daughter. She hugged her teddy bear.
My wife, Jules, reached over and put her hand on my thigh. “They were nice
people. I think you found the nicest people in the whole town on purpose, so that I
would like this place even more.”
I looked over at her and smiled. “So, you do like it?”
She shrugged and looked out at the snow. “It’s beautiful here. Who wouldn’t
want a goodnight’s sleep without fire trucks and police sirens every five minutes?
The smells of the farms are a little hard to get used to, but it is nice.” I put my hand over hers. “I know you miss your parents.”
“It would have been easier if they could have come too,” she admitted. “As soon as they sell off the property they said they would. The market just
isn’t moving that fast right now. Besides, you need to seek out the biggest bible
thumpers so your mom can fit right in.” Sure, I was teasing her. My wife’s mother
wasn’t that bad, but since her kids had all moved out, she became obsessed with the
bible channel. The woman literally watched it the entire time she was awake and in
her house.
I never had a problem with being a Christian. It was the way I was raised, but
this woman drank her rum and Coke at ten in the morning and snuck cigarettes on
the back porch, while gossiping to her church friends about what liars the rest of the
congregation was. It was extremely disturbing.
Jules could talk about her mother constantly, but the moment I said anything
negative she would go ballistic and it would start a huge argument. She claimed that
I worshipped my non-‐drinking mother, but degraded hers. Since I hated arguing
with my wife, it was best that I kept my opinions to myself.
We’d been together since we were sixteen years old. She was with me when I
decided to go into the police academy. After being on the force for three years, she
got pregnant with Katie. Even though times were tough, she stayed in college and
got her teaching degree. Since we’d moved, she no longer had to work and could
spend all of her time being a mother instead. Julia had a gift for making beautiful
cakes and now that she had the time, she started making them for other people. The
money wasn’t fantastic, but it gave her something to be proud of.
Our new kitchen was the perfect size for her to work in. We’d bought a house
that was a hundred years old. The kitchen had been gutted out and was now all done
in Amish Mission style cabinetry and granite countertops. I think that Jules was
more excited about the kitchen then she was at our wedding.
It wasn’t the big bedroom, or the large soaking tub that sold her on the house.
It wasn’t even the wrap around porch with swing, or the large great room with the
stone fireplace. No, my wife was madly in love with our kitchen.
“Mom said she talked to the Conner’s the last time they visited. She says that
they may make an offer on that rancher down the road.”
“The one with the large detached garage? Your dad will love that.” Her father
loved to tinker. He could make anything.
“Yeah. Mom doesn’t seem too thrilled, but I think she just wants to get down
here and be close to Katie, so she doesn’t really care what house they move to. You know she’s leaving the only house they ever lived in? It’s going to be emotional for
her.” I think it was also hard for Jules to say goodbye to the house she grew up in. “Daddy, can we build a snowman when we get home?”
“No!” Jules and I said at the same time.
“Sweetheart, it’s way past your bedtime. We can build one in the morning.” I
knew she would have us up as soon as the sun was rising.
“Do we have a carrot?” She asked.
I looked at Jules and scrunched up my face. She shook her head and started to
laugh. “For the nose, silly.”
“Oh! I don’t know, but even if we don’t, I’m sure we can figure out something
else to use. Maybe our snowman could have a pickle nose instead.”
“Eww! No way! It can’t have a pickle nose.”
Jules turned around and laughed with Katie. “Daddy has silly ideas, doesn’t
he?”
I looked back in the rearview mirror and saw my daughter laughing. “Why
can’t it have a pickle nose? Maybe it might get hungry?”
I loved seeing her smile. It was my reason for life. From the moment that
child took her first breath I knew I would never love anything more. She made any
bad day forgettable and my heart was always the fullest when she was in my arms.
Every time Katie and Jules laughed at my jokes, I felt overwhelmed with self-‐worth.
We’d had tough times through the years, sometimes even fighting to stay together.
At the end of the day, I knew that I could never want to be anywhere else. “Snowmen don’t eat pickles, Daddy. They eat snow.” Katie laughed even
more.
