Prologue

Gordon

 

“Mom! Mom!”

I winced at the sound of my fourteen-year-old daughter, yelling for her mother as she slammed the car door shut. Normally I would chastise her for the force with which she closed the door, but I understood her excitement. This year had been a rocky one for our family. When I had bundled her and my seventeen-year-old son, Ollie into the car, heading for the New Orleans Mardi Gras celebration, they had accompanied me with great reluctance. It hadn’t helped that my wife, Barbara had decided not to travel with us at the last moment. As soon as we had arrived at the celebration, the kids had transformed, and we’d had a fantastic time. I hadn’t heard them laugh so much in a long time. It had felt damn refreshing.

“This was a great weekend, wasn’t it?” I asked my son as we got out of the car at a slower pace than my daughter.

Ollie nodded, his eyes glinting with excitement but which he would not show with as much exuberance as his younger sister. At his age, he had this thing about acting cool and staying in character. Even though his shrug was nonchalant, the gleam in his eyes was a telltale sign of how much he had enjoyed himself.

“It was cool,” he answered, and I restrained myself from ruffling his blond hair, so like my own. “I’m glad you talked us into going.”

“Yeah, it was great fun,” I agreed. Despite the problems that existed in my relationship with Barbara, I loved my kids more than life. Having them spend the weekend with just me had been an extraordinary bonding experience for us. I would have to remember to do it again sometime in the future. Only the two of us without Barbara, who would whine the fun out of everybody.

I opened my mouth to ask Ollie to grab two of the bags from the trunk, but the words never left my mouth. A bloodcurdling scream rented the air and raised the hairs at the back of my neck. Charlie! The sound wasn’t her usual girlish shriek when she was speaking to her best friend about some boy who noticed her. The scream was terrifying and went on as though it wouldn’t stop.

“Charlie!” I shouted her name and broke into a run for the house. As fast as Ollie was, he couldn’t outrun me. The need to find my baby girl and protect her from whatever distressed her propelled me inside the house. I took the stairs two at a time, yelling her name. “Charlie!”

I followed the sound of her gut-wrenching wails, past her bedroom and to the one I shared with their mother. I halted just inside the door and stared in confusion at the sight before me. She sat on the floor with the lifeless body of her mother clutched in her arms. On the bed were bottles of pills, uncapped, overturned, and empty. The phone was off its hook, as though in the last minute she had been trying to call someone.

“Oh my God, Barb!” I cried and flew towards the pair on the floor. I dropped to my knees and with trembling arms pressed my hands to her chest. No heartbeat. “No! No! No, Barbara! Oh God, no!” I touched her neck to feel for her pulse with shaky hands. She was cold. She must have been like this for a long time. She had been dead long enough for the body heat to have left her.

Sick to the stomach at what we had walked into, I released the body of my wife and reached for my daughter, who was crying and rocking back and forth. “Mom, please wake up. Mom, please!” Tears pricked my eyes to see her heartbroken, a girl abandoned by a mother who didn’t love her enough to stay and live.

“Charlie. Charlie, honey, let go.” I tried to pry her arms away, but she refused to let go.

“No, no! Daddy, wake her up! Please, wake her up!”

Pain lanced my heart at her cry. I heard a sob and glanced up to see Ollie. He hadn’t moved from the doorway but looked on in shock. His shoulders were shaking with the effort to try and contain his tears, to keep his composure. Tears burned my eyes, but I blinked them away. I was the parent. I couldn’t break down now. There would be time enough to grieve later. I was all they had now. They needed me.

“Come on, baby. Let go.” She fought me tooth and nail while I worked her arms from around the lifeless body.

“Please, daddy. Please.” Every cry of hers for me to do something weighed on my heart. Why Barbara? Why? You know they need you. They love you. We could have worked this out. Guilt ate at me, as I remembered the last conversation we had before the kids and I left home. I’d thought it was a rational conversation since she had offered no objection to us getting a divorce. Now I knew why.

I finally hauled Charlie away from the body, and she collapsed into my arms, crying. I hugged her to me tight, squeezing her to offer my comfort in the passing of a mother who had left her way too soon.

“Ollie, take your sister and go sit in the car,” I said, walking Charlie over to her brother. She clung to me, refusing to let go. “Charlie, honey, go with your brother. Please. Let me call the police.”

Ollie looked relieved to leave the room that had stripped him bare of any innocence he might have had left. He had just seen the sight of his mother, who had taken her own life. Fucking hell, I couldn’t imagine what was going through his mind. I was reeling with the shock of it all. When I was sure they had left, I ran my fingers through my hair, gripping the strands as I stared at the body once more.

I pulled the sheet from the bed and covered her because if I looked at her lying there much longer, I would have hurled. I staggered over to the phone and dialed the number of the only person I could think of calling. He answered on the third ring.

“Gordon, my man. What’s up? How was New Orleans?”

“New Orleans was fine,” I answered, choking up as I tried to form the words.

“What’s the matter? You sound—”

“It’s Barb,” I cried, hot tears finally spilling down my face. “She’s dead.”