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The End

A Family Tragedy

By MATTHEW FLICKPublished 2 years ago 3 min read
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The End
Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash

They both knew it was over. Things had been going down hill since Jenny died. Jen was the glue that held the family together. Her parents, Jeff and Beth, adored the young girl. With her bright red hair and rosy complexion, she lit up any room she walked into. This may be a biased opinion on his part, but Jenny was the most talented eight year old Jeff had ever seen. She kept him in stitches with her corny jokes and funny little dances. She was always a happy child and her happiness was infectious.

Beth always dreamed of having a daughter and so she was thrilled when Jenny was born. Jenny was the cutest baby she had ever seen and doted on the girl. Beth was a perfect child. She reached developmental benchmarks right on time. Jeff and Beth never scolded the child. They never needed to. She never disobeyed, never talked back.

Jenny loved her parents with all her heart. Her main goal in life was to make her parents happy. She thought of her parents with every action, with every decision. She never wanted to disappoint them. The fear of disappointing them had no basis in the reality of the family. There was no reason for the fear but young Jenny could not shake the idea. The fear was so intense that she was even afraid to tell her parents about it.

By the time she was eight years old, her parents had noticed a change in their only child. She became quieter. Where once she always wanted to be the center of attention, she now preferred the comfort of her bedroom, often spending hours alone, reading or drawing.

It was one particular day when Beth realized something was very wrong with Jenny. She was cleaning her daughter’s bedroom, while Jenny was in school. She was straightening up the small white desk in the corner of the room when she noticed a stack of crayon drawings. All of the drawings were of the small family. In each drawing, Jenny had drawn her parents in bright colors, pink, orange, blue. What disturbed Beth was that in each one Jenny had rendered herself, smaller in the corner and in black and white.

When she told her husband about the drawings, Jeff dismissed them saying it was just Jenny’s way of expressing herself and her “artistic choice”. When Beth told her mother that she thought Jenny showed signs of depression, her mother said, “She’s eight years old. What does she have to be depressed about?”

Disagreements between Beth and Jeff became more frequent and more intense. Jenny, lost in her own world, was no longer a distraction for them from their problems. She even became a subject of several arguments. Her parents disagreed about what to do to help her. These arguments evolved to include every complaint and gripe they each had about the other person—who did more housework, who loved who more, who worked harder—everything bubbled up, came to the surface and eventually boiled over.

Jenny witnessed her parents' arguments. She convinced herself it was all her fault. Eventually the guilt got to be too much. On a Monday morning in mid-December, Beth was home alone, putting the breakfast dishes away when the phone rang. Miss Miller, Jenny’s principal, informed Beth that Jenny had been hit by a car crossing the street in front of the school. She had died instantly. Jeff raced home as soon as he hung up the phone with Beth.

The couple spent the rest of the day crying, laughing and just remembering. Guilt would come later—when details about Jenny’s death came out. This guilt would ultimately lead to the divorce with each parent left to deal with their grief, alone.

family
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About the Creator

MATTHEW FLICK

I am a disabled fiction and nonfiction writer currently living in New York. My writing is inspired by my life and the odd people in it. I'm passionate about pop culture, obscure trivia and great writing.

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