Every story has a murder

I don’t know why I liked Clarence’s picture in the first place, but that’s what happened and we can’t change it. This was the fall of 2024, after things fell apart with my fiancé before the wedding. I felt sick and I couldn’t sleep. The filth piled up around me and my life was generally shattered. But I knew it was temporary and it’s not lying on your dating profile to leave things out.

His profile said: Clarence, 43, licensed social worker, has kids, atheist. “How many kids?’ I asked, and he said, “Buckle up: 5, between the ages of 4 and 18.” A brood, I thought, and the word hummed deep inside of me. I thought of myself as a bird in a nest. I wanted to sit on his children’s heads. I asked “Where is their mother?” With a series of sad emojis he said, “She died last winter” and immediately I felt flush with the secret. “You’re not alone,” I wanted to tell him, but such restraint, I didn’t. I wanted to jump out of a cake and say: “Their mother is alive and she’s me!”

That first night we met at a bar around the corner from my apartment. I would have let him come straight over, but recently I had learned the word demure and I wanted to practice what I thought that meant. At the bar he ran his fingers across my arms and then he asked, “Can I touch you?” And that’s how I knew, from the order that he did it, that I was going to move into his house with him in Troy that November when my lease was up and we’d be married shortly after.

If I sound crazy, well. I used to doubt myself too, but now I accept that I can tell the future. For example, I knew the day I moved into the place on Rochester that my beloved cat was going to climb out the window, run across the road and get hit, just like in Pet Sematary. In secret I even started calling her Church, like the cat from the movie, although that wasn’t her name. If anybody overheard me do that, they would know that I pre-visioned that accident months before. And if you ask me why I knew and still didn’t close the window: I don’t know, but that’s what happened. Church is dead and I am haunted.

It’s not an easy thing, to be the one who knows first. but I’ve learned in the past, you spook the mark if you can’t play it cool. I knew that we were in love, that I was the children’s mother and we would be living together soon, and for tortured days on end I held that space safe for us both.

It should have been simple, but it wasn’t. Sometimes Clarence didn’t seem to know. He would pull away because of the pain of losing his wife. I understood, he just didn’t want to get hurt. But still, it was frustrating when I knew what was best for everyone. Time was running out to plan next steps, hire the movers, and I was doing it all by myself…

Things took a turn for the worse at the Red Roof Inn. I rented us a room at the hotel off of 75 between our homes because I wanted to be filthy, and it worked. He loved everything I threw at him. The strange positions and the phrases I made him repeat in my ear. One time he said, “Daddy’s so proud of you,” right after he came on my face and after that if Clarence asked me to walk into a fire, I think I would do it demurely on my knees.

At the Red Roof Inn, I asked him, what’s the name of the oldest son who plays football at Troy, and he seemed to get impatient. “I told you about this,” he said, but I didn’t know what he meant. “I told you at the start, the kids have been through too much. I can’t bring another woman into their lives. I worry you’re getting too curious.” He may have said this but it’s not a part of the vision. It’s better to ignore what the mark says.

Honestly, if we’d just had more time before the lease was up–I certainly could have sat on my hands and waited for him to understand. But by mid-October, it was worse. I noticed Clarence was texting me back less often. He still hearted the pictures I sent of my body–at first tasteful and then more and more obscene, when I started to feel his focus wander. He liked the pictures but he wasn’t making plans to meet again. Every day that ticked by and he didn’t ask—I felt like a hungry wolf circling his cabin. And then one day I was a real live wolf at the door. It was Sunday the 27^th of October when I came to the house, guessed right the garage keypad and waited for him and the kids to come home.

The house was exactly what I pictured, both big and crowded. Not dirty but lived in. At my apartment, the dishes and clothes seemed to stack all around me and it didn’t matter how fast I cleaned and put away, there was always more. Never mind that all of it would have to be put in boxes soon. And the future, though certain, wasn’t sorted. I think I was experiencing a lot of stress at the time, is what I’m saying.

The order in Clarence’s home turned me on very much. They had a bin by the door for mail, hooks for coats and more bins for shoes. I wanted to ride the arm of his couch. I looked at pictures of the family in frames on the wall, on the mantle, in the front foyer–they were a family of pictures. This was the first time I got to see the dead wife and she looked fake to me then, and still does. She looked like she came with the frame. I thought, “Who is this nothing person.” Clarence comforted me in his photos online by always looking the same.

I did have a bad thought about the house, because it had the smell of a woman, and there shouldn’t be any women left. His oldest girl was at college, the rest were boys, and his wife was a pile of bones. Later I would notice things more obvious; the ladies scarf draped across the back of a chair and the rings in the soap dish on the kitchen sink. Maybe I thought they were ‘in memory of’ but still, I should have known.

This did me in. They had a digital picture frame on the counter in the kitchen, and it scrolled through shots of a loving family. I wish I could bottle up and give you the warmth I felt for them in that moment. I saw myself on the rollercoaster between the middle boys. At Christmas on the floor opening presents with the youngest. At Christmas on the floor with Clarence on top of me. His newborn baby in my arms. And any moment now it would be real. I touched myself standing there in the kitchen, doubled over the counter with Clarence behind me, in the crowds at the homecoming game with the other proud parents, back and forth like that until I came.

It’s hard to think about what happened after, when I was sitting on the couch waiting, with the humiliating flowers in one hand and the gun in the other. I heard her voice first. She was laughing when they all came through the front door. Clarence was in front, followed by the dead wife, four kids and then two older people who I now know are Clarence’s parents.

Clarence saw me and stopped. His eyes got wide and he tried to back up, change course, stop his family from entering, but you could see the misunderstanding unfold, the boys thought he was being playful and they pushed him forward, like “more family fun!” with the grandparents laughing.

And then everyone was inside and here I was in a pretty dress with the flowers and the gun. I don’t know why I had the gun. It wasn’t part of the vision, but I accept that there may be pieces of the story that are waiting for us later.

“Alice,” Clarence said, and God, it killed me when he said my name. But he said it with his hand stretched out to me, and I could see that he was scared. I don’t know what came over me. I think I thought I had to be decisive and strong for the both of us. I stood up, pointed and aimed: Bang, bang, bang. And down they went, his father, mother, and wife.

It was impulsive. It was just like the other times when I acted too soon and fucked everything up. I don’t want to dwell on what came after. I’m just so hurt by the way Clarence tricked me. In the chaos, it seemed like the family might swarm, so I grabbed the smallest and held the gun near his head. Of course, I would never shoot my son but I needed to buy time to help Clarence understand. That’s when he tricked me. He said, with tears in his eyes and his hand out. “Alice,” he said. “You did the right thing. Give me the gun. I’m so proud of you.”

And now I’m just waiting to tell the lawyer why, and I’m worried he’s not going to understand. But I believe the Universe moves through me, and she protects us when we honor our truth.  “I had a vision,” I’ll tell him. “And they weren’t supposed to be there.”