Whatever Happened to Kelly Kilcher?

Part 9: The Right Thing to Do

I raise my eyebrows. Jean Fable has just admitted that she was in the hotel room—with Don and Kelly—the night he murdered her.

“I hid in the bathroom.” She smiles proudly, her thinning hair more disheveled than before. “Kelly claimed she was there to pick up her last check—but eventually the truth came out. She thought they were in love. She thought she mattered,” Jean says mockingly.

A shiver runs down my spine. Jean’s hatred suffocates the room. I don’t feel safe here, but I don’t want to leave either. Something about this house is strangely comforting.

“Don told her to back off,” Jean continues. “Said she was being dramatic, that she meant nothing to him. He was furious she came back after he gave her all that money to leave.” Jean reaches for her wine. “My money.”

I glance at the fireplace. Kelly is no longer in the glass staring back at me. It’s just a fireplace, but I still feel unsettled. The room is dark and chilly, and the crack over the fireplace has opened to a crevice. It’s watching over us as we talk.

“Kelly was furious.” Jean laughs, her face contorting like a reflection in a carnival mirror. “She didn’t believe him. She kept pushing, raising her voice. Suddenly, she wants more money. Said if Don wasn’t going to leave his wretched wife, then he better pay up or she’d tell me everything. The little bitch tried to blackmail him. That’s when it got ugly. Don grabbed her by the shoulders started shaking. She begged him to stop. He refused to give her more money. Said nobody would believe a tramp like her. She was hurt.” Jean smiles. “She was really hurt.” 

The house suddenly shifts and a rumble reverberates through the room. My skin tingles, and again I get the sensation of the house trying to pick its way into me. The rainwater that had puddled on the floor has seeped into the walls. Water stains look like bruises that ripple and rearrange, forming recognizable shapes before dissolving again. A wet, guttural moan filters up from the basement.

Jean rolls her eyes. “She doesn’t like me talking about this.” Then she points her black eyes directly at me, making me feel judged for being afraid—and ashamed for every life choice I’ve ever made. It’s a feeling I know all too well.

“Then what happened?” I ask, barely able to speak.

“She slapped him,” Jean furrows her brow while looking down toward the basement. “So hard I felt it in my bones. Said she was pregnant. I could hear the smug in her voice when she said it. Callously wondering how much that would cost him. That’s when I ripped the towel rod off the wall and jumped out of the bathroom. I bashed her on the back of the head. The look on Don’s face was priceless. Kelly fell to the floor, grunting. Horrid, wet grunts. But she pulled herself up with the bedspread, so I hit her again. And again. All I could see was red. Nobody was gonna take my husband. Nobody was gonna give him a baby.”

Jean hoists herself up into her wheelchair. Her confession curdles the room, the air heavy with the stench of death. I can taste it when I breathe. I can feel it pressed against my face.

“You killed Kelly?”

Jean shrugs, finishing her wine. “It was Don’s idea to roll her up in a sheet and dump her in the pit before they poured the cement. I never wanted her here.”

“But you got away with murder.”

Jean shakes her head. “The stars were aligned with justice that night,” she says, followed by a haughty chortle.

The gash over the fireplace gurgles like an open wound, widening with every word Jean says. The house groans. The room tenses, as if we’re on a sheet of ice that’s not going to hold us much longer. Every little creak makes my heart jump. Every chill makes me long for something safe—like the summer of 1994 when everything was still okay. Kelly was alive. And we both still had time to make the right choices. I can still hear the desperation in her voice when she begged me to go to California.

“She wasn’t a bad person,” I say. “She was just doing the best she could.”

Jean stares back at me with eyes so empty I can’t help but turn away. The bruises on the wall shift and rearrange, blooming and fading as they shadow moments of my life. We all have these bruises. They imprint on us like notches on a prison wall. Time passes, but the hurt lingers. The regret endures. I should have gone with Kelly to California. I should have admitted what I felt for Geoffrey, instead of denying that part of myself for thirty years.

“I can’t believe you killed Kelly,” I manage to choke out. “I always thought it was Don.”

“And?” Jean barely lifts an eyebrow.

“Don’s dead,” I tell her, stating the obvious. “He can’t be charged with murder. But you’re still alive.”

“Am I?” she says, lifting her arm ever so slightly.

