“Stephen, take a seat,” said Dr. Jacobs. Stephen walked to the couch on the back wall and plopped down. His eyes wandered around the room. The blinds were closed, but still allowed light to shine through. The couch was firm yet comfortable. Dr. Jacobs was seated at his desk finishing his lunch. “You’re a bit early. Oh well, you know why you’re here?” asked Dr. Jacobs. “Yes,” replied Stephen. “Let’s not talk about that just yet. How are you today?” “Tired. I have not had much sleep lately. Not since…” Dr. Jacobs stood up, leaving his lunch, walked around the big desk, and sat down in an armchair. “Tell me about what it was like before Rebecca gave birth to Christopher.” “It was nice. She would always be reading a horror novel, so at night when she had bad dreams I was there to comfort her. She was a sous chef at the nearby Ritz-Carlton Philadelphia so new recipes were always tested on me. The sex was great. Like really great. She wasn’t shy about anything.” “Did she give up cooking?” “After Christopher was born,” replied Stephen. “After that she became a stay-at-home mom. She still read her books, and the sex was still great. Actually, it was better than before.” “So nothing drastically changed, except her employment status?” “Yeah,” replied Stephen. “Well, after Parker was born she gave up reading. I mean, it’s understandable seeing that the boys are, I mean, were a year apart.” His face grew dark. Stephen’s eyes had a foggy look. It was too hard for him to talk about. The memory of seeing his wife lying the tub full of her own blood. It was a memory that Stephen did not want to remember but could never forget. “Let’s talk about your boys. What were some things they liked doing?” inquired Dr. Jacobs. “Well, Jonathan loved Oreos. He would play with them like they were Tinker Toys. He would drape his blanket over the dining room chairs and play fort. His Oreos would compose the walls and he would be in the middle destroying walls and eating his cookies. I can still hear him giggling from under that green blanket.” A single tear formed in the corner of his right eye. “What about Parker and Christopher?” pushed the doctor. “Parker loved to pretend that he was an actor. After every movie he watched he would try to reenact it. He would raid my closet for costumes. Once, when he saw Tootsie he went into Rebecca’s closet and tried to wear a dress and her heels. It was hilarious and Rebecca cracked up. She laughed so hard. But later she seemed disturbed by it.” Stephen paused, trying to clear his thoughts. He didn’t want to think of Rebecca. He could not think of her, not now. “Christopher was just like his mother. He loved being scared. He would watch old slasher films and have nightmares. He knew it was pretend so he didn’t care much. When he watched The Exorcist he was really scared. He heard that it was based on a real story and he could not sleep because he was afraid that a demon would posses him. Rebecca had to sit up with him. She was upset that he watched movies like that. I don’t understand why. She used to love stuff like that.” “When did it appear that she didn’t like these past times anymore?” “Around Jonathan’s second birthday. She just stopped everything that she used to love doing. That’s when the sex went from being great to just being sex.” “So around Jonathan’s second birthday?” “Yes. I just said that. She would only cook simple everyday kind of meals. She stopped reading and didn’t about sex anymore,” Stephen replied. His jaw clenched. He hated Dr. Jacobs for making him think of his wife. It was too hard, too horrible. “Dr. Jacobs, will you do me a favor?” he asked. “Um, maybe. What is the favor?” the doctor answered. “I was given Rebecca’s diary and I’ve read through it. I copied some of the entries and I was wondering if you would read them. This way I don’t have to think of her. It hurts me to think about her.” “How does it hurt?” “It feels like an icy hand is squeezing the air from my lungs. My brain is on fire and nothing can put it out. And my heart feels like someone took an old rusty knife and slowly dragged it through it, tearing it up but not ripping it apart. I don’t like thinking about her.” Stephen bent over, placing his elbows on his knees and resting his head in his hands. Tears started to roll down his haggard cheeks. Dr. Jacobs said nothing. He couldn’t believe that this man could feel such pain, horrible pain. “I’ll read those passages Stephen,” he said. Stephen reached into his coat pocket, pulling out photocopies of his wife’s diary. The paper had a yellow tint to it, as if it was left in the sun. The doctor wondered if it was the color of the paper, or if it was a color copy of the original diary. He decided that it didn’t matter. Stephen sat in silence, watching the doctor. August Eighteenth I arrived at the house today determined to clean the place before anything could be redecorated. The foyer was dark and the light switch was in the strangest place. I turned on all of the lights of the house and noticed that the floor was covered in dust. I went to the car to get the cleaning supplies. I grabbed brushes, sponges, a bucket, and a bottle of floor cleaner. I wondered what the liquid must taste like, the substance running down my throat like water falling over an edge. I was tempted to drink it but then decided against it. Cleaning was more important right now. I spent three hours scrubbing the upstairs and staircase and another two hours downstairs. I then stopped for the day and headed for my mother’s house. On the drive back, I was passing an eighteen-wheeler and I regretted not driving directly into it. September Twenty-ninth The boys don’t seem to be responding to my discipline. I only find comfort in taking long bubble baths. I can drown out my stress and relax. Stephen thinks I’m overreacting. What does he know? He is never home. I am tempted to slip under the water and let my life fade away, but there seems to be something holding me back. October Third Jonathan was under his blanket that was draped over the chairs. I told him to stop hiding from me and he said that he wasn’t. I told him to stop lying to me and he said that he was playing fort. He was not playing fort. He was hiding because he stole all of the Oreos and I knew about it. I