Roadkill

It was a humid summer, the kind you can feel tugging on your skin the second you walk out the door. That day, the clouds had been threatening rain, and I was driving to the middle school. Normally, my sister liked the walk home, but I knew she hated getting her hair wet just after straightening it, and I had the night off work anyway. Plus, I could leave early and escape the house to listen to music in the parking lot. My volume was too high, blaring through the cracked windows as I set off. 

So I think that’s why, at first, I didn’t see it. And, in defense of the rabbit, I shouldn’t have been trying to fiddle with the aux cord while driving. Poor guy did nothing wrong – pedestrians always have the right of way – I just wasn’t paying attention. 

I was stunned for a moment. I had taken a life. Plus, my head had hit the seat pretty hard. Once the shock wore off, I considered getting out, and either moving its little body off the road, or maybe taking it home to bury it, but honestly, that seemed gross. I thought about backtracking and borrowing my father’s shovel, but I had already texted Olivia that I was on my way. I tried to picture myself explaining my tardiness to a thirteen-year-old, and I was back on my way towards her school. 

The parking lot was already teeming with parents, even though the bell wouldn't ring for another thirty minutes. I pulled into a space towards the back of the lot, not wanting to get too close. I imagined my teenage self running out of those same doors, seeing herself grown up and sitting in her father’s Honda in the parking lot. I wonder if she knew that she would grow up to be a killer. I wonder if she would see the dent in the hood, the blood smeared on the headlights, and have an instant sinking feeling. I picture her looking up, horrified, into my eyes as I grin, holding the mangled corpse of the rabbit.

Olivia knocked on the driver’s side window. I jumped a little, and she didn’t say anything about the car when she plopped into the passenger seat. I had meant to get out and check for a dent while I waited, but I guess I had gotten lost in my thoughts. After handing off control of the aux cord to Olivia and prompting her to start her daily recap, I set off. Olivia asks if we can make a detour to a nearby smoothie shop. She and all her friends are obsessed with smoothies at the moment– she’s even asked for a blender for Christmas. We drive in the opposite direction of our house, and I offer to wait in the car while she runs inside. She pulls a ten-dollar bill out of her backpack and thanks me, slamming the door behind her. 

Hanging out with my sister is a lot of this– waiting around and driving and waiting around again, but I don’t mind it. I like being out and about, and I know she does too. Nobody really likes being at our house. 

I’ve parked underneath a tree, which I always try to do in the summer so that the car gets a little shade. A squirrel is hanging onto a branch just above my windshield. I watch him as he jumps down onto the ground, sniffing erratically at the dropped seeds and grass. I put the car into drive. It felt like I’d hardly gone forward before I was back in the space, returning the car to park. I wasn’t sure exactly why I did it– I knew what would happen, and I felt a little guilty. I thought, maybe I’m just testing the boundaries. Can I really take a life without anybody noticing?  

There were other cars around, but nobody else was outside, and I poked my head out my car’s window. The squirrel wasn’t anywhere he wasn’t meant to be, it’s only unfortunate that there was no barrier between the parking space and the grass. I think about getting out and moving the body from the path of my gore-covered wheel, but I see the door of the smoothie shop open. My sister doesn’t pass in front of the car, and she’s too busy with her playlist to spare a glance out the window as we leave the parking lot. 

On the way home, she talks about Angela. Angela is always making things difficult for Olivia, testing her in front of the boys and exhibiting general middle-school mean-girl behavior. While my sister talks, I notice how small she looks in the passenger seat. Our parents don’t let her sit in the front of the car most of the time– she hasn’t hit her growth spurt yet. She likes that I let her sit in the front of the car, especially when her friends see her get in. I guess it makes her feel older. Something about danger represents maturity. My mom had described to me vividly why I shouldn’t let Olivia sit in the front. She’d painted a picture of Olivia’s chest crushed by the airbag, her head forced into the headrest, bones breaking on the interior of the car. How I would have to wash her insides out of my hair. She spared no detail in her lecture.

We pulled into the house as our mother was rushing out the front door. I warned my sister to duck, but she’d already been spotted in the seat beside me. I can see my mother making a mental note to repeat her lecture tonight. When we ask where she’s going, she tells us the store– she’s forgotten a key element of tonight’s dinner. I offer to go to the store for her, as the car is still running, but she tells me to go in– she could use a minute away from the house. I carry Olivia’s already forgotten backpack up the porch as our mom’s car pulls away. 

