‘Hey, kiddies, I’m home,’ I called out—not as a greeting, but as a warning.
Lately, I had taken to honking before I pulled into the driveway, just in case. This time, though, the harbor was empty. Thank God. There was no sign of my dad or Ashley, his wife of six months.
I lowered my guard and went directly to the refrigerator. I had spent the entire drive home thinking about fruit.
‘Oh, it’s you. Home so soon?’ Ashley hissed from the shadows, like some creature out of The Lord of the Rings.
I jumped and flicked on the lights. There she was, carefully posed on the kitchen counter and wearing nothing but a thong.
‘School was fine,’ I said, making a determined effort to look anywhere but at the obvious.
The banana I had been craving all the way home had completely lost its appeal. It sat in the bowl beside Satan’s playmate, and there was no chance I was going anywhere near that fruit.
‘I find clothes tho confining thometimes, don’t you, Eva? Ethpecially in this heat.’
Eva Benefield’s father married Ashley, whom his daughter Eva described as ‘Satan’s playmate’
Eva has written a book about her experience living through the so-called ‘Black Swan murder’
Her fake lisp had returned. It was unsettlingly strange.
My new stepmother slid down from the counter and opened the freezer, placing herself directly in front of the ice maker for maximum exposure.
‘You know what your problem is, Eva? You have body shame,’ Ashley said.
‘Your mother probably had it, too, didn’t she?’
My mother had been dead for just 15 months. That was more than I could bear.
I bolted for the stairs and the safety of my bedroom, whose door had a lock on the inside.
A few months later, I was upstairs watching a movie when Ashley and my father moved in on me like summer rain from a cloudless sky—utterly unexpected, impossible to explain and completely unwelcome.
Clearly, they were concealing some sinister secret they could barely wait to impose on me. Whatever had them giggling and blushing like that, I was certain it had to be appalling.
‘God hath truly blessed us,’ Ashley announced. ‘It’th a miracle. God hath anthered our prayers.’
‘You are going to have a little thister, Eva,’ Ashley said, dimpling and scrunching her nose like an evil cherub.
I immediately broke into tears. I was having a full-blown panic attack right in the middle of their gender reveal. I mean, what the hell? They hadn’t even been married a year. My dad had only had his vasectomy reversed like, what, five seconds ago?
After Ashley got pregnant, she became completely unpredictable and often morose. You never knew which Barbie you were going to get.
I could handle moody Barbie; she was quieter. But over-the-top chipper and happy Barbie really freaked me out. Like the Barbie who came in chirping like a bluebird right at the beginning of my junior year.
‘You know your dad and I have been working so hard with the dancers arriving soon,’ she warbled.
I did not want to hear anything more about the damn ballet company they were starting. It was triggering. And super toxic.
‘Your dad understands how important this work is, to create an inclusive ballet,’ she continued. ‘I mean, obviously he does. He’s earmarked two and a half million of his own personal dollars to launch this project.’
I was like, wait, WHAT? Did she just say two and a half million of my dad’s personal dollars?
My dad did not have two and a half million dollars. My dad didn’t have 22 dollars last week when I needed money for lunch.
Months after marrying Ashley, Eva’s father Doug told her she was going to have a step-sister
Doug and Ashley were also starting a ballet company at a huge cost – pictured is Ashley as a dancer
Eva with her dad and late mother, who passed away around 15 months before he met Ashley
And in case anybody might have forgotten, there was now a baby on board. My little half-sister who did not know how to take care of herself while Ashley and my dad uberized ballet.
Later that week, he came walking in the back door unzipping a duffel bag full of cash slung over his shoulder. There must have been like 50, 60 grand in there minimum, all in small bills.
‘What’s up, Dad? Did you get a second job as a mule for the cartel?’ I snickered. It was nervous laughter. Dark humor is my mac and cheese.
Dad normally would have thought my joke was funny. Not that day. I don’t think he even heard me. He was focused on whatever petty larceny he may or may not have been committing.
‘The dancers are flying in tomorrow. I don’t have my checks from the bank yet on our new account, so I have to pay them all in cash, no big deal. I got this. Always a little bumpy in the beginning of these big, new ventures. Everything’s gonna be just fine,’ my dad said with seriously delulu-level confidence.
I stood there watching him count out his cash and stuff it into envelopes and I wondered if there was a specific day or hour when he stopped being a normal guy who went to work, came home, ate dinner, went to the beach with us on the weekends, cracked dumb dad jokes and showed up at my lacrosse games to cheer me on or yell at the ref for making a bad call.
He had been replaced with this guy with eyes in the back of his head and a duffel bag full of Benjamins slung over his shoulder.
My dad was running himself into a wall trying to make Ashley happy. But Ashley was never happy. In her eyes, he always came up short.
I still have the texts I sent to him that day in September 2020. I look at them sometimes.
It’s me telling him over and over that I’m freaking out and he needs to call me right away because I have anxiety disorder and am on the verge of a major panic attack.
I can see the rolling waves of fear roaring toward shore in my text bubbles.
By the time my uncle called me at work about 11am that same morning, I knew what had happened to my dad.
‘Eva,’ he said, his voice sounding all shaky and thick as sludge, ‘I have some really bad news to tell you.’
Ashley Benefield, who became known as the Black Swan killer, in court on trial
Benefield shot Doug – claiming it was in self-defense – and was sentenced to 20 years in jail
‘My half-sister will be 26 by the time her mom gets out… I hope I get to know her,’ says Eva
‘He’s dead, right?’ I said flatly. ‘She killed him, didn’t she? That’s what happened? She shot him?’
‘Yes, I’m so sorry, honey. Your dad died last night.
‘She’s claiming your dad attacked her and that she shot him in self-defense. Of course, we know that’s not true,’ said Uncle Dave.
It took four long years to bring Ashley to trial. And there were so many interminable delays and legal traffic jams along the way.
But on July 30, 2024, she was found guilty of manslaughter with a firearm, a lesser included offense, which was fine by me. It wasn’t murder 2 like we had hoped and felt was justified, but justice can be a crapshoot.
She was sentenced to 20 years in prison, and ten years’ probation, which felt like justice to me.
My half-sister will be 26 years old by the time her mom gets out, older than I am now. I wish her all the best in life, and I hope that one day, I get the chance to know her. She deserves to know she had a great dad who loved her so much, wanted to be a part of her life, and died fighting for her.
Excerpted from GHOST GIRL: SURVIVING THE BLACK SWAN MURDER – A MEMOIR by Eva Benefield. Copyright © 2026 Reprinted by permission of Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, LCC.
