Mister Fake Fiance

e, David.”

“Okay.” He’s still skeptical.

“Let me put away some other stuff.” Like my underwear, which I’m not going to pull out in front of him. “Why don’t you go relax? Maybe watch TV?”

“Okay.”

He backs out of the closet, finding it hard to tear his eyes away from my dearth of clothes. But he shouldn’t be so surprised. Or maybe he’s just made certain assumptions based on his cousins. I’ve met Cora, and she’s a fashionista. Jan, too, to a lesser degree. They always put on something unique and interesting and colorful.

Unlike them, I don’t need much. And it isn’t because I’m saving for my golden years. Every month, a quarter of my income goes to a charity for funding medical care for children. I have a will that specifies that everything I have is to be gifted to charities or given away when I die. My body is to be cremated after whatever usable organs are donated.

And like I told David, it only takes half an hour to unpack. Then I realize I left my purse downstairs and go to the living room.

David’s watching TV. He turns around when he hears the clack of my shoes on the floor. “You like crime shows? They have Criminal Minds reruns.” He gestures at a huge bowl. “Got popcorn, too.”

That sounds like just the thing. I love crime shows, especially when it’s guaranteed that the bad guy is going to pay. I like to believe justice is real, and people who do bad things are eventually—inevitably—punished.

“Sure.” I sit next to him because he’s occupying the only sofa that faces the TV and watch the FBI’s finest hunt for a serial killer.

Except this turns out to be a rather disturbing episode. I don’t remember seeing it, which means I must have missed it when it aired the first time. There’s no way I could forget this particular plot.

The mother of the killer was packed off to an asylum some decades ago. It’s likely she was misunderstood. Back then people often locked women up for all sorts of made-up reasons, like to get at their money and so on.

The son, who grows up without his mom, starts murdering women whom he deems to be “Satan’s brides.” Toward the end of the show, it’s revealed that the son has some kind of mental illness. Are they hinting that the illness is genetic? I bite my lip.

I pray that the woman’s daughter only appears odd because she’s being abused by her killer brother. But at the end of the hour, after the son has been caught and carted away, the girl starts hallucinating in the same way her brother did.

My stomach burns. Maybe I shouldn’t have had so much sweet-and-sour soup.

The entire family—from mother, son and daughter—have the same kind of mental illness, one that makes them see and hear things that aren’t real.

You’re going to end up like your mom. Why can’t you see I’m trying to make sure you’ll be taken care of?

Dad’s angry, frustrated voice rings in my head. I stiffen.

“Creepy, huh?” David says with laugh. “Scared?”

“A little. The fact that the mom cut off the girl’s arm…” My mouth is bone-dry. To hide my reaction, I munch on more popcorn.

“Yeah. That part was really disturbing.” He shudders. “And the worst thing is, I don’t think the show writers were making it all up. A lot of crime shows are based on true events, even though they change the details.”

Ugly tremors run through me. The popcorn feels like grit on my tongue.

“So you think insanity is really inherited?” I ask, doing my best to sound casual. Say no, say no, say no…

“Could be.” David’s tone is careless, like he’s stating the obvious. “Lots of stuff is genetic. That’s why my mom said I better marry a smart and beautiful woman so we can give her superior grandchildren.”

I know he’s half joking, and what he’s saying isn’t wrong in any way. But every word stabs like a knife—painful and deep. I wonder if you can die from words alone? “But don’t you think it’s possible that it isn’t genetic? I mean, if all mentally ill parents had mentally ill kids, you’d have exponentially more and more mentally ill people in the world,” I say, unable to stop. It’s so, so important that David doesn’t say what Dad told me for so long, all the things that made me afraid to be close to people because… What if they noticed something wasn’t right? And what if David sees that something might be broken inside me? And that it’s becoming more and more obvious?

“Sure. It’s like anything else; you have parents with dark hair who have blond kids. So there wouldn’t be a hundred percent transfer through the generations. Just look at the show.” He gestures at the TV. “Reid’s mom has schizophrenia, but he’s fine. I mean, he’s a little weird. But perfectly sane.”

But that doesn’t make me feel any better. Reid’s mom isn’t that bad in Criminal Minds. Her love for her son keeps her alive and behaving as normally as possible. My mom was different. Too ill to care about me—her only child. That’s why she hung herself—or so my dad explained, over and over again.

Abrupt cold grips me, and I hold myself tightly to ward off the chill.

David’s smile slips. “You okay? You went really pale there all of a sudden.”

I can’t tell him. I don’t think he’ll mock me or shun me. But I don’t want him to pity me. Or treat me differently.