Who Is Paul Botterman?

IV

My Dilemma. Severity. The Finding of Ashleigh Miles.

Forget thy name in the darkness. For the darkness knows thy name.

This is a lesson I have been learning since I met Paul Botterman in the summer of 2004. Where the memories haunt me in the daylight hours. And my nightmares are a welcome alternative to what I know to be reality. As every solemn silence can harbor the most grotesque of evils.

And I weep to the ruin of life.

●●

2004 was coming to an end. Thanksgiving was still rattling around in my head, no different than the aftermath of being introduced to the real Paul Botterman. To say I was stretched, scattered, split, divided, or hazed was accurate. In the weeks towards Christmas came exams. More importantly, I was on my guard at the house. I couldn't phone in school. I couldn't do much of anything. At that moment, when I stood trembling in the shadow of a man who had just ruptured my mother's spine—I got the silent agreement of what would happen if I went outside those walls and talked. It didn't help that when it was over, my mother was forced to drive herself along with me and four other children to Ocala Hospital. The conversation was simply to keep it to myself for the better of us all. Through strained words, running tears as a tiny bump from a pothole or stray stone sent a torrent of pain through her, enough to pull over to let it pass. I had no choice but to accept this bleak situation.

It's funny how quickly the duped party always finds a way. "It's my fault. My fault. Not any of yours," Mom told us as we sat on the side of the road half a mile from the ER parking lot. "IF I had just talked more with you and had done something different. It wouldn't have happened. I should have gone out for a new toaster. Should have—

There was no reasoning with the woman. Guess she had gotten too much like my grandmother. Too deep had she been to see it with clarity. Too far into her own mess to know that the sun-washed pieces she picked up only came back down around her. She would be in the wrong, always. There was never any question when it came to Paul. Here, I realized the woman who brought me into this world and raised me until a fateful day when I was thirteen was a willing shadow of her former self. I went as far as the little bit of psychology I understood to measure the same situational reaction if one of the children behind us had committed some foul against him. If they would deserve something so severe. Not seen in the same light as excuses came pouring out of her mouth full of anguish. I think the doctors in the hospital knew. The excuses were well considered during the drive between those agony moments. I don't think they bought slipping on a wet floor and falling into the corner of a table any more than I could seeing the perspective from her side. We were forced to sit there and say nothing under the threat of things getting worse.

How naïve I was.

Six hours of tests and another three of waiting to find she had a mildly herniated disc and a possible fracture. Nothing they diagnosed as being anything alarming aside from the weeks of painful recovery. Then, to my astonishment, we drove from Ocala Hospital to Walton's, where I went inside and picked up a new toaster. Angry as I felt accomplice. Worse was how she limped into the house, carrying the damn box for some sad (infuriating from where I stood) attempt at appearance to stand there and fix the bastard some toast. If only she had let me do it. I would have put a few drops of cleanser before smearing a generous amount of butter.

Paul was waiting as we filed back inside. Our silence was a promise made in a parking lot thrice. Kept as he stood over us with his predatory green eyes examining his work with a smirk that turned my blood to acid. The pride of my eager defiance turned to vanity as I said nothing. He asked no questions and showed no concern for his wife. Instead, showing more of himself as Pete was the one dumb enough to stay close.