Total pages in book: 52
Estimated words: 47419 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 237(@200wpm)___ 190(@250wpm)___ 158(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47419 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 237(@200wpm)___ 190(@250wpm)___ 158(@300wpm)
She, of course, said they were too young, which is what I had expected because I had already felt her out about this very thing and knew she thought kids under seven had no place at funerals. Kevin isn’t quite six, and my little Sara is almost two.
Out of respect for her I pretended to care and offered any kind of help, which I knew wasn’t needed. If I had to bury his ass on my dime, he’d end up in the landfill. Sorry, not sorry! She was very grateful for the call and my genuine concern, which was easy to give since it was for her and her family and not for the piece of shit they’d scraped off the floor after he became a puddle of goo because of the intense heat back home.
I heard that the house was covered in maggots and flies, and the stench was unbearable. Doug was almost completely melted into the floor while the harlot had molded into the bed. The general consensus is that he fell while drunk because they found the whisky bottle near him, and since Thallium is undetectable, there’s no way anyone will ever know what really went on there.
That night, I told my wife about their deaths, and she was in shock, as expected. I told her it was okay to cry because I legit thought she was holding back tears because of me but she said she didn’t have it in her to be that much of a hypocrite.
She wouldn’t dance on their graves or anything, but she didn’t really care. That part of her life was over. We talked about having something of his saved for the kids in case they wanted to know about him in the future and settled on talking to Helen about that the next day on the phone. Whatever is best for my kids is what I will do. I can be the bigger person now that the fucker is dead. Good riddance.
As for my own feelings, I had none. I’d stopped caring about him a long time ago and wasn’t about to pretend differently. I had no tears to shed, but I did drink a finger of whisky and toasted him on his way to hell.
The two of them ended up as they should if you ask me: fitting and precise. I didn’t waste any time pretending to care and was onto the next thing by the next day. I played with my kids in the ocean, took my wife shopping, and started taking the steps necessary to put the past behind us.
My kids don’t even remember that fuck existed, so there was no need to even mention it to them, but as hard as I am, it still stung a little bit that the poor little mites had lost a part of them. He was the worst part, but still. Any sorrow I felt was for them and what could’ve been had the man who helped create them been a better person.
I’ll never forgive him for making this a part of their lives, all three of them, Rachel and the kids. I hate that his bullshit had ever touched them and that someday we’ll have to tell my eldest son and daughter that they didn’t come from me and how we ended up as a family.
No child should have to deal with this shit, but I am determined to do my best to make the blow as soft as possible when the time comes.
RACHEL
Wow, life sure is strange, isn’t it? How the hell did Doug end up like this? I tried to correlate the man I met that first night in the bar to the man who cheated and ended up dead on the bedroom floor in the house he shared with his affair partner and just couldn’t.
Both of them ended in such a horrible way that it was enough to take my breath away, and I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Of all the scenarios I had imagined, even when I hated them the most, nothing came close to this reality. The only thing I felt at the news was slight anger still that the two of them had ever been a part of my life.
I felt anger that now I was going to have to tell my kids at some point in life that they had a different dad and what transpired there. I think it’s going to take me a long time to get over the biggest mistake of my life, and that was Doug and our whole relationship. I wish I could have given them better.
Then again, if people could see ahead to the future, a lot of marriages would never take place. I was beginning to think that I was a horrible person because I had no tears in me for them. My only worry was for my kids when they got older.