And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

                                   —Friedrich Nietzsche

It lurks. Pulses deep within. Shivers on my skin.

         An odd-shaped shadow dances across my hand as I sit alone at the breakfast table.

         Alone, but for the darkness. It watches. It waits.

         Morning sunlight slices through silvery liquid in a clear mason jar. Glints off the knife blade next to it. The object inside the jar bobs and floats.

         Luminous warmth fills the room. Yet I remain cold. I teeter on the edge of the abyss, peering into its face. Darkness stares back at me, calmly licking its chops.

         The darkness swallowed my husband, sinking its icy claws into him, consuming him bit by juicy bit. Our daughter is also no longer of this world. But I can only hope she found her wings and escaped the dark, despite her violent end. I grasp this hope with the remnants of my strength. To hope keeps me from plummeting in a swan dive into the heart of the abyss. Alone, now. I teeter on the edge.

***

Soon after Arthur and I got married, we remodeled an old fixer-upper. Our plans were simple: to fill our home with children, with laughter and with love. But the children didn’t come. We both loved kids. I worked every day with my high school students. Arthur coached the swim team and summer t-ball. We’d given up hope of every having our own. Then Mirai came along.

         Mirai—our miracle baby. With dark curls and violet-blue eyes, her smile never failed to make others smile—even the grouchiest of souls.

         When she was still very young, Mirai dug out some tulips from my flower bed and walked to Mrs. McGillicutty’s two houses down the road. Mrs. McGillicutty was a brittle lady who sat on her porch and snapped at anyone who looked her way. Most children feared her. Not Mirai. Without hesitation, she took my uprooted tulips to the old woman’s house. I’d run inside for just one second to grab something. Stepping outside again, I looked for Mirai. I saw the old woman, on her front porch, shooing off my baby girl.

         “Scat you!” She waved her arms like she was scaring away dogs from the garbage. “Git now. You hear me, I said git!”

         I yelled for Mirai to come back as I ran to get her out of the old shrew’s grip. But Mirai never wavered. She continued to walk toward Mrs. McGillicutty with the tulips stretched out in front of her.

         Then my girl smiled. “Pretty flowers. Pretty grandma.” The old woman’s face thawed from a chiseled gargoyle scowl into a soft expression of wonder. As if before that day, no one had ever said a kind word to her.

         The woman glanced my way as I stood heaving for breath at her open gate. Then turning her gaze to my daughter, she scooped the flowers into her hands, bulbs and all. With a voice that sounded like the squeak of a rusty gate softened in summer rain, she said, “Thank you, child. Now you best be scootin’ home. Go on now, your mamma’s awaitin’.”

         Arthur and I had a hard time keeping up with Mirai. A true adventurer, I remember the day we took the training wheels from her bike. We hesitated because she seemed too young to be independent. She told us it was all she wanted for her birthday. “I wanna go, Daddy. Go fast. Go on my own.”

         Arthur sat on the curb in front of our house, sweaty from mowing the lawn. Mirai danced on tiptoes as she waited for him to take the extra wheels from her bright orange bike with its banana seat. A perfect summer day fragrant with fresh-mown grass and bird song. On her first few tries on two wheels, Arthur ran behind her. She fell once and scraped her knee. But she jumped back on her bike with a determined set to her jaw. She pointed to the end of our block. “Daddy, I can do this.” And before Arthur could get up behind her, she took off—wobbling at first but eventually, picking up enough speed for a smooth ride. She’d found her wings.

         A few years of protective hovering followed as we watched her grow. Our emotions oscillated between impatience to see what kind of young woman she’d grow into and the wish to keep her young and with us always.

         At ten, she was strong, smart, and fiercely independent. But she never reached eleven.

         We thought we’d done all we could to keep her safe. In a boot camp against danger, we taught her to be cautious. She knew the drill: take no offers from anyone you don’t know; if a stranger asks for help, call 911 but don’t get involved; if we’re in trouble, we’ll send Grandma, or Grandpa or Auntie Jo and no one else. Understood? No one else.

         “No strangers, no matter what.” She chorused the mantra in her earlier years with earnest enthusiasm and with a hint of eye rolling as she got older.

         Understood.

         But in the end, we discovered we couldn’t plan for everything.

         In the morning of the day she went missing, I brushed her hair into a long braid down her back. In a whim of nostalgia, I tied a ribbon on the end. One of her favorites when she still wore ribbons.

         She looked at me from the mirror with raised eyebrows. “Mom. I’m no longer a baby who wears ribbons.”