The house is gloomy today. The house is gloomy every day. Ever since Uncle John’s house had burnt down two months ago, he and his kid have slept in our spare room on a spare mattress. The fire was sad, a fluke thing. Just a loose wire, a spark, something like that. Their dog died, plus a goldfish, but they declared no fatalities. My little cousin likes to play with our dog. I haven’t told him that we used to have a hamster.

I asked Olivia if she had any math homework she wanted help with. It was her worst subject, and it was mine too, but I still tried to help. She told me she didn’t have math tomorrow, and her tone indicated that I should’ve known that. She must’ve told me in the car, but my mind had wandered. I told her she should do whatever homework she had now before Mgotets back and tried to help. Mom, like me, was an overzealous homework helper. Olivia threw a sigh over her shoulder as she lugged her backpack towards our shared room. 

I feel bad for her there. Most of the time, I tried to stay in the living room to give her privacy. I remembered what it was like being that age. Olvia used to have her own room, but then Uncle John and his wife Judy got into a fight, and she took Olivia’s room. We didn’t see Judy a lot around the house– she’d taken over Olivia’s room as a fortress against her husband. It always spooked me when I saw her coming out at night, quickly nibbling on leftovers and snacks before retreating back to my sister’s room. Nobody could wait for the repairs to be finished on Uncle John’s house. Not much of the house burnt down, just the back bit. The fire began somewhere in between the two bedrooms. So that’s the bit of the house they’re fixing. Uncle John had to take out a loan. 

When Mom returned, I was helping my little cousin wrestle a toy from our dog. My cousin was a toddler– hardly a person yet, but he could walk and talk a little. Mom had always told me to keep him away from Lacey. She’s a sweet dog, but she’s a Rottweiler, stronger than she realizes. Mom told me that she could get too excited and bite my cousin’s whole hand off, or even his face if they got too close. It was a lecture I’d heard more times than the one about the passenger seat. I replied to my mom’s disapproving glance with a shrug. I knew she would bring this up later, along with the car thing, after the others had gone to bed, or retreated into their divorcee dens. Mom and I watched TV together in the evenings while my father was at work, and I always considered my company penance for still living at home at 22. In my defense, Home Depot doesn’t pay much. 

Mom set a few bags on the counter and told us she drove past a dead rabbit not far from here.  That’s sad, I say. That is sad, my sister says, rounding the corner from our room. We all agree the situation is sad, and we lament the epidemic of texting and driving. Who would kill a little bunny, I ask, and my tone is too intense. My cousin cries out– we had all forgotten that I had him propped on my hip, and that his current favorite bedtime story was about a bunny. Specifically, one who struggled to find hats to fit his ears. Eventually, his friends make him a hat with special holes. I guess the rabbit on the road never had a chance to find the perfect hat. 

My cousin sobbed, and I debated which of his parents to pass this responsibility off to. Luckily, his mom floated out of my sister’s room, enveloping her crying sun into her thick robe and drifting back behind the door. The awkwardness of my aunt's presence put the three of us at ease with each other. My mom turned her attention to the stove, but my sister isn’t ready to let go of the bunny. What if, she asked, we hold a funeral? Recently, my cousin had learned the concept of a funeral when I had jokingly asked my uncle why they hadn’t had one for their dog and goldfish. The joke was not well received, and my cousin’s insistence on asking endless questions had kept us from dropping the subject. 

My sister proposes that maybe a funeral for the bunny would help to make my cousin feel better about everything. Yes, I think, even in tragedy there is beauty. I don’t think my mom will like the idea, but she lights up. I can see her imagining her brother, trudging down the road with a shovel, picking up a dead rabbit to bury because his kid won’t stop crying. She justified it in her head for a moment– it was for the kid, plus, we had given up our spare room for his family and Olivia’s room for his moody wife. He deserved to do a little bit of physical labor. 

Thirty minutes later, my uncle and I kicked up dust on the road towards the poor rabbit. My sister had convinced him that the gesture would mean nothing with an empty coffin, but she hadn’t wanted to see the dead rabbit, so I promised her I would make sure our uncle followed through on his directions. Scoop the rabbit, walk back, toss it in the shoe box my mom had found at the back of her closet. Then, tape it shut and bring it to the backyard. My sister said she would set up the funeral in the back while we were gone. She and her friends are going through a party planning thing, so I imagine this is sort of a timed practice round for her.

