"Mom, are you not making dad's at once?"

"No Laura. Your dad is still busy. I'll quickly have it in the pan once I know he is ready to eat. Juice?"
I asked, which she nodded to in agreement, and I walked over to pour in the content.

"I'll go tell dad that we're almost ready."
Laura quickly held up the glass to her mouth, and drove every ounce of orange juice down her throat. She pulled the chair away, and rose up.

"Don't bother!" I ordered, and waited for her to be seated, then continued as she had question marks coloured on her face.
"I'll drive you and your sister to school today."

Satisfied, she returned to her breakfast of pancakes and bacon. I relieved a sighed and returned to making extra bacons.

Noticing Lara's entrance, I dialed down the heat of the stove, to attempt a conversation.
"So, how was the science test yesterday?"

She pulled up a seat first, then responded.
"Great."
She sat.

"You aced it I suppose?"
I pushed through her mental barricades, and furthered the conversation. Motherhood! Help me lord!

"Apparently..."

She was extra tethered than usual. So I turned off the stove, wiped my hands, then walked up to her to offer my full attention.

"Is something the matter? You look a bit off."
I ran my hands over the weaves on her head, as I tried easing her up a bit.

"The kids in school say I'm strange... They say that smart people are weird." She began to cry. "And they call me hurtful names too."
She sprinted from the seat, and fell into my arms. "I don't wanna go there anymore mom."

I sighed first, then answered.
"Lara, what those kids say to you are cruel —"

"Uh-huh?"
She sniffed, heaved her head, and looked into my face, expecting something phenomenally positive.

"But do you know why they do that?"

"Because I'm a monster?"

"No! No no no." I immediately dismissed that thought she had of her self. "It's because they are intimidated by you."
I smiled, and she pulled away, with even more curiosity battered on her face.

"Intimidated?"

"Yes! I am was actually being helpful!" Honestly, I was beginning to feel proud of me, and I was literally grinning on the inside. "They see you as a superior being to them," I explained. "and so, they try all forms of effort to make you into a mediocre, just as they are."

"But still, they say horrible things to me ma..."

"Yes they will. That's because they see you as a potential threat, someone strong enough to destroy their empire, and they are scared."

"But—"

"But next time they come at you, and instead of running into the bathroom to cry, I want you to face those bullies, and tell 'em that you ain't scared of them. And if they still threaten you, tell them that you will report them to the principal, and they could get expelled or worse. With that, nobody will ever bother you again."

A smile brightened on her face.
"Thank you mom." She gave me a tight hug, smiled again, and returned to continue from where she left off with the pancakes.

I let free a winning sigh.
Being a mom doesn't suck all the time. There are times like this when you feel rewarded, and baby, it's an awesome feeling.

"Sissy!"
Laura mocked, giggling.

"Hey! No bad language."
I cautioned.

"But she was crying like a...like a whimp Ma."
She began to laugh.

"Respect your elder sister. You know what, go up stairs, and get your backpack for school."

"Aww!"
She forced herself off the seat, and dragged her feet up the stairs.

"Young lady!"
I growled, and she snapped out of the sulk, and ran up.

"I better go get my things too."
Lara got up too, and made her way upstairs.

"Get ready quick! Y'all are running late already!"
I screamed at them, then went back to resume cooking, but this time, I prepared it for Jeremy instead.

"Jeremy! Your breakfast is almost ready!"
I called out.

"I'll be down in a minute!"
He responded equally as I had shouted.

"Y'all will drop me dead one day!"
I added below my breath, and went back to flipping the pancakes, and as I did, the phone rang.

I picked it up, and the man over he phone sounded extra serious. Luckily, I didn't get to deal with the sternness emanating from his voice, as I had redirected the call to Jeremy his intended recipient. Shortly on the call, I heard Jeremy cuss in agitation, and thus, I got prompted to listen in a bit on their conversation.

"You have until the end of the day, unless you and your two little kids will pay heavily for it."
I heard the man say, before ending the call.

And with that, my head screamed. I wanted to too, but I couldn't, when I saw Jeremy come down the stairs. Everything about him felt cramped up with a load. Whatever it was, was overbearing; I could see it.

