❝I remember my childhood as a long wish to be elsewhere.❞

LOUISE GLÜCK

✩

3.5 : memories

(tw: mentions of r*pe, abuse, murder)

ONCE UPON A TIME, A GIRL IS BORN WITH HAZEL EYES. She is the second child of a budding young salesman and a beautiful aspiring lawyer, and the only name they think suitable to call her is Hazel.

And so Hazel Ophelia Cameron comes into the world, bright-eyed and curious.

Her older brother Oliver calls her Hazel Bear.

She calls him Ollie.

They are best friends.

It is just the two of them, Hazel and Oliver, until Hazel's fifth year, when their parents sit them down and tell them that soon they'd be three.

And so Clara Rosalind Cameron comes into the world, with an eager brother and sister ready to teach her everything they know.

They teach her to walk, to say bad words behind Mom's back, to ride a bike, and to skip rocks in the nasty creek behind the house. Oliver teaches her to throw a baseball and Hazel teaches her how to use the oven.

They are best friends.

Inseparable.

School years are spent at the kitchen table, eating Hazel's cookies and complaining about math homework, and summers are spent outside playing football, climbing trees, and tormenting the neighbor's elderly cat.

Until Hazel's twelfth year.

Their mother doesn't come home one night.

And when she does, she doesn't say a word. Just sits in her bedroom and cries.

Oliver makes Hazel and Clara play outside all night, makes them cook their own dinner, and when Mom goes to bed, finally he tells them what had happened. He says a man has done bad things to Mom, has hurt her terribly, and that she needs to be left alone.

Hazel is fourteen years old when she learns her mother had been raped behind the grocery store that night.

Their father is gone a lot on business, and by the time he comes home, their mother has healed a little. Or so they think. She smiles a little, at least.

They go to court.

They lose.

A month after the trial, their mother starts disappearing.

She'll be gone for hours at a time, come home in different clothes then she went out in, and not speak to any of them.

Hazel, who is a wise and worldly young girl, asks Oliver if their mother was having an affair.

He tells her to keep her mouth shut.

One month after the trial, their mother begins to drink.

Two months after the trial, their mother begins hitting them.

She hits them for everything. If Clara gets a B on a test, she'll get hit with a spatula. If Oliver tracks mud in the house, their mother takes a pair of tongs to him. If Hazel forgets to clean her room, she'll be spanked.

And it only progresses. From spatulas to baseball bats to knives. Hazel will realize later that their mother hated the innocence she saw in her children, the innocence that had been ripped away from her behind that grocery store.

Hazel and Clara wear long sleeves to school all year to hide the scars. Mississippi summers are brutal, but people will ask questions.

Just after Hazel's fourteenth birthday, Oliver pulls her aside. He tells her that he's got a plan to get them out of the house. He's gotten a job at the hardware store on the corner. He can support them while Dad's gone on his trips.

Hazel agrees to help him.

They never call their mother "Mom" after this.

She is Esther to them. She is not their mother.

Two months after their conversation, Hazel and Oliver tell their father what Esther's done. He can't believe it. But their scars convince him. Particularly the half-healed gash across Hazel's stomach.

He promises to take them away from her.

But Esther finds out.

It is July 17th, 1997. A date Hazel will never forget.

She, Clara, and Oliver are walking home from the hardware store. Oliver's just finished his shift and is counting his money. He's getting paid almost five dollars an hour, and has been working hard all summer long. He's got almost six hundred dollars saved up.

Esther and their father are fighting in the kitchen.

Hazel thinks nothing of it.

Until she steps inside and sees Esther's got a gun.

And their father tells Esther that he's taking the children.

So she fires the gun.

Hazel Cameron watches her father die on the kitchen floor.

Oliver leaps into action. Attempts to knock the gun from Esther's hands.

Hazel Cameron watches her brother die on the kitchen floor.

And she runs.

Runs far away, pulling Clara along. Runs to the police station. Screams for help.

My mom killed my dad. My brother's dead, too. Please help.

Clara vomits all over the floor.

No one says a word.

A deputy takes the two of them to a hospital. Hazel and Clara cuddle together in a single bed. Wait there in the darkness for something. Anything.

Hazel can't push Oliver's unseeing eyes out of her head.

Staring up at the ceiling.

Lips slightly parted.

A perfect round hole in his forehead.

Two police officers ask them questions. Did your mother ever threaten you. Did she ever mention a place she liked to go. What did you hear her say.

Hazel tells them the truth. Tells them Clara's eight. Tells them her mother's a psychopath. Covers Clara's ears and tells them to fuck off.

Two days later, Hazel and Clara are allowed to go to their grandmother's house.

Five days later, the sheriff calls to tell them Esther is in custody. But not just for the murders of Oliver and their father.

For the past two years, Esther Cameron, nicknamed the Mercy Killer by the press, has killed twelve men, all rapists who got off easy. She stripped them naked, mutilated their genitals, and then stabbed them in the chest. And if she felt like it, wrote a phrase in blood next to the body.

Sometimes Proverbs 6:31. If he is caught, he must pay sevenfold.

Sometimes just four words: Mercy for the women.

Mercy for the women.

Mercy for me.

There will be a trial.

But first, there will be funerals.

Hazel and Clara sit side by side as six men they've never met carry the coffin holding their brother to his grave.

The preacher says empty words. Devastating loss. Terrible tragedy. Horrifying incident.

No words can describe the emptiness inside of Hazel.

Tears burn tracks over and over on her cheeks.

She's screaming inside.

When their father is buried, it is the same. More empty words. More tears. More people hugging them. Saying they're so sorry.

Hazel is sorry, too.

It is August 27th, 1997. Eleven days after Clara's ninth birthday. Another date Hazel will never forget.

Esther will be tried under her maiden name.

She never stops staring at Hazel and Clara.

But Hazel is not afraid of her.

She wears a sleeveless top. These scars are proof. She will not hide them.

When it is her turn to take the stand, the bailiff asks her if she will tell the truth. She will. She will if it kills her.

Their attorney asks her to tell her story. So she does.

And when she is finished, she looks directly at Esther. Doesn't blink.

The attorney refers to Esther as her mother.

Hazel shakes her head. No.

"That woman is not my mother. She's a fucking monster. I hope she rots in jail. You can keep that on the record."

And she leaves the stand.

Esther is sentenced to life in prison. Fourteen counts of first-degree murder and three counts of first degree assault. A minimum of 370 years in prison.

But there is a chance for parole.

So Hazel and Clara go into witness protection.

They change their surname to Finley, their grandmother's maiden name, and all custody goes to her.

They move to Jackson.

They go to a new school.

Hazel goes by Fin.

Clara goes by Lars.

Esther is the reason Hazel never drinks alcohol. She is the reason Hazel studies criminal psychology. She is the reason for everything Hazel ever does. Trust, love, family. She ruined them. 

Hazel tries to forget.

But memories have a funny way of sticking around.