Page 27 of Chelsea’s Knight

A choked sob rises up in my throat, despite my best efforts to hold it off, and suddenly, he’s got me turned so my face is buried in the clavicle of his chest and he’s holding me close, rocking me, while I cry for the little boy whose parents should’ve loved him and his sisters unconditionally and wholeheartedly.

“I’m so sorry, handsome,” I whimper and weep. “Every child should be unequivocally loved and taken care of by the people who brought them into this world without any reservation. I’m scared to ask, but what happened to your sisters?”

“I knew by the time I was nearing graduation, I had to get the hell away from the toxicity of my environment. They were just a few years younger than me, but they both had what I thought were good friends who they were spending more and more time with. So, even though I was concerned for them, with their encouragement, I signed on the dotted line and left for basic training three months after I graduated from high school. Before leaving, I gave them most of the money I had earned and saved by doing odd jobs after school, so they could eat and have what they needed for the next school year. Things were okay for a while, at least as far as they were telling me in the few letters I did receive from the two of them. I regularly sent them money once I started getting a check because I didn’t trust our parents to take care of them the way they should be.”

I cup his face and gently, tenderly kiss his upturned lips. “I know this doesn’t have a happy ending, I can tell from how tense you are, Canyon. If you need to stop, we can do so because I never want to cause you any undue pain.”

“No, sweetness, I need to finish this conversation so it can be over and done with,” he quietly states, his insistence leaving no room for argument. “It was a long time ago, it’s just, I don’t think about any of it if I can possibly prevent it. But you need to know so this isn’t a subject left unsettled between us. So, I was on either my second or third tour overseas when I got the news that both of my sisters were dead.”

My stomach drops at his words.

“Dead?” I sullenly whisper. “How?” It’s not a morbid curiosity, exactly, more of a prompt for him to finish the story and get it out.

“Apparently, Mother Dearest added a combination of illegal drugs to her repertoire of how to survive her shitty life. Meanwhile, the old man was drinking his liver to death every night at the local bar. One night, the girls decided to try one of the many pills they found in my mom’s stash, and it just so happened to be laced with a deadly dose of fentanyl. Both were deceased before they hit the floor from what I was able to find out through their autopsy report.”

“Holy shit, are you serious?” I’m equal parts horrified and angry for him, but most especially for his sisters, Calliope and Cariah.

Horrified that his childhood home wasn’t a safe space or place; angry because his mother’s own actions and addiction cost his sisters their lives.

Should they have taken pills when they didn’t know what they were? No, probably not; however, ultimately, if their own mother hadn’t brought drugs into the household, they might not have decided to take them or experiment.

Or maybe they just wanted the escape they saw their own parents getting, unaware of the potential ramifications.

“Yeah, sweetness.” His voice is so quiet, almost contemplative at this point. “If we had had any other family outside of some distant aunts, maybe I could’ve found someone to take the girls in or something.”

“It wasn’t your responsibility to do that, Canyon.”

“Maybe not, but that’s what my guilt and head tell me all the fucking time, Chels. For most of their lives, I looked after them and took care of them. But when they were at their most vulnerable, just trying their fledgling wings, I abandoned them.”

“You didn’tabandonthem, Canyon. First of all, it was your parents’ responsibility to provide all three of you a safe, nurturing, loving home, which they most assuredly didnotdo. Second, they encouraged you to go, so you could eventually make a better life for yourself, and I presume, them as well, correct?” At his nod, I continue. “Alright then, neither of them were little girls by that time, so is it possible they had already been dabbling with alcohol and drugs since they were so readily available in the house for them to get their hands on?”

I steel myself against the glare he’s directing at me because I know based on the vacantness of his stare, he’s actually thinking about what I’ve said.

“I-I don’t honestly know,” he replies. “I mean, it’s possible because the neighborhood was already going downhill when I left, so I imagine six years later, it was probably in the toilet. I only saw the first line of the autopsies, I never had the gumption or heart to read the whole report thoroughly.”

“If they showed evidence of an overdose, they would’ve done testing on their blood to see if there was anything else streaming in their system,” I press, remembering this from a class I took.

While I haven’t gotten to take my final courses to gain my teaching certification or credentials, my fascination with learning has led me to take a variety of courses outside of my chosen field.

“Maybe I need to look those reports over, or at least one of them,” he muses.

“Can I ask something?” At his nod, I take a deep breath then jump right in. “Would it change anything if you found out they were using drugs?”

“It would,” he insists.

“How? They’re still gone, so help me understand how it’ll help.”

“I’ve carried around this guilt on my shoulders for years that I wasn’t there for them ever since I got the devastating news, Chelsea. If they were priorly and actively using drugs, not that they deserved to die because they sure as fuck did not, but it would mean they lied to me about what they were doing for starters. I knew they were about some things because I had gotten the notification from the school that both of them had dropped out. When I called them out on that fact, I was told they were being enrolled in a private Christian school, which was another lie seeing as neither of my parents ever darkened the inside of a church my whole life. And, because I might have had some help getting them onto my health insurance, I also knew both of them had been seen at the local clinic and both of them received the morning after pill.”

My face falls at his words.

“Honey,” I gently say, “it sounds like they changed significantly from the little girls you grew up with and it’s not on you that it happened. It sounds as though they fell through the proverbial cracks in a shitty system.”

“I’ve still felt so guilty, sweetness. If I had come home more often, could I have seen it and prevented their downfall from happening? It’s partially why I’m so overprotective toward those I care about, particularly you. Not because I don’t trust you to not know when you need to ask for assistance or help, but because if it’s in my power to make your life easier without you having to ask, I plan to do just that thing.”

Canyon

Her smile is tremulous as she looks up at me.

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