Even with his breakfast staring back at him, his mind kept wandering in desolation, in a wilderness.

"...We—"
I tried breaking apart the suffocating rigidity leaking from him, with a little joke, which he shoved away.

"Tell the kids to meet me in the car."

I looked at him, and down at the untouched food glimmering pale brown and red on the plate. I only nodded, and watched as he marched out of the door.

I wanted to ask him about the call, or try easing what ever pain he might have been facing without asking too much, but I couldn't. I was scared and tongue-tied. I regretted why I didn't at least try. Does that make me a bad wife, 'cause I was burdened with the guilt of being one.

Lara and Laura immediately appeared as I called them. We kissed and hugged goodbye, and then they left to school with their father.

Thirteen minutes had gone by, and the voice of the man over the phone was still beating raw in my ears. "Was that some sort of prank, or..." I smacked my cheeks with both hands: an attempt to chase away such nasty thoughts. Though as nasty as it seemed, it was fucking true.

"Wine should help."
I was almost freaking out, and I needed to calm my nerves. Damn me for my extreme over thinking most times. I'd get some major breakdown from a high blood pressure one day. The wine did help. I felt a bit calmer, as I slowly slurped the tiny drops left in the glass. As I was at my chivalrous drain, the phone chimed again.

I wished it were the same man, so I eagerly rushed for the phone, and answered it.

"Hello!"
The woman on the other line spoke first.

"Hi!"

"Are you Mrs Jefferson?"

Immediately a warm sensation swam inside my stomach, and my mouth went dry. I had to gulp down a reasonable amount of spit before replying.

"Oh yes!" I dropped in another gulp, silently. "Can I help you with anything?"
I clamped harder the telephone anchored to my ear.

Then the woman over the phone responded.
"There has been an accident, and your husband and children has been..."

In that instant, my fingers went numb, the phone dropped, and I heard no more words from the lady. Strangely, the news was not at all foreign to me, It was as though I had predicted the inevitable predicament, but still, the news was truly a berg crusher.

"... Hello! Are you on the line?"
If she had known the phone was now dangling by its springy cord, and no longer in my hands, I think she would have hung up.

I quickly took hold of the phone.
"Where are they?"

"St Peters Hospital. Please, do come along with the docu—"

I didn't let her finish, I hung up.

In that split second, everything came crashing. While some sank, others drowned.

My eyes were wide open, but my vision was gone. My feet was weak, and a knot kept twisting in stomach.

Should I cry? Should I scream? Throw a tantrum? Wreck my house? Set the couch on fire? Destroy the furniture? Or just kill myself? Nothing made sense anymore.

My feeble legs dropped to the floor and I with it, and not just despair and remorse had me in it's wraps, even fear did. Everything called emotions, were all erupting at once, from hate to love, and the other way around too. Even the air grew thinner, as I struggled to get a decent breath, without gasping halfway through.

I jetted my hand to wipe my cheeks, but it turned out that the surface was dry. There were no tears as occasionally expected.

"I can't mourn their deaths!?"
Everything went stale and insipid. I tried but I couldn't bring my self to shed a tear for my loss. It was as though my pain had gone beyond the strata where tears were coupled, to where I couldn't grief by gouging out my eyes with sniffing and water dripping down, with an overly sad countenance.

To be honest, I saw it as a gift sent from above to make me strong, because this pain, would have reduced me to cinders and dust.

Laying on the floor didn't help much, so I sprung up, reach out for my purse on the kitchen counter, grabbed it, and decided to go see the lifeless body of my husband, and my two beautiful daughters.

Laura and Lara were their name. Even after marrying a white dude, anyone would have expected them to turn out somewhat undercooked, but they didn't. They emerged freshly baked and smitten with beauty. Lara was my eldest daughter, and being twelve at the time, she was more introverted than I had expected. She was quite the nerd, and if it weren't studying, it was chess, or the SpongeBob cartoon show –I guess even bookworms, do love a bit of fun.

Laura was four, and at that age, she already had the flare of one who hated being caged. In social gatherings, she would prefer dumping her age mates, to go relate with those who were a bit older than she was, and most times, you can't tell the difference by age because of her behavior, and would either end up concluding that either she's got some stunted growth or she was a bully. Quite a young bully for her age, don't you think?

