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I rounded the corner of the bedroom, the pain in my chest stopping me in my tracks, nearly convincing my body to give out completely. Confusion plagued me as I pushed forward, listening for my wife’s voice. I almost certainly expected her to be consoling Aussie to some capacity. The silence of the room, aside from my daughter’s cries, were eerie,deafening even. It wasn’t until I reached the edge of the bed that my world completely ended and every ache I’d experienced began to make sense.
“Anna!” I groaned, despair consuming me wholly. “MY LOVE.”
Looking around the room, I searched for answers as I felt my body weakening.
“Anna! My love. Anna?” I called from afar, scared to close the distance completely.
Fuck. Anna. Baby. Baby. Wait. Anna!
Her perfectly sculpted body rested on the floor beside our bed. A single gunshot wound to the chest pierced her beautiful heart, spilling her love all over the floor. As much as I wanted to drop to my knees and beg and plead for her to wake up, for her to stop pretending, for her to open her eyes, I couldn’t. Paralyzed with incurable pain, I remained still as Aussie’s cries grew louder and louder.
My chest imploded. My heart shrunk, shriveled, and flatlined a thousand times as tears cascaded down my cheeks. This wasn’t a sick joke or a dream. My worst nightmare had come to haunt me. I’d seen that crimson shit that stained her silk white gown far too many times to fool myself into believing that life was still inside of her.
She was gone. My sweet Anna was gone. She’d done what she’d promised to never do—leave me. And not for a little while.Forever.
My vibrating phone chipped away at my paralysis. The numbness began to retreat. Makai’s name popped up on the screen. Needing to feel his presence in my world, I didn’t hesitate to answer the phone. The sound of wind whistling in the background confirmed he was no longer inside of the club.
“You good, bro? I saw your text and something didn’t sit we—”
“Som-somebody k— Somebody killed Anna.” I swallowed, eyes wide and heart bleeding. Shock was apparent as I bit the inside of my lip, closing my eyes and praying shit would be different when I opened them. It wasn’t.
The line died, leaving me alone again. Though I’d only said it once, the words kept repeating themselves in my head. I swallowed the ball of nothingness in my throat, desperate for any sort of relief.
The words that had come from my mouth made everything real. I melted to the floor, unable to keep my balance. My knees, legs, and limbs could no longer bear my weight. I collapsed like a sack of bricks, fresh off the boat. To my dismay, I landed in Anna’s pool, right beside her, face to face, chest to chest, nose to nose.
Reaching out, I brought her lifeless body closer and buried her face in my shirt. Her warmth had dissipated. She no longer felt like home. She was a mere shell of it—not even a solid foundation and wooden frame would describe how unfinished she felt.
“Don’t do this to me, baby. Don’t do this to me. Worry me. Worry me. Anna. Please. Don’t… Baby, don’t. Don’t. You ca-can’t do this to me. Come back to me, Anna. Baby, please. Do-Don’t do me like this. Anna, please. Baby. Baby. Baby! Baby, I’m back. Anna, I’m back. Baby, please.”
A loud thud from the opposite side of the bed jolted me from my despair. In a dash, I was up on my feet with both index fingers on my triggers. It wasn’t until I noticed Aussie’s absence that I realized she’d fallen onto the floor. Her cries grew louder as she got closer. Searching the floor for her tiny frame, I failed to realize she was right beneath me.
The white onesie absorbed the pigmented liquid that now saturated her arms and legs and the sight of it weakened me. Her mother’s love covered her from the bottom of her chin to her toes. She cried, continuously, making her way up to her mother’s chest where she began tugging at her gown.
“Aussie.” With trembling lips and blurred vision, I cried out. “Aussie, please. I’m so sorry. Daddy is sorry. Please. She can… Mommy can’t. Aussie, baby.”
Placing my guns beside me, I pulled her into my arms. I’d underestimated my lack of strength. I landed on my back, unable to gain control of my body or regain my composure. Holding my twenty-pound daughter was impossible. On my chest, I situated her because it was the only solution and the only way to begin to calm her. The howling that commenced let me know she was wise beyond her age and understood the magnitude of the moment.
The hollowness in my chest was far too much to bear. Aussie’s animalistic cries compiled had me reaching for the gun closest to me. Mustering the strength, I gripped the handle and wrapped my fingers around it before bringing it up to my head. With tearful cheeks and a rapidly breaking heart, I placed it at my temple.
Aussie’s trembling body rose and fell as I inhaled and exhaled. It was painful to even breathe without her and it was something I refused to do for the rest of my life. Ending it was the only course of action that would soothe my suffering. I’d much rather join her in another lifetime than to try getting through this one without her.
That was not how it was supposed to happen. That was not how this was supposed to go. We were supposed to grow old together, buy that land she wanted, take summers off, homeschool Aussie, give her siblings, and retire in rocking chairs with grandchildren on our laps.
Life wasn’t supposed to end here for us. Life was supposed to continue. Life was supposed to be good. Without her, it would never be. I tightened my grip on the Glock, ready to meet Anna on the other side. I squeezed my lids together as I began squeezing the trigger.
“Dada,” Aussie cried, sounding out her very first word. “Dada.”
The sound of her voice and the innocence intertwined revoked my mobility momentarily. Sighing as thick tears continued to escape me, I caved a bit more. I was quickly reminded of my mother’s mistake and how she’d taken herself and our father away from us. In the blink of an eye, we’d loss the two most important people in our world and were left alone. No matter how much love our grandfather poured into us, that pain never went away. I couldn’t do that to Aussie. She didn’t deserve it. She deserved her father. Anna deserved to rest, knowing she’d have him.
I lowered the gun to my side and slid it across the room. I did the same with the other one and used my left arm to wrap around Anna’s neck. Bringing her as close to Aussie and me as I could, I buried my face into the space between her chin and chest. Right there, right in my safe haven, I unraveled, knowing I’d never be whole again.
“Baaaaaaaaby. I love you. I love you so fucking much, Anna. I’m so sorry. I should’ve never left. I love you to the fucking moon and back. Baby. I-I- Anna. Anna, my love. You’ve gutted me.”
Aussie’s fist gripped my shirt as she clung to me. She still hadn’t settled. She was inconsolable. She was hurting and I was, too. We’d just loss the best thing that had ever happened to us. So, naturally, right on the floor, with Anna at our side, we wept.
Together, we cried. Together, we mourned. Together, we broke into five trillion and twenty-four pieces that would never be mended.
ONE