My uncle and I stand above the corpse. By now, it’s covered with flies, slowly being picked apart from the inside out. I imagine the feeling of the bugs crawling on its skin, gnawing at its flesh, drinking its blood, worming into its eyes. 

With his hands on his hips, my uncle tells me that whoever did this was about to fly off the road. I mean, he says, the rabbit was barely on the pavement. Whoever hit it was almost off the road. I wonder aloud if maybe the body could’ve been blown off the road. My uncle looks at me funny, scoops up the body, and we start back. 

The box is waiting for us, already open on the front steps. I hold the top while my uncle dumps in the body, and I wipe a bit of rabbit blood off my hand while he mumbles an apology. I tape the box, and we walk around to the backyard. My mom had told us not to bring the box through the house, otherwise we’d have death in our home. 

Everybody is outside. My cousin's face was still stained with tears, but he seemed excited to be involved in digging a big hole. My mom was helping him, while my sister protected her shoes at her makeshift pulpit. My old music stand from elementary orchestra. Judy was standing close to the backdoor, still specter-like in her gray robe, smoking a cigarette. She stomped it out when she saw us coming, and my sister scrambled to press play on our mom’s old boom box. A melancholy classical tune played as my uncle and I acted as pallbearers to the rabbit. 

The air was dark. My cousin was crying again, and saluting the rabbit as we lowered it into the hastily dug hole. My aunt stood behind him and allowed him to hold onto her robe. My sister cleared her throat at the pulpit. We directed our attention to her.

Today, the world lost a beautiful soul. An innocent creature, a part of nature, was taken from this world by the actions of a reckless and selfish individual. 

My cousin lets out a sob.

But, let us not remember his death. Let us remember his life. This rabbit had a beautiful family, an extraordinary love of hats, and a great sense of adventure. He will be missed by friends and family alike, but let us celebrate his life and move forward to ensure his memory will live on in all of us. Rest in peace, Mr Rabbit. 

My cousin was quickly enraptured in tossing dirt on top of the shoe box, and Judy glided over to Uncle John. They exchanged words while I interviewed Olivia. I had known my sister was bright, beyond her peers, but her eulogy was beautiful, especially for a thirteen-year-old, and especially for being written in just a few minutes. She told me she just wrote what she was thinking, and that this whole thing had really made her reconsider things. Her friend Julie had just become a vegetarian, maybe she could try that. I asked if she had thought of any of us while writing her speech, but she scrunched her eyebrows and told me that was too morbid. I told her congratulations on getting the whole family together on such short notice, and she told me it was weirdly easy. Yes, I think, sometimes a sudden tragedy can bring people together. I ask her if she’ll still eat the chicken mom is making tonight, and she stomps back inside to our room. I carry my music stand back out to the garage and return it to its own resting place.

When the oven chimed, everyone was out of their rooms. Even my father, who usually wasn’t awake for his shifts until an hour later, was sitting at the kitchen table, fidgeting with the fork in his hand expectantly. The chicken was spooned onto seven plates, and I helped my mom pass them out. Everyone sat and ate, but nobody spoke. Finally, my cousin blurts to my father that he missed the funeral. My father raised an eyebrow and asked who died, and my mother explained the rabbit, the hit and run, the tears, and the funeral. My father stood, and we watched him walk into the garage. He returned a few minutes later holding two pieces of wood, attached by a single screw in the middle. He placed the little cross in front of my cousin and told him to mark the grave after dinner. My father gave a little wink– a mark of affection I hadn’t seen since I was only a bit older than my cousin. Yes, I think, it seems tragedy brings out the best in people. It brings people together. It brings people back together.

That night, I stared at the ceiling and listened to Olivia’s slow and steady breath. After all the excitement of the night, everybody had retreated, and my mom had forgotten her planned lectures. I had wanted to hear them, but in truth I had them memorised. I ran through her warnings, the crunch of the rabbit, and the smear of the squirrel as I fell asleep. I dreamt of a funeral for the rabbit, and for the squirrel, and for all the other roadkill. They dug their way out of their graves and danced together.