watched him from the kitchen. He was giggling and ripping apart the cookies like a monster. It was a horrible sight. October Seventh Christopher was up all night watching the Nightmare on Elm Street series. Stupid boy. He is getting all of these ideas on how to murder people. Who knows when he will use one of the techniques that he has seen in a movie. I keep telling him not to watch the movies but Stephen keeps telling him that it is okay to watch them because I used to watch and read stuff on that subject and that Christopher knows that it is all pretend. I don’t know who trust anymore. October Fifteenth This morning Parker was watching Tootsie and I didn’t like the idea of letting him watching a man act as a woman but Stephen had already given hi permission to watch it. I kept away from the living room while the movie was on. I took a bath. Oh what a wonderful bath it was. I used my new oils, the red ones that smell like cherry. It turned the water red and I was so tempted to make the water redder but I couldn’t do it with the children home. Who would watch them until Stephen got home? When I got out of the tub and went into my bedroom to get dressed, I saw Stephen was home early. He said that he had a stomach thing. Parker was rummaging through my closet and trying on my dresses and heels. I admit that it was funny but it was wrong. Just wrong. Men are supposed to be men and women are supposed to be women. It angered me that Stephen was giving Parker the idea that it was okay to act like a women. October Twenty-fifth I can’t stand to be around the boys anymore. They sicken me. They never listen and they do things that no child should do. Parker was running through the house trying to bomb the place, Christopher was laughing as a girl was being decapitated, and Jonathan was turning into a gluttonous pig. They need to all go away, and stay away. “Stephen, I don’t…I don’t know what to say,” said Dr. Jacobs. He couldn’t believe what he just read. “Do you have the rest?” “No. I burned it. Those are the only entries left.” “Why did you burn it?” “It was too hard to read, to see, to think about.” “Were there more entries after this last one?” “Yes.” “What did it say?” “It described…” Stephen grew quiet. He remembered the look of relief on Rebecca’s face. He remembered the look of fear on Christopher’s, Jonathan’s, and Parker’s faces. It was too much to handle. He broke down in tears. “I can’t talk about it. I need to talk about it though. Maybe that will help me get over it. “It described how she proceeded to kill the boys. She wrote that since Christopher loved Friday the 13th she was going to hack at him with a knife. And that was what she did. When I came home from my business trip, I saw Christopher laying on the floor, his stomach and chest with huge cuts and I could see the blood that he was laying in. It was so sickening that I actually threw up in the kitchen. His face was so…so hard to look at. He looked scared, more scared than I have ever seen him look. I went over to him and cradled his body screaming for help. A neighbor heard me and ran over. He said that he would call the police and sit with Christopher’s body while I looked for the rest of my family.” “Did she write about Parker and Jonathan?” asked Dr. Jacobs. “Oh, yes,” replied Stephen. “She then wrote that since Parker liked to pretend so much that she would be play pretend with him. That they would play Peter Pan and while Parker would be trying to fly, she was going to throw a noose over his head and say that it would help him fly. And then he would jump and break his neck.” Stephen started to tear up again. “After I left Christopher with the neighbor I headed upstairs. I opened Parker’s door, mainly because it was closest. I saw his limp body hanging from his ceiling fan. His face was twisted; it almost looked like he was still trying to breathe. I fell to the floor and started to cry at that moment. These were my boys, my babies. I thought that none of them would die the way that they did. “Rebecca then said that since Jonathan loved cookies, he would eat until died. She said that she put rat poison in some of the Oreos and bleach in the others. The neighbor came upstairs to check on me and saw Parker’s body. He cut the rope and laid Parker on his bed. He told me that I still had a wife and son to find. I knew he was right. I crawled out of Parker’s room across the hall to Jonathan’s. I saw his body with a pillow over his face.” Stephen choked up. Tears continued to roll over his cheeks. “I guess things didn’t go as planned. Jonathan’s face was so horrible to look at. He looked like he was in pain and scared. I can’t imagine what he was feeling at the time. The neighbor found me hugging Jonathan and said that he found Rebecca. “I wasn’t going to let Jonathan go so I carried him to my bathroom, where the neighbor said Rebecca was. I saw her lying in the tub. A knife was sticking out of her stomach and there were cuts all over her chest, arms, and legs. The tub was filled with water and her blood. I dropped Jonathan and ran to her. That was when the police arrived. I was taken away from my family.” Dr. Jacobs sat back in his armchair. The breath had been taken away from him. It was hard to get these images that had just been planted in his mind. “Stephen, where did you go after, well, after that?” Stephen took a deep breath, trying to collect his thoughts. “I went to my parents’ house. That was where I was when the diary was given to me. I couldn’t go back to my house. I still can’t go back there. When I received the diary, all I could was stare at it. It took about three weeks before I opened it. It was weird reading Rebecca’s thoughts. But in a way, it was a relief. I got to know my wife better.” Stephen stopped talking. His hands were shaking and his vision grew blurry. Dr. Jacobs sat there. He was thinking about everything that this man had gone through. What this man has to go through. He checked his watch. It had been two hours and his next appointment was coming. “Stephen, time is up,” he said. “Okay,” Stephen replied. He slowly got up and headed for the door. “Stephen, do you want the diary entries?” asked the doctor. “No. You keep them,” Stephen replied. He opened the office door and exited from the office. | 
