“Excuse me, I’m looking for my dad ?”

“What does he look like?”

“Umm.. he’s tall, dark skin, full hair and a mustache. He has a thick French accent and he was last seen in a navy blue suit,”

“Well.. we’ll keep a lookout,”

“Thank you, tell him ivy has been looking for him please,”

That was the summary of all the conversations I’ve been having for the last week. I returned home with a heavy heart and the remaining flyers I had printed. Mom was sitting at the kitchen counter with a bottle of white out and her head in her hands and for the first time in my life I didn’t have it in me to comfort her. My older brother Adonis was down at the police station hoping that they would finally take him seriously. It was a futile dream but it’s worth doing for dad.

He was the best man around. And I don’t mean it in a “he’s my #1 dad” way. He was a great man and you could have asked anyone. Even though he was nothing but a humble fashion designer that made dresses for local women, everyone thought of him as the people’s hero. I’ve lived with multiple people in my life and that was because he always kept a door open for anyone in need. When he heard the kids in our neighborhood were having a play to raise money for the needy, he stayed up everyday for the week crafting every costume to perfection. When Mrs. Pierce, the woman next door lost her husband and couldn’t pay for his funeral, he forked out most of the money he made and gave him a respectable burial. Everyone loved him or at least pretended to as no one is out looking for him.

I lay there slumped on the couch looking out the window , praying for a sign that he was at least safe or coming home. As if God finally answered my prayers. There was a swift knock but no one at the door and a small letter to Adhara; my mom. At that point, she was blacked out yet still in the same position she was when I had entered. Knowing she wouldn’t be in the right state of mind to read this anytime soon, I decided to read it for her.

Adhara,

You must take me for a fool. I wanted nothing to do with you and I still don’t. I don’t care if you’re holding the world over my head I will not accept those children as my own. At least they’re older now. So tell them how you lied. And explain to them what truly happened to their ‘father’.

-Jules

I stared down at the short message dumbfounded. As long as she wasn’t dead she WILL answer my questions. I ran over to the kitchen counter accidentally knocking down her bottle. I grabbed her face, it was cold and lifeless. For a moment I looked at her with anger before I realized what I was holding. The head of a dead body..

I gasped as I let go making her fall to the floor, blood pooling in her mouth. I looked around the kitchen. Should I scream for help? Should I grab a knife and perish too? I can’t leave Adonis alone. I look down at where she was sitting and in front of her was a half eaten sandwich and a little notepad with her own letter

My love,

All I did was to love you and you can lie and say that it wasn’t good to be loved by me. But when you leave and when you go back into the world and see why I gave you that love, and see the good life that you had with me, you’ll come back to nothing.

-Adhara

I crouched down beside her, the blood in her mouth had started drying up. What did she do? What is she doing? I stood up and carried the notepad again going through it. What I saw next made me drop it.

Simply written was: poison ivy, 30g cyanide.