put on a person? One day, while folding clothes, she noticed something with Agnes’ underwear that caused her to pause. An ugly blemish, a red stain, a mark she was familiar with herself as a young child. Agnes was too young for a menstrual cycle, yet Maggie tried to rationalize it away. Maybe the problem was something with Agnes’ health, and nothing sinister was taking place, as that wouldn’t happen to her family. She stared at the stain for a while, pondering over what to do. Only one option stuck in her mind- she would have to question Agnes about the mark.

      “Agnes, sweetie, could you come here for a moment?” Margaret was holding the soiled underwear in her hand as a lump formed in her throat, hoping that what she knew to be true was not. Maggie thought of how her mother handled this same situation for her decades ago, and resigned to handle it completely differently.

       Agnes slowly made her way to the living room, where Maggie sat on the couch surrounded by piles of clean and scented clothing. “I’m not mad at you, and you’re not in trouble. I just need to know the truth, okay baby?” Agnes’ eyes strained themselves open, her blue irises seeming like they’d fall out at any second. She nodded towards her mother. “Where did this come from?” Margaret questioned, holding the item out for Agnes to see, as if she did not already know what her mother was asking about. The silence in the room was so loud that it rang in the ears of both parties, causing a standstill between Agnes and her mother. Agnes was silent other than her racketing breaths and the slight sound of tears hitting the hardwood floor. She shook her head side to side, refusing to talk about what she really wanted to.

      Margaret took this response as an answer. She clutched the underwear in her hands, wringing them together and trying to press back the tears and screams that were trying to ravage her body. How could this have happened? How could this have happened to Agnes when it happened to her too? Guilt and nausea flooded Margaret’s body as Agnes stood silently in the room, now unflinchingly still. Maggie managed to croak out, “Who?” in Agnes’ direction.

      George walked through the door. Agnes looked upon him in horror, his stature towering over her. Instinctively, she took steps back. She tried wiping the tears from her face, while trying her best to communicate to her mother that the ‘who’ in question was closer than anyone could have ever imagined. Agnes looked at her confused father and back at her tearful mother, and nodded quickly at her.

    “What’s the matter with my girls?” George asked, looking perplexed with his briefcase and oversized suit. He was not supposed to be home this early. Margaret later learned that someone in the office had suffered a heart attack, and so it just didn’t feel right continuing the work day. Everyone was sent home, and everyone was glad that Joseph had had that heart attack.

    Margaret collected herself quickly. She did not want to discuss the situation just yet. She needed time to think and time to decide what the best course of action was for all involved. She was repulsed by George, yet her years of acting as the perfect wife were coming in handy as she covered their tears.

     “Oh, it’s nothing dear. Agnes was having some problems with the girls at school, and I guess as her mother it just got me, is all” Agnes stepped backwards, confused. Why was her mother not saying anything? Did she not get the message? She kept stepping back until she reached the hallway, whence she decided to barricade herself in her room with the slam of a door. “It’s nothing, Georgie. You know how those girls at school can be” Margaret kissed him on the cheek and took his briefcase out of his hand. Everything seemed to be well again, at least for George. He believed the excuse and didn’t look much further. Like most perfect families, George played the role of the emotionally-detached father.

       Over the next week, life continued seemingly as normal. Margaret needed her time to think about what to do. She knew she was going to do the right thing, but she couldn’t quite grasp what the right thing was. The easy answer was to go to the police, as there was sure to be damning evidence if they just looked. Unfortunately to Margaret, nothing the police would ever do could suffice. No punishment they could provide would be good enough to fix what had happened. She’d take matters into her own hands.

       Agnes was completely unaware of her mother’s plans. For that week in which everything seemed normal, Agnes agonized over every waking moment. She thought about how her mother wasn’t helping her, how she still had to deal with her father’s violence, and how she saw no end to her suffering.

       Once Margaret’s week-long period of deliberation and thinking had ended, she’d formulated a plan. The plan was not foolproof and was in fact quite dangerous for her to attempt, but it was worth it to her. In secret, Margaret had gathered some materials that would look suspicious if bought all together. From several hardware stores, Margaret acquired rope, hedge trimmers, large amounts of the sleeping pills which were too easy for any old person to have access to. Along with these items, Margaret made plans for Agnes to stay overnight with a babysitter, while her and George went on ‘date night’.

