It was mid December. My family packed into this new neighbourhood. Our old place was cherished by floods like the ocean floor. At least, that's the reason Mom gave me. Not to mention that we moved constantly since daddy's return.

Upon our arrival, I observed there were no children.

Being the only child of my paren's, I found company and closure with other children. But for some reasons, the noise of carefree kids were a distant cry in the neighbourhood.

The family across the street watched my parents with the suspicion of a mama bear...they couldn't accept the difference in me, daddy once said.

We had to move before new year. The neighbourhood had become uninhabitable overnight.

One night before our departure, I looked through my bedroom window and saw some children dinning with the family across the street. It piqued my curiosity.

So the minute I got an opportunity, I called mom's attention to it. Our neighbours were keeping their children locked away from us... like we were some beasts.

It was more hurtful when I remembered it wasn't always so. Daddy's return brought it all, and I didn't spare the chance to rant. “ Where have you been? What did you do?”

He was so quiet the room fell in sync. Was I to be blamed? For ten years, he was away, and no one has been honest with me on what happened.

The night before our departure, I was walking home from a grocery store when I saw a small group of our neighbours together. Nothing about them drummed on my ears until I heard them saying my daddy had shot a little girl.

Was she my age? Why did he do it?

I left every room for doubt , anger bristling through my nostrils. I got home and heaped it on him, without a tinge of faith or trust in him.

Daddy excused himself and went upstairs. Mom sat me down and explained that daddy was wrongfully convicted and jailed for a crime he didn't commit.

" He heard the girl's cry and hurried to her rescue. He overpowered the abductor and got fired at. The girl took the bullet. He was crying over her when the cops arrived.

No one believed his innocence."

I sobered instantly. 

Mom encouraged me to go upstairs and apologize.

But it was too late... daddy hung himself in the middle of his room that day.

The image never left my mind as I grew away from the foolishness of my adolescence...but more than that was the regret of not making things right. I didn't get the chance to say I'm sorry.

At his funeral, those neighbours came to offer their sympathies but all I could picture were my dad's murderers...and I, as one of them.

Dedicated to the victims of their own goodness.