See Jack Run

Chapter 23

Donna Way regretted having more than one child. Gerard, well, he was a good boy. He hadn't done anything wrong. He was normal.
Mikey and Jaqueline, however...trainwrecks.
Mikey had abused her poor little girl.
Her poor little girl did not react well. Jaqueline had been in a way exactly like a china doll. Very fragile. Don't touch her, she'll break.
And now, well, Donna wished she could turn back time and make it so that Mikey and Jaqueline were never born. She wouldn't have a son in a mental hospital and a funeral to pay for.
What had Jaqueline meant by her note?
Mikey's coming to get me. But he can't get me if I'm already gone! The note had said.
She knew that Jaqueline had a very irrational fear that Mikey was going to come get her. She had even cut off her long hair, because allegedly Mikey liked to pull it.
Allegedly? My son cut up my daughter's face! He didn't 'allegedly' like to pull it, he did! Donna's mind screamed.
Shaking, she tried to focus on what the minister was saying. The coffin in front of him was closed. Originally, it would have been open so people could look her little child straight in the face before...before..before saying goodbye forever.
But Donna didn't want anybody to see the girl's ruined face, a scar for both of them.
A scar that said that Donna didn't know her own children. A scar that was also a scar on her as a parent.
What had the scar meant to Jaqueline? She had never thought to ask her that.
Did it mean to Jaqueline that Mikey would never see her as a sister? Did it mean to Jaqueline that she would always be abused by her own memories? Did it mean that the sight of her own face would torture her?
Well, it didn't matter anymore. Jaqueline was in a grey coffin and she wasn't coming out soon.
But even that, too was a mark on her parenting. The bills, even knowing that Mikey was locked up somewhere where he couldn't hurt anybody was a mark. And the steak knife that had been pulled out of her child's chest with an awful noise that she could never forget...Oh God.
Don't think about it.
"The death of a child is always a tragedy, and when there is something that is so awful that the only way a child can escape it is death, then we can only pray that God will take Jaquline in his arms and..........."
Donna didn't listen. It was all poetic bullshit. It took a lot of self control not to just scream that out to everybody.
Donna turned around, though, and she saw that there were a few people in the back, maybe kids in the school play. What was it? Oh yes, it was The Wizard Of Oz.
My little girl is off to see the Wizard!. Donna had to fight to stifle the laughter that wanted to pour out of her.
Gerard noticed and his expression silenced her. Grief, written in forehead, but also...was it disgust? Definitely.
Now that Donna thought about it, she probably should be crying. Jaqueline had been a good girl before the whole mess with Mikey began. As for Mikey, well, she had no son named Mikey. She had a son named Gerard and a daughter named Jaqueline.
Jaqueline was upset and I couldn't persuade her not to be. Yes, that's how they'll see it soon enough.
She wouldn't cry. If Jaqueline's death was what it took for the whole nasty affair to be over, then so be it.
Run, Jack, run.