Emily was in a sitting position bawling on the next-door neighbor’s stoop. She was wailing out of control. The neighbor lady was trying her best to hug and otherwise comfort my grieving wife. As soon as Emily saw me, she jumped up and started hitting me with windmill arms. Every ounce of strength went into her blows. When she tired of pummeling me, she cried out, “Where were you? Where were you? You were supposed to be at home. You killed my baby, you son-of-a-bitch!” Then she crumbled to the ground and our neighbor came and consoled her again. I just stood there not bothering to wipe the blood off my face from Emily having broken my nose and cut my lips. I deserved to feel pain and much worse.
I asked in broken sobs, “Where’s… Caroline?”
The neighbor answered, “They haven’t recovered her body yet.”
Emily added, “As if you cared, you asshole.”
I knew better than to try and make an apology to a woman as distraught as my wife. I just stood and watched as the firemen started into the rubble to find her body. There is almost nothing, absolutely nothing, worse than seeing a fireman bringing the burnt dead body of your child out of a fire-ravaged house. The only thing worse is imagining what your child’s last few minutes were like, being consumed by heat and smoke, knowing she would not be rescued, crying for her parents. That image was truly a death of a thousand cuts for me. I knew it must be the same for Emily.
Emily fainted when the fireman holding Caroline’s body approached and the extent of her burns were evident. I threw up, fell on my knees and cried. Emily was taken to the hospital, Caroline to the Morgue. I refused treatment for myself. I didn’t go see either one. I figured if Emily saw me, it would make it worse for her. Seeing Caroline’s body would make it worse for me. I couldn’t stand looking into the eyes of people who knew I had failed my daughter. I was totally numb, and I just left and checked into a motel and started drinking. I figured Emily would go home to her mother’s.
I attended the visitation for my daughter but was directed to a spot away from Emily and her family. Even on the row of seats where I sat, no one, not even my extended family, would sit next to me. I could feel the daggered stares from the people there. I’m surprised the preacher didn’t condemn me to Hell in his sermon. No one who spoke about Caroline made it through their speech without breaking down. I wasn’t allowed to speak. It’s just as well. I couldn’t have anyway. At the burial, I had more than a fleeting thought of jumping in the grave just before the bulldozer dropped the first big load of dirt over the casket. Emily with family and friends went to our church’s Fellowship Hall for the bereavement meal. I went back to a motel where I had stayed since that night and got drunk again.
After communicating with my boss at work after the funeral, I called my lawyer and arranged through a POA for him to negotiate my divorce for me. I instructed him to give Emily anything she wanted. I also promised to send as much money as I could every month. I stayed in the motel until my boss arranged a transfer to an office in another city. No one at the new office was to know the circumstances that prompted my transfer. That worked for a while. It didn’t take long, however, before I started getting ‘The Look.’ I knew they knew. I was essentially shunned from then on. But, I couldn’t really blame them. I deserved it.