Daddy's Angel (Weeping Willow Book 1) Read online

  Daddy’s Angel

  Published by Zombie Cupcake Press

  83 Ducie Street, Manchester, M1 2JQ

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  This is a work of fiction.

  Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  © Copyright by Steven Evans 2017

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, nor be circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Cover design © Zombie Cupcake Press

  Editing by Emily Cargile

  ALSO BY STEVEN EVANS

  Reflections of Life and Love

  Savor the Darkness

  Once Upon a Cursed Time: Dark Fairytale Anthology

  Dedication

  There are so many people who have helped me along the way to bring this book to publication and I wish to thank them all.

  My family; Billy Evans – brother, Amy Christmas – sister, Loretta Rager – mother. Even when things weren’t easy they still supported and encouraged me every step along the way.

  Angelina Hinderliter who, through our connection with Operation Care Package & Books, became a friend and gave advice when I needed it. Tonya Ridener, of Double J Book Graphics and S. I. Hayes who tried to help me find my way with self publishing.

  Lastly, I want to thank R. L. Weeks of Bella Tulip Publishing for giving me this opportunity to publish with Zombie Cupcake Press.

  To all of you, I am so unbelievably grateful! There aren’t enough words to express how much I appreciate everything each of you has done.

  Thank you, Steven Evans

  OPENING

  WHEN THERE IS NO JOY IN SMILING, and no sadness in crying, how then, can there be pleasure in living or sorrow in dying?

  When living is accompanied by heartache and despair, when the air that fills your lungs is made up of agony and pain, when loving someone is met with shame and betrayal, your only hope, your only escape is Death!

  For some, living is a daily struggle. There is no peace or joy waiting for them. Their days are spent in sorrow and their nights in torment. Their loneliness guides them and their sadness isolates them. They long for a sweet release, a release that can only be found in Death!

  For some, Death is the only answer, they can find no pleasure in living, only pain. Death is the perfect solution to end the unbearable agony that inhabits life and love. They long for the end and anxiously wait for Death!

  Yet, for some, Death is not the end! Their suffering doesn’t cease when their body expires. Their heartache isn’t cured because the heart no longer beats. Their sorrow and hatred is not forgotten because their mind no longer functions. Their eternal rest is not peaceful; it is constantly interrupted. For they are doomed to roam the Earth, aimlessly, reliving every devastating betrayal captured in their memories… forever!

  For some, Death is not the end!

  CHAPTER 1

  TEAR SOAKED PILLOW

  FINALLY, THE LAST BOX! The U-Haul was unloaded and now the real work began, unpacking and making this meager cabin a home.

  My two-month journey had all but ended. I’d had to leave my home town, there were just too many painful memories living there. So, I had decided it was time for a change. A change in address, in scenery, and in my life. I had to learn to live again and I knew that would never happen if I stayed there in that town, living in the past, and crying over a future not meant to be.

  How could something so natural and perfect end up in such heartache? My wife, just as beautiful as she was compassionate, always believed in me and in us. She devoted herself to being the best wife and mother that she could possibly be and pulled it off easily. I never understood how someone could wake up with a smile and wear it all day without fail, but she did. She was happy with her life, with our marriage, and she absolutely loved being a mother. She was living out her dreams every day and her fantasies came true as she held our daughter in her arms.

  I didn’t deserve a woman like her and her love was more than I could have ever asked for, but I tried with each breath to show her what she meant to me. I lived to be worthy of her affections. I envied the way she attacked each new day with a blind innocence, with a spirit of adventure. I, on the other hand, found it hard just to open my eyes and greet the morning sun. Stumbling out of bed for the trek to the kitchen to enjoy that first cup of coffee became more like a military obstacle course with bombs exploding and dirt flying, bouncing off every wall until I planted my ass on the bar stool. Mornings were not my friend, but she had a way of making them bearable.

  I could never match her enthusiasm, her love for life, but I always knew how lucky and fortunate I was just to have her in my life, let alone, to share that life as my wife.

  Then, there was my angel. I didn’t have the words to say just what she meant to me. She was my daughter, my hope, and my future. She owned my heart and everything I did was done to see the sparkle in her eyes and, hopefully, to watch that sweet smile come across her face. She knew she had me wrapped around her little stubby fingers and she used it to her advantage every chance she got. I was her puppet and she knew exactly what strings to pull. I was putty in her hands and, although I knew what was going on, I was powerless to stop it. I loved every minute of it! She was her Daddy’s Angel.

  We shared so many good times together. I remember how she giggled and squealed trying to bait a hook for the first time. How the worm wiggling between her fingers nearly sent her into hysterics and how I ended up jumping into the water to save her fishing pole. Even at her young age, her creativity showed through in her school projects. She didn’t need help, but she always asked me, so that I wouldn’t feel bad or left out. Every night, she demanded that I read her a bed time story and Mommy had to be watching from the doorway or she wouldn’t close her eyes and go to sleep.