The decision to take a cab was a last minute deal. I think maybe to me, it felt safer and reassuring for the time being, which certainly, getting to the hospital, and seeing my family lifeless, was the only thing I needed. All else wouldn't matter.

When I got there, I barged in all crazed up, poured my weight on the 'push' part of the glass door, and ran like fire hazard to the ICU.

When I looked down at my girls laying hopelessly on the ICU bed, with their body blackened from their burnt flesh and soot, flashes of their imagined future were what I couldn't help but see. Lara wanted to be surgeon, so basically she'd have those white coat, and the ear thingy they use to listen to heart beats, hanging over her neck. I think Laura wanted to be a bartender, or a model, or maybe an artist, or some passion that would land her on the spot light, with ample doses of attitudes and bossiness. She would have turned out to be quite some crazy bitch, and one I would love so much.

But why? I couldn't wrap my fingers on why a living person would take the life of two innocent children? The fuck why?

Afterwards, I went for some sort of briefing from a policeman, and he told me the whole incident. From what he said, the car was driving slightly higher than the required speed limit, then immediately both the back tyres plunged out, which made the car to lose balance. The friction from the rubbing of the metal, with road, ignited a flame, and before the car could finally stop, it had already caught on fire. They could have still made it out but the glasses were up, and their seat belts clogged. So before they fire ate them up, the carbon from the smoke had already poisoned their lungs, and they first died from the gas, before the fire finished the rest. And they had crashed into a tree, and by the time the ambulance could come, it was just too late.

"Doesn't that sound strange to you?"
I asked the policeman.

"Strange? How?"
He inquired. Curse his naivity.

"You mean you don't sense the foulness in that story?"

"Their deaths were of a natural cause madame. If there is anyone to blame, I'm sure it'll be your deceased husband for accelerating."
He simply shrugged.

His words were already feeding my caged rage, but I tried keeping it still bottled up.
"What the actual fuck! Tyres don't just burst out on their own, something pulls it out."

"You cannot blame me for the poor maintenance of your family's vehicle."

"Wha—"

"See, madame, if you feel something is fishy, please go ahead and hire a private investigator. I'm sure there are plenty who would accept a chance at a free couple o' bucks."
I was this close to ripping out his throat, but then, he cut my words halfway again.
"I gotta go. I came to deliver a report, and not to get into some fight. Besides the man is dead. Move on!"

With that, he turned around, and walked away. But he did make a good point, not his bad mouth, but about the truth. The truth can only be revealed through a thorough investigation, and my body ached to know the truth.

When I eventually sobered up, and returned home, I began my very own private investigation. I wasn't gonna let some dude in a black coat, and a gray hat, relieve me of my "couple o' bucks". And besides, I was the only one capable of pulling this off.

I went from a lovely woman, enjoying motherhood, to a boogie female Sherlock Holmes.

First, the caller. "Who was it, and where was it from, and what dirty secret was my husband keeping from me."

You know the saying: leave the sleeping dog lay or let the dead man sleep? Well, I didn't at the time, and so, I ventured into a taboo. A path heavily restricted and guarded by hell hounds. Twas like robbing a man's grave, only that in this case, it was his phone book, documents, laptop, going as far as contacting the service providers to retrieve the list of numbers he had contacted in the last three months. Baby, I searched the deepest corners of hell, to find the killer.

I only got a name.
Carlos Giddotti, the supposed owner of a multimillion company, based in the southern part of the state. A dirty merchant, drug lord, and bloodthirsty maniac. So, the question was, how does Jeremy relate to this man, that he so much threatened his family and his life?

The phone on the counter chimed. I was hesitant to answer, because of all the sympathizers lately which didn't seem to cease a week after the funeral. I eventually dragged myself to the phone, and reluctantly held it against my ears.

"Mrs Naomi Jefferson?"

"Yes?"

"First, we would like to offer our condolences —"

"Second?"

"We'd like to tell you to vacate the properties you currently occupy, as it now belongs to the bank, as per the terms of the loan agreement by late Mr Jeremiah Mest Jefferson."

"What?—"

"Thank you."

They hung up