When You Were Young

"Get out of here!" Samantha screamed, but too late.

Veronica swatted the bat from Mrs. Pryde's hand and pressed her close. A butcher knife appeared in Veronica's hand, poised over Mrs. Pryde's throat. "Now it's over," Veronica said.

"Who are you?" Mrs. Pryde asked.

"You don't know your own sister-in-law? What a shame."

"Sister-in-law?"

"I don't suppose my dear brother would have ever mentioned me. After all, he was only a year old when I killed that bastard father of ours."

"Veronica, I know he hurt you, but this won't solve anything," Samantha said. "Put down the knife and let's talk."

"Oh yes, let's talk like a couple of old friends. You don't care about me. You never did. No one ever did."

"You were my friend, Veronica. Whatever happened between us, this isn't the answer. Let her go and we can work this out. Please, let me help you."

"I don't need your help!" Veronica threw Mrs. Pryde into Samantha. They stumbled to the ground, landing in a heap.

"Mom?" called a small voice from the stairs.

"Joey, no!" Mrs. Pryde threw herself towards Veronica, right onto the knife. She stood in the center of the kitchen for a moment, the blade sticking out of her chest, and then she crumpled to the floor.

Samantha reached into her jacket for the switchblade she kept in the pocket. She plunged it into Veronica's thigh and then flipped Veronica back against the stove. Veronica lay there unmoving, but still alive.

Samantha rolled over to Mrs. Pryde's side. She removed the knife from between the woman's breasts and said, "You're going to be all right. Just hang on."

Before she could stand up to call for an ambulance, Mrs. Pryde took her arm. Their eyes met and with her final breath, Mrs. Pryde said, "Take care of Joey."

The woman's eyes rolled back into her head. Samantha stared at the wound in Mrs. Pryde's chest, the blood oozing down to her stomach.

"I'm sorry, Miss Fuller. There was nothing we could do for the baby," the doctor says.

"The baby?" she asks.

"You didn't know?" the doctor asks. She shakes her head. "I'm sorry you have to find out like this, but you were six weeks along, I'd say."

"Oh God," she says. Of course she should have known: the late period, the morning sickness-why hadn't she seen it? "What about him? What about Andre?"

The doctor puts a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry. We did everything we could for him, but there was too much damage."

She turns her head away from the doctor so that he can't watch her cry. Andre is dead. Her fiancée, the only man she'd ever loved, gone. And a child-their son or daughter-dead before drawing a single breath.