  I remembered my wife. She didn’t know how beautiful she was, but I did. I saw all the heads turn when she walked into a room. I saw all the jaws drop, and I saw the many eyes stare directly at her. I knew what they were all thinking…

  What the hell is she doing with him? He must be loaded or something…she’s too good for him!

  They didn’t know her like I did, I never had to worry about that stuff, wandering eyes, gossiping fools, and those who wouldn’t understand how true her love really was. I remembered that she always knew what I was feeling and could change my mood with a single glance. She was so scared, being on the back of a motorcycle for the first time. Scared, but excited, she screamed at the top of her lungs the whole time, but by the end of the ride, her arms were waving in the air and her hair was blowing in the wind.

  When she stepped off the bike, her legs were trembling so badly from the awesome power of that engine that she could barely walk, but you couldn’t have wiped that smile off her face for anything in the world. I honestly lost my ability to speak the first time I saw her in her wedding dress. I swear I was crying like a baby as she walked down the aisle and took my hand. I was the luckiest man in the world!

  Those were good times, happy times, and life was perfect. But, those times became blurry and quickly faded into the heartache and nightmare that my life has fallen into.

  Now, the memories were different, darker in ways I couldn’t explain. I couldn’t see them or remem
ber them when I was awake. Only in my dreams did they come to me, they haunted me every night and disappeared from my memory during the day. My memory was gone, but they continued to live on in every part of my life. Little glimpses of the past, their beautiful smiling faces seeped in, to fuel my sorrow and give life to my nightmares. It was the same every day. I wished they would stop!

  Waking up from dreams in a cold sweat, my pillow would be soaked with tears and a moment of happiness with my wife and daughter would be destroyed.

  The dream was always the same:

  I’m chasing them around the front yard, playing tag, seeing their smiling faces. As I reach out to grab them, I hear them giggle uncontrollably. Then I trip and fall. I never get to them, in all the times we play these games. They know I did it on purpose, yet each time, they laugh. Then suddenly, everything changes. The sun becomes hidden by clouds. The once fully dressed trees are now laid bare as their dried-out leaves are blown away, and the sounds of laughter mutate into screeching brakes and sirens blaring. My joy of chasing them turns into horrified disbelief as I find myself running down the street toward the cars in a mangled mess not even two blocks from our house.

  As I get closer to the wreck, through all the smoke I see the sea of people now gathered, the broken glass, and I smell the scent of oil and gas mixed with blood. I notice the bumper sticker Daddy’s Angel and my heart stops.

  “No, it can’t be!” I scream.

  With each step that brings me closer to the end of my world, I realize it is my wife’s car. I run through the blockade of rescue workers and try to reach my daughter. All I can see is her beautiful face. Still… limp…no smile… Her little body is lifeless and broken, blood trickling from her ears and mouth. I clutch her in my arms and gently kiss her pale cheeks, caressing her head tenderly, so afraid I will somehow hurt her more. The emergency workers wrestle her away from me…just to lay her in a bag and zip it up. My heart implodes as her face is covered in darkness and sealed away. My thoughts frantically turn to my wife.

  How was she? Did she make it? Would the love of my life also be taken from me?

  I’m not able to get to her. They already have her bagged, tagged, and loaded. I don’t get to hold her or kiss her or even say goodbye. I don’t get to tell her that I loved her. Now she sleeps, not ever to hear those words again.

  As the ambulance drives away with all that made my life worth living, I’m left standing in the wreckage that my life has now become.

  That’s where I always woke up, in a cold sweat, pillow soaked with tears and a moment of happiness shattered by reality.

  CHAPTER 2

  DRUNKEN BLISS

  I TRIED FOR MONTHS TO GET ON WITH MY life, failing miserably at every turn. Their memories were just too real, too vibrant. They lived on in everything, the house, the yard, the town, and my mind. I saw them in everything, playing in the yard, moving through the house and walking the street up to the accident scene. I heard their voices in all the rooms. Their cries became my alarm clock and their laughing mocked me. I dreamed of them every night. I wished it would stop!

  The next few months were just a blur. Days and nights melted together. I couldn’t distinguish between waking hours and sleep. I was a ghost! I stopped going outside. I wouldn’t go to town, cancelled every appointment, and the mail was piling up on the floor in front of the door. My clothes could’ve been found on any homeless lush, as clean as they were. I had lost my motivation to live, my purpose in life.

  I knew alcohol wasn’t a permanent solution, but for a little while, it worked its intoxicating magic on me. I needed no particular brand, as long as it achieved the desired effect…Drunken Bliss.

  I was lost and didn’t care if I ever found myself. My only reasons for living had just been stolen from me. My happiness had been ripped to shreds as the bags were closed. The only images permanently etched on my mind were those of the accident scene and of holding my daughter. Those scenes played back in my memory over and over again until my tears flowed like Niagara Falls and drowned them out.

  I prayed for the noises to be silenced, for something to ease my suffering and take away the pain. My answer was found with each new bottle I opened. The burning sensation in my throat, with each drink I took, was the only connection I had left to anything that resembled feelings and emotions. My last taste of living! I just wanted it all to end, for the memories to leave me alone. I just wished it would stop!