         I wrapped my arms around her. “I know, sweets. Next week, you’ll be eleven. After that, no more ribbons.” We talked for a while planning her party. With a sigh, I said, “Take the ribbon off if you want.”

         She gave me a big kiss and left to meet her friends. She left with my daily whispered prayer. “Be safe.”

         She ventured down two blocks alone to her best friend, Jill’s, then off to meet the others at the park. A park in the middle of a quiet sun-soaked neighborhood full of neighborly smiles. A perfect picture of Safe Village, USA.

         But even the sunniest places can have a menace lurking in the shadows.

         The Brothers Grimm were some of Mirai’s favorite bedtime stories. Every night, no matter how exhausted, Arthur found the energy to read our baby into her dreams. In her younger years, she loved Arthur’s monster voices, the way he roared “I’ll eat you up!” then covered her tummy with raspberry noises.

         In her older years, she read to him. Many a time, I’d check in on them and see Mirai reading over the sound of Arthur’s snoring.

         We’d look at each other and giggle. “Think he can hear you over that noise?”

         Mirai would kiss him awake. “Daddy can always hear me.”

         How many times did she call for her father in her captivity? At what point did she realize Daddy couldn’t hear her?

         Witnesses at the crime scene reported a rusty white van lurched from the curb and ran into the group of girls crossing the street with their bikes. The lucky ones went to the hospital.

         The driver, a tall, angular man, dressed in black with gloves and a ski mask, jumped out and grabbed three girls—Mirai, Jill and their friend Amber. He had Amber off her feet, holding her sideways on his hip. Jill was pressed against him in the crook of his arm. Mirai had just enough room to squeeze out of his grip and run away. She didn’t get far before Jill cried out for help.

         “Mirai, please. Don’t leave me!”

         Several neighbors said while the man tried to stuff the two girls into the van, Mirai ran back and kicked him behind his knee causing him to fall and let loose of the girls. Jill ran away with Mirai behind her. Amber couldn’t get around the aggressor. He grabbed her by the throat and slammed her into the van.

         The gurgled scream she let out caused Mirai to hesitate. She stopped just long enough to give the perp time to catch up to her and grab her by her single braid. He yanked her into the van. Slam. Two girls trapped inside. Pieces of torn polka-dot ribbon fluttered to the ground like feathers torn from a bird.

         The van screeched down the street in the opposite direction before anyone could reach it. My neighbors told me in the panic, no one thought to get their phones out. “It all happened so fast. We were running to the girls—not focused on the guy.”

         “Descriptions were inconsistent, nothing substantial,” the officers reported.

         A shadow slipped in, blitzed a group of laughing girls, swallowed two of them, then melted back into the darkness. How do we prepare for that kind of attack? This is stuff on the news. To other people. I thought we’d done all we could not to be one of those people.

         When Mirai was around seven, a dove crashed into the big picture window of our house. She rushed to the bird and returned cradling it in a protective cave in the crook of her arm. Her bleeding fingers stretched out in front of her.

         Tears trembled in her eyes and in a small voice, she asked, “Why did it hurt me? All I wanted was to help it.”

         Arthur scooped the bird from her and it began to poke at his hands.

         “Go wash your fingers in the sink.” I grabbed a kitchen towel and wrapped it around the bird careful of its broken wing.

         Mirai winced as I dabbed antiseptic over her wounds. “Why did that stupid bird hurt me?”

         I wound band aids around her fingertips and kissed them. “Remember the time Jill accidently hit you with the soft ball? You hurt so much that you tackled her and started hitting her back.”

         “Mamma, you already scolded me for that.”

         “I’m not scolding you, sweets. I’m asking you if you remember what the pain did to you.”

         “It made me crazy.”

         “Hmm, yes, it did. Now imagine that crazy feeling with someone ten times bigger than you trying to scoop you up.”

         Mirai nodded her head and went to Arthur. “Can we take it to the vet?”

         No more tears. She believed Arthur and I were capable of fixing brokenness.

         Arthur wanted to buy a cage for the bird after we brought it home. Instead, Mirai converted a cardboard box into a home on the screen-porch and made a stand for it to sit. “No cages, Daddy. When she’s ready, she will fly out the window and find her way home.”

         About three weeks after the abduction, the police caught the suspect as he was harassing other girls. After an interrogation, the police uncovered the broken body of our baby freshly buried with Amber’s next to a lake. They asked us to identify the body. Our living breathing, joyful girl reduced to nothing more than the body. As I touched her matted curls, I imagined her spirit fly from her brokenness. “Did you find your way Home, sweet girl?”

