If I could sleep, I would never have seen it. But I’m sure the fates knew that, knew that I would be leaning against the headboard, running my fingers through her hair, with the news muted on the television.
I didn’t need the sound. The images were more than enough.
Footage of a grisly crime scene.
A fireplace with scattered ashes where someone had been burned.
A hole in the wall, surrounded in blood, where someone had been staked.
I remember those marks well.
And outside of the house, a little girl being carried to a police cruiser, wrapped in a blanket, too in shock to cry.