In the morning, Olivia was out of bed before me. I had promised to drive her to school, but it was well past the morning bell. I sprung out of bed, but as I tumbled into the living room, my mother reassured me that my uncle had taken her. He had wanted to thank her for the funeral. It’s sweet, isn’t it? Yes, I think, as I make my way back to bed, it’s sweet. 

It’s sweet for the next few days. Dinner is almost always attended by everyone, Judy squeezes into the corner of the couch instead of hiding out in the bedroom, and I see my mother and father interact more than I have in years. I get off work early for the next few days, citing family bereavement, and pick Olivia up from school. 

At the end of the week, Judy told Olivia she could have her room back. This proclamation silenced the comfortable chatter that had begun to settle over the dinner tables in the evening, and Olivia’s eyes were wide. Judy told her that she was grateful for Olivia’s selflessness, and she and John wanted to give her fifty dollars to say thank you. She grinned, and I wondered what five smoothies she would spend it on. Hugs circled the table, and it felt like a comfortable happiness had descended over the house.

Then, Uncle John crashed his car. The crash wasn’t serious– an ambulance was called, for precaution, but nobody was injured. We thought we had avoided tragedy until the estimate for repairs came in. John was already swimming in loans from the housefire, and this was just the cherry on top. John and Judy’s plans to move out were pushed back. Judy felt too bad to take Olivia’s room back, so now she filled the spare room with her anger. John tried to escape it by staying in the living room, but he brought his shame all over the house with him. My mother was annoyed, and everybody was on edge. 

I kept picking Olivia up from school, but I started to leave work even earlier. I hoped eventually they would decide it was easier to put me on the morning shift than to fire me. I took long drives, circling the area around our house until just before the middle school finished its final lesson of the day. When Olivia told me she wanted to walk home with the girl who lived two houses down, I offered to drive them both home. Olivia started to squeeze a few girls into the backseat, all giggling as I stopped by their houses one by one. 

I thought having more of them in the car would help my chances, but none of them ever noticed.

The first one was another squirrel. Like fate, it had run across the road before I could stop, not far from where the first rabbit had died. I waited for somebody to notice it, offering up rides at every chance I could, but nobody saw. 

Then, there was my friend Becca’s fish. I pocketed it while leaving her house, but nobody noticed its wet body lying in the road where I had tossed it from my car window. I’m not sure why I thought anybody would see it, or why I thought a beta fish was typical roadkill. 

I took her turtle the next time, which I knew was risky. It was soon after my beta fish heist, and her family loved its aquatic critters. Luckily, Becca’s family suspected their cat, and I posed the crushed shell perfectly in the center of the road. That day, the car was full of Olivia’s fellow gymnasts, on their way to a sleepover, camping in a tent in our backyard. None of them noticed the poor turtle over their chatter of backhand springs and vaults. 

Sometimes their adolescent conversations would again make me wonder what my middle-school self would’ve said about me now– what I’ve become. A killer. I picture her at the door of the school crying, wondering where we had gone so wrong. But most of the time, I thought she understood me. We both wanted the family to be happy. We wanted closeness. We wanted peace. I was doing what I had to do. 

I felt the worst about Lacey. I want to believe she thought it was a game, that the car chasing her was just a game. I did my best to make it quick. When my mom found her in the morning, we cursed drunk drivers and the flimsy metal of Lacey’s cage, and everybody was growing more despondent. At Lacey’s funeral, my cousin scooped dirt with much less enthusiasm, and my music stand remained in the garage. There was no speech, and I watched the silent tears roll down my family’s faces, and I heard my mother whisper that we were cursed. 

There was nothing else left. I had exhausted my options, and now the fate of my family was in my hands. I had to bring us back together, or nobody could, and it was going to take more than a turtle to do it. That night, I rose from my bed, glad that Olivia was back in her own room. She wouldn’t have understood that this was best for us all. This wasn’t for me. I didn’t want this. I had to do this. For the family.

I knew my uncle was a deep sleeper, and I could hear his snoring the second I opened my door. My aunt had a fondness for pills, so I had to hope that would be enough to keep them asleep. I crept into their room and took in the family camped out in our spare room. They looked peaceful sleeping, curled up underneath an old blanket. I tore my attention away from their faces. I couldn’t get distracted.

