Page 39 of Severed Heart

“Selfish bitch.”

“I hate her.”

Unzipping my robe, I submerse myself into the steaming water as the images and voices collide in their punishing, perpetual blur.

The boiling water further heats my skin, sweat gathering at my temples as I run my palms over the top of the steaming surface, Matis’s words seeping into me as I begin my soak.

“Cleanliness draws God’s attention. You must keep your body free of filth to allow God to cleanse your mind and heart so he will wash you of your sins.”

Scrubbing my skin, I send up my ritual prayer as my eyes catch on a sagging patch of ceiling. I stare and stare, zeroing in on the brown tint, the same hue as the polished wood grain on Celine’s coffin.

Staring at the twin graves before me, I pull at the loose thread at the hip of my dress and wind it around my finger, stopping the flow of blood until it numbs. Wishing I had brought my bottle, the task ahead fills me with terror.

A task written in the spilled blood of Celine and Beau King—to raise their sons from boys to men.

The haze then reveals a memory of a night not long after their funeral—of an exchange that continues to plague me daily.

“I don’t want to be a mother,”I whisper to eleven-year-old Ezekiel before his firelit eyes condemn me.

“Then don’t. I’ll feed him. I’ll bathe him. I’ll walk him to school. You don’t touch him, don’t yell at him. I’ll do it all.”

And I let him.

Failing my sister.

Failing her husband.

Failing their sons.

Failing. Failing. Failing.

“Delphine,” Ormand whispers at my back just as I grip Jean Dominic and Ezekiel’s hands to start to usher them out of the cemetery. “Please don’t shut me out,” he croaks.

Stilling, I feel Ezekiel’s eyes on me as I keep mine forward, focused on the swaying line of trees ahead of us.

“Tatie, your hand is shaking,” Dominic squeaks from beneath me before Tobias shushes him, and Ormand’s plea reaches me.

“Delphine, please—”

“Go back to France, Ormand. I have nothing left to give you.”

The strangled noise he made when I cruelly dismissed him still haunts and confuses me. Confusion for the disdain and hostility I felt for him when I woke in that hospital bed.

Ormand, whom I trusted over all Alain’s men. Who was a friend and support—whose pain remains with me after I cast him out of my life, unsure of why his presence no longer held any comfort but instead repulsed me. Ormand, who waited for me in hopes of more for the entire length of my marriage, only to be exiled from my life and heart as Beau’s and Celine’s coffins lowered. The loss of him feeling like another death to mourn.

Discarding my washcloth, I sink beneath the surface of the water. The world beneath no different than the world above. Words just as muffled and the faces just as blurry as I lose time, days, and minutes as I have since I woke that night, mere months before Beau and Celine were murdered.

In need of breath, I surface just before a sharp knock jerks me to sit, reminding me I’m not alone in the house. Focusing on the knob, I jump when Tyler’s voice sounds from the other side of it.

“Delphine?” Tyler knocks again. “I’m ready for you.”

How long have I been in the bath?

Lifting my hands, my pruned fingers tell me some time has passed.

Time, which many claim is a healer, has been anything but for me. My underwater mind refusing me of all forward progress while making a goddamned fool of me.

It’s the haze that works against me, blurring my days and weeks. The haze which muddles my memories, bringing me back and to, confusing me, paralyzing me. Even as I cleanse myself over and over for God, seeking His attention, my prayers for clarity are never heard—refused. My sins too many to cleanse, to garner His attention.