Tainted Love: contemporary womens fiction love story and family saga (Behind Closed Doors Book 1) Read Free Page B

One day, you'll have to teach your kids. It’s a family tradition. A slice of Hawthorne apple pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on a hot summer afternoon … mmm, I can almost taste Mom’s cinnamon pastry.
    Anyway, I digress. I'd planned candles, and as much as I detested it, I was prepared to sit through a vinyl recording of Cal’s favorite symphony to serenade our evening.
    I picked you up from kindergarten as normal that day and Mom planned on taking Georgia for the night when she came to pick you up. I was so excited. It was just me and Cal celebrating one year of wedded bliss. We hadn't had any time for just the two of us since Georgia was born, and didn't everyone say you must for your marriage to survive?
    You don't remember that day, I don't think. It was just like any other sunny school day. We were walking down my street with your hand curled around the stroller as you chatted about the spaceman you'd drawn and couldn't wait to tell Mom. I remember seeing an unmarked police car outside our house as you talked, its lone red light still flashing on the roof. I didn't think anything of it as I threw in the subject of elementary school in the fall. Police cars weren't an unusual occurrence in our neighborhood.
    As we walked closer to the house, I saw the suited detectives talking to my neighbor. She pointed to me as they looked and turned in our direction. “Mrs. McKenzie?”
    They flashed their badges. I don’t remember their names anymore, only that one officer was tall and the other one short and couldn’t bear to look me in the eyes. He hovered away from the conversation as though the whole situation was too much for him .
    A patient went off the rails at the practice, they explained, and somehow a gun was involved. My husband, mom and dad, and several other staff members and patients were held hostage by this madman.
    Suddenly all the fear Cal felt during my pregnancy closed in on me. My heart thudded, blood thumped in my ears, my breathing thinned to sips of air. Oh, God! What would I do if something happened to him? My voice trembled. “Calvin?”
    “He's fine, ma'am,” the tall detective said. I got the impression he was in charge by default. “Your husband's a real hero.”
    Later, I learned he'd been the one to tackle the patient with a syringe full of sedatives. But in that moment, the officer’s words were of little comfort to me. His voice warned there was more news to come.
    “He's at The General being treated for minor injuries.” Still, his olive eyes spoke a different truth to his reassuring and deceptive voice. He was telling me lies. “But I'm afraid Mrs. McKenzie, Dr. Hawthorne and his wife were pronounced dead at the scene.”
    Dr. Hawthorne and his wife... to passers-by on the street, they were just names on a list. On the top of the hour news bulletin, they were innocent victims…but to me? Why so formal? Why so cold? As I watched you playing with your niece still strapped in her stroller, you had no idea of the atrocities which had just destroyed your life. That's how I realized the message sent via the arctic poles was deliverable only to adult ears.
    Oh, God, however would I tell you?

 
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Six
     
    I don't think I've ever had a harder conversation. Except maybe the one I'm having with my pen and paper right now.
    It's so difficult not to give up and try to forget this ever happened but I need you to understand. I know I'm all the family you have and I've left you without a word. I know we haven't spoken for many years, but this... well, this is different.
    You've always been welcome at the family house. All you had to do was come home and you've always known where to find me; I guess you've always known until now. There is no forwarding address I'm willing to give you but soon you won’t want one, and soon you'll understand why.
    Do you remember the day we went to the beach? Just you and me on the crowded beach Mom and Dad took you to on weekends?