D eath . The great equalizer.

For the dead, death is moot. They’re probably drinking beer in another dimension, wherever that is, planning how to fuck up their next lifetime after living boring lives, or how to correct their mistakes if they’d lived to the fullest. I do believe there’s more after death. I may be the biggest sinner but I’m no atheist.

For the living, death is a reminder that our clock is ticking no matter what or who we are. Man, woman, rich, poor, strong weak, sinner, saint—everybody dies. Confronted with the death of someone we care about, it usually puts us in the existential math zone. We calculate the sum total of our lives. The triumphs. The failures. Mostly the failures.

That’s what I’m doing as I stare at my dead wife’s coffin being pushed by the undertakers into its final resting place. A rectangular concrete box cladded with the finest marble my money can buy.

Caroline. She’s probably my biggest failure today. Dead at thirty-two. Way before her time.

Her pain still echoes in the wind.

“What would it take for you to love me, Dave? Please, tell me. I’ll do everything.”

“I do love you, Caro.”

“No. Not enough. Not enough for you to love only me. Just me. Why can’t you be faithful to me, Dave? I’m your wife!”

I felt the noose tightening around my throat, cutting my air. My freedom.

I reacted on instinct. “My third wife.”

Her palm connected with my face.

I inhaled deeply, taking her fury. I knew it was the end.

“I’m sorry I can’t ever measure up to your standards, Caro.”

“I don’t want anything! I just want you! Only you, Dave!”

“Then I’m sorrier than I was before. This is me, Caro. You read my history. You knew what I was. What I’ll never be. I told you before we both signed on the dotted line. We both made our bed with open eyes. This is it.”

She grabbed the front of my shirt. “What is it do you want, Dave? Please tell me. I’ll do everything! Anything!”

I gripped her wrists. Her desperation was suffocating me. “Caro—”

“Please, Dave, please! You want a baby? I’ll give you a child. I’ll stop working. Please, let’s try harder to make this marriage work. I love you so much!”

“I don’t want a child.”

More pain exploded in her eyes. But I drove the knife deeper. I just wanted her to stop loving me.

“I don’t want to have a child. With you or anybody else. I never did. I never will.”

She let go of me.

“Fuck you!” she uttered hoarsely. “I hate you. God, I hate you!”

I stared at her unravelling before me eyes.

I felt nothing.

“I’ll add a couple more millions to your settlement. Would that make you hate me less?”

Her knees gave way and she crumpled to the floor.

“You’re so cold, Dave. So very cold.”

I was exactly what she said I was, and more.

I’m beyond cold. I’m numb.

The last person who cared for Caroline when she was alive has left the funeral. It’s just me now and the undertakers.

Caroline is going to be laid a few meters beside my mother’s grave. She’s earned the right to be in the Knight family mausoleum by virtue of being my third wife. I’d give her this honor because I broke her heart. I broke it a year after our wedding when she walked in on me banging my Personal Assistant in my office.

I’ll never forget the look in her eyes. She died that day. I killed her. I put a bullet through her heart the moment I pushed my dick into my PA’s cunt.

I fully expected her to leave me then, but she didn’t. She stuck with me. But she was a totally different person after. The confident woman full of zest became a needy, sniveling shadow of her old self begging for my affection every single day.

Trust, once broken is hard to mend. The cracks can never be erased by forgiveness. It will show its jagged scars at the slightest provocation.

It got old pretty fast. The suspicions. The jealousy. The screaming accusations. All valid. Once I broke my vow, I couldn’t stop.

When I fucked the first woman after I married Caroline, I also gave up on marriage. I knew then that I could never be faithful to one woman. Ever. I can be the most charming, most generous lover, but a despicable husband. There are demons inside me that even I don’t understand.

The third time wasn’t a charm. It was a tragedy.

I’ll not make any excuses for my failed marriages. I broke Caroline’s heart, just like I did Melody’s and Irene’s, my first and second wives, respectively. The only consolation I can get from all this is that I didn’t drive my first two wives to self-destruction or to their tragic deaths. They both went on with their lives after the divorces, happy with their million-dollar settlements.

I’m a billionaire. The least I could do was be generous to the women who had suffered my colossal ego and my unfaithful dick. I only hoped the money compensated for their crushed pride and dignity to some extent.

Caroline, however, wanted it all from me. She wanted all of me. And when she couldn’t, she found solace in other things. Pills. Booze. Men. She was hurting and she wanted to hurt me. It was her way to get my attention. But I wasn’t hurt. She couldn’t hurt me. Nobody can.

