Alex's Journal

My mother is dead. She shot herself on the cold winter night of my birthday. That happened only two years ago. When the phone call came, my family and I were eating breakfast. My three year old daughter had just learned the word “suicide.”

It was on this cursed day that I heard my daughter say the word for the first time. She said it, then laughed. The laugh of a little girl.

A year later, we were eating dinner when my daughter said something. I couldn’t hear very well because a loud bang echoed through the house. But I knew right away was she had said. With the table between us, my wife laid with her face in her plate. In her lap sat my pistol. My daughter continued eating.

I’ve just heard my daughter say “suicide.” She’s watching me, as I have my pistol to my head and my finger is pulling the trigger.