Thursday, April 2, 2026, 28.1* F, 81% RH, 0536
Without a light, the house would be dark, as dark as it is outside until the three walk, and I watch sensor lights turn on. No moon, no stars. I don’t sit in the dark. A round light faces the ceiling not my desk where the glare doesn’t play nice with my eyes.
As I sit down to type, completing prayers, their names came to me as names often do during prayer. They’ve been dead since 1991. I didn’t remember it was that year. I heard my name on the loudspeaker, “call on line 2.” Didn’t want you to hear it on the news, he shot her, then himself my ex had said. There were more details. I had typed their wills.
I left my writing to go search online for obituaries. I found instead an article about a fire Saturday at a historic inn with “some traumatic history.” That is where I discovered the year in an attached article dated May 9, 1991, ending with “we may never know exactly why this happened.”
I could tell you that she knew this was coming. She had no family. She did not want to be left alone when he killed himself. I could tell you they loved each other. I could tell you that no one knows what haunts us, what breaks us, what we carry in darkness. It all is true.
The world remembers without kindness.
Photo: LJ Austin
