Scars (Edited)

After Stephany

   Baby Ryker was taken under the custody of the courts for several months before police gave up looking for the missing father whose name was absent from the Certificate of Birth. By the time Ryker was placed in the custody of his aunt and uncle (since they were his only living relatives and Damion and Stephany never married) Victor had moved on having accomplished what he started out to do, end the life of his disobedient wife, and he was already winning over the affections of a nineteen-year-old blonde several states over.  Her name is Kayla and by the time Ryker is twelve she’d have been buried three years. Two other women would follow Kayla into the ground all shot in the head in a public park where all could see.

   Victor’s ways stayed the same, why would he change when he never got caught?  What could possibly cause him to become a better man?  The answer is nothing and nothing is the answer if what happened is to be understood.  Married to yet another young blond, Victor was to become a father for the sixth or seventh time as his newest wife, Anna, was due to have a child by the end of the week.  Deep in the middle of the night on May seventh, exactly twenty-eight years after the murder of Stephany, Victor now seventy-nine awoke to his young wife going into labor and a deep pain blooming in his chest.

   Calling for an ambulance wasn’t an option for Anna, not with all of her bruises and scars...  If someone saw…  No, she couldn’t do it.  Gripping his chest in agony, Victor crashed to the floor, his fat, little legs no longer able to keep him up.  Eyes wide open, Victor’s body pulsates and trashes as his heart giving out from under him as Anna stood watch, panting slightly from labor pains but uncaring that her husband of three years lay dying.  Anna was a chemistry major in the local college but she was very meek.  Until now.

   Now Anna is done being meek and helpless.  If anyone was to check the body of the man know gasping in his last breath, they would find traces of poison lacing his blood but no one would, he was too old.  Victor took in his last breath and Anna frowned.  Seeing as she was superstitious, she immediately began to worry about what she just did.  Would the death of a murderer during her labor transfer that evil spirit to the baby? Would she be cursed to raise the spirit of a murderer if it imbedded itself into her child?  Not taking the chance, Anna picks up her hospital bag and cell phone and removes herself from the house. Outside, she puts tears in her eyes and a quiver in her voice before dialing. “911? M-my husband, he-he’s no-no-not breathing!” she let the operator, thirty-five-year-old Elise, catch on to what she was saying before she added, “and I-I think my water just broke.”

   Arriving at the hospital, Anna was rushed to the maternity ward. The doctor, a man twenty-nine-years-old, with blond hair and green eyes, was immediately by her side hooking her to machines and checking her blood pressure.  His eyes were soft hours later when a little girl finally brought into the world screaming as loud as a baby could.  Unbeknownst to him, Ryker looked down at his sister and smiles as he places her in the arms of her mother who was no older than he is.  Ryker leaves the room wordlessly, a feeling of joy more intense than anything he’d ever felt before beginning to grip his heart.

   Hours later, Ryker is at home and his wife and his little girl are waiting for him. Stephany, who is three years old and resembles her father and his deceased mother more than she does her mom, is asleep on his wife, Jessie’s, lap when he comes in the front door. Jessie looks up at Ryker and smiles as she beckons him over. Ryker kneels beside her and she leans over to whisper words into his ear softly. When she pulls back, Ryker breaks out into a huge smile and stands up to make a call. Once at the other side of the house, Ryker dials a number and waits.

   “Ryker, my boy, how’s it going?” A male voice on the other end of the line asks happily and Ryker can hear the smile in his tone.

   “Hey, dad, I’ve got great news. Jessie’s expecting again! We were wondering, if it’s a boy, if we can name him ‘Damion’ after you?”

   “I think I’d love that. I’m glad you still see me as “dad” though your aunt and uncle raised you.”

   “It’s what mom would have wanted and you are my dad…”

The End