Chapter 2
“Ma’am? Can you hear me?”
All I hear was his voice. My eyes refused to open, praying it was all in my head. Maybe I finally went off the deep end.
“Is it…is it real? Please tell me they’re fine! Please!” my voice was begging but I was desperate. I had to know it wasn’t real. My heart was trying to get me to face the truth but my mind refused.
“Ma’am are you hurt? Can you open your eyes? “The first thing I noticed was he had a slight accent, maybe British. His voice was urgent and commanding, yet gentle and told me I was not crazy and it had not been just another dream. The sympathy in his voice was mixed with suspicion. I have to admit with me passed out where I was, looking the way I did, I would have thought me guilty. I slowly opened my eyes and was looking into the most sparkling blue eyes I had ever seen. He had his chocolate brown hair hastily swept to the side, an offset to his black suit. One side careless and impulsive, the other side professional and organized. His face was young and clean shaven, yet I could see the authority all over him. Now that I was more aware I could see police officers and paramedics all around me. People were dusting the banister and doorways. This man speaking to me was no beat cop.
“Ma’am I need to know, are you alright? Have you been hurt as well?” I was at first confused as to his insistence on my wellbeing, until I looked down and saw I was covered in blood and everything I saw came rushing back to me. My beautiful children, my sweet, adoring husband, were gone. I heard a hysterical sound, like a wounded animal, that terrified me. I looked around trying to locate the source until I realized that it was me. My body was convulsing viciously and I could not stop screaming. The detective motioned for a paramedic and the next thing I knew was utter nothingness.
When I opened my eyes for a second time, I felt calmer, but could tell it was still the effects of the sedatives. At least I had stopped screaming. This time I awoke in a hospital bed, stiff and cold. The hospital sounds seemed to be pounding in my head. I felt slightly confused as words jumbled in my head, like they were trying to form but nothing made sense. The world no longer made sense. The tears welled in my eyes as my thought for a moment flitted back and forth across the faces in my head, the faces of my family. The haze slowly lifted and I began to notice more around me, the stereotypical painting on the wall of a garden, the pungent smell of chemical cleaners used to sterilize the room, the voices across the intercom. The more the haze lifted, the more I noticed. I tried to speak but my mouth felt as dry as the Mojave Desert. The detective was standing in the doorway to my room talking with another officer when he noticed I was alert. He came over and sat next to me. I tried to say something, anything but the dryness in my throat would only allow rasping sounds. The detective noticed this and quickly poured me a glass of water and handed it to me. As I quenched the thirst, I found the words I wanted to say.
“I’m not crazy am I? I didn’t imagine any of it, did I?” I was left behind while some cruel and sadistic twist of fate had stolen my family, my life. The detective took out his notebook and looked at me sensitively.
“I’m sorry ma’am but I need to ask you some questions. I’ll start off easy. Can I get your name?” He shifted his position in his chair, his foot twitching in an oddly hypnotic motion.
“Kristen Dyson. Charlie….Charles Dyson is my husband and Sarah and Michael are our children” I paused a moment and took a breath. “Or were, rather.”
“Where were you this morning?” I watched his brow furrow as he wrote my answers quickly. There was something about his presence that put me oddly at ease. Even more there was something about him that felt familiar.
“I was supposed to be on a weekend away. I got an hour away and turned around. I was only gone for two hours! I haven’t had any time away since-” I couldn’t say anymore. I didn’t want to think about my beautiful son, his brunette curls bouncing as he ran up to hug me. The tears began to well up in my eyes, threatening to spill over.
“What time did you leave and return?” I began scratching at the IV in my arm pumping me with the sedatives to keep me calm. This time I noticed the wrist restraints that were attached to the bed, but not to me. Just in case I went psychotic I guess.
“I left about nine this morning and was back a little after eleven.” I started watching at the doctors and nurses bustling about outside my room. I watched the cute redhead nurse as she tried flirting with the obviously uninterested older doctor with salt and pepper hair.
“Was anything odd or out of place when you returned?” I looked back at him. My answers were so robotic I had practically forgotten he was there. I began noticing the worry lines across his brow.
“The front door, it was open and unlocked. Charlie would never leave it unlocked but it didn’t look like it had been forced open” I began twiddling with the IV line. Anything to keep myself on semi auto-pilot. I could not let myself go back to that place in my mind, that scene.
“Anything else?” He actually look up from his notepad this time, genuine concern and sympathy in his eyes. For just a moment our eyes locked and I could feel the emotion emanating from him.
“Not that I can think of.” I had to look away. The feelings I got from him was too much. It just reminded me of everything I had lost.
He looked up from his notebook where he had been writing down my answers. I could tell he was trying to maintain composure. He handed me his card.
