Page 17 of Broken Dream

It’s a chilly January day, but that doesn’t matter to me.

Nothing will keep me from visiting my wife and daughter.

I put on my down jacket, my muffler, my leather gloves, and I leave the medical school and get into my car.

I drive a Prius. I’ve never been the ostentatious type. Even when I was a sought-after general surgeon, I put most of my money away. We did splurge on a beautiful two-story home, but I sold it after…

It didn’t feel like home anymore.

Now I live in a townhome. And I no longer have a sought-after surgeon salary. I’m a professor. Good job, to be sure, and I have a lot to teach my students.

But it’s nothing compared to cutting.

God, I miss it.

A light dusting of snow covers the ground as I get out of my car and enter the cemetery.

I stopped bringing flowers. They just die.

I’ve seen enough death.

The headstones aren’t ostentatious either. Lindsay would’ve hated that.

They sit side by side, gray markers designating where the ashes of my wife and daughter are buried.

Lindsay Davis Lansing, loving wife and mother.

Julia Lindsay Lansing. Only a babe on earth, but now she flies with the angels.

Three years old.

Three fucking years old, and it’s all my fault.

I kneel on the frosty grass and gently brush away the snow that covers their names. It’s too soon for them to be washed away, even by weather. With my gloved fingers, I trace the letters and numbers etched into the stone.

I sigh, watching my breath float out in a misty cloud.

And I let myself remember.

Innocent laughter ringing through the house, the scent of Lindsay’s perfume drifting through the air wherever she walked, Julia clutching my hand with her tiny fingers.

Guilt tightens its grip on my heart.

I’ve become accustomed to the guilt. It’s kind of like an old friend now because I can’t remember Lindsay and Julia without it. It’s always there, hovering like a houseguest who you wish would leave but in a weird way you know you’d miss if he did.

Icy winds whip around me. I’m used to the chill. It’s been my companion for years.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper into the wind, hoping the words will somehow reach Lindsay and Julia. “I’m so sorry.”

How many times have I said it before? How many more times will I say it in the future? A lifetime’s worth of apologies will never erase my guilt. I sit in the cold, the silence around me heavy with the weight of my regret.

Finally I rise. Snow has started to fall again. Soon it will blanket the two graves. It’s beautiful and tragic at the same time.

As I walk back to my car, I leave behind a part of me with Lindsay and Julia. The part of me that still hopes for redemption. The part that yearns for their forgiveness.

Forgiveness that will never come because they are no longer here to give it.

Dr. Morgan used to tell me I had to forgive myself.