“So they eat their own hands? That’s gross!” I teased.
“Daddy!” She continued to giggle.
I looked back at my daughter and then over to Jules. One of my hands still sat
over hers. “I love our life, babe. We’re going to be so happy here. I promi…” “DADDY WATCH OUT!”
It was too late.
I turned to look at the dark road and saw the tractor trailer on its side, sliding
right toward us. Out of instinct I slammed on my brakes, causing us to go into an
uncontrolled spin. I heard my girls screaming and I started screaming too. The roads
were too slick to be able to retain control. I knew it was just a matter of seconds, but
for me, it seemed like it played out in slow motion. I tried to turn and look at Jules.
Her eyes were huge with fear.
The impact was sudden and I hardly remembered what it felt like that exact
moment. The sound of the metal making contact was piercing. I was suddenly cold
and looking around to see glass everywhere. My shoulder was stuck to my seat by a
large piece of shrapnel that had come off of the truck. I tried to jerk myself free
except the pain was excruciating.
Realizing that I wouldn’t be able to free myself without help, I turned to ask
Jules, but there was another large piece of metal in between us. The first thing I
noticed was that I didn’t hear either of my girls. I called out into the cold air, seeing
the truck driver running in the direction of my car.
“Jules? Jules are you okay, babe? Katie? Katie answer Daddy. Just tell me what
hurts, sweethear
t.”
Nothing.
I screamed their names, even when the driver came and opened my door.
“Get them! Just help them!”
The old man, who looked to be in his sixties, peeked inside of my wrecked
car. He pulled off his hat and shook his head, but looked right at my face. “Oh, God, I
am so so sorry. Help is on the way, sir. I’ve already called.”
“Just get them out! Why can’t I hear them? Are they conscious?” I had to
know. I had to know they were okay. I had to hear my little Katie’s voice. She had to
be okay. We were two minutes from home.
The old man just stood there shaking his head and trying his best not to look
toward the opposite side of my car.
While he just stood there, I called out for them, over and over again, with not
a single sound in return.
I don’t know how long it was before help arrived. The emergency workers
started on my side and I couldn’t understand why. I yelled for them over and over
again to help the girls. Hell, I knew half of the guys there. Maybe they had gotten out
of the car already and they were just on the side of the road getting looked at? It wasn’t until they brought out the Jaws of Life and started cutting me out of
my car that I realized the extent of the accident. As my body was pulled away from
the wreckage I looked back and saw why nobody would give me an answer. The
entire passenger side of my car was crushed against the steel walls of the truck. As
they strapped me down to the gurney, I screamed out for my girls, over and over.
This couldn’t be happening. It had to be a dream. It had to be…
“Sheriff, can you hear me? Sheriff Towers?”
I looked up from my desk and realized that I’d been daydreaming again. It
happened every single day since the accident last year. When I lost my girls, I lost all
of my reasons for living. I didn’t want to survive that accident. I shouldn’t have. This was my punishment.
I closed myself off from the rest of our family, unable to live with the burden
of being the driver that night. I’d killed my girls and I would never be able to forgive
myself.
After it all happened, I gave up on working, paying bills, and having a life at
all. The bank took the house and with little left in my savings, I moved to West
Virginia to a little town where I wouldn’t have to talk about what had happened to
me. I was sick of the whispers and condolences. Didn’t they know that the mere
mention of their names brought back every single beautiful moment of our life
together? Couldn’t they fathom that I didn’t want to have to imagine living out a full
life and never being able to hear them tell me that they loved me? Did they know
what it was like to sleep in my daughters room and cry like a small child? Had they
not considered that every single thing in my life reminded me of my girls? It had
become too much to handle.
Making the move was the easiest of decisions. An old friend got me the job
and had put in a good word for me. The town was small with only two thousand people. I found a cabin about five miles down a mountainous country road, off the
beaten path.
