Trauma Read Online Free PDF Page A

blue triangle and a white square and a small red dot. It was titled
Serenity III
. On the facing wall there was a wide, fan-shaped spray of blood and pinkish clots of brain tissue, and a roughly oval hole in the plaster that Bonnie could have fitted her fist into, surrounded by dozens of tiny black speckles. Pellet holes.
    The cream leather couch was spattered and smeared all over with blood. As Bonnie walked around it, she could see that the white rug immediately behind it was stained with a glutinous ruby pool. The children’s father had shot himself, and what was left of his head had fallen backward so that, juglike, it had emptied his blood all over the floor.
    Dan came and stood beside her. “Sure made his mark, didn’t he?”
    Bonnie nodded “He surely did. But that’s the difference between men and women, isn’t it? When women kill themselves, they always make sure they do it on a wipe-clean surface, or in the bathtub. Men—what do they care? They sit right down in the middle of the living room and bang.”
    â€œYou sound like you take it personal.”
    â€œDo I? Maybe I do. It’s like adding insult to injury, don’t you think? It’s like the man saying, ‘Not only does my life not matter anymore, and not only does our relationship not matter anymore, but the home we built together, that doesn’t matter anymore, either. Who cares if I spray my head all over it?’”
    She looked up at him and said, “Yes, Dan, I do take it personal. I’m a woman. And besides, I have to clean it up.”
    â€œYou won’t get that bloodstain out, will you?”
    Bonnie hunkered down and ran her hand through the carpet pile. “This is wool and nylon mix. The trouble with wool is, it leaches up blood, and it won’t let go. I have a new enzyme solvent I could try … but you’re going to be left with a brownish mark here no matter what.”
    She stood up. “I guess it depends on the widow’s insurance. She could always shift the couch back to cover it.”
    Dan raised one eyebrow.
    â€œWhat?” she said. “I’m trying to be practical, that’s all.”
    â€œOh, sure.”
    â€œDan, not every woman can afford to recarpet her home just because her husband was selfish enough to off himself in the middle of the living room.”
    â€œI guess.” He looked around and shook his head. “It just makes you wonder what went through his mind, doesn’t it?”
    Bonnie nodded toward the wall. “That was his mind. Look at it now.”
    â€œSo what do you think that means, when it comes to the bigger picture?”
    â€œI guess it means that there’s a whole lot of difference between who we are and what we’re made of.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œAnd nothing. Except that I’m relieved to see that this wall has a washable eggshell finish, so the blood won’t have soaked right through to the plaster.”
    â€œWell, good deal,” said Dan. They looked at each other, and they both knew that their hard-cooked offhandedness was only an act. Nobody who walked into this house and saw what had happened here could fail to be horrified. The muted light, the blood, the terrible emptiness. The endless droning of a single fly.
    â€œHow about the bedrooms?” asked Bonnie.

The Bedrooms
    A corridor led from the left-hand side of the living room to the master bedroom, the bathroom and three smaller bedrooms. The smallest bedroom contained a single bed, a desk and a bookshelf. The walls were decorated with pinups of Brad Pitt and Beck. Out of the window there was a view of the side of the next-door garage, with a lone deflated basketball on the roof.
    â€œNanny’s room,” said Dan.
    He took her through to the end bedroom. It was here that the four-year-old boy and the seven-year-old girl had slept on bunk beds. There was a brown, metallic smell in here—the smell of recently