Your Midweek Update for 07/27/22

I have smelled a lot of horrible things in my life. I laid with my parents have I murdered them and they were not found right away. I once hid in an open grave to evade the police. I helped my mom clean out her murder den after it hadn’t been aired out since my kidnapping.

It turns out that all of us forget she’d rented a storage unit in which to commit murders because James got a call from the manager saying her autopayment bounced and if we didn’t pay by the end of the month, they would be auctioning off the items inside.

I don’t think they would allow that episode of Storage Wars to air.

So he renewed the rental agreement and changed it over to his name, and the two of us grabbed every disinfectant known to man (and trust me, we know them all) to go and clean out the murder den that’s been unoccupied for about six months.

The smell brought me to tears. I haven’t puked since Sarah M. shit her pants when I stabbed her in 8^th grade and it landed on my bare foot.

It’s been three days and I can still taste it. It’s like it’s burrowed into my skin. Everywhere I go, it just lingers.

But we were successful in disposing of all the materials and disinfecting the entire unit so it only smelled like month-old compost. And we did dispose of everything. James asked if I wanted to keep the place for hunts but it wouldn’t feel right. That was mom’s sanctuary so I’ll find my own. But we are putting her things in there – maybe in the spring after winter has frozen and killed all the bacteria – so it can remain her sanctuary.

It just smelled so bad.

It was one of those things that fell away when she and James split. She was so heartbroken she forgot about everything else. I was angry at him for hurting her – I still am – but he’s angry at himself, too. That doesn’t make it better but at least he knows that he fucked up. I know some of you think I should kill him and for a while I wanted to but now I don’t. He’s all I have left.

I did ask him why he did it. Why he blew up our family out of the blue.

He told me that he was a weak man. That he loved my mom beyond reason. But temptations from others were unending.

I’ve been reading through Mom’s blog a lot, trying to get to know her. I see how she saw all of us. She loved James. She thought of him as so loyal but the truth is: he was just waiting for the next best thing and it finally came. I always thought they were meant to be. I’ve heard their love story so many times and I thought it was fate that led them together. But maybe I was wrong.

The small comfort I have is that James always realized (too late) that he was also wrong: nothing would be better than her.

It does make me wonder. She saw the world in such a specific way. What other people in her life were not who she thought they were?

I feel like I need to find a new sign off. Any suggestions?

In the meantime, dear readers,

Stay Safe