“If you think of anything else please call me. Otherwise we’ll keep you updated on the investigation.” He gave me a sad kind of half smile just before he turned and left. I looked down at his card, trying desperately to remove myself from this situation. His name caught my eye. Rhys Llewelyn. What an unusual name.
At this point my mind was reeling again, partially from everything that happened and partially from the sedatives. I was losing my focus. I really wanted to just curl up and die. What happened? Who would want to hurt my husband? The questions were never ending without any answers in sight. One of the nurses asked if there was someone she could call. I thanked her but declined. I would make the calls myself. The first person I called was my best friend Henna. Henna and I have known each other since high school. She has always been a little chunky but her very “in your face” attitude made her extremely appealing. She often wore her fire auburn hair tied in a pony tail, but against her pale skin and her eyes as blue as a Caribbean ocean, I always thought she was gorgeous. Henna answered on the second ring. Just hearing her voice almost broke me down.
“Kris? What’s wrong hon? I thought you were out of town this weekend.” I could tell she was getting ready to kick Charlie’s ass for making me cry or whoever it was. She was very protective over me.
“Henna, Charlie and the kids, they-” I couldn’t finish. My words were jumbled and erratic. I was sobbing so hard I don’t think she could have understood me. She was quiet for a moment.
“Where are you?” That wasn’t a question. I told her which hospital they had taken me to and with that I heard the dial tone and knew she had the keys in her hand before she even hung up the phone. She lived on the other side of town, a good twenty minute drive but she made it there in ten. As soon as she got to my room she sat on the bed next to me and held me as I cried until I had no more tears left in me.
“Can you talk about it? Can you tell me what happened?” There was something in the tone of her voice that was off. It terrified me.
“I don’t know. I-” I stuttered as I spoke. With no more tears all I could do is shake uncontrollably with grief. She just held me until we both passed out from exhaustion.
Time seemed to have stopped the moment I had walked into my house and found them but now it seemed to lurch forward at incredible speed. I was released from the hospital the next morning but couldn’t return to the house so Henna took me to her place. Leaving the hospital was a like a mad house since the media had gotten whiff of the story and wanted a statement from the grieving widow. Knowing this town they would try to paint me as the criminal. The media in L.A. is ruthless and don’t care who they victimize. I spent the afternoon calling what little family we had. I was afraid Charlie’s Aunt Rita had a heart attack when I told her since she went quiet for a very long time and seemed unable to answer me. She assured me she would call her son Jack and they would be on the soonest flight they could. Henna had already called my parents who were already on their way down from up north. After the calls were made I felt helpless so I just mindlessly stared at the TV, not really seeing or hearing anything, just trying to disappear.
When night came, that was the hardest. I cried when I would normally be kissing my children goodnight. I bawled when I crawled into bed and Charlie wasn’t next to me. I knew all I had to look forward to were the dreams.
It wasn’t the same. There was still blood, but it seemed more satisfied. It was like looking through the eyes of a beast that had just eaten fresh prey and was now licking its claws contentedly. The creature suddenly cried out in a rough sound right before I awoke with a start. The dreams were beginning to make me fear my own sanity.
I heard a knock at the door. Henna peeked in, trying her best to be upbeat to keep me from getting depressed without being offensive. I knew she was hurting too. My kids were her godchildren. She was there when both of them were born. We often referred to them as “our” children.
“Hungry? I got some fresh made donuts from the bakery next to the store. Joe and Karen send their condolences.” Henna was often up early to check inventory at the small clothing store she owned and would stop in at the bakery. The owners had become good friends to both of us and absolutely loved me after I gave them an excellent review on my blog about L.A.’s best unknown spots.
“Yeah, sure. I could use something in my stomach.” I got up quickly, trying to brush off the feelings from my nightmare. Yet with everything there was one thing in the front of my mind that was bothering me. Why my family? What was the motive? Even I could tell this wasn’t random. So what could possibly be the reason? Charlie wasn’t the kind of man to have any enemies and the kids were too young. At five and three I doubted they had made those kinds of enemies at the playground.
I followed Henna downstairs to her bright kitchen and sat down. Her kitchen always reminded me of my grandmother’s. It was a pale yellow color that just illuminated the sunlight. Her wooden table and chairs were antique country style. She looked thoughtful while munching on her crueller.
“I’ll help you start making the arrangements and so you can make that first step” At that moment I was grateful she didn’t tiptoe around things. She wasn’t making light of the situation and yet she wasn’t trying hide from it. She just accepted it, and I knew someday so would I.
