Epiphany Jones (34 page)

On the floor, my sister, she cradles her mother’s head in her lap. Tears stream down her young face. But Epiphany smiles. She smiles as she strokes her daughter’s cheek.

I scuttle to Epiphany’s side. My hands lap around the pool on her damp stomach. And through her crimson dress, I find the entry hole right next to her belly button.

‘Bitch–’
Matthew gurgles. The window behind where he lies clatters as grey clouds and wind and rain mix with the stormy sea.

I say, ‘Epiphany–’ and apply pressure. My finger tries to plug the hole in her stomach. It’s so tiny, the hole is. It’s no wider than a pencil. How can this much blood be coming from such a little hole?

Again, behind me, Matthew mutters,
‘Bitch.’

I think,
‘Saviour.’

He mutters,
‘Devil.’

I think,
‘Godsend.’

He mutters,
‘Whore.’

I scream, ‘Shut up!’ and I swing my blood-soaked finger at him, smattering droplets across the floor. ‘Shut up!’ I snarl. My voice is so frightening the other girls in the room stifle their sobs. And Matthew,
his eyes fall to his side, like an old man in a nursing home afraid of punishment.

Epiphany’s bleeding isn’t stopping. I wipe tears from my face, staining them with her blood. ‘Epiphany, we gotta get you out of here, OK?’ I look at my sister. ‘Can you – can you put your hands where mine are?’ I show her. ‘We need to stop your mom’s bleeding. I need to call an ambulance.’

And my sister, she nods her head hesitantly.

‘You can do this,’ I smile through blood and tears. ‘You’re strong like your mom here, OK?’

‘O-OK.’

‘Good. See how my hands are? Just put yours like mine when I move–’

But Epiphany, she rests a pale hand on my bloody ones before I can remove them. ‘They say I can go now, Jerry,’ she smiles weakly. And her eyes, they’re wet too.

‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘No–’

‘They say I can go…’

I swallow hard. ‘Don’t listen to your voices anymore–’

It’s not up to me,
her smile says.

‘But, your daughter–’

Her daughter fights against tears. She’s dealing as best as she can, but it’s so much for a child to take in: a mother, a brother, freedom.

‘You need to stay for your–’

‘Sister, Jerry.
Your
sister,’ Epiphany says, stroking her daughter’s face. Then Epiphany, she looks at me and says, ‘
You
need to take care of her now. That’s why you’re here. My voices said you need to be the one to look after her. That’s why I couldn’t let you take the bullet. It’s her brother that she needs…’

And a dam bursts inside me. Seventeen years of repressed pain and loneliness and guilt flow from my mind like a thunderous river. I don’t try to block it; I don’t try to hurry it. I let it surge through my body; I feel every part of it. Pain, regret, anger, hate. I feel them all – in an instant. The teasing and bullying at my grade school; the
fighting between Mom and Dad; the self-hatred over Emma’s death. More comes. Being laughed at behind my back by my co-workers; the loss of Bela; the hatred of Nico; the revenge that burned in my chest. The years wasted looking at porn; the anger at my mother for cheating on my father; even something as small as the anger I felt over the raise they gave to Roland instead of me – I feel it all flow out of me. And as the torrent ebbs, as the feelings slow to a trickle, my soul feels lighter than it has in two decades – like someone’s taken the Amazon River and sprayed me clean of the planet’s worth of mud that’s been caked to my body.

I look at my sister and when I do, Epiphany’s eyes glisten and she smiles. And I swear she can see what’s happened inside of me. I swallow and take a breath. ‘How long have you known?’ I lose my voice for a moment. ‘How long have you known you were going to die today?’

‘Since the ride in the car this morning,’ she says, a tear escaping her eye. ‘They told me you wondered if it would help me if you apologised for your father,’ she smiles weakly. ‘Then they told me what was to happen to me. They said this was always the plan.’

I shake my head in regret of everything I’ve ever thought about Epiphany. I say, ‘Why didn’t you tell me, in the car?’

And Epiphany, she says, ‘Because sometimes we need to discover things in our own time and on our own terms before we can believe.’

And the tears I have left, they aren’t of pain or hurt. They’re tears of gratefulness to this strange woman who came into my life. I squeeze her hand. I say, ‘I’m sorry I doubted you.’

But Epiphany, she doesn’t need apologies. ‘Talk,’ she says as her voice begins to falter.

She knows I understand the request. Despite being the ultimate believer, it’s still frightening, death is. Just like Emma, she wants a familiar voice by her side.

‘Your name,’ I begin, ‘is Hanna…’ Epiphany smiles and her green eyes flash one last time. Then she turns to her daughter and takes her small hand in hers and places it on her chest.

And on this stormy day, in this secret room, as eleven other girls
huddle in the corners, as Hollywood’s most powerful man lies dying on the floor, I speak to Hanna – a girl who heard voices from God – as she looks into the eyes of her daughter, a daughter she’s fought for twelve years to find. I recount our origin – our story. I tell Hanna about Emma, and how her daughter looks like her. I say how I can tell she’s just as strong as her mother, and just as kind as Emma. And I tell her about the dreams I used to have of her and how, in those dreams, I knew she was the
Deliverer
, and how I finally understand what that means. And I talk and talk and talk until Epiphany Jones joins her voices.

Michael Grothaus is a novelist and journalist who spent years researching sex trafficking, using his experiences as a springboard for his debut novel
Epiphany Jones
. Born in Saint Louis, Missouri in 1977, he spent his twenties in Chicago, where he earned his degree in filmmaking and worked for institutions including The Art Institute of Chicago, Twentieth Century Fox and Apple. As a journalist he regularly writes about creativity, tech, subcultures, sex and pornography, the effects of mass media on our psyches, and just plain mysterious stuff for publications including
Fast Company, VICE, The Guardian, Engadget
, and more. He’s also done immersion journalism at geopolitical events including the Hong Kong protests against Beijing in 2014. His writing is read by millions of people each month. Michael lives in London.