I just wanted to be alone; to be able to live out my life in seclusion. I wasn’t an
idiot. With the internet out there, it was obvious that some people would know the
truth. Still, not one of them had the balls to mention my past to me. I’d rather them
fear me, then ask the questions that I would never have been able to answer. “Sheriff, are you alright?” My deputy, Shelton Morris, asked again. I shook off the flashback and put on a fake smile. “Yeah, sorry. I was just
thinking about something.”
“You want to talk about it?” Shelton was a nice kid. He was in his early
twenties and his Grand pappy had been the last sheriff for the past forty years. He
died of a massive heart attack six months ago.
“Nah, it’s all good. What were you saying?” I had to keep up the charade that I
was just one man. They wouldn’t be able to understand what it was like to lose
everything. Not one day went by where I hadn’t asked myself why I had lived and
they had…died.
My girls were in my heart and the flashbacks were enough of a reminder that
I had taken their lives. I just wanted to do my job and go home without the stares or
the burning questions.
“Listen, I know you’re new here, but it ain’t good to hold things in. If you ever
need to talk, just let me know. You seem like maybe you need a friend. You been
here for nearly six months and nobody knows a dang thing about you, cept for what
they read about. I’m just sayin’, if you need a buddy, we can have beer sometime.” I put on a fake smile and stood up from my desk. “I appreciate that. I’m good.
Just not real used to the quiet out here. I’m finding it hard to sleep at night.” The
sleeping part was true, but it wasn’t because of the quiet. It was because I was alone.
I was a broken man and I couldn’t be fixed, not by a therapist, or even a buddy.
There was no hope for me.
Shelton shook his head and smiled back. “Alright, man. Well, I need to run out
and check on Mrs. Parks. She claims that someone keeps vandalizin’ her mailbox.” “That’s real crime there.” This was what we dealt with in this town. We didn’t
have gangbangers or drive-‐bys.
“Yeah, well, it’s a job!” Shelton laughed as he walked out the door. I waited for
him to leave before standing up and getting another cup of coffee. The flashbacks
were worse when I didn’t sleep the night before. I usually had bourbon to help with
that, but the more I used that as a solution, the less it worked.
This was my life. It was never going to be any better.
Chapter 2
Vessa Jean
Mornings were so hard for me, considering that I was usually up until two,
closing out the bar that I bartended at. My life didn’t just revolve around my job
though; I had two kids that needed to be taken care of. Sure, their dad was around,
but between his job doing tattoos at the shop and his outside customers, he wasn’t
home that much to be able to manage the kids schedules. Not that I expected it out
of him either way. He was pretty much worthless when it came to being responsible. I loved my children. They were my whole world. Asha was ten and Logan was
almost six and with their opposite personalities, they were sometimes hard
to
handle. They fought a lot, making my life even harder at times. Gavin, my husband,
was never there to see any of that though.
His parents were still pretty young and had two kids that were in school
themselves. My husband happened to be their accidental teenage pregnancy that
had led to their twenty five year marriage. Unfortunately, as much as they loved
their grandkids, they were much too busy working and raising their two youngest,
Gabe and Gwen. Yeah, they went with all the same letters.
My mother died when I was sixteen of an aneurism, due to complications
from a rare form of brain cancer. She was fine when I went to school and by the time
I came home she was gone. My father did a pretty good job raising me, but he’d
drank himself to death and died of liver failure three years ago. Ever since then, I’d
had to depend on myself for everything.
I’d been with Gavin since we were fifteen years old. Our on again off again
relationship through high school was like gasoline to the fire. At times it was
downright violent and, for some reason, we both kept coming back for more. When I
got pregnant at seventeen, it was pretty much a given that we were going to get
married. His parents wanted us to be just like them and, much to our surprise, we
had made a pretty good life for ourselves. Granted, we worked our butts off and
rarely had time for each other, but what married couple with young children did? Gavin started doing tattoos when he was twenty one. He’d always been great
at art anyway, so it just made sense. He started working for the current shop he was
at about four years ago. An old friend of his started it and added Gavin to the list of
artists there. The job was great and the pay was pretty good too, but what happened
at the shop was not alright with me.
They had these little groupie chicks in there all the time. They’d just hang out
and drink with the older guys that worked there, including my husband. Of course,
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