         Arthur was my rock through the entire ordeal. He trusted the justice system. He comforted me in my violent outbursts. “It will all work out. You have to be strong.”

         During the trial, Arthur never left his seat. He placed himself in the chair behind the perp, boring his gaze into the back of the man’s head. “He wasn’t born wanting to consume innocent girls,” he told me. He was desperate to understand the emptiness that yawned within—why that man needed to fill his voracious appetite with our daughters.

         There were times I couldn’t bear to listen to another word. When the man pleaded not guilty for reasons of insanity, I left the courtroom. I walked into the elevator making loud and messy sneezes until everyone fled in disgust. Alone, I hit the stop button and pounded on the walls, crying. I crumpled to the floor. Security got the elevator moving again. They pried me from my cage and called my family to take me home.

         After a couple nights under medication, I returned to the trial. I tried to sit with my husband. But the stench of rotten eggs, acrid and suffocating, wafted from the accused. Was this what my baby smelled in her last breath?

         Cinnamon cookies were her favorite. Hours and hours, we spent together baking cookies to surprise Daddy. Sometimes, he baked with us. We cranked the music and had boisterous baking parties.

         Did she summon our festive moments together to sustain her courage in her dark days?

         The case for the prosecution went south. The judge declared the wording of the search warrants rendered the evidence inadmissible. I can’t say I understood all the legal jargon, but I understood the wavering tone of the prosecutor and the rising confidence of the defense attorney. I stood with my fist in the air to yell in protest. Arthur stood, too. He wrapped one arm around my waist and walked me out of the room. He murmured in my ear. “It will all work out. You have to be strong. Justice will be served.”

         Not once did he waver in his belief.

         I sat outside with my head in my hands. Arthur returned to the courtroom. The judge dismissed the murder charges and ordered a psychiatric evaluation. Arthur tried to relate the details, but with my pulsating head and roiling stomach, I couldn’t take in all he said. Something about drug possession and assault relating to the other girls. All I know is this predator, after less than a year, was released to walk the streets—free to stalk other daughters.

         The whole community groaned with us and with Amber’s parents. Promised to get the bastard in a civil case.

         I was inconsolable. My husband never wavered. “Justice will be served.” He repeated it over and over. “Justice will be served.”

         Days. Weeks. Months. Maybe eons passed by as I slept, unable to find enough strength to face the world.

         At some point, my high school students stopped dropping off flowers and cards. Church friends stopped bringing food. Life moved forward. Not for me. I’d lost touch with reality. I’d lost touch with Arthur too.

         Sometimes, I’d wake from my fog in a moment of lucidity and wonder if my husband had changed jobs. His routine seemed to change—out at night and home during the day. He’d enter the bedroom smelling like smoke. Then he spent an eternity in the shower. Did this happen once or many times? Was it real or part of my murky dreams? Don’t know. But the odor of bleach remained, burning in my nose.

         One morning before dawn, I woke with a desire to do some ordinary task. Deciding on making coffee, I pulled myself from my bed. In pajamas, I plodded bare-foot downstairs. In the kitchen, smoke tickled my nose. Outside, Arthur was burning something in the barbeque. An eerie glow bathed his face. Fiery flames danced in his eyes.

         As he entered the kitchen, a look of surprise flickered into a smile and he seemed to tuck something behind his back. “Glad to see you awake, my love.” He bent to kiss my forehead, and I breathed in the acrid, biting taste of smoke. And something else, though I couldn’t put my finger on it. Without looking me in the eye, he left to take a shower.

         Bolstered by a bit of caffeine, I wanted to make another attempt at ordinary life. Laundry. But I found no dirty clothes. At first, I assumed Arthur had done his own laundry. But, as I looked in his closet, I found only new clothes—some still had tags.

         A disquieting suspicion shivered through me as the memory of bleach tingled in my nose. I staggered my way back to the kitchen and waited for him to finish his shower.

         Memories played through my head like old home movies. Arthur made me laugh even on my grumpiest days.

         One evening, when Mirai was a newborn, he came home after a long day at the office. I was swaying around with a colicky baby in my arms trying to soothe her. Arthur slumped against the door frame looking rumpled. I must have scowled at him in my frustration. But he grinned his mischievous grin, his eyes filled with laughter. He dropped his jacket and briefcase on the floor. Then he swept us both in his arms and we waltzed around the room until Mirai fell asleep.