My cousin stirred slightly as I lifted him from his makeshift bed, and I rocked him quietly as I shut the door behind us. I stood with my cousin for a few moments in the living room, rocking him until his breathing became steady. He had always been a deep sleeper, just like his father. 

I made my way towards the back of the house. I had made sure to be the last one home that night, announcing my late arrival in a flurry of commotion as I entered the back door. I had wanted everyone, especially Judy and John, to know I had been the last one to use the back door– that way, they wouldn’t blame each other. I was willing to be their scapegoat. I never was good at checking the locks, and my poor cousin had only just learned how to open doors. Nobody’s fault, just an unfortunate accident. If only he hadn’t wandered into the road. 

The shock of the summer dew in the air made my cousin stir again. It was late in the summer now, and he was supposed to be beginning at the local preschool in September. What a pity he never got the chance. A random tragedy. It could’ve happened to anyone.

My cousin was making noise now, and beginning to squirm in my arms. If he was waking up, it wouldn’t be long until the wails began, and the tears, and the cries for his mother. I couldn’t risk his cries– not until I’d done what I needed to do. I had brought along a rag in case I needed to quiet him quickly, but there didn’t seem to be a need. My cousin was unable to overcome his fog of sleep, and his eyes only fluttered open a few more times before he settled back into my embrace. Good, I thought. It’s easier this way. 

I had debated the best way to go about this all night. I figured I would drive far enough out that nobody would hear, then drive back home and leave my cousin where he could be quickly discovered. It had been much easier with the animals– nobody investigated them, and nobody had been interested in tracing their deaths back to me. But now, with my cousin. Well, things were different. I had to be careful. Nothing could go wrong.  

The engine had only just begun to hum when I caught sight of a silhouette peeking around the living room curtains. I froze– I hadn’t thought to establish my alibi for the 3 am ride in the car. I steadied my breathing as my sister emerged from the shadows of the doorway, gingerly stepping her bare feet around the rocks and weeds that littered our front yard. She moved with purpose, pulling her hoodie close as she approached the car window. I rolled it down, returning my hands to the wheel as if we were in a traffic stop. I stared straight ahead, not looking at my cousin in the passenger seat nor at Olivia outside my door.

She asked me what I was doing. I told her that our cousin was crying, that he couldn’t sleep and that I thought I would take him for a little drive to calm him down. I could see Olivia frowning at me from the corner of my eye, and I could see her mind working. Her room was much closer to the spare room– she would’ve been the first to hear him cry, not me. Plus, I could hear her thinking, where were our aunt and uncle? And why, if our cousin couldn’t sleep, was he curled up soundlessly in the passenger seat, without a seatbelt or a car seat in sight? 

I couldn’t take it anymore. I could feel it in her silence– she was going to stop me. There was no way she could understand. There was no way to make her understand. I told Olivia flatly to go back to bed, and I only glanced at her shocked expression before shifting into drive. I tried to pull forward, but Olivia was in front of the car, only just visible without the shine of the headlights. For a moment, I considered that this could work just as well– I was just being helpful, taking my restless cousin for a drive when my sister found herself in front of the car. I imagined how I would run into the house crying, frantically bashing on doors, begging for somebody to call an ambulance. I would hold my sister’s broken body in the front yard, cursing god as her heart stopped in my arms. I pictured the vigils in our front yard, the lasagnas dropped at our doorstep, visits from the local pastor. 

But as I looked at my sister, my foot hovering over the gas, I saw something in her I hadn’t seen in any of the animals. She was afraid, but determined. She must’ve seen my hesitation, because she moved around to my cousin’s window, pulling the door open and gently lifting him to lie in her lap as she sat next to me. I hadn’t thought to lock the car doors. 

We sat there in silence for a few moments, me gripping the wheel, her cradling our cousin close to her chest. In the low gleam of the moon, I thought Olivia looked older than thirteen. Maybe our house had aged her. Maybe tonight had aged her. 

The rabbit? Oliva almost whispered. I didn’t need to look at her to feel her eyes piercing the side of my head. I nodded slowly. It was an accident. 

