A Cold and Heartless Lullaby -Chapter 24-

Blue waylight hit the streets at a slant as Graham stumbled over the cobbles, shaking his fist at a passing streetgoer. 

“What are you looking at? Eat rot!” he cursed, stumbling drunkenly into a trashcan. His foot caught, and the ground swiveled up to catch him. Everything was sideways. Garbage had scattered out all around him and the streetgoer was ignoring him. “Go ahead, run away!” 

In the dizzying confusion, Graham turned over, looking for the stars, but he only found more street. Footsteps were approaching, clacking loudly across the cobbles. Graham prepared to fight, attempting to sit up, but his body wouldn’t respond. He felt nauseous. Two high heels appeared in front of him.

“Oh, Graham,” Beatrix said, “I thought you’d be here.”

…

Smudges and dust on the window were highlighted in a piercing morning light. Graham squinted, his head throbbing with pain. He could feel the drowsiness weighing him down, pressing him into the fake leather seat below him as if he would never move again.

Something cold touched his temples, wet fingers rubbing in a circular motion. Graham jolted awake. Clarity returned, and the buzzing in his head made way for a sharp pain.

“Oh! Ow!” Graham groaned.

“Yeah, you hit your head a few times,” Beatrix said. She put a cap on her vial before slipping it back into her purse.

Graham found himself propped up inside a window-side booth in a nearly vacant bar. Beatrix sat next to him, and she did not look impressed.

“Rot,” Graham said. 

“Do you want to talk about it, Graham?” Beatrix asked. Her words were comforting, but her tone was not.

“I can explain.” 

Beatrix pursed her lips. “You’re struggling with the loss of your wife, and you tried to forget.” she guessed, “We all have things we want to forget, Graham.”

Graham could already feel the effects of the jolt fading, and his mood swung like a pendulum inside of him. All of the feelings he had been avoiding resurfaced, and he choked up.

“It’s just that every day I get back from work, and she’s not there, and yet I see her everywhere else! The Discovery Council gave me a job out of pity, and everybody feels compelled to remind me how great of an employee she was. They say, ‘I can’t believe she’s gone!’” Full tears began to stream down his face. He couldn’t control them. “I had the divorce papers in my hand! I was ready to leave her for good, but now… I need her more than ever.”

Beatrix put an arm around him.

“Now all that’s left is Kia, and her condition is getting worse!” Graham continued. “Every day I come back from work, I think she’ll be dead too. I’ve never been enough for her. I never will be. She hardly ever speaks! Jaylen would have wanted me to watch Kia grow up, to be the father she needs, but I can’t do that! I can barely keep the funds to balance her hospital bills and nurses.”

“What Jaylen would have wanted does not matter anymore. You need to decide for yourself what the right thing to do is.” Beatrix rubbed his back.

“How can I make that choice?”

“In time, things will change, for better or for worse, I don’t know. What I know is you must make a choice. It’s the only way through.”

“You don’t understand, Beatrix,” Graham said, anger diluting his sorrow. “I don’t want to get through this! I want to be free from it! I only signed those divorce papers because I wanted to get away from the girl! I wanted to take my life back! Now I don’t have a choice! No options left to choose from!” He collapsed into tears, letting his shame wash over him. 

Beatrix sat for a moment, careful to respond. 

“If it is what you think is best, you could commit her to the church.” 

“No. I wouldn’t subject her to that.”

“Then you do care about her a little bit.”

“I can’t tell what I feel.”

 Beatrix turned his chin and met his eyes, “Do you love her, Graham?”

“What?”

“Do you love your daughter, Graham?” 

Graham wanted so badly to say no. It would have been so simple, but he couldn’t form the words.

“Let me put it in simpler terms. If it came down to it, would you choose Kia, or would you choose yourself?”

Graham swallowed, turning his gaze towards the floorboards. He sighed. “Honestly, I don’t know.”