      The day where Agnes would stay with the babysitter could not come fast enough for Margaret; she was repulsed by every second spent with her husband, yet she was required to maintain the normalcy of their relationship to avoid giving anything away.

       After an agonizing waiting period, the day came. Margaret was to rescue Agnes, and herself in a way that her own mother failed to.

~

       Margaret dressed up nicely to really drive it home to George that they were going for a date, to a fancy restaurant that was new to their town. She wore a navy blue dress, pure white pearls, and her trademark red lipstick, which she’d wear no matter what color dress she chose that day.

       “Georgie, let’s have some champagne before we go. That way we won’t have to spend as much on it at the restaurant, since we’ll already have our fill.” George, as the breadwinner and member of the family who handled the finances, appreciated his wife’s financial frugality and consideration.

        “Sure baby, what a grand idea. You’ll bring it?” Usually, George’s laziness irritated Margaret. Tonight, it was just what she needed.

        She prepared two heavy glasses of champagne. From her small purse she drew out a small bag full of a white powder. Hours before as she ground down the entire bottle of sleeping pills into a fine and undetectable powder, she could not believe what her life had come to. She couldn’t grasp the gravity of what she was doing, yet she knew she would not regret it. Agnes had been unnoticed in the house, and Margaret failed to realize what had been happening under her own roof. Her guilt pushed her forward as she drained the bag into the glass and stirred it with her finger.

       All smiles, Margaret brought the glass out to George, who sat on the couch fixated on the small television. George gave a sigh of approval rather than a ‘thank you’, another thing that normally bothered Margaret but was trivial to her tonight. The only thing that mattered to her was that her plan was executed perfectly.

        The couple toasted their drinks before taking sips. Margaret drank hers quickly, steeling herself before anything serious really started. To keep pace with Margaret, George gulped his glass down. Just as Maggie had hoped. She smiled at him, rubbing her hands behind her back nervously.

      Their reservation was not for another thirty minutes- Margaret just hoped that would be enough time for the pills to do their magic and send George into a heavy and unbreakable sleep. The couple talked for a while, until George began speaking nonsensically and fluttering his eyelids. Maggie pretended not to notice, as George hadn’t mentioned it. His eyes came to a close, a few flutters of his eyelids remaining as he tried to stay awake. Before long, his head was tilted back against the couch as loud snores escaped his throat. To assure that he was asleep and unable to act out against what was to happen, Margaret poked and prodded him like he was the frog she’d dissected in high-school science class. She poked at his nose, his eyes, his face, his crotch, she lifted his extremities and dropped them, and luckily, no response was given.

      Like a light was switched, Margaret immediately jumped off the couch and began working away. George was in such a deep sleep that she doubted she’d need the rope, but she used it as an extra precaution. She carefully maneuvered George off the couch and tried to bring him to their four-post bed. His dead weight was a lot heavier than she expected, and she had great difficulty maneuvering the man. As she dragged him across the floor, George was in and out of consciousness.

       “Shh baby, it’s just a bad dream” She reassured as she dragged his limp body across the floor and placed him on their bed. It was impossible for George to truly believe this was a dream, but his mind and body were so overpowered by the medication that he was unable to wake himself and stop this.

       Margaret worked the rope around George’s arms and legs, tying him to the posts as expertly as if she had done this before. Despite her apparent experience, Margaret had to go to the public library to find information on knots. She needed to make sure that George couldn’t escape the fate she had decided for him.

       The fate that Margaret decided for him was cruel but well-deserved. He could not live after what he had done. No amount of prison or punishment that the justice system could offer was good enough to persuade Margaret to not go through with her plan.

        Once George was secure, Margaret peered over him and took a deep breath. She wondered if the power that she now felt over him was similar to the power he felt over their daughter, or similar to the power her own uncle had felt so many years ago. She did not want to be like those men, but she had been left with no choice.