And the others? This time, I met her eyes with confusion. She told me about her discovery of the fish, how she had figured a bird must have dropped it outside of our house. I resisted asking her how a beta fish would have ended up in the beak of a bird in the middle of Oklahoma. She told me how she and her friends had discovered the turtle while playing outside, and how she had had my uncle dispose of it before my cousin could see. She said it had been tonight, at Lacey’s funeral, that she had known something was wrong. You didn’t even cry. You were just looking at everyone else.

Of course, she was right, and I told her she was much too smart for her age. Normally, she thrived on compliments like this, but now she wouldn’t look at me. I asked her if she understood. She said she didn’t. I said she would, if she went back inside. She told me I was scaring her, and we were silent once again. 

After a few minutes, I told her I wasn’t crazy. I wasn’t doing this for no reason. She asked what could justify this. Didn’t I care about the lives of the animals? Hadn’t I loved Lacey? Didn’t I love our cousin? She was becoming loud, and I asked her to stop crying. She told me that I was crying too. I’m doing it for us. For our family. I just want us to be close again. 

Olivia looked at me for a long time, stroking my cousin’s hair while tears fell silently down her cheeks. You know this is wrong. I hesitated before nodding. I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. But there was no other way.

Her eyes pierced me. I felt small in her gaze, and I could see her imagining me as I killed them, feeling the crack of bones beneath the wheels. I knew she was wondering how it felt, whether I had liked it, whether I had found joy in robbing the creatures of their lives. She didn’t ask me, and I was glad. I wouldn’t have known what to say. 

Olivia opened the car door solemnly. She scanned my face, and I scanned hers back, both of us searching for an answer in the other’s expression. You’re done with this now, okay? No more. Once again, I nodded, and Olivia closed the door softly, tiptoeing back into the house with our cousin still asleep in her arms. I watched them disappear through the front door, but I remained in the car. My sister’s words were ringing in my ears. No more. I had done enough. I had taken it too far. I had tried too hard to help and I had almost ruined everything.

My sister’s head poked around the curtain again as I gently pressed the gas pedal, but she didn’t run out of the house this time. I watched her face disappear in my rearview mirror as my car turned onto the pavement, and I knew she wouldn’t come after me. 

No more. She was right. There would be no more rides to and from school, no more playing with my cousin, no more happy family dinners. At least, not now. Not until they were safe from me. 

I kept my headlights off as I accelerated down the dark country road. This is how it was always going to end, I thought. The animals weren’t enough. I couldn’t bring peace to our house. I was the one bringing death to our doorstep. No more. It had to end now. 

I thought about what they would say when they found me. The confusion. The questions. Why was she driving alone at night, why had nobody heard her leave? Why had she done it? Was it an accident, or had she meant to do it? I imagined my sister, silent, holding my cousin and watching the ambulance arrive too late. I knew she wouldn’t tell them what she knew. She would cry for her sister– the one who was her chauffeur, the one who had done her hair for the school dance, the one who helped her hide her makeup from our mother. My mother would cry for her first-born baby. My father wouldn’t cry, but he would regret the time he spent at work, the time he didn’t spend with me. They would shower my sister with love and attention, and my aunt and uncle would hold my cousin a little closer. Yes, this was the only way. I shook my head. How had I not realized sooner? But then again, better late than never.

The fork in the road approached rapidly. Many a young driver had met their fate here, seeing the fork too late and colliding with the big oak tree. I knew the road too well. I knew I needed to turn, but I didn’t. I pushed on the gas. No more. No more. There was no more to be done. I was too close to turn away now. I closed my eyes. This was it. The last life I would take. One last time. 

It wasn’t instant. The collision was sudden and loud, and I couldn’t differentiate the cracking of my bones from the crushing of the engine. The roof was peeled back, and the stars shone down on my broken body. I was glad to see them one last time. I wondered what they had all thought about, the animals I had killed, while they lay dying on the pavement. I wondered if they looked at the stars, waiting for their vision to fade. Waiting for the pain to stop. I wondered if I would see them when I got where I was going. Would they forgive me– the rabbit, the squirrels, the fish, the turtle, Lacey? Maybe. Maybe they would see why I had done it. Maybe not. I wouldn’t blame them either way.

The stars faded. There was nothing. Only my thoughts. No more. Yes, no more. It was over now. The tree, the car, everything faded away. No more. No more. I could rest. I’m going to sleep. My eyes couldn’t open if I tried. I didn’t try. Yes, no more. I did what I had to do. Now they will be happy.