Virginia Brennan is the love of my life. She was my high school sweetheart. The mother of my two boys. Together we built a home. And promised to share it forever.
“She was kind and thoughtful. Smart and compassionate. She loved to read under the covers on winter mornings. Some of you might know that she played piano like an angel. And she was the best teacher I have ever known.
“But there were sides to my wife that very few people knew. She flared with a wild joy, like a summer carnival. Like a burning flame. But like both, time would pass and the light would flare out. And the darkness would fall over her. Over all of us.
“Virginia was stolen from us. She was pulled away bit by bit. The demons that haunted her never truly let go. They dug their claws in deeply. Even in the end, when a glimmer of hope returned, they stormed back, laughing and screaming and tearing. They stole her from us.
“Alcohol. Maybe I shouldn’t name the beast here, in this church, in front of so many people. Maybe, instead, it should remain in the shadows, sheltered safely behind shame and pain. But I can’t do that. I can’t let it have that final victory. It took our Virginia away. And I pray that she be its last and final victim.”
I sat in a wooden pew as unforgiving as my thoughts. Drew was near me, strong and stoic, a constant reminder of everything I wasn’t. Neighbors filled the seats to my right and behind. They listened in rapt silence to my father’s eloquent eulogy. Nodding along. Brushing away tears with furtive fingers. As he fed on their emotions, all I felt was anger and hate.
THE PEOPLE IN that church followed us home. They mingled through the rooms of my house, speaking softly and taking sips of cola and fruit juice. I moved among them, my arms limp at my sides and my throat so dry that I fought the need to cough every minute. And I stared at my brother as he strode at our father’s side, chest out and eyes bright, his face a pantomime of grief.
I wandered from room to room, avoiding them as I moved among relative strangers eating sandwiches and potato salad that someone else had brought over. Having loosened my tie and unbuttoned the top of my white dress shirt, I continued to tug at the fabric like it threatened to strangle the life out of me. I moved slowly, silently. Sometimes, I would catch myself up on the balls of my feet.
An adult stopped me. I honestly had no idea who she was.
“Are you okay?” the woman asked.
“Yeah,” I muttered, looking at the floor.
“Do you need . . . ?”
Then my father was there, Drew by his side. He spoke to her with gravitas. When I glanced up, I saw the way he affected this stranger. She fell under the spell and left feeling like the Brennan family would rise like a phoenix. To do more than simply survive; to conquer the world.
As he spoke, my eyes darted left and right. I searched for her without realizing that was what I did. But Marci Simmons wasn’t there. She hadn’t come to save me. Like everyone else’s, her pity turned to indifference once she left our house that day.
When my father was done and the strangers left, so did my family. I watched as my father’s hand came to rest on Drew’s shoulder. My eyes burned. My stomach tightened to the point that I felt dizzy. I stared, the edges of my world fading into a bloody red haze. And I hated them both. A deep unrelenting hate, unlike anything I had ever felt before.