I didn’t want her to suffer any longer. I was going to divorce her. The papers were drawn up. But she died before we could even sit down with our respective lawyers. She drove her Porsche over the skyway one night. She was so smashed she didn’t even know what hit her. I had to put her in a closed casket afterward.

Now here I am, watching the last remnants of her existence disappear inside that concrete box to be sealed forever.

I’m not an easy man to love, much less be with. How unfortunate for Caroline that she fell in love with me the first time we met. Another man would have made her truly happy, and she would still be alive today had she not succumbed to the challenge of owning my heart knowing from the get go that I had no history of fidelity. She had so much faith I would change.

The truth is, nobody can ever own me. Nobody can ever make me fall in love. My heart is just not meant to be held by a woman’s hands, to do as she pleases. I just can’t allow that kind of power over me. Some men are capable of giving themselves completely to their partners. I’m not.

I’m thirty-six now, and I’m simply wired like this. Restless. I live for the hunt. I can’t settle. I can’t be content. I can’t be happy.

Happy. That’s a word. I don’t think I’ve ever felt that emotion in its purest form. Not even after three marriages and a hundred million donated to charity.

I should have known not to involve marriage in my relationships, but they were decent women and they deserved to be honored by my name, at the very least. That, I have freely given them with all my heart, the prestige of being a Knight, one of the oldest names in this country. Too bad I couldn’t honor my vows for long.

For all it’s worth, I swear on Caroline’s grave, she’s the last wife I’m ever going to hurt. I’m done with marriage.

I throw the stem of white rose I’ve been holding inside the concrete box as the men start to seal it.

Rest in peace now, Caro. I’m so sorry. I hope you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me, wherever you are now. I tried, but I failed. If I could just bring back time…maybe…maybe I could try harder. But there is no time. All I can say now is until we meet again. You can tell me all you want to say when we meet again. I will listen. I won’t argue. I will take it all. But until then, wish my miserable life luck. I know I’m going to need it. You came to make it better, but I squandered it. That will always be my biggest regret. Goodbye, Caroline.

I walk out of the mausoleum, leaving the undertakers to finish their job.

S he’s standing there , seemingly lost, still as a statue.

She’s looking straight at me.

A chill runs down my spine.

The cemetery is deserted now and the sun’s almost completely gone, leaving just a soft glow of blue and orange in the horizon. Twilight. Am I seeing things I’m not supposed to see?

I shake my head. I don’t believe in the supernatural.

That’s a real person standing over there. A young girl.

The soft wind carries the wails of her heart toward me. She’s crying. I can hear her little sobs even from this distance.

What is she doing in this cemetery alone? Is she lost? Where are her parents? Did someone die in her family?

I can feel her pain.

Strange. I’m never the empath. I’ve been called an unfeeling, insensitive, selfish, stone-cold bastard one too many times. The result of that is lying in a coffin right this minute. But I do feel this little girl’s suffering. I want to go to her and pick her up. Carry her. Rock her in my arms until her anguish subsides.

Fucking crazy strange.

I turn to my right. My chauffeur and bodyguard is standing under an oak tree that’s probably a century old, my black, gleaming Rolls behind him. Callum is an ex-commando. Deadly. Nothing escapes him. The fact that he’s not moving and just looking at me is an indication he knows about the girl and she’s not hostile or dangerous to my well-being.

Standing beside Callum is a woman whose face I can’t make out from this distance. They’re not talking to each other. They’re just looking at me.

The girl is walking in my direction now, her feet covering the manicured grass faster, until she’s running, her long, honey-blond hair and white dress flapping behind her as though she’s flying.

I’m besieged with strange emotions. It’s akin to a feeling of losing control. Of being helpless in the face of something I can’t stop from happening. I’ve never felt like this. I’m always in control.

She’s in front of me now, looking up at me with big, doe eyes awash with tears.

My chest clenches and my throat closes up, my entire body freezing on the spot.

I can only stare at her.

She’s a vision that stepped out of a classic painting. Even wet with tears, her eyes are dazzling. So blue they’re almost violet. Cherub-red lips. Rosy cheeks. Porcelain skin.

An angel. She must be an angel.

And then she speaks.

“Dad?”

A NYA

P lease God , let him accept me. Please, let him be my dad.

