Warning: The following is short but very, very angsty. It deals, in a realistic way, with the death of young children (no details or gore). I worked for many years doing individual and group counselling of parents who lost a child or children and this is based on my real-life experience. It may be painful for some to read ... you have been warned.

He listened to the stories each of the parents told. He heard about Matthew, who died of cancer, his small life snuffed out by the unrelenting advance of a wicked disease. He heard about Jessica – tiny little Jessica – killed when a car plowed into the car her Grandma was driving. The Grandmother had been killed as well, adding to the tragedy.

Then there was Samuel, who had been born with a congenital heart defect. He died while waiting for a transplant that had never come. His parents spoke of his unending cheerfulness and hope. He'd wanted to be an astronomer, something that would never happen.

He had to swallow away the tears when one of the single moms spoke of her daughter Abby. They were best friends, her mother said. She used to love to brush and braid her daughter's hair. Abby had contracted meningitis from a kid at summer camp. The other kid had survived. Abby didn't.

Many times Jane wanted to stand up and flee the room. He had enough of his own pain to deal with, he didn't need that of others. The strange thing was, he'd come into contact with many parents over the years who had lost children through his work with the CBI. Some of his former clients, in the days when he was a psychic con-man had also come to him to try and speak with their dead children. But for some reason he'd been able to divorce himself from those stories. He'd been able to do the work and not allow himself to think or to empathize.

But now – now there was no work, there was nothing to keep his mind and his heart – although he didn't want to admit that – from hearing and feeling the pain of the others. It was too much. How could this possibly help him? How could this in any way make him believe that he could handle having another child? If anything it confirmed to him that life was too tenuous, too fragile, especially for the young and the vulnerable. He couldn't be responsible for another young life.

Carl had asked him twice if he wanted to share his story and each time he said he'd wait. Everyone he knew, that he associated with knew his story and never asked for details. Hell, they'd seen the details, the pictures of the crime scene, the forensic evidence, the record of his statement. He'd never had to tell it, after the first time with the police and he didn't think he could tell it now.

And there was the fact that as sad as all the other stories were, they didn't compare in horror to what had happened to Charlotte and Angela. He didn't want to burden people already suffering with the details of a crime too horrible to describe.

No, he wanted to leave this place, this place of pain and loss of light and hope. This was a terrible place, a place he didn't need to be.

But there was something that held him back. Maybe it was the look on the faces of the others - the looks that said they felt like him, at least those who hadn't spoken as of yet. But strangely, after each person told their story – the story of their greatest pain, their faces changed. No, they didn't look happy, but instead a strange sort of relief settled over them. Jane could see it clearly and he wondered.

The only other person who had not spoken was one of the two women who was there by herself. Carl had called her Andrea and she, like him, had asked to be skipped. Now that everyone else had spoken but the two of them Carl turned back to her.

"Andrea, did you want to tell us about your daughter? You don't have to if you don't want to." He said it gently, with compassion and suddenly Andrea seemed to relax, the taut muscles in her shoulders letting go, slightly, her hands unclenching.

"Christina was thirteen", she said so softly it was hard to hear her speak. "She was the light of my world. We were so close – her father died when she was three and it was always just the two of us but that was okay", she smiled slightly. "We called ourselves the invincibles. She loved to dance and to sing – she was always twirling around the house, singing and laughing. She was my baby."

Andrea stopped, her eyes dry but looking somewhere beyond the room she was in, as if looking at something that was not here. Jane suddenly had a horrible feeling – a feeling of fear and dread and he actually tensed, ready to get up and leave. It was then that she glanced over at him and caught his eye. For some reason that made him stop. It was as if they had connected and he could feel a shiver of something pass over him. He didn't know what it was but it made him stay where he was.

"She was murdered", Andrea said in a small voice. "She was walking home from her dance class – I was to have picked her up but got held up at work. She was kidnapped and then raped and left with her throat cut. She was my baby."

Oh God! He felt sick – he wanted to throw something, to hit something. Why had he come here? He couldn't take this, didn't want to be here. Again, he tried to leave, but something was keeping him back. It was almost as if there was a presence begging him to stay.

NO! He closed his eyes. There was nothing – there was no one there. He didn't believe it, couldn't believe it. He shook his head – he couldn't bear this. STOP!

Andrea continued to speak, once the words had left her mouth it was as if she couldn't stop. She spoke some more about her daughter, about how she missed her, about her guilt and all the while she spoke Patrick could feel something shattering inside him.

Once she had finished, her tears finally coming in great rivulets of anguish, there was silence in the room. Each person sat there, white with shock and pain – but also with eyes of compassion and understanding. They knew how she felt. Their stories might be different, but the pain was the same. Patrick could also see the guilt that so many of them carried even though not all had expressed it.

Suddenly the tenor in the room changed. Yes, it was filled with pain and anguish and loss, but there was also something – peaceful in here. Where at the beginning there had been only pain, now there was some small semblance of – he wouldn't call it hope – but maybe something not quite so dark.

"Thank you Andrea", Carl said softly. He reached out and gave her a very gentle, very light touch on her knee. "I know that was hard but thank you for telling us about Christina. What a beautiful girl."

Andrea nodded and gave a wobbly smile. She wiped her face and then looked directly at Patrick. He almost flinched back, understanding that she somehow knew – that she was now handing the turn to him. Her eyes looked at him – not just with compassion, which he had experienced from many people, but with total understanding.

He felt the breath leave his body. He wanted to cry – to weep. She understood. Someone knew what he was feeling. The thought lifted a burden he didn't even know he had.

He took a deep breath and cleared his throat. "I was a psychic – or I pretended to be one, although in reality I was nothing but a con man", he started softly, the words grating slowly past his lips. "I was also arrogant and thoughtless and because of that I killed my wife and my daughter …"