The Memory of Us by Camille Di Maio

Author:Camille Di Maio [Di Maio, Camille]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781503934757
Published: 2016-05-31T04:00:00+00:00

Abertillery

The children quieted when Father McCarthy entered the room. I could only hear the muffled sounds of his voice from where he’d left me at their dead mother’s bedside, but he seemed to calm them with his words.

I would have liked to go home now, but the only exit was through that crowded room. I felt claustrophobic and blamed it on the house. But truly it was my own mind closing in on me. As though the static from a radio program was fragmenting the voices trying to come through:

“. . . don’t like the deception . . .”

“. . . twenty thousand things . . .”

“. . . I forbid . . .”

“. . . secrets . . .”

“. . . I’m enlisting . . .”

“. . . be safe here . . .”

The memories these words carried were unwelcome, but they assaulted me anyway. Like artillery, they pounded the remains of my fortress, leaving holes that let the past escape piece by piece.

The people I’d loved, the people I’d left, their voices came back to me in a rising tide until, overwhelmed, I crumbled down onto the floor and wept with abandon. The tears burned my skin, and I made no attempt to wipe them away. I was supposed to suffer—my eternal punishment—because of what I’d done. Maybe this was just the beginning.

I heard the priest return to the room. I didn’t need to see his face to finally acknowledge the evidence. The voice. The ring on his finger. His reassuring presence. My Kyle was in front of me. What was I going to do about it?

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