(Trigger warning: If you or someone you love are struggling with thoughts of suicide please seek out help from the national suicide hotline at 988. Please read safely.)

Valorie shut the car door harder than she had too behind her as she stepped out into the frigid winter air. She adjusted her scarf to cover every inch of skin on her neck to block out the cold. Her shoulders hunched over with her hands in her pockets as she moved across the parking lot to the path that circled around the park.

​She walked past the playground where kids were bundled up in puffer jackets, knitted scarves, and beanies, not yet aware of the true cold winter brings as they run around and throw snowballs at each other. Pulling her jacket closer, she burrowed closer to the warmth her jacket brought as she continued her walk.

​Wind blew across her path and swirled the snowflakes back onto the freshly shoveled path. She walked to the far end of the park where a rough, lone singular bench sat under a large cherry tree and looked over the frozen river. She sat down onto the bench and looked out over the city line on the other side of the river. The cherry blossoms once overflowing the trees had long since died and fallen off the tree, the wind carrying them off to places she would never know.

​Closing her eyes, she could almost forget, for a minute,everything that had happened. The sun warming her face, the slight scent of the cherry blossoms on the air, the gentle lips tickling her cheeks, and laughter of children. A kick to her womb made the cold air pierce the memory of happier times, and Valorie opened her eyes.

​She carefully wrapped her jacket protectively around her bump as tears stung her eyes. Looking up to the sky, she whispered, “Why…?”

​“Why the tears, bunny?” Richard asked from beside her.

​Valorie lowered her head and whipped the tears from her eyes. “Just thinking of how fast everything changed.”

​“Yeah,” Richard nodded as he looked up to the dormantcherry blossom tree above them. “It seems like just yesterday I was proposing to you here.”

​She shook her head, refusing to make eye contact with him. “The flowers hadn’t even bloomed yet…”

​“It was a really nice day, not too cold, not too warm. It was the perfect first day of our future.”

​Children squealing with laughter drew Valorie’s attention back to the playground, where the kids were being gathered up by their parents to head home for a night of hot coca. “All I could think about were all the possibilities for what our future would hold… Would you have ever completed that porch? How many kids were going to fill the rooms of the house? What adventures were we going to have? Would we have a porch with two rocking chairs that we would rock in until we were grey?” She turned her head to look back towards him and whispered in a cold, even voice. “But you threw that all away.”

​Richard blew out a long breath as it became his turn not to make eye contact with Valorie. His leg bounced as he waved side to side a little. “You can’t imagine what it’s like, to…” He cut himself off as he swallowed hard with tears brimming his eyes. “To have images you can’t get rid of…”

​“I may not have known what it was like at the time…” Valorie broke off as tears rolled down her face and her nostrils flared. She shook her head. “But you have certainly shown me what it was like.” Valorie took a deep breath as a sob escaped her mouth. “You acted like nothing was wrong, and then blindsided me with, with, with… what you did?”

​Richard ground his teeth as he stood from the bench and paced. “I had no other choice! I couldn’t risk hurting you or the baby.”

​“You walked out before you even knew about the baby!” Valorie cried back, as she stood from the bench and stood right in his pacing path.

​“I was planning a surprise announcement for you when that damn gunshot rung out! You destroyed this moment for me,” she cried, pointing down to her bump. She covered her face as the memory of the gun shot rung through her ears. Her heart hammered against her rib cage as she dropped the baby’s onesie in her hand and rushed out of the master bedroom. She rushed down the stairs, looking around the house, trying to find the source of the gunshot. When she reached the hall leading to the office, she saw two feet laying in the doorway. The smell of burnt sulfur floated in the air as she got closer to the office. As she rounded the corner, a high pitch scream echoed through the house as Valorie fell to her knees at the sight before her.

​Valorie sniffled as she rubbed the tears from her eyes and brushed the hair from her face. She kept her eyes squeezed shut as she tried to take in a deep breath to calm herself down. The baby kicked and shifted inside of her belly at sensing her mother’s stress. Valorie rubbed her bump to calm her sweet girl. She shook her head and screamed at the air, “Why were you so selfish to leave us? Why couldn’t you have fought for us as you did for your country? Why weren’t we enough?”

​She opened her eyes to see what her loving husband had to say for himself, but he was nowhere in sight. The wind kicked up the snow where he once stood, swirling and dancing like the two of them should have been doing. Snow fell again and drifted with the wind around her as she stood all by herself in the park.

​Valorie sniffed, attempting to wipe away her tears in the cold, and whispered with a weepy voice, “Good talk.”

​She ran her hand over the rough wood of their bench before trekking back down the path from which she had come. As she walked, the wind blew at her back and whistled through the branches overhead. She continued forward with her head raised high to let the frigid wind dry away her tears, but all it did was freeze them in place.

(If you or someone you love are struggling with thoughts of suicide please seek out help from the national suicide hotline at 988.)

©All writing property of R. M. McDermott LLC