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complain when you have done nothing to-”
    “Shut. The Fuck. Up.” His voice turned
ugly.
    She refused to see the last of warning. “You have made us live
hell with you-”
    “Shut .. Up. Shut... Up. Shut U…P!”
    Everything went quiet as a cold grave.
    A foreboding enveloped Sarah. Her eyes tried to spear through
the darkness. She took a step forward, but the long instilled fear shortly
locked her feet again. An icy dread began freezing her inside out. She prayed
the sanctuary of her closet remained forever.
    But it was not the day for her asking.
    The door flung open. Stark brightness infiltrated, and along
with it, a nefarious hand.
    Dragged out and shoved hard to the floor when Sarah’s sight
adjusted to the light, a harrowing shriek tore from her.
    Pool of blood, everywhere blood, and in the middle of this gory
sea lay her mother’s body, cold and lifeless.
    Sarah seemed unable to stop screaming. This was the day of her
sixteenth birthday. An ironic, bitter initiation to an age vastly believed
sweet. The man, who had bestowed this gruesome, cruel gift upon her, was her
own inveterate drunkard of a father.
    ***
     
    On defeated steps, two months past that tumultuous incident,
Sarah dismounted the stairs from her room and walked into her Grandma’s
kitchen.
    Grandma Ruth turned from the hot stove.
    At fifty-eight, rigours of life might have etched their mark,
but they hadn’t yet succeeded in erasing every trace of the striking woman she
had once been.
    Ruth Carter understood it was still far too soon for the young
girl to accept the truth of what happened and make peace with it, but to see
the wound of the haunting past gaping so painfully open in her eyes was
crushing.
    “Oh, my poor child.” Through the haze
of her own wet lashes a loving smile still touched her quivering mouth. Closing
the distance, she embraced her grand-daughter.
    “A sweet girl like you can’t only know a life of tears.” Not a
doubt marred the indomitable faith she gathered from the ages in the white of
her hair. “That painful chapter of your life has closed. It ended with your
father. Bless the officer, who shot him before he could have taken you, too,
from me.” Her thoughts grew pensive and all colour left her face. “I shudder to
think what would have happened if one of the neighbours hadn’t called 911 on
time.”
    Sarah wiped a stray tear from her Grandma’s cheek, bringing her
out from the pain of her loss.
    Ruth looked at the precious girl before her. “I had already lost
a daughter to that monster, I couldn’t have survived
losing my precious grand-daughter, too.”
    Adoringly she smoothed down a hand over Sarah’s braided hair
resting on one shoulder.
    Light brown in colour, Ruth had seen them gleam as the purest
honey under the beaming rays of dawn. The peach hued sundress Sarah wore
gracefully evinced her feminine curves at the threshold of full bloom. Her face
was reflection of innocence itself. And her eyes, green as a Jade lost in the
deepest blue of the five Oceans, observed everyone with shy apprehension.
    Sarah’s father might not have curtailed his vices from her, but
upon his own twisted logic he had sheltered his daughter from most other evils
of the world.
    “Look how beautiful you have become. Like the first blossom of
Eden.” A twinkle sparked in her Grandma’s eyes. “And to mark this new beginning
of your life, I have a present for you.”
    Moments later, a shiny silver charm bracelet graced Sarah’s
slender left wrist.
    Ruth, however, didn’t see the joy a girl Sarah’s age took in a
bauble like this.
    Oh, how effectively her worthless son-in-law had killed even a
hope of happiness from his daughter’s life. All this poor girl had ever known
was pain and fear.
    “Don’t, sweetheart. Don’t just yet give up. This bracelet, it’ll
bring the love destined for you, you’ll see. The love that’s
just waiting to gather you in its arms.”
    “Thank you, Grandma.” Sarah whispered her