I felt like time had stopped again. It took them two weeks to release the bodies. I had to rush around in the meantime trying to figure out when to arrange the funeral and make sure everything was paid for. Luckily finances weren’t an issue. I made a decent salary as a freelance writer, occasionally selling articles to magazines and newspapers, and Charlie not only had an excellent savings set aside but also his trust fund from his grandparents. It was heartbreaking picking out the caskets though. When I saw the one that was to be Sarah’s I had to leave the room. My contact with the police was little. The most I was told was there were no new leads. The funeral was uneventful, aside from the loud raucous wailing from Charlie’s Aunt Rita. Rita Dyson-Walen was a stout woman, small in stature, large in width with her honey blonde hair kept short and curled. She had raised Charlie since he was thirteen, the year his parents had died in a car accident. She told me on our wedding day that to her he wasn’t her nephew, he was her son. I often wondered how that sat with Jack. Jack was the same age as Charlie with the same hazel eyes. The biggest difference between the two is that Jack’s hair is the same color as his mother’s, whereas Charlie’s was a silky chocolate brown. Jack always kept his distance from me though. Charlie had told me once that Jack was just extremely anti-social. My own parents tried to keep their emotions from me, to keep me from hurting more. I caught my mom crying in the bathroom and she acted guilty, as if she had committed a crime. My dad couldn’t stay after the funeral, as they lived 3 hours north of us and had to return to work the next day, but my mom told me she would be staying with me for another week.
“To help you get things situated.” She had told me. I never even dreamed I would have to go through anything like this. You hear horrible stories on the news all the time but to you, they are just stories. The darkest part of my soul kept reminding me of the fact I went from a wife and mother to neither in a matter of hours. The morning I was allowed back in the house was the hardest. I could still see the blood stain in the middle of Michael’s room. I shut the door to both of the children’s rooms and wanted nothing else to do with them for now. I knew I would eventually have to do something with it but I just couldn’t. It was just too hard. I had to box up Charlie’s things at least. I knew as bad as it would be to take them out of the closet, it would be worse to leave them there. To see them day after day would be just another reminder. Sitting in that room I spent hours, carefully folding his clothes and putting them into boxes, trying not to break down. Every so often I would hold one of his favorites to my face, inhaling his scent, my only physical reminder of our ten years together.
Charlie and I had officially met in high school when we were juniors. For me it was love at first sight. He was well known around school as the star baseball player, captain of the debate team, and class president. I was very outgoing and rebellious and was surprised he even wanted to talk to me. I usually hung out with my group of outcast friends behind the building smoking while he was usually in the cafeteria with his group of jock friends. We had three of our classes together and even though I figured I had no chance with the most popular boy in school, I had a huge crush. I would watch him in English giving a report and I couldn’t hear a word he said. I was too busy having a private conversation with his eyes only I could hear. Then one day he stopped me after class and invited me to have lunch with him. I’m sure we looked odd, him with his brand name clothes neatly pressed and prep boy hair cut and me with my combat boots and baggy red plaid pants covered in chains and tattooed and pierced up the yin yang. Yet somehow, with all our differences, we clicked. He asked me out that day and we were inseparable after that. Whenever we could we were together. He loved listening to me ramble on for hours about whatever injustice I was protesting that week and I would listen to all the plans he had for life. Within a year after we graduated, we were married. He supported me in my writing and when he wanted to go to law school I was right there with him. I always dressed the part of a Hollywood lawyer’s wife when I had to, but he encouraged me to remain true to myself. He was my better half.
As I was putting one of his shirts in the box a small, folded piece of paper fell to the ground. I picked it up slowly and saw the writing on it was a small scrawling,
“The decision has been made. The only fault now is your own.”
What on earth did that mean? What decision? What fault? Who wrote this? I was confused and racked my brain trying to decipher what this could possibly mean. I hastily shoved the note into my pocket as I heard a knock at the door. My mom peeked in.
“Hungry, dear? We just got some pizza.”
“Yeah, ok. Be right down.”
I listened as my mom walked down the stairs and then snuck a quick peek at the note. As I followed my mom my head was filled with more and more questions.
As I lay in bed that night, staring at the note, my mind was buzzing. How is it possible that Charlie had a secret? Did he have an entire secret life? I brushed away that thought. My husband could not have done anything to deserve what happened. He did not bring this down on us. He couldn’t have.
The dream was more unrelenting. Like something was wrong. There were noises all around me, sounding like a group of people in a clamor. I caught little phrases like the note, too much, and don’t tell. Someone was angry. I heard several loud bangs before I awoke to the storm outside. Wind and rain were hammering against the window. I was beginning to feel these dreams were important. I would have to just pay closer attention. I watched the lightening dance across the sky for a little while before I drifted off to a dreamless sleep.
When I awoke, the sky was a brilliant blue. Everything looked and smelled so clean and new. My dream from the night before was still lingering in the pit of my stomach. I realized how little I had known about Charlie and yet how much. I knew he lost his parents when he was thirteen, after they had been killed in a car accident. I never knew the details and never pressed. I knew he was sensitive to other people’s feelings and hated being lied to. I realized I did not know where he was originally from. I did not know anything about his life with his family before he lived with his Aunt. I didn’t even know where he was born. How could I have been married to this man for nine years and not know?
