"No, Peter Pan."
"Oh, uh… it's just sort of always been my favorite. Since we moved around all the time, I never really had many friends, never had anyone to talk to. Whenever I got close to someone, my mother would freak out… guess she thought I'd spill who we really were, even though I didn't even know… but she was so afraid of you catching up to us, I guess."
She doesn't say it with anger. Doesn't say it with sadness. She speaks matter-of-fact like it's just a truth she's come to accept.
"And there's something magical about the idea of escaping, of never growing up or having any responsibilities," she continues. "When I was young, I thought it was all real, that there was a whole world out there my mother kept me from. I used to open my bedroom window at night, leave it wide open, just in case." She smiles wistfully, her gaze still fixed to the book, although she's not reading anymore. "My mother caught me, though, and told me to stop, but of course I didn't listen."
"Of course."
"So yeah, that's when she started nailing all the windows shut," she says. "I always pried the nails back out, though, but I remember getting mad and yelling about how much I hated her for locking Peter Pan out, and she just told me I was being ridiculous. She said if anything were to come in my window, it wouldn't be something from a fairy tale."
She turns her head to look at me. "Now that we've gone all Freud on my life, why's Twelve Angry Men your favorite movie?"
"Ah, well, I'm afraid it's not nearly as fascinating of an explanation. It just intrigues me how if you plant a seed, people will cultivate it. It's not hard to get them to believe whatever you want them to believe."
"You mean like you convincing me you were Prince Charming?"
"I did no such thing. I told you point blank I wasn't a good man. And I've told you the same thing multiple times since."
"Reverse psychology," she says. "What did you expect me to think?"
"I expected you to believe what I said."
"Yeah, well, actions speak louder than words," she replies. "You say one thing and then do another, and I guess I trusted what you did instead of what you said. I fell in love with the man who swept me off my feet, who acted like I was special to him."
"You were," I say. "You are special to me."
"I know." Her voice is flat. "I'm a Rita."
I stare at her, surprised that she'd say that. She is a Rita, there's no denying that fact, but she's so much more than that to me. You'd think after all this time she'd grasp that fact, considering I tell her every time it comes up, but I get it now, I think. Nothing I say will ever mean more than what I do for her. She watches, like me. She touches, like me. She learns from seeing and not from listening.
Reaching over, I cup her chin, tilting her head until her eyes meet mine. "Let's go somewhere, get out of this house... out of this city."
She looks skeptical. "Go where?"
I shrug. "Wherever you want to go."
She seems not nearly as confident as I feel about that idea. "I don't know."
"Come on." I brush my thumb across her bottom lip. "We'll spend some time together, no distractions, no worries... just you and me. I'll show you how special you are."
"I'll think about it."
With that, she looks away from me again, pulling from my touch to focus on the book in her lap, conversation over.
Finished.
Done.
Karissa concedes.
It doesn't take much coaxing.
All I had to say was the magic word: Italy.
Two days later we're in the back of the town car, bags in the trunk, on our way to the airport. It's early in the morning, the sky outside still dark. Karissa stares out the side window, laughing dryly to herself when we pass the sign welcoming us into New Jersey. "Did you know?"
I glance at her, raising an eyebrow in question. "Did I know what?"
"The last time we went to this airport, when I asked you what was in New Jersey and you gave me all those bullshit answers," she explains. "Did you know that's where my parents were? Did you know what was really in New Jersey then?"
"Ah, no," I say. "I had no idea."
"Really?" she asks. "Because when I told you where I'd been that day, you seemed to know exactly where the house was… exactly where to find them."
"I recognized the address."
"How?"
"Because I'd been there before," I say, hesitating, not sure if I should go on, but I can tell from her expression she's going to ask more questions if I don't just put it out there. "I tracked your father there years ago."
"What happened? When you found him, I mean…"
"Nothing much," I say. "Your mother had already left him, and I wasn't ready to kill him yet. I wanted him to suffer like I had. He ended up settling into his little suburban life while your mother jumped from city to city."
"Did you ever find her again? Did you find us?"
"Yes," I say, "but I was always too late. I'd show up after you were already gone, find a few things that your mother left behind, tracks she forgot to cover, but she got better over time. Smarter. I lost her trail about three years ago, after Syracuse, and didn't pick it up again until you showed up in the city."
Karissa stares at me the entire time I'm speaking, looking me dead in the eyes without flinching.
It's quiet for a few minutes as she stares at me in contemplation, before she asks, "When did you change your mind?"
She's looking for an explanation, some sort of revelation that will justify this trust she's giving me. She wants to believe I'm a changed man, that the person she loves isn't the same monster she fears, but I've got not such admissions for her. I am who I am, and I do what I do, and I can't apologize for it.
But goddamn if that look in her eyes doesn't make me wish I could.
I wish I could be a better man.
I wish I could do that for her.
But I'm not, and I can't, because she's damn stubborn and I'm too fucked up to ever make a difference.
Wishing is for fools.
It doesn't change anything.
"When did I change my mind about what, Karissa?"
"About killing my mother," she whispers. "About killing me."
Although her voice is low, it doesn't tremble. My instinct is to ask, 'what makes you think I've changed my mind?' But she speaks like she's fearless and I don't want to make her afraid of me.
I won't kill her.