My head throbs from the strawberry wine. I came here looking for answers, but now I’m stuck with something far worse—the truth. I have this entire conversation recorded on my phone. If I go to the police, they’ll arrest her. They’ll find Kelly’s remains. They’ll charge Jean with murder. That’s the right thing to do.  

The house groans again, demanding my attention. The wound over the fireplace flares wider, its edges hot and red. Blue shadows surround me. A green light shines up from the basement. Kelly’s face appears in the fireplace glass. This time she’s laughing. We’re in her car driving down the highway. A bag of Twizzlers between us, Def Leppard on the radio. “Pour Some Sugar on Me” echoes from the fireplace like a pied piper, calling my name, pulling me from three decades away.

I’d give anything to feel that free again.

I walk over to the fireplace and open the glass doors. CK One wafts into the room. The scent wraps around me like a wool blanket. Safe and warm, I sit on the hearth and lean into the firebox, staring up the throat of the chimney. Soot-stained bricks lead the way through darkness towards the life I could have had… the summer morning I packed a bag and drove with Kelly to California, the night at the bar I returned Geoffrey’s advances with one of my own, the afternoon I first met Nathan—at Summerfest—instead of online, twenty years later. It’s all here for me. A chance to go back and make better choices. A chance to do it all over.   

The house smiles, the room flexing inward, calling me down to the basement. I climb out of the fireplace and brush myself off. The walls let out a deep, soulful ache and begin singing… poouuur sooome su-gar on meeee in the haunting lilt of a children’s choir. It builds to a roar so loud it compresses my chest.

When my phone dings I ignore it. I won’t need it in the basement, not in 1994. Nobody had a cell phone back then. I rush past Jean. She grabs my arm and scratches me with her fingernails, leaving red streaks on my skin. She’s trying to wheel herself to the kitchen, but she can’t get past the six-inch wedge. She rams her wheels against it—over and over again—while staring back at me. She’s trapped in the living room. If she wants to go any further, she’ll have to crawl on her hands and knees. And for what—lemon yogurt and chocolate milk?

The second bottle of Boone’s Farm stands on the kitchen counter where I left it. I twist it open and take a heavy gulp, smiling at Jean. The rush of sweet wine swirls through my mind, unleashing memories that make the bruises on the walls dance—me and Daphne hiking in the park after a day waiting on tables, Nathan’s smile when I say something funny, my favorite song playing randomly on the radio. I never used to appreciate moments like this—but I will now, when I go back and do it all over.   

I open the basement door. “Pour Some Sugar on Me” blasts at full volume. This is where it’s coming from. This is where I must go—but the sound is deafening. Absolutely deafening. And I don’t even really like this song. It’s crude, and embarrassing.

And that’s when it hits me.

This isn’t my song.

Kelly told me long ago that it reminds her who she’s meant to be in this world. It gave her courage to be herself and follow her own path—something she was constantly trying to make me do. I take in the bruised walls, the sinking room, the haggard old lady. I shouldn’t feel comfortable here. I shouldn’t want to stay here. But when you’ve spent your whole life not fitting in, even the most grotesque places can feel like home.

I look down at my phone. The ding earlier was a text from Nathan, a link to a HuffPost article titled “You’ve Been Folding Laundry Wrong Your Entire Life”. We’ve been trading these stupid clickbait articles since the day we met, each one more ridiculous than the last. It makes me smile, and it reminds me that I haven’t lived my life all wrong. Not at all.

Eloise Fairbanks—the Iowa farm widow—said everyone’s journey starts somewhere. There’s no right way or wrong way, only your own. I didn’t make bad decisions; I simply made decisions. I have nothing to regret or do over. The path I took is the path I took—and it brought me to a beautiful place. It’s time to be thankful for that, instead of wasting time wishing I did everything differently.

The music isn’t the house trying to draw me in. It’s Kelly doing everything in her power to push me out. Sometimes we see what we want to see. I have to get out of here before the house collapses.

Jean eyes me carefully as I open the front door. “What are you going to do?” she asks, her breath shallow. She’s still hanging out of her wheelchair, wedged between the living room and dining room. Her fingers twitch on the armrest. “Are you gonna send me to prison?”

I give Jean a sad smile and leave her to the house.

© Scott Thomas Henry, 2026. All rights reserved.