Scars (Edited)

One Year Later

   It has been over a year since Stephany left Victor’s house with the help of Margie.  Having lived with Margret and Josh for the whole duration of time, Stephany has regained a good bit of her up beat personality and has a lot more meat on her bones.  Ryker, who had celebrated his first birthday a few months before, is now able to stand and even walk a little.  Though his progress in that department has been a little slow, Stephany expects him to be able to walk in another month or so.

   “Auntie Stephany, Auntie Stephany,” Margret’s eldest daughter, Elise, comes running into the room holding an envelope proudly.  Her parents have just recently started to allow the seven-year-old to walk to the end of the yard and check the mail by herself as she is now old enough to have some form of responsibility. “You got a letter from Vi- Ve-V-i-c-t-o-r.” At seven she still has trouble with reading some words and names but she’s getting there.

   A look of absolute horror flashes across Stephany’s face and the blood seems to drain out of it in a flash, leaving her pale as if she were the ghost of a woman like she used to be. Stephany takes the letter and, leaving little Ryker in the hands of his very capable uncle, she escapes to her attic room. Closing the door and locking it, Stephany stairs at the letter as she works up the nerve to open it.

   Away from all the laughter and happiness of the family downstairs, Stephany finally rips open the envelope with shaking hands only to find a stack of papers labeled ‘Notice of Divorce’ and a small, handwritten note.

Stephany,
All I ask is that you meet me at the park down on Kane and South fourteenth on the seventh for lunch, where we first met.  If the documents are signed by then, bring them with you.  I’d also like to see little Ryker as well and give him the gift I bought him for his birthday.  I am so very sorry about the past few years, Stephany, is there any way you can ever forgive me?

I am so very sorry,
Victor.

Stephany stared at the note in disbelief. Briefly, she wondered how he had gotten her address before deciding she’d rather not know. Why now though? Why does he only just apologize after all these years? What good would that do if she wanted only to see him behind bars?  The note made it obvious though, no meeting, no divorce and that divorce is something she’s dreamed about for almost a decade now.

   She’d even started seeing someone.  The man she is dating, Damion, has all but taken on the role of Ryker’s dad and ‘da’ was actually the first word the child had ever spoken. It was only fair to Damion if she got a divorce, he’d seen the scars, everyone had, and they know what Victor is capable of in his rage.  Only a few minutes and she could be done with him for good?  She’d have to take him up on it but she wouldn’t take Ryker.  Never again would she allow her son to come into contact with that monster of a man.

   With her mind made up, Stephany looks at the time, eleven-fifteen on the seventh.  She had a little under an hour before Victor would expect her for lunch.  After all these months, Stephany’s mind still worked on the schedule Victor had kept her on for so many years. Up at six, breakfast at eight, coffee at eleven, lunch at twelve, dinner at six, and bed at ten.

   Deciding that the gray sweater and light jeans she was wearing would be more than simply good enough, Stephany leaves a note on the fridge for her sister, telling her where she was going, and left. Josh had taken the girls and Ryker out while Stephany had been locked in her room so she didn’t have a clue where they’d went and she fretted a little over her baby.

   At the park, Victor was waiting for her under an old elm tree with a basket to the side of him. “I see you made it.” He smiles up at her as she stands over his sitting form.  “Please sit down, I assume you’ve signed the papers?” Stephany nods and tosses the papers down onto his lap.

   “I’m not staying, Victor, never again will I stay.  I only came to drop these off because I do not trust the post office enough to get them to you.  Ryker and Margie are expecting me home, so, if you’ll excuse me.” Stephany turns to leave and Victor clambers to his feet, his hand going for the basket.

   “Stephany, you really thought it’d be this easy?  That I’d simply let you leave?”  He laughs tightly with narrowed eyes, his hand now in the basket. Stephany’s eyes go to the spot behind Victor and what she sees is not what she expected.  There, standing across the park is Josh keeping an eye on the kids but his attention on her. But he was too late to do anything for the gun Victor had kept in the basket was now in his hand and pointed at Stephany’s head.  He pulls the trigger.

   Stephany drops like a rock, her hair splattered with blood and her eyes wide and unseeing. The ground rises up to meet her and hold her in its cold embrace.  Victor, with all his faults, is one hell of a shot and never misses his mark.  Unsurprisingly that didn’t change now.  There Stephany lay on the ground blood pooling under her head, turning her golden hair a coppery shade of red.  A scream tore through the girls and baby Ryker let out a wail as Josh pushes him into  Elise’s arms. Leaving Elise to watch her two sisters and her cousin, Josh takes off across the park, his years of being a paramedic telling him there is nothing he can do to save the life of his wife’s sister.

   The bullet had gone into the center of Stephany’s skull and exited through the back.  People passing by had stopped to stare at the body of the young mother.  Their attention never strayed from the crimson pool to spot the fat, little man hurrying away from the scene carrying a picnic basket and wiping spots of crimson off of his face.  No one noticed him tuck the gun into the basket and climb into a beat up Chevy.  And, if you asked, no one would have been able to say where exactly the shooter had been.  Josh later told the police that he’d spotted Stephany with a short, fat man from across the park but was unaware of the identity of the man and so the case was left unsolved. Just like Stephany, the case has gone cold.