Page 45 of Scarlet Thorns

The words echo in my skull, but they feel foreign, impossible. Just days ago, I was worried about telling him about my endometriosis. Just days ago, he was the solid foundation of my world, the man who could fix anything, explain anything, make everything better with his presence alone.

Now he’s… gone?

The ambulance arrives in a blur of flashing lights and professional courtesy. Paramedics load Mom onto a gurney, checking her vitals and inserting an IV while I follow in a daze. She reaches for me as they wheel her away, her fingers cold and desperate against my palm.

“Don’t leave me,” she whispers. “Please don’t leave me alone.”

“I won’t,” I promise, though my voice sounds like it belongs to someone else. “I’m right here, Mom. I’m not going anywhere.”

The ride to the hospital passes in surreal silence broken only by the electronic beeping of medical equipment and Mom’s occasional whimpers. I stare out the ambulance window at Boston streets that look exactly the same as they did thismorning, wondering how the world can continue spinning when mine has just stopped completely.

At the hospital, they wheel Mom into the emergency department while I’m relegated to a plastic chair in the waiting area. The fluorescent lights buzz overhead, casting everything in harsh, clinical tones that make my skin look gray and lifeless.

I call Jason because I can’t think of anyone else who might have answers. The phone rings twice before his familiar voice answers, immediately shifting from casual to concerned when he hears mine.

“Ilona? What’s wrong, kiddo?”

“Jason…” My voice breaks on his name. “I need you to check something for me. In the police database. My father… Igor Shiradze. Something’s happened to him.”

“Give me a moment,” he says, his voice colored with concern. Keystrokes sound in the background, then silence stretches across the connection, and I know before he speaks that my worst fears are confirmed.

“Jesus, Ilona. I’m so sorry. There’s no easy way to say this. His case file shows him as deceased.”

The words drive the air from my lungs. So, it’s true. Dad is really dead. Not a mistake, not some horrible misunderstanding.

Gone.

“What happened?” I whisper, though part of me doesn’t want to know. “How did he…?”

“It says the case is still under investigation,” Jason says carefully, his cop voice replacing his fatherly concern. “But preliminary reports suggest… it appears to be self-inflicted.”

Suicide.

The word he can’t bring himself to say hangs between us like a loaded weapon. Dad killed himself.

“That’s not possible.” The denial comes automatically, fierce and absolute. “Dad would never… he’s not… there has to be some mistake.”

“Ilona… I know this is devastating, kiddo. I know it doesn’t feel like it makes sense right now—”

“Because itdoesn’tmake sense!” My voice rises, drawing looks from other people in the waiting room. “My father was happy. Successful. He loved his family, his work. He would never abandon us like that.”

“Sometimes people hide their pain—”

“Not Dad!” I’m shouting now, grief transforming into fury at the suggestion that I didn’t know my own father. “You don’t understand. He was fine. He was helping me with medical issues, worried about Mom, planning for the future. People who are suicidal don’t do those things.”

But even as I say it, memories surface that I’ve been ignoring. The strained conversation between my parents that I walked in on. Dad’s evasive answers about their finances. The way he looked tired, worn, like he was carrying weight I couldn’t see.

“Ilona,” Jason’s voice is gentle but firm. “I know this is hard to accept. But the evidence—”

“What evidence?” I demand. “What evidence could possibly prove that my father chose to leave us?”

“I can’t discuss details of an ongoing investigation. But if you want answers, if you need to understand what happened, I can put you in touch with the detective handling the case.”

I want to scream that there’s nothing to understand, that this is all some terrible mistake that will be corrected once the right people look at the right piece of evidence. But the words stick in my throat, choked off by the growing certainty that my world has fundamentally changed.

Dad is gone. However it happened, whatever led to this moment, he’s not coming back. The man who taught me to ride a bike, who walked me to school on my first day, who bandaged my scraped knees and broken hearts— gone.

“I have to go,” I whisper into the phone. “Mom needs me.”