I get out of the car before I lose my shit in front of him. No fucking way am I going to break down in front of anyone.
Walking into my house, I don’t feel like I’m home at all. I bought this house two years ago when I was finally given joint custody of Katie. I wanted her to have her own bedroom when she stayed with me, and a nice yard to play in. I tried to give her some kind of normalcy within my crazy lifestyle. Not that I have any idea what normal is.
And now it doesn’t matter, because she’s gone.
***
The house feels eerie. Too quiet. There’s no life here anymore. Just like that, in a moment, everything is gone. I never had a family, I never even wanted a family, and then suddenly I had an unplanned child with some crazy bitch that I fucked after a concert and kept around for a little while to party with. Next thing I know I’m a father and fighting the world just to see my own kid. I lost the first three years of her life because I was too fucked up to be a parent, and now I’ve lost the rest of her life because her mother just wanted to be a bitch. Katie was an angel and deserved so much better than two messed up people as parents. Maybe that’s why she was taken away.
I slowly walk down the dark hallway and stop at Katie’s doorway. Her pink nightlight is on, illuminating the room. I don’t want to go in, but I can’t stop myself. The mix of her presence and her void is completely overwhelming, and I fall to my knees in the middle of the room. The pain in my chest is like nothing I have ever felt before, as if my heart is being ripped from my body and sliced into tiny pieces. I want her back so bad. I want to just feel her tiny hand in mine and tuck her into bed.
Lifting my head, my eyes fall on Teddy, Katie’s coveted bear that she left here to ‘take care of me’. I crawl to the small bed and lie my head next to the little bear that, just a few days ago, we tucked into her blankets together until she’d be back. Pressing my face against the little bear, I can’t hold back my tears anymore.
Vandal
I’m a shadow at my daughter’s funeral. The pain I feel in my heart and soul has turned me into a catatonic zombie. I’m there, but I’m not. I stand next to the tiny, white closed casket as people file by and spill out meaningless words awkwardly. I say nothing.
Closed casket. Anyone who’s ever had a person they love end up in a closed casket knows something horrifying is going on under that lid. I know it. I can’t stop thinking about it. I want to pry it open and see my baby. I want to see the damage that I caused so I can torture myself with it for the rest of my life. I want to feel the pain that she must have endured. I want to live in it and suffer in it like I deserve to.
“Vandal?” My grandmother’s scratchy voice pulls me from my thoughts.
I turn and have to drop my eyes over a foot to meet Gram’s. She squeezes my hand. “Don’t turn to dark places¸ sweetie. Katie will always be watching over you.”
“Gram …”
She tugs at my hand and I follow because there’s no way to deny Gram what she wants. She’s five feet of white-haired awesome. This is the woman who found me five years ago when she realized her estranged son had two grown children that he’d never told her about. She’s the one who insisted Lukas and I get equal shares of my grandfather’s millions. Gram changed my life. If only she had found us sooner.
She leads me outside to the porch of the funeral home. The fresh air feels good and helps to clear my head a little bit.
She smiles up at me and smooths my long black hair. She’s the only one I let touch my hair. “Losing a child is the worst thing a person can go through,” she says, staring off. “A piece of us dies with them.”
I nod and wonder which Valentine child she buried and when.
“It won’t get better,” she continues. “You know all that is crap when people say that. But you learn to move on and carry them in your heart. The pain will never go away. You’ll always wonder what they would look like at this age and that age. You’ll develop a secret relationship with them, and that’s okay.” She squeezes my hand harder. “You’ll get through this, Vandal. For her, and for you.”
“It’s my fault, Gram. I never should have got in that fucking car.” I still blame myself, even though the accident investigation was inconclusive. The other driver had a few drinks over dinner. He wasn’t drunk, but may have been a little impaired. I know I was exhausted. The road was dark, with lots of winding turns. Maybe it was both our faults and we both drifted at the exact same horrible moment. I’ll never know for sure, but deep down in my gut, I know it’s my fault.
“Honey, life is a series of mistakes, regrets, bad decisions, tragedies, and occasional good luck. It’s not your fault. You loved her. You never would have hurt her.”