Page 7 of Blue in the Deep Blue Sea

I ran to my father’s bedroom, but it was empty. The bed was neatly made, as if no one had slept in it. I hurried downstairs, hoping to find someone, but the house was empty.

My mind went blank.

All I could think about was holding Mommy. I wasn’t thinking about pancakes anymore. I wasn’t thinking about waking her up. I just wanted to be with her.

I knew no one cared for me or loved me the way she did.

And now I’d lost the only person who had been there with me.

I ran back to her bedroom, tears blurring my vision as I reached her bed again. This time I picked up the note, but I didn’t read it. I only crumpled it in my hand, my fingers squeezing the paper, before climbing onto the other side of the bed again.

I crawled to her and rested my face against her chest, wrapping my arm around her cold body.

“Mommy,” I cried, my tears soaking her skin. “Please don’t leave me,” I whispered. “Please. Please don’t leave me.”

I squeezed my eyes shut.

“No one loves me. Please don’t leave me.” I shook my head. “No one. No one. Just you. Mommy, please… I can’t lose you.”

I sniffled, clutching the blanket against my chest and burying my face in it.

Hours passed, and no one came.

I cried until there were no tears left, and eventually I fell asleep holding her.

I must have slept the whole day because a scream woke me.

A maid had come to bring Father his coat he left in the office. She stepped closer, her hand flying to her mouth. She tried to pull me away, but I pushed her aside and climbed back onto the bed.

She called Father. He arrived within minutes, and soon everyone knew my mother was gone.

They looked at me with pity, tears filling their eyes. I was the boy who had found his mother dead. It was something that would stay with me forever.

Father called for all the maids. Even though it was Sunday, a day when no one worked and families stayed together, the house became a place of preparation. Relatives and friends would soon arrive to mourn Sarah Sinclair.

The maids took down the white curtains and replaced them with black veils. In the large window overlooking the port, they hung a black scarf to silently signal to everyone passing by that this house was grieving.

They all cried for different reasons.

I didn’t.

I felt empty.

It hurt.

The pain was there, but I didn’t know how to process any of it. I just sat at the bottom of the stairs, watching everyone. Watching my father look at me, yet never come closer.

I pulled the note from my pocket, the one I had tucked away before they took me out of Mommy’s room.

I read it.

She didn’t know I would be the one reading it. It began with Dear Henry and ended with Take care of Oliver.

I knew everything.

A child learning all the things that were supposed to stay buried behind the closed doors of his parents.

My father saw it in my eyes. He came rushing toward me. He knew, in that moment, the look I gave him would never be erased, not even by years of therapy. He knew he had driven my mother to it.