Eternal Breath Chapter 1

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“Ms. Kennedy, I’m sorry to have to inform you that Ezekiel Henderson died. You are listed as his next of kin.”

I think the officer and chaplain speak more, but the buzzing in my head drowns it out. Grandpa’s dead? It’s not possible. Images flash, strobe-like, through my brain with every beat of my heart. Each one, accompanied by a discordant clash, like cymbals, and jolt of electric pain.

Grandpa laughs as I squeal when he tosses toddler-me into the air.

My ears ring and my heart feels clenched in a fist.

Grandpa stands beside me, patiently teaching seven-year-old me to bait a hook as we fish the creek behind his cabin.

The thunderous sound makes me dizzy. I close my dry, aching eyes.

Grandpa holds me as I cry against his shoulder when my dad’s coffin lowers into the ground.

That ache spreads to every muscle in my body. I go blind, deaf, and dumb as the images flip by faster.

Grandpa helps me with algebra.

Teaching me to fix the washing machine, laughing when a hissing cat burst out from behind it.

Helping me through nightmares.

Teaching me to drive.

His hug when he drops me off at college.

The pride in his eyes and smile on his face as we celebrate my engagement.

Dancing with me at my wedding.

“Ms. Kennedy? Ms. Kennedy!”

Lungs struggle to expand. Burn. But not with heat. Cold, so ice cold I’m shivering. My heart pounds, forcing blood through veins that feel like they’re freezing over. The random thought that maybe they’ll burst like frozen pipes floats across my mind, and then out again.

“How?” My voice sounds as rusty as that old gate at the head of Grandpa’s driveway. Changeable mountain weather and few guests—even me, lately—make the battle against corrosion unwinnable.

Who will oil the hinges now?

That thought overpowers whatever words the officer says, and I shake my head to dislodge it. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

He looks irate. What was his name? Nader? Natter? N-something. Looking at him now, I get the impression that he’s not going to indulge my absentminded—probably shocked—inattention. But the chaplain nudges him, prodding him to speak.

“Mr. Henderson was murdered. It looks…”

Reality fades out at that word. Does my body sway? I can’t tell. My mind swears to me that my physical form dissolved into transparency, but neither man sitting across from me blinks at the alteration to my being. The officer’s lips keep moving, but ears and brain are stuck, that word echoing through my head, delivering a disorienting punch each time.

Murdered.

Murdered.

Grandpa was murdered.

No!

The world rushes back with my desperate denial, washing over me like a tidal wave. Overwhelming and subsuming.

“…interrogated. Honestly, the injuries look more like torture…”

Another shockwave blows me back. Wracks my body with the painful agony of a physical beating. Worse than those I’ve recently endured. It deafens me before the sound returns, that droning voice—cruel in its lack of compassion—muffled beneath the ringing in my ears. Each word makes the ice within me spread even more. My heart no longer races, but pounds sluggishly. Every beat a painful reminder that I’m now alone.

“…any idea who might have wanted him dead?”

One face instantly forms inside my mind. But I know no one will believe me if I make mention of it. Worse, I know he’ll hear. He always does. And the retaliations… Bile climbs into my throat. Guilt flays me with such force I’m amazed the skin doesn’t peel from my body. It feels like the ice encasing me cracks along the muscles and tendons in my neck as I manage a robotic shake of my head. Frozen vocal cords mean I can only mouth the word no.

No. Aside from him, no one wanted to harm Ezekiel Henderson. No one hated Grandpa. He had no information. No wealth. Nothing anyone would kill for.

Did I get those words out? If the look on the officer’s face is any indication, I failed as epically as I failed at life.

“Ms. Kennedy?” It’s the chaplain who speaks now. His kind, sympathetic tones score lashes into my soul. I don’t deserve either. How can I when I wasn’t there for the one person who was always there for me?

“Ms. Kennedy?” I must have missed the chaplain’s words, because he’s now looking at me with concern. “Is there anyone we can call for you? Your husband?”

“Ex.” The acidic word eats away at my throat. Call the scheming bastard and listen to him gloat about stealing the last connection I had on this earth? I manage, barely, to swallow the bile down. “No. No one. I’ll need to make arrangements…”

The chaplain and officer stand. On auto pilot, I do, as well. A second officer steps up beside me as the first speaks.

“You’ll be allowed one phone call to someone who can make those arrangements on your behalf. If there is any progress in the investigation, we will inform you of it until your release.”

They walk out of the private visitation room. My guard prods me, reminding me that I can’t just stand there until death takes me to rejoin Grandpa. My body quakes as shock gives way to the relentless battering of emotion. Love, now shattered into millions of glistening shards. All the hope still burning within my foolish soul extinguishes, leaving nothing more than the wisp of smoke of a blown-out birthday candle. Empty wishes and broken promises. Grief surges like a tsunami, my knees buckle beneath the power of it. The churning, roiling agony stirs detritus to the surface. Guilt. That I wasn’t there, that I trusted too easily. Unwisely. That I gave my heart to a man who cut it out, stabbed it, and now, for no reason other than that he can, ground the pieces into dust. Icy hatred, sharpened to a razor’s edge by a craving for vengeance swirls with the toxic guilt. But enwrapping every other emotion, pure self-loathing holds them trapped behind a wall of poisonous spikes, creating a painful void, an abyss of darkness hollowing out this pathetic shell of a body. A promise that will rip bloody retribution through my soul with each breath until I take my last. That final moment I now look forward to even more than the giddy, naïve bride I’d once been had looked toward her future. 

Every step feeling like my frozen joints need to crack, I walk through the blank, echoing institutional corridors to my cell, step inside, and hear the bars slam shut behind me.