January 10th, 1999
Heavy sobs carried her into that Sunday. Exhaustion clouded her mind as grief created salt water trails that slipped down her cheeks. Her chest hurt with every gasp of breath. Her head pounded sharp and heavy sending waves of nausea that she tried to force away by keeping her eyes tightly shut. The world was spinning but she was at a standstill.
She was home for winter break, the short time with her family would be over almost as soon as it began. It was her last weekend in New York before she flew back to Stanford early Monday morning.
Katie loves Sundays. It's her favorite day of the week. But she didn't expect this Sunday to come. She wishes it hadn't. For once in her life, she wishes she could skip to Monday.
Because this Sunday? This Sunday makes her want to give up on the world. She wants to crawl into a hole and never come back out. She wants to eradicate this day from her life, let the darkness consume her. She wants her mom, wants to be eight years old again and curled up in her lap watching episodes of Temptation Lane. She doesn't want to think about her mother bleeding out in an alley while her and her father enjoyed dinner together. She's angry at the world, at herself. How could she have been laughing while her mother was being murdered? How could she have not known?
She has to force herself to leave her room. Her eyes bloodshot and vision still blurry with tears. She can't look at her father because if she did, she would already see the shell of the man he once was. This was going to break him and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
It would break her too.
January 17th, 1999
He didn't start drinking until the following week. Kate had already decided to transfer to NYU, noticing the spiraling pattern her father was creating for himself. She decided to join the academy. She wanted to seek justice for her mother's murder, creating her own spiraling pattern. A pattern that would change the trajectory of her life.
The tears no longer come. She has cried a lifetimes worth of tears over the last week. Her eyes are still red and her cheeks raw from the constant motion of brushing tears away. They buried her mom two days ago. She would never see her mother again, would never hug her, hear her laughter, or see her smile again. They would never share another Sunday.
Sunday.
Kate has lost her faith in Sundays. It's no longer her favorite day. She would give up everything for one more Sunday with her family. One more day laughing at the diner or playing some ridiculous board game. She misses the warmth of her home and how she would instantly feel at peace whenever she walked back into her childhood dwelling.
She's cold. Their house is cold and her life is now cold. The constant ache of her mother being gone weighs on her chest. She hasn't slept in days. She had needed the closure, seeing the pictures of her mothers lifeless body. It was the only thing that made it real. Losing her mother or father had never crossed her mind. They were both young and healthy, she had years left with them. But in one day, both of her parents were taken from her and she isn't sure what was harder. Grieving the dead or grieving the living.
Her father hasn't been sober since their walk at Coney Island. He had placed the small stick figure they made together in her hands and immediately went to the bottle. "A one time thing". He had told her. But that one time thing turned into three nights in a row. Three nights of Kate begging him to not take another drink, insisting he had enough. Three nights of a losing battle with a man who was giving in to his only coping mechanism. A coping mechanism his daughter didn't have the privilege of indulging in. She wouldn't be able to solve her mother's murder if she looked for solace in a bottle every night.
Three months later Kate found herself still pleading with the man to get help. She walked out on him for the last time and didn't turn around. She wasn't able to help him, she wasn't enough. She couldn't save her mother from being murdered and she couldn't save her father from drinking himself to death.
She lost both of her parents that night.
She lost Sundays.
