Why

WHY
By C.J. Riley

“Why, How could you, why did you do this to us”
The words spoken from a voice in the fog, coming closer. Always coming closer. The voices themselves coming together as if in some twisted trio.
“It’s your fault you did this.”
He could see them now just on the edge of his vision drawing nearer. His heart sank as he looked at them, their bodies twisted at strange angles, the flesh torn in some places, cut in others. The blood oh the blood and pain.
“Why Daddy?” spoken from the littlest.
“Why?” from all three of them now.
He wanted to turn away, to run. He could not. He knew what he had done. He believed as they did. This was his fault.

The scream that flooded the room awakened him. His scream, their voices, placing his hands to his head, he cried. There was a time when he could drink the dreams away. Lost in the haze of alcohol he could sleep. Sleep, oh how he hated sleep. The drinking was not helping anymore. They were there. They were gone. They would not leave him in peace. He loved them. He wanted nothing but to be with them. But they were dead and it was his fault.

Getting up from the bed and heading to the bedroom door he stumbled over filthy clothes and beer bottles.
“She would have never let this place get like this”
The thought found a home in his mind before he could force it away. It slammed him to a halt as the memory of them over took all else.
They were packing, getting ready for the summer vacation he had been promising for two years now. It was going to be great. They would drive this time. Oh sure it would take twice the time to get there, but the miles spent on the road would bring them closer as a family. If all went according to plan it would take four days to complete the trip, then nothing but fun and relaxation.
Things never go as planned.
They started to. In fact the first three days were as near to perfect as possible. The boys were doing great for such a long ride, only having to be asked a few times if they needed him to stop the car, with that came a knowing smile from his wife. The hotels had all been clean and well managed; there were no problems with the reservations. All was well. Until that last night on the road.
He had been driving for some time. Everyone else was asleep. The radio was playing softly and all in all he was quite content. His wife had awoken once to ask if he would like her to drive, but he had insisted he was fine and would sleep when they got there.
That memory nearly knocked him to his knees., Why did he not just pull over and let her drive? Why did he always have to be in control? That was what killed his family, his idea of being a man! His damned preoccupation with the rolle of what a father and husband should be. He knew that now.
He could remember his eyes starting to droop. He had turned the radio up a bit to help him feel not so tired. He even started to sing a bit just to keep his mind on something other than the road. Then the sign, HOTEL 3miles. He could make it. No problem. The song on the radio had changed. The Eagles Hotel California, sliding through the speakers sending a smile to his lips, rejuvenating his reserves for a short time. Too short a time, by the end of the song his head was on his chest, eyes closed. He never even heard the trains horn.
He awoke to screams that time too, but not his. He had a moment of disorientation. Not knowing where he was or what was happening. Things were moving around him too fast. Making it so he could identify nothing of his surroundings. There was pain in his side, and the screaming had stopped. The only sound now was screeching metal on metal.
When the car was torn from the train by a tree planted too close to the tracks, everything came to a halt. He remembered where he was and where he was supposed to be. Panic seized him; he turned around to check his wife. The pain in his side was flaring through him as he moved.
He knew as soon as he looked at her that he could not help her. The steel hood had bent back and forced through the windshield slicing through her throat to a point of almost decapitating her. His mind went blank, then calm as the shock set in. He looked back to check on the boys hoping they could not see their mother.
“Be careful what you wish for,” His father used to say.
He was on his knees now, the grief and sorrow settling in to him as dirt on a freshly filled grave. He cried a cry of self- hatred, a cry of fury and pain. The sobs that gripped him were hand holds to push the pain deeper into himself.
The boys were with their mom, the youngest with the back of his head pushed in, his eyes staring at death. His oldest still held a look of surprise. But the eyes saw nothing and it was all his fault.
The pain in his side was too great to be ignored. He looked down involuntarily. What he saw, oh what he saw. His wife’s left arm was twisted at a grotesque angle; the bone from her forearm tore through her skin to impale into him. At that point he passed out.
He awoke in the hospital, remembering everything. Nothing could take the image of his own doing away from him. Friends came to visit, to give their condolences. He pushed them all away. At the funeral he had left early not being able to stand the pity in the eyes of all there. He did not deserve it. It was all his fault. He ran from everything that would remind him of them.
Then the dreams came.
He was certain they came to punish him. He knew that he deserved no better. He still loved them, but there was no way they could still love him after what he had done. He could not sleep, could not face them.
His job was gone now. They tried to let him take the time he needed and come back. But he knew he would not return. He was living off the insurance money. The guilt he felt from that pinched his stomach into hard knots.
“Death Money” was the name he had for it.
So he drank, drank to ease the pain, drank so he could not think. Drank because they would never know how sorry he was, and because he could never forgive himself.
Working his way to the dining room table he grabbed a fresh bottle of whiskey, pushed the remains of a pizza he could not remember eating on to the floor, and drank deeply.
Picking up the local newspaper on the floor he began to read.
Local family homeless after last night’s storm.
The story was about just what the headline stated. A family of four lost there home when it could not stand up the incredible winds the storm produced. The paper was calling out for the community for help for them.
He didn’t care,
”SO THEY LOST A HOUSE” he bellowed at the paper. “ I LOST EVERYTHING”
They could rebuild, start again. They were lucky and did not even know it.
His eyes scanned the next story,
Boy drowns in lake, Family mourns.
“No Shit They MOURN!”
This was too much for him, more than he could stand. Slamming the paper on to the table, He took a long pull from the bottle, let his head fall to the table and sobbed.
Sleep took him, the dream took him. They were there all looking at him, their eyes sad. His wife spoke.
“You did this,” she hissed
The boys joined “you did this”
He watched them through tear blurred eyes. He missed them so much. But they were never going to forgive him.
As if his wife could read that thought, the love of his life whipped her head around to glare into his eyes.
“You did this, you make us what you will, you trap us inside you as we were when we died. Not as we lived.” You damned the part of us that is still with you” the words like ice through his veins. “Its you who can not forgive my heart. NOW WAKE” with those words the whiskey bottle appeared in her hand. She poured what was left over his head.
Being unaware how long he had been asleep mixed with the confusion of why he was wet. All came together at once. Springing from the chair he let out a startled cry. In his sleep he had upset the whiskey, spilling it.
“It could not have been her. She’s dead. “ He mumbled to himself over and over.
He watched in a dull haze as the liquor pooled then formed a yellowish river that ran on to the floor. Jumping forward he tried in vain to catch up the liquid, to hold the flow back, he grabbed for the newspaper hoping to use it to help stop the flood. Glancing at the paper in his hand, the battle was forgotten, as he fell to the floor.
Staring at the page not being able to pull his eyes away, being afraid that if he did what he saw would fade away. The liquor that soaked the paper had changed the words on the page. They had blurred, smeared, twisted until they were not as they had been. He sat stunned looking at them. For in large print in what he was sure was his wife’s handwriting was a message.


We forgive you.
Live again my heart, and let us live within you.

He held the paper close, and cried. Not the guilt stricken self-hating sobs of before, but a cleansing cry. They loved him and had forgiven him. He would live again.