Baptism by Water and Fire

The last notes of the sunset disappear behind the mountains as we sit in a calm silence.

The calm before the storm.

She called me last night to tell me he had been beating her and I knew what I had to do. I’ve watched enough true crime to perfectly play out what needs to be done and get away with it. But it has to be done under the veil of night.

With it being Summer, we have shorter hours to work with, but it’ll be okay.

“Are you ready?” I ask my little sister, Ava.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

I push myself up off the rock we’ve been sitting on for the last two hours as she’s told me everything previously hidden about her relationship. Of course she didn’t tell me. She was in love with him and she knew if I had any idea what it was truly like for her that this would have happened a long time ago.

The weather app on my phone says sunrise is at 5:15 am. It’s currently 9:45 pm.

Ava’s kids are at our mom’s house. It didn’t take much to convince her of our plan. I’m sure she wishes someone had done the same for her way back when.

Our costumes are sitting in my car, outfits we’d never wear, makeup we’d never buy, and wigs that’ll completely disguise our looks at the dark bar he’ll be at tonight.

We slip into the bathroom of the marina with our gear. We’re completely across town, no one will suspect a thing.

I slide the body con dress over my body and use the push up bra for my tiny boobs. They actually look good. If I didn’t have to make sure no one ever knows, I’d wear this bra more often. Ava puts on a deep V-neck tank and tight leather pants.

Contour and heavy makeup allows us to change our features. Higher cheekbones. Thicker eyebrows. Long eyelashes. I paint her face and then she paints mine.

The deep red of my wig brings out the green of my eyes instead of the blue. The deep brunette of her wig brings out the hazel in hers. I debated on buying colored contacts, but looking at ourselves in the mirror, I don’t think we need them.

We still look like sisters, but at least we don’t look like ourselves.

I kiss her on the cheek and reassure her that it’s all going to work out. I can see the worry written in her eyes.

My phone reads 11:30 pm. We have to get to the other side of town which will take half an hour, but it’ll be just enough time to get to the bar and feed him some drinks.

Ava’s knee bounces as I drive to a neighborhood a little over halfway to the bar and find a parking spot. As we walk down the street, I call a taxi so I can pay in cash.

“You need to stop shaking or we won’t get away with this,” I tell Ava, holding her shoulders steady.

She nods and I wipe a tear away from her eye before it messes up any of her makeup.

“I love you, Ava. We will deal with him once and for all.”

The taxi pulls up and we’re officially two drunk girls who just want to have a good time.

12:15 pm we pull up to the bar. We’re stumbling around as we get out. I toss the cash to the driver, way more than he was actually charging.

I can feel all the men’s eyes shift to us as we enter the bar, including the ones we’re hoping for.

He won’t resist a threesome with a pair of sisters. He used to joke about it with the real us.

“Hi,” I say, taking the lead and approaching him at the bar.

Dan, Ava’s husband, licks his lips and looks us up and down. I’ve never been grateful for someone being unfaithful, but here we are. It only adds to my fire.

“You’re pretty cu-ute.” Ava makes sure to slur her words, dragging her finger down his chest.

“You two aren’t so bad yourselves.”

“What are we drinking tonight?” I ask.

“How about some shots?” Ava offers.

He’s already quite a few drinks in and we’re at zero. Exactly where we want him.

He orders us a round of shots. We clink our glasses and throw them back. I keep my face even and shoot him a smile once he’s no longer cringing.

“Another?” I ask.

He doesn’t stutter as he calls the bartender over for another round.

Ava’s grinding up on him and I’m not sure if it’s because she knows it’ll be the last time she can or if she’s just trying to keep up the masquerade.

I know Ava notices his eye twitch which we both know to mean that he’s wasted and it’ll only take one more drink for him to black out tonight.

I glance at the clock on the wall. It’s a Margaritaville themed clock and although all numbers on the clock are a 5, the longer hand points to the spot the twelve should be and the shorter one sits pointing at where the one should be.

“One more round and we take it to your place?” I whisper in his ear.

He smirks and nods in agreement. It’s nice when he plays right into our hands. Almost makes me drop the façade, but I’m able to regain myself and paste that flirtatious, drunken smile back on my face.

We take another shot once the waitress gets back around to us.

I’m starting to feel the buzz, taking three shots in less than an hour, but my head is still clear enough to get this done. I glance at Ava to make sure she’s ready. The corner of her mouth tips up for a moment before falling back down. She’s having cold feet. She shot me that look the day she married him and I should have pulled her out then, but I didn’t. I’m the reason it came down to this. So we’re doing this, whether she’s ready or not.

“Shall we?” I point to the door.

“Oh we shall, girls. We shall.” Dan licks his lips and disgustingly runs his hand over both of our bodies. If I wasn’t such a good actress and actively clinging to my character, I would slap him right here, right now.

We have just about four hours to get this job done.

He leads us out to his truck. I can see Ava’s feet stutter as she starts towards it herself before allowing his hand to be her guide. At least it makes her look drunk. I fake stumble a couple times which has us all giggling like school girls.

I climb into the truck behind Ava so that I’m sitting between her and her husband. He’s so drunk he hasn’t even questioned our disguises, but that doesn’t mean his wife should be sitting right next to him.

His grimy hand rests on my thigh as he drives us to his house. He knows Ava’s spending the night at our mom’s with their kids, me, and my husband. Our perfect alibi. My husband has hated Dan since they met. The kids went to bed before we left. My mother would do anything for her daughters.