         Then we found just enough energy for a little dance of delicious marital bliss of our own.

         Arthur woke me from my memory. “Do you want more coffee, love?” The man who sat across the table had Arthur’s body, but what I saw in his face twisted my stomach into knots. My body went numb. I no longer knew this man.

         Arthur never liked for others to see anything but his smile. I learned to gauge the genuineness of that smile by studying the light in his baby blues and the outline of his jaw.

         Dark lines etched his stony face—a marble statue that had weathered too many storms. He smiled, but his once laughing eyes were now void of life. Heavy circles under his eyes looked like fresh bruises. His clenched jaw held a secret he was unwilling to let go.

         We stared at each other long and hard. He rose from his chair and placed his forehead to mine and stood over me until the rhythm of my breathing matched his. Then he spoke in a firm voice with no emotion.

         “Justice has been served. Justice. Has been served.”

         Happy memories haunted the house—echoes of all we’d lost. Ethereal images lingered in my mind, then dissolved leaving me with a cold ache. Once, the wind pushed a door shut with a bang. Out of habit, I yelled, “No slamming doors, Mirai!” Silence answered me. I realized my forgetfulness and walked to the offending door and slammed it a few times.

         At the violent noise, Arthur rushed to my side. He placed himself between me and the door and let me beat on his chest while I cried.

         The police came to our house to tell us the predator was missing. No trace of him. We stared at the officers with cold, dumb expressions as they grilled us with questions—our whereabouts and activities.

         We turned the tables, grilling them with our own questions. “Weren’t you supposed to keep watch? Don’t you reckon in his guilt, he just up and took off?” The police, with nothing more to say, left.

         Nothing remained in that house but shattered dreams. Moving to a small cottage by the sea, we attempted to put the pieces of our lives back together again—a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces gone. We found new jobs. Arthur swam in the ocean every sunrise.

         One morning, he didn’t come home.

         His body washed ashore a few miles away with parts missing from a shark attack. Another family member lost to a predator. Did I suspect this would happen, or was I still dazed from losing Mirai to feel anything but numbness?

         I found out later, he’d taken a life insurance policy and left me with a considerable sum. Enough to keep me comfortable without having to work another day in my life.

         But what is money when you have nothing to live for?

         Arthur had lived to serve others. While visiting the city in the early years of our marriage, we stumbled upon a homeless man. My husband took off his jacket and shirt and handed it to the shivering stranger who lived in a cardboard box. Then he walked to the nearest bodega in his undershirt and bought him two bags of groceries. Arthur found his purpose in giving. You’d think life would have smiled back with more generosity.

         With the move, we’d wished to paint our faces with hope and put the past behind us. But some things are too horrible to be forgotten. Arthur knew this on the morning he took his last swim.

***

Some things are too horrible to let go. I see it now, as I sit here in the morning sun staring at this mason jar.

         In it, a human heart swimming in silvery formaldehyde.

         I ponder Arthur’s decision as I finger the hunting knife he used to carve out that heart. He never went into detail of those nights he slipped into the darkness to hunt the predator. To hunt. To kill. Remembering the haunted look in my husband’s eyes, I wonder about the means Arthur used to extract the details of Mirai’s captivity.

         Why did he do it? To bring me peace? As his last act of fatherhood?

         I will never know.

         Arthur stepped into the darkness. He fell into the deep. Left me alone.

         The light from the rising sun has shifted. More light than shadow on my hand. I rub it wanting to feel the warmth of hope again. The shape of the shadow has shifted and no longer bobs.

         I’ve sold the little cottage by the sea. Unsure yet where my path will finish, I’m taking an extended sailing trip. Somewhere along the way, I will offer the heart to the sharks. Toss the knife into the ocean depths. Perhaps this offering will bring me peace.

         Maybe the darkness will win and devour me. Maybe I will take that swan dive—feed myself to the ocean predators as Arthur did.

         Darkness or light? I waver on the edge a moment longer. With a sigh, I speak out loud. “I’ll decide later.” The sound of my voice startles me. I blink hard.

         With careful precision, I wrap the jar and the knife in a fragile package and tuck it away into my bags.

         Time to go.

         Bold-faced light blinds me as I step into the fullness of the morning sun. It glints. Pierces deep within. Dances on my skin.

         I pause with face upturned, waiting for my pulse to return to a steady pace. Breathe in the tang of the salty air. Children’s laughter floats from the beach and dances with the rhythm of the crashing waves.

         One long breath. Two.

         Time to say goodbye.

         Time. Goodbye.