• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Nothing would ever be the same.

I dialed 911. I couldn’t speak.

I called Carl. He heard the gasping, heaving, groaning. He recognized my voice. He called the police. He thought some intruder might have hurt us.

I was alive. Alyssa was dead.

Where was the intruder?

When Carl got home I stared at him with eyes so full of hate I cried venom instead of tears. I beat his chest with my fists until they were bruised and swollen.

Later, the doctor said it wasn’t our fault. He said Sudden Infant Death Syndrome is the leading cause of death for one-month-olds to one-year-olds.

I told the doctor I didn’t need a leading cause of death. I needed my daughter.

We left.

I told Carl, “You killed her. You wanted to have sex more than you wanted me to take care of our child. I will never forgive you. You killed our daughter.”

34

My exit from Brookforest would be two days early.

The staff allowed me to “trade” my weekend pass for the early out on the conditions that I leave with the name of someone from an AA meeting who would be my sponsor, commit to ninety meetings in ninety days, and have an extra session with Ron.

Carl had no problem with the early release. Neither did I, but I knew the real reason, and I waited for Ron so he’d know too.

I sat in the chair facing his desk, propped my feet on the edge, and rifled through the Jolly Ranchers basket picking out my flavors for the hour.

“Shouldn’t you be eating a bowl of real fruit instead of those bullet-sized teeth breakers?”

Ron walked in and dropped his backpack on the sofa. He pulled his cell phone out of his jeans’ pocket, pushed a few buttons, and set it on top of his desk pad. For a minute, he stood near his desk, head down, patting his pants pockets like he was waiting to be beamed up somewhere. “I think I’m ready now,” he said.

“Are you talking to me or whoever's picking you up on that spaceship you’re waiting for?” His face scrunched so that it truly looked like a question mark. “I thought you were about to take off for a minute. You meditate standing?”

“Oh, that. I guess nobody's usually in the office to watch me get ready for the day. It's my mental checklist pause—cell phone out, keys in, anything else I need to remember or want to forget—maybe it is a meditation.”

I nodded. I remember school mornings. School keys here. Car keys there. Lunch. Coke Zero. Check. Check. Check. Check. Breathe in, Mrs. Thornton. Breathe out, Leah.

We volleyed the quiet between us until I was ready. Ron's invitation was obvious in his eyes. I trusted Ron, but even that didn’t push the terror away, terror that enveloped me in suffocating thick darkness. It pressed itself on me, its oozing hot breath on my neck. I’d carried it inside for years. Learned, over time, I could gorge it with alcohol until it would drop its hold on my spirit. My spirit. Hollowed out and stuffed with grief and fear.

I had to summon it, confront it, and destroy it.

Sober.

The darkness stirred in me.

It was time.

Journal 12

I am Leah.

I was ten years old. I did not understand what happened that morning. I started bleeding. Watery red stains on the white towel. Bleeding between my legs. Something was wrong. Some place inside me twisted and cramped. I was scared I’d made this happen. Maybe I shouldn’t tell. But what if all my blood came out? What if it wouldn’t stop?

I opened the bathroom door. Stuck my head out. “Mom? Mom? Can you come here?” Nothing. “Mom. I need to show you something.” My father hollered back. “Mom left for work. Hurry up in that bathroom. You and Peter are going to be late for school.” Whatever this was, I knew I couldn’t tell my father. Not about bleeding from there.

I folded a clean washcloth to fit between my legs. Wrapped it in toilet paper. I begged God not to let me die. And I dressed and went to school. My teacher let me go to the bathroom before lunch. I flushed the bloody toilet paper. Rewrapped my wash cloth. I became