We pull into the all too familiar driveway and the dash reads 1:27 am.

With a deep breath, I go in for a kiss. My hand curls around the back of his head and grasps his hair. Instead of leaning in and fondling, I smack his head into the steering wheel. Just enough to knock him out.

I check his pulse to make sure that’s true. It’s faint, but it’s there.

“What the hell was that for?” Ava yells.

I place my pointer finger over my lips, shushing her. “We don’t have time to wait for him to pass out. I thought we would, but we don’t.”

She nods, but there’s fear in her eyes.

“This next part, we have to do quickly. You remember what we’re supposed to do?”

Ava nods quickly. There’s no time for second guessing.

I climb on top of Dan and start to drive towards the river by his house. None of the neighbors are close by. Since their houses all sit in the middle of their pieces of land, they won’t even see the truck. Especially not at 1:30 in the morning.

Once we’re at the river, the reality of what we’re about to do, rushes me. But there’s no fear in it. It’s honestly exciting.

I grip tight to the window breaker and the steering wheel and rev the engine. Hitting the gas, we lurch forward and crash through the barrier of the bridge. We’re suspended in the air for what feels like forever. I’m surprised the sun doesn’t start to rise as we’re hovering there.

Finally, we splash into the water.

I barely cut into the seatbelt to make it look like Dan tried to get out. According to our plan, I hit out the window and wrap his fingers around the tool. As water pours into the truck, I grab Ava’s hand and pull us out through the window.

The water rushes around us, rapidly bringing us down the river.

Instead of fighting the current, we allow it to take us as we swim to the side towards shore.

We each grab onto a tree branch within our target range of riverscape and pull our drenched selves out of the water.

Baptism by water.

I walk towards the trail that will lead us back to town where our car is. My watch, that I pray is telling me the right time and is not broken from the water, says that it’s 2am. We have to walk fast if we want to get back to the car at a reasonable hour.

Ava shivers as we walk. I feel bad for not having a go bag here to help us stay warm.

Instead, I rub her shoulders and hold her close.

Only then do I realize she isn’t just shivering, she’s also crying.

I know she loved him, but I feel no remorse for what we’ve done.

“I promise, everything will be better soon.” I say into the night.

There’s a rustle in the bush next to us and Ava jumps. She’s scared of getting caught. I on the other hand am not. I would take the fall for her in an instant, but I’m confident in my abilities to get away with this murder.

Ava walks a little slower, trying to catch her breath. I try to be patient, but when I look at my watch, it hasn’t moved, so I can’t be sure what time it is.

I want to throw her over my shoulder and carry her, but I don’t think that would actually do us any good. It would just slow us down and draw attention to us.

So I keep to her pace, continuing to encourage her as we walk. I swear I can see the first rays of the morning sun over the horizon, but I think I’m just imagining things.

For the first time, my heart rate starts to pick up.

He’s dead and we have to get home.

Someone will call in the fact that the bridge is broken and then they’ll find his truck and it needs to be after sunrise which means we need to be home by then.

There are no cars on the road as the trail reaches the street.

Just a couple more blocks and we finally see the car. It takes everything in me not to run towards it.

That stereotypical refreshing first breath of peace takes over my lungs once we’re seated in the car. We were supposed to be back here by 3 but when I turn the car on, my dash reads 3:45.

We lean our heads back into the head rests and laugh. We’re almost in the clear.

Slow and steady wins the race.

I carefully pull out of our parking spot and drive just a couple miles an hour over the speed limit to get back to the house.

4:00 am shines at me as we pull into the second driveway of the night. We have an hour and fifteen minutes to deal with our disguises. My mother meets us at the door so the dogs don’t bark.

After shutting the door, she and my husband help us strip off our disguises.

“Both of you, get in the shower and we’ll deal with these.” She ushers us off to the bathroom with a hushed whisper as my husband gathers every part of our disguises.

The warm water is calming. Ava scrubs at herself. I’m not sure if she feels dirty from the river or from her actions. The makeup streams down her face.

“We did it,” I whisper and bring my forehead to hers.

“We did.”

“You’re safe now.”

For the first time all night, a real smile spreads across her face. “Thank you.”

I give her hand a reassuring squeeze.

We finish up in the shower and dry off. Our mother snuck pajamas into the bathroom while we were showering. A pink satin set for each of us. The same ones she bought for herself when she finally got away from our dad.

We walk into the living room, hand in hand, at exactly 4:30 am.

“You look like a new woman, Ava,” my mom stands from her seat.

“Ready to burn our disguises?” I ask, not sure who it’s directed at.

My husband holds up the bag of our costumes and motions towards the backyard where he’s already started a fire.

“Thank you, my love.” I rise to my tip toes and kiss his cheek as I grab the bag from his hands.

Once the four of us are gathered around the fire, Ava and I toss it in together.

She lets out a deep sigh of relief as the bag starts to go up in flames. My mother dried everything just enough and my husband made the fire just hot enough that every part of it actually burns.

Baptism by fire.

We all stand around the fire until everything is ashes and it dies to mostly embers. That’s when the sun starts to peak out from the horizon.

The storm inside me is calm knowing Dan can never hurt Ava or anyone else again. And we did it all before sunrise. We’ll see what the rest of the days reveal.