Uncle Eli by Kristi Copeland

Author:Kristi Copeland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Manuscript Template, Public
Publisher: Twisted Tales Publishing
Published: 2023-10-03T17:57:38+00:00

December 15, 1961

I cleared out the old house today. It took everything I had to force myself to approach the house, let alone sift through the entire contents of my previous home with my previous family. It’s been almost a year. An entire eleven months have passed, and there isn’t a day—not one day—when I haven’t thought about how my life would have been different if they hadn’t perished. If I hadn’t let them suffer, then die in a horrific fire. If I hadn’t thought that my life was too perfect to be true.

My dad and I built this house after I began courting Rose. I knew I wanted to marry her from the first minute our eyes met. She looked away, so shy, but I refused to let it go. I was mesmerized. When she glanced back at me and smiled … oh man, my heart leaped, and I knew. I just knew we were meant to be. I remember those early days more in my dreams than when I’m awake. I try to push it all away, because it’s too hard to picture her without her hair on fire.

I don’t have any reason to celebrate Christmas anymore, for obvious reasons, so I thought maybe clearing out the house would be a good idea. That couldn’t have been further from the truth. Rose had just stored the few decorations we had in the barn but wanted to keep out the tall Santa statue on the fireplace, because the kids loved it. I couldn’t bear to throw it away, so I left it.

Dolls and toy trucks littered the bedroom floor. I ended up scooping toys mauled by the fire into eight garbage bags. Unsure what to do with them, I put them in the back of my truck until I could make a midnight run to the dump. For a brief second, I actually thought about burning them. We did that with the rest of our trash, so this almost seemed feasible. Then it seemed ridiculous.

It took six hours, and somehow, I managed not to break down until I got into bed late that night. I hadn’t cried myself to sleep in months, nor had I dreamed about Rose in her wedding dress in the last six months. Layla and Nicolas laughed and played with their toys, the same ones I threw in the back of the truck. I longed to hear my angels laughing just one more time. I’d do anything. Anything.

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