  It was a drastic understatement to say that I was just a shell of the man I once was. My will to live was broken. My desire to move past that moment in time had faded into a dark longing to die. My grasp on reality was slipping and my whiskey wisdom had convinced me that in death, the pain would end and my torture would stop. The bonus of this flawed, irrational train of thought was that I might even be rejoined with my family.

  I did my research on alcohol and how it affected the body using magazines articles and television shows. One expert even said people reacted differently and the time needed to cause severe organ damage couldn’t be measured on an average scale, each person was their own case and should be treated as such. Another said it could take anywhere from a year to several years, but that timeline was determined by the volume consumed on a daily average, as well as the genetic history of the individual. Armed with all the information I thought I needed, I felt pretty confident I could do it in less time. The one article that really got my attention said:

  “As noted, you either drink yourself to death slow or fast. Slow is waiting for primary damage to combine with secondary effects. Primary – Cirrhosis or liver damage and then esophageal varices where you die choking on your own blood pouring out of your tissue thin throat and exploding arteries. Secondary – Malnutrition, diabetes, hypertension, and cancer of various degrees. People at this end of the spectrum usually begin using other drugs as well.”

  So, I took this information along with what was left of my sensibilities and I sat down to draw up my plan of expiration. I outlined the rules and regulations, noted all the guidelines, and even marked the calendar for the day I believed I would draw my final breath. I did my best to figure out how much alcohol I would need to drink, starting from day one until the last day, with a steady progression each day or week, of course. I decided I only wanted to draw the entire process out for six months. Any longer would just be senseless. If it didn’t happen in that time period, it just wasn’t meant to be and I’d look for another way to get the job done. I was proud of my plan and set out to make it happen. It was going to be an assisted suicide with alcohol as my accomplice…Nothing was going to get in the way of my plan in any way!

  A strange calming sense of freedom came over me when I set out for what I thought was the last time into the world to get the supplies I needed to put my plan into motion. You can’t imagine the looks I got in the store as I strolled up to the register with three shopping carts full of liquor. Those old biddies were whispering like I didn’t know they were talking about me. I just motioned to them as if to say, “Here, want a drink?” and they quickly turned their heads. I wasn’t biased, if it was alcohol, it made it into the cart. Worms – no worms, clear, dark, bourbon, vodka, and tequila, it was all the same! Before leaving the store, I thought it would be a good idea to talk with the manager.

  He was just a kid, too young to be the head man in charge of a store like this, but his youth made him eager to be helpful, so I was happy to share my request with him.

  I asked, “Is it possible to set up a delivery schedule so I don’t have to come back into town all the time?”

  He quickly answered, “Yes, but we need a list of items.”

  “That’s easy, if it’s alcohol, then it’s on the list and it doesn’t matter what brand or style, either.”

  “Well,” he giggled, “I’ll also need a major credit card as we don’t run charge accounts.”

  “No problem,” I sung as I opened my wallet. “Take your pick, hell, take them all.”

  He was laughing as he s
aid, “Mister, I just need one and you’ll have to set a limit also, or as close to one as possible.”

  “Well, how does three hundred sound? That’s three hundred a week.”

  “Mister, if that’s what you want. Are you sure you’re not a bar or restaurant owner? Because we’re not allowed to sell this big a quantity if you are.”

  “Son, I promise this is all for self-consumption,” I said with a shit-eating grin.

  The look in his eyes told me he had never had a request like this before and he didn’t really believe all I wanted was alcohol, but he shook my hand and told me not to worry. He would make sure it was all taken care of and handled as discreetly as possible. He also said he was happy to have my business. If he only knew he was unwittingly becoming an accomplice to my retirement, so to speak, he would have probably denied my request and turned me in to the police on the spot.

  I made my way out of the store and as I was unloading the shopping carts and delicately putting each bottle in my car, as if each was a precious piece of Ming Dynasty China, I couldn’t help but think that the first step of my plan was now complete. Each bottle was packed with the ammunition I so desperately needed. I couldn’t wait to load the chamber and pull the trigger.

  I was thrilled, and for the first time in I don’t know how long, a smile quickly parted my lips, if only for a second before it hid itself once more. On the drive home, I was whistling. No certain tune, it was just noise to break the silence. I was satisfied and content, ready to open that first bottle and savor the initial sip of release. The only question remaining was which brand to start the festivities off with. I guessed I could do the old eenie meenie miney mo way.

  I thought it would help me let go of the past and be blind to their memories. I believed it would drown out the dreams, the horrible nightmares they had become, and allow me a little peace along the way to reaching the big red X on the calendar. I was eager to get started.

  I had given in to the pain and lost my humanity. My hope had bled out right in front of my eyes, and I just wanted to forget. I wanted something to kill the memories – their memories if need be, to end the pain, and to numb the feelings of living. I just wished it would all stop!