But he’s staring at me as though he doesn’t recognize me. Mother said he knows me, that she’s shown him my pictures. I knew what he looked like. I’ve memorized his face from the photographs of him that Mom showed me a few months before she died. At last, Mom told me his name. I could finally put a face to all those letters and cards that he used to sign with only a simple Love, Daddy.

Dave. That’s his name. The only name Mom gave me.

I can forgive him for all the times he didn’t come see me or get me. I’ll forgive him for all my birthdays that he missed, for all the Christmases and Thanksgivings we didn’t share.

I’ll forgive him for not attending my graduation from grade school, for not watching my plays and not cheering me in the soccer field.

I can forgive him because he’s always sent me cards and gifts, greeting me, telling me how he was so proud of me. I’ve kept everything. Every word he wrote, I’ve memorized and cherished in my heart. It kept the hope inside me alive, that one day, he’d come for me.

I won’t say anything about the fact that I’m now thirteen and this is the first time we’ve ever met in person, and not because he came to see me and finally claim me as his daughter. We’re meeting in a cemetery where my mother was just buried.

But it doesn’t matter. All of that don’t matter. What matters most is I’m here, and he’s here, and we’ll be together at last.

If only he would say something. But he’s just standing there, staring at me as though he’s seeing a ghost.

“Dad, it’s me, Anya.”

He blinks rapidly and then steps back. He keeps staring at me and it’s making me even more afraid.

He clears his throat. “Are you…are you okay, sweetheart?” he finally says.

My heart swells with joy at the endearment.

“No, I’m not. But I will be, now that you’re here.” My voice cracks and my throat hurts from the sobs I want to swallow, but I manage a smile.

Mom’s gone. I didn’t even see her get buried today. Nan won’t let me. I’ve been watching from a distance. I couldn’t get near the mausoleum. Nan said it would create talks and my dad didn’t know I was coming. I understood. I patiently waited for hours until all the people have left and only my dad remained inside the mausoleum. Only then did Nan allow me to go to him.

I need him so bad. I need him to tell me that everything’s going to be all right.

I wish he would hug me. I want to jump into his arms and make him feel how I’ve been looking forward to his day when we can finally be together, especially now that mother is gone. We must be together.

“Listen…Anya. There must be a mistake. I’m not your father.”

I freeze. I’ve imagined our first meeting a million times. What he said never occurred to me. “But you are.”

“No, sweetheart. I don’t have children. My wife just died.” His voice is soft, his words, uttered gently, but I feel as though he’s hitting me hard. Why is he doing this?

“Yes, I know.” My tears fall again.

“You know?”

“She’s my mother.”

He looks confused. He starts to shake his head. I feel desperation gripping me. He doesn’t believe me.

“Wait a second, kid. This is getting out of hand. Is this a joke? Are you pranking me? It’s not funny. I just buried my wife.”

Is he mad? “Dad—”

“I said I’m not you father!”

I flinch, his harsh voice pushing me away like a swift kick in my stomach. But I’m not deterred. I won’t let him deny me another day of his presence in my life. He owes me! He owes me years and years of waiting and hoping!

I dig into the pocket of my dress. I pull out my little wallet and flip it open, showing it to him. “Tell me this is not you.”

He stares at his picture. I looked at it every day, praying he’d remember me amid his busy schedule. I knew from the start that he’s a very important man. Mom told me he heads a huge corporation and is very respected in the whole country. I just didn’t understand why he’d kept me away. I found it unfair that he was with Mom and they both kept me hidden all these years. But even if I was resentful inside, I didn’t question my mother’s actions, nor my father’s. I was just hoping things would change. Mom promised me things would change soon. But then she died.

“Where did you get that picture?”

“Mom gave it to me.”

“And who is your mother?”

His questions are getting ridiculous. Anger rises inside me. “My mother is…was Caroline Knight, your wife!”

Shock dominates his face. Then his eyes become suspicious, and then furious.

“Is this a modus? Are you trying to scam me thinking you’d get some cash out of this deception? I’m telling you, kid, some have tried but failed miserably. Who’s with you in this?” he demands, advancing toward me.

I step back, afraid he’ll hit me. I can’t believe what’s happening. After all these years of waiting for this moment, this is what I’ll get?

“Answer me or I’ll have you arrested!”

What remains of my broken heart shatters like a fragile crystal on the frigid snow.

“I’m beginning to hate you, Dad. Please, don’t make me hate you.” I manage to utter despite my throat closing up at the pain that I can’t seem to contain in my chest. I feel like bursting with it all.

I can’t stand his rejection. I turn around and run away.