       Going to her bag of tricks, Maggie pulled out the hedge cutters along with the hammer that stayed in George’s toolkit. Both instruments were necessary to Maggie’s wrath. Slowly, taking in the moment and realizing the severity of the situation, Maggie pulled down George’s khaki pants and boxer briefs.

       Maggie was not a violent woman and she was rather squeamish. She tried her best to avoid killing spiders, and was always the type to place them in a cup and relocate them outside. She cried when her husband put up a mouse trap. She was shocked at what the circumstances had made her do.

         Maggie brought the hedge trimmers closer to the offending member. She opened the trimmers like the jaws of life, positioning them around George’s penis. With a deep breath and one clean cut, Maggie closed the trimmers, forever altering the course of her life. There was no going back and there was no undoing after you had severed a part of someone’s body.

        George was jolted awake, howling and yelping with pain. He fought against his restraints, calling Maggie every word that she was never allowed to say in front of him that he could think of. Maggie joined George in screaming, as she hated the sight of blood and was holding a piece of her husband’s body in her hand. Concerned about the strength of his restraints, Maggie had to initiate the final phase of Agnes’ revenge. She took a few deep breaths and grabbed the hammer, straddled atop George. He bucked and bucked, but was unable to rid himself of her due to his arms and legs being out of commission. With bloody hands Maggie held the hammer above her head, staring into George’s pleading eyes.

      “You know what you did to Agnes.” After George heard her say Agnes’ name, his eyes changed. They changed from anger to terror, to embarrassment, as he realized that he was not as clever as he thought. He had been caught, and he would pay the price. Right before sending the hammer down on his skull, Maggie whispered, “You’re a sick fuck” The squelching sound of the blows to George’s head were drowned out by his screaming, until eventually, the room was quiet, with his last gurgles acting as background noise.

       Margaret, just like the room around her, was splattered with blood. The unrecognizable mush underneath her was once her husband and her daughter’s abuser, and now he was… nothing. She felt a sick relief knowing that Agnes would be better off, would be safer, without him in the world.

       Calmly, Margaret left the room. She made no attempt to clean anything up, as she knew she’d be unable to. She went to the bathroom, avoided looking in the mirror, and turned on the shower faucet. She cleansed herself of the blood and at the same time cleansed herself of what she had done. She put on clean clothes, and for a second, it was like a normal night. Outside of that room, George would be sitting on the couch watching football and Agnes would be laying on the floor, drawing a family portrait. They’d all be a perfect family and nothing bad had ever happened, or will happen, to any of them. The delusion ended when she looked at her bloody clothes, and she was set back on the mission that started all of this- saving Agnes.

        Margaret went to Agnes’ room, found her suitcase, and packed some essentials. Whatever she forgot, she’d buy new for Agnes, in her new life in her new house, where everything would be okay. All of her clothes were so small and Margaret was reminded of the fragility of her daughter, and then was reminded of the man who tampered with that child. Disgust filled her mind until she remembered that that man was no longer, that she had taken care of it.

        Maggie found a pen and paper. She figured someone would eventually find this scene, and she wanted to leave some sort of explanation. She refused to be the housewife gone crazy; she wanted to let everyone know that this was justified and that there was a reason for what she did. She left the underwear with the note, hoping that some DNA could be gathered if necessary to prove her claims.

         Margaret took the keys from the hook and packed the minimal luggage into the car. She locked the house up as if she were simply going to the store, but she knew she’d never return. Maggie drove the mile over to the babysitter’s house, making up an excuse that their reservation was canceled when the restaurant was short-staffed and couldn’t accommodate them. Agnes stared at her mother as she talked to the babysitter, filled with confusion and hatred for not doing anything.

          The mother and daughter walked the dark pathway to the street where the car was parked. They said nothing to one another until they were in the safety of the sedan. Maggie gently said, “We’re moving away, baby” Agnes turned her head to her mother and spoke. Her voice had become a sparingly used tool. She asked,

        “Daddy?” Margaret smiled at Agnes, shaking her head. Relief flooded Agnes, replacing the hatred she had felt moments earlier. Her mother was going to save her after all.

       “Don’t worry about him, baby. He’s not coming with us.”

        Margaret pulled the car away from the curb, driving into their new life. Agnes watched the moon out of the car window, remarking on how it followed them.