That day marked a new era in my life, a chapter of loathing. It began innocently enough with my radio alarm blaring a love song, I don’t remember the words. It’s strange, the things we recall, like eating toast with marmalade jam on the morning of the worst day of your life. My bus was late that morning do to the thick fog that had settled in since summers’ abrupt end. Fall had come quickly, changing the leaves to brown before ripping them to the ground were they formed drifts like the snow in midwinter. School was delayed that day; my first period math class was cancelled and the final left until Monday, leaving me with the weekend in which to study. The news came twenty minutes into my second period, speech.
The charred bodies were unrecognizable after the crash, but the sheriff knew the car, the necklace the female victim wore, and the male drivers’ belt buckle. He came into the classroom, removed his hat and asked, “Ma’am, may I kindly speak to Jessica Auburn?” As I rose my stomach sank, I attribute its MIA status for my later malnourished state, and puking fits. He handed me my mother’s necklace, an antique silver locket that my great, great, grandmother brought over from her home in the Netherlands. “I’m afraid I have some bad news. Early this morning your parents lost control of their vehicle. I’m sorry Little Miss but they didn’t make it.” Sheriff Daniel Wallace was an old family friend; he’d been calling me Little Miss since before I could walk. “Your grandma is on her way in.”
I didn’t cry until I was brought home later to a cold empty house. I raked the leaves under the old willow until I was shivering cold the next day.
