“Jesus Christ, how was I supposed to know?!”
Aftermath
Father
The next few months were filled with several ups and downs. There was a trial. Melissa lived with me and Karen the entire time. Amelia and Cassandra went back and forth, according to the normal schedule, despite Cheryl’s protests. She apparently thought about getting an attorney and voiding my custody rights, but in the end relented and left things as they were. I think she realized that having the kids full time might impede on her social calendar.
Maybe I am too hard on Cheryl. I think after everything I have been through I don’t really know all the answers. It was obvious she never wanted the divorce and had always wished we had remained together. Maybe that was why she did the things she did. Maybe she had always done them, and that was just who she was. Maybe she was just a good person, and I couldn’t see that because I was too bitter with my own problems. Who the hell cared anymore?
The most difficult part of my life then was living next door to Melvin and Sandra. It was only for a few weeks, and then they moved. They didn’t talk to me the entire time they remained, not that I could blame them. I guess it was against their best interests, as well, since they were filing a civil suit against me. I would have explained to them I had no money to give, but I don’t know that this would have helped. I think when you are faced with the loss of a child and you can see the person who took them from you, you lose track of everything. Not that anything else really matters.
In the end, I plea-bargained my way down to seven years in prison. The judge told me that most likely I would have to spend about half of that in prison. I don’t know if that was fair, but it was what I received. Granted, I had killed two little girls, but since our system is overflowing with criminals, and this was my first alcohol-related accident, that was my sentence.
Everything is about winning and losing. The prosecution wins because I go to jail, and I win because I don’t have to spend too much time behind bars. The losers are those two little girls. What about the lives they might have had. I actually can’t think about them, although I think about them every day. If I dwelled on it too much I wouldn’t be able to survive, and I feel that I have to survive. What else do I have left? Survival is my only hope. Everything else has slipped through my fingers.
I do feel that by writing this story it has helped me pass my time while in prison. If anyone ever reads it and it helps only one person avoid driving while drinking, then I will have considered it a success. Anything beyond that is gravy, I guess.
Epilogue
Cheryl
Cheryl never really changed. She is still living on the coast. She is still dating, and she is still as antagonistic as she ever was. There is something to be said about stability, I guess.
Melvin and Sandra
Melvin and Sandra ended up getting divorced. The first time I met Melvin at Marcia’s 5th birthday party, he told me how unhappy he was. As soon as he heard I was divorced he responded by saying he was envious. He was living in his in-laws’ house with a woman he no longer even liked. I actually got that a lot when men heard I was divorced, but I didn’t really pay much attention.
I think the strain of losing two children is hard to handle in the best circumstances. Not sure what or how I would make it through.
They did end up winning a judgment against me in civil court, but since I had no money there was nothing to give. I guess if I ever get another job and make anything I will be paying them for the rest of my life. I wouldn’t even mind actually. It isn’t like I don’t owe them. I can never repay them enough for what I took from them. It is everything I can do to even live with myself.
Cassandra and Amelia
They both lived with their mother, and Amelia is on her way to college. She got accepted to Stanford but couldn’t figure out how to afford it, so she settled for Berkley instead. I find irony in her struggling more than any child I had ever seen in grade school only to end up being the most focused student I have ever known. I am so proud of her. Cassandra is on her way to high school. She is a rebellious, hard-headed kid, but she also has a great focus toward academia. Her goal has always been to be a doctor, and I actually think she is going to make it. Amelia will end up helping kids somehow. Probably being a school psychologist. I am proud of them both no matter what they end up doing.
Karen
Karen moved on. I can’t really blame her. She is going to be married this summer to a guy she met working in her current school district. They both share a love for kids and worked together at the high school. It breaks my heart to know how close to happiness I came with her but I also realize she is too young to have waited for me to fight my way through this mess. She had wanted a child, and I hope she finds her happiness and the family she has always deserved.
I owe Karen more than just being there for me. Melissa actually lived with Karen her final years in high school. I guess it was a fight with Cheryl, but she finally caved, and Karen took Melissa in as if she were her own child. The two bonded much more as friends than from a parental relationship, but Karen helped guide Melissa where Cheryl and I had seemed to so often fail. In the end, the redemption of my child is more than I could have ever hoped for.
Melissa
Melissa. Is it ok to say I am the proudest of her? I think it is because she really did overcome the most. She buckled down in high school her last two years, and with her always-masked intelligence easily made the honor roll. She didn’t quite make it in time to hit the elite schools, but she did get accepted to UCLA where she is studying to be a child psychologist. My kids: the psychologists and doctors. Who would have thought?
She continued with her personal counseling up until college, but after that decided she was well beyond the need. I would probably agree, although I hear once you become a psychologist, you actually have to see one once a week anyway. She never did have any more issues with voices. It was like the trauma somehow cured her. I don’t know what it was exactly, I can only be thankful that she found her way out of the hell she had been cemented in for so many years of her life.
I broke down and cried when I heard she was voted most likely to succeed in her graduating high school class. I, of course, was not there, but she mailed me the news. Maybe every family is required to balance success with failure and when my standing plummeted, it shot her to stardom. Kind of like that teeter-totter that has to be constantly balanced.
Father
What can I say about me really? I got what I deserved, I guess. I live every day of my life with what I have done. I struggle with happiness at the success of my three daughters and wonder if their paths would have been the same had the accident not occurred. Is the price that we pay for one person’s success measured on another person’s failure?
I spend my nights tortured by the nightmares of those dimples and that smile. I see them every night as I attempt to sleep. I will never be able to look at a dog again, without thinking of those little girls grabbing its ears and pulling on a tail. I love my children, but I am sure I don’t love them any more than Melvin and Sandra loved theirs.
I will never read a headline of an accident the same way. I can never be the same person that I once was.
I am finally getting out of prison tomorrow. I don’t really know what I will be doing or what kind of job I will get. I don’t know if my kids will remember who I was or if they will accept who I am. I will do my best to get up in the morning, put on my clothes every day and be the person I think I can be. I am only a shell of the man I might have once been, but maybe I can still find my way in the insanity that exists on the outside of this hell I have been exposed to for the last few years.
I can say one thing with complete certainty. My daughters will never again be able to make fun of me for my lack of emotion. I have been taught a lesson I will never forget as long as I remain on this earth.
I have definitely learned how to cry as sadness consumes me and my only nourishment is loneliness.
Learning to Cry Page 30