'Till Death Do Us Part

New Score

I wake up the next morning with tissues stuck to the side of my face. The pounding on the door won't stop. I grumble. "Omigosh shut the eff up! Hold on!" I get up and throw the tissues in the trash and look at my wall mirror. Gross. I have mascara streaks down my face and lipgloss on my chin. I quickly scrub my face, put my hair up and open the door.

Amanda's at my door with a piece of cake in her stubby hands. She looks up at me and smiles, "Hi Keewie." I smile at her pigtails, "Wosco wants to see you whiye now!" She widens her eyes. I smile, "I'll be down in a couple minutes' Go tell Rosco and come back I'll do you up okay?" She smiles her toothy five-year-old smile and bolts downstairs.

I quickly throw on a pair of sweatpants and a ratty old tee. As I finish pulling my hair into a ponytail Amanda jumps onto my leg. Sit down I tell her and she sits on my feet as I do her hair. I tie the ends of her french braid together and grab lip-gloss off the vanity. After she insists on putting it on herself, ( which she's going to lick off in oh, about two minutes) I throw her onto my back and tromp downstairs.

After three sets of stairs I'm finally in the basement full of maps and trackers. Rosco and Keith are quietly whispering over the large center table covered in a huge map of land and thumb-tacks. Jack's scribbling madly on a piece of paper in the corner the glow of his computer highlighting the sharp edges of his face. I don't trust him.

I sit Amanda on a chair and grab her a notebook and markers from the drawer. She starts scribbling madly, ink leaking through to her. I walk over to Rosco and sit on the edge of the map. They look up at me and start talking. "we found another one Kee, well actually we found the son. Does the name Clarence Widow ring a bell?" Keith goes to the pin-board and starts pulling at photos.

"No.", I give Rosco a blank look, "should it?" He gives me a sad smile as Keith sets pictures of a very pale, bald, broad shouldered man. "Yeah, uh it should." He rubs the back of his neck, an unsure look on his face. "Clarence Widow. He fought in the Canadian War. And a few others of little importance now like the Vancouver Land Battle and the Mississippi Turf War." They give me sad smiles. "Ugh. Daddy was in those wars.", Rosco says to Keith. "And he got hit by a train drunk as a horse on steroids on the way home.", Keith says back matter-of-factly.

They laugh at their weird memory. Then Keith lays down photos of a short, stalky, bald, white soldier- Gen. C.L. Widow. "I don't know his face.", I state. Keith looks at his shoes and Rosco slides a giant hand across his stubbly face. "Kee, this general guy was tough. He was fighting your daddy and your daddy, he, he just wasn't ready for him. He had a big heart on him." I suck in a breath, no. "Kee this guy's the one that killed your father."

I sit still. Then I throw my stool across the room leaving it to smash on the opposing wall next to Jack's head. He flinches and glares at the back of my head. I pace the room in long rushed strides, my fingers laced across the back of my head. It's this guy's fault I'm like this. His fault for killing my dad. His fault for making us run. His fault for ruining my childhood. His fault for making me this murderer.

It started with him. It's going to end with him too. His blood will be spread for all to see. He will pay for what he did to me and my family, I'll kill his family too. I will win this war dad.