It all started on Halloween day, 1954. Amber street was alive with neighbors outside decorating for the event later that night. People were cruising up and down the residential street either coming back from buying decorations and candy or just to view the designs. I was helping my dad put up some decorations out front. I looked across the street at the Jefferson's house. 372 Amber street was quieter than it had been that entire week which meant maybe Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson had stopped fighting. It was good that they did so Cindy, their daughter, could stop having her nightmares.
I fell in love with Cindy back in 3rd grade and she was in my classes until this year. We were in 5th grade and we had the world ahead of us. We talked on the swings about her and her parents and I tried to impress her by winning schoolyard fights. I asked her to come Trick-or-Treating with me and she replied with the hour of 8 o'clock and a kiss on my cheek; I was blushing the whole day.
At around 7 the lights finally came on after Mr. Jefferson arrived in his car, drunk, and stumbling through the door. The reason it was quiet was that Mrs. Jefferson was packing to move out and Mr. Jefferson was at the bar all day and didn't like what he saw when he got home. Again, you could hear them fighting from across the street. You could almost hear every word if Mr. Jefferson weren't so drunk and Mrs. Jefferson wasn't crying as much.
My hour arrived and I was off to collect this girl I was so fond of. I made it out in my pirate costume and made my way across the street. By the time I was halfway through the street, their door swung open with Cindy running, crying, and screaming my way with Mr. Jefferson chasing her. Back in the doorway Mrs. Jefferson tried dragging herself to save her child as she bled from the neck. Mr. Jefferson, with knife in hand, grabbed Cindy's arm in the light of the streetlight. Cindy turned and with a hidden knife stabbed her father in the chest as he stabbed her 14 times in the chest before dying from his wound. There they lay in silence and blood for an hour before the ambulance came.
My priest was never sure if Cindy would be in heaven because she killed her dad. I never forgot her and visit her grave every year on Halloween at 8 o'clock like she said with her kiss to my cheek that still makes me blush.
