Sirens…getting louder by the minute…she knew, in her heart, it was almost over…finally. 

Yet her mind wandered back to the days before all this happened…what seemed like so many years ago…

The judges’ gavel slammed down on that small, rounded, block of wood and it was surprising how loud the noise echoed through Skyla’s thoughts.

“Divorce Granted” were the words she’d waited to hear for what seemed like a lifetime. Free, she was finally free! No more arguments, belittling remarks or the escalated beatings. No more lies to the hospital doctors about how she’d fallen this time or that. Skyla’s thoughts were interrupted by a loud, almost screeching, voice “I hate you…do you hear me? I hate you, I hate you!”

Everyone in the courtroom turned to look at this small frail child of twelve whose face was almost as red as her hair. “Kylie, honey” Skyla whispered as she rushed toward her daughter arms outstretched. “You’re upset right now…you don’t hate mommy…."but before she could reach her daughter Kylie ran into the arms of her “daddy”.

Lee Van Cordell, son of the wealthy Cordell Software family had that all to familiar smug look Skyla had grown to hate. It’s hard to believe there was once so much love and passion between them. Even their daughter was proof of that. Skyla & Lee…Kylie, a part of each of their hearts and names. Things were fine until Kylie was about eight. Sure, the passion had turned from hot to warm and the love was more assumed than shown over those years but things started drastically changing four years ago.

Lee started acting as if I got on his last nerve and everything I said or did sent him into violent rages. Only Kylie seemed able to calm him. As the beatings increased in intensity and frequency toward me the closeness between them only got stronger. Yet, at times, that too made me very uncomfortable. It was almost like Kylie was his wife and I was a burdensome child. Shamefully she hid behind Kylie as a buffer from Lee’s temper…but that’s all over now.

“You may have gotten custody but you’ll NEVER take my daughter’s love from me!” Lee spat at her storming out of the courtroom.

“Kylie, please, go clean your room” Skyla asked for the umpteenth time that day. “I want to go to dad’s!” she screamed back at her mother. Skyla sighed and said “He won't be here for another two hours, it’s been that way for the last three years and it’s going to be that way for the next three until you are eighteen and can do as you please. Why do we always have to go through this?"

The now fifteen year old beauty stood in front of the refrigerator twirling a strand of waist length red hair around her finger over and over and then asked “Are you and Ian going out again tonight? “It’s Friday night isn’t it?” Skyla said as if that answered the question.

Ian was about the only thing she and her daughter could speak of and not fight. Kylie seemed to genuinely take an interest in Ian and was always asking questions about his plans and whereabouts. Truth be told Skyla thought that maybe she has her first real crush as a young teenager. Kylies habit of making sure she was all “dolled up” when Ian came over didn’t go unnoticed by either of them.

Ian Lord, younger than Skyla by four years, was so different than Lee and yet in many ways no better. Ian wasn’t a woman beater by any means. In fact, he was the opposite and his capacity for commitment was in real question. He loved the ladies and had a hard time turning away the “offers” that were constantly made to him. At twenty-nine, six feet tall and blond as they come Ian was a real “looker”. Yet Skyla couldn’t seem to stay away from him. She was as guilty of succumbing to his charms as all the women were and in many ways worse because she’d been seeing him for two years. One day she would just end it, she knew, but she found herself deeply in love with him. A “pretty boy” who chased skirts was not what Skyla ultimately needed in her life.

Life seemed to take on a pattern for the next couple of years. Dating Ian, fighting with Kylie regularly and wondering when either one of those two things would change. Kylie was still staying with her dad often but the hate she directed at her mother never really stopped. Now seventeen, Kylie was still hell bent on blaming her mother for the divorce and had no problem telling her how much she hated her for it. It almost seemed as if she’d go out of her way to hurt her mother any way she could. She’d gone so far as to start openly flirting with Ian and he was no help in the matter…if anything he seemed flattered by it.

Many nights when Skyla returned home from work she’d find Ian already there and the two of them would be deep in conversation or curled up on the couch watching some movie. She felt like the intruder at times the same way she did with Lee and Kylie so many years ago. Then she’d feel guilty about those thoughts the minute Ian wrapped his arms around her and asked how her day went or Kylie would bless Skyla with one of her rare angelic smiles.

Skyla got out of work early today, not telling anyone why, and went to see the doctor. She was pregnant, oh my God, she couldn’t be but she was! Pregnant! Skyla was beside herself with thoughts of what seemed the impossible but knew from the doctor that it was real. Her baby was almost eighteen and she was to old to start over but there it was…a baby at almost thirty-six years old! How was she going to tell Ian? The relationship had never gone past a certain point between them, sure they still enjoyed each other’s company and seen each other regularly, but it had never gone into the committed stage or any permanent plans of a future as she had once hoped for. How would Kylie take the news? She was almost a woman now and although things between them hadn’t changed, sometimes it seemed worse, her thoughts and feelings still mattered to Skyla even though she knew Kylie didn’t feel the same about her.

She entered the house through the back door hoping the next-door neighbor wouldn’t see she was home early and try to engage her in a conversation. She needed time to think about this before Ian came over that night or Kylie got home from school.

A shower was what she needed to relax so she headed for the bathroom adjoining her bedroom…when she opened the door the sight that met her eyes froze her in place…there, on her bed, was Ian and her daughter! So lost in each other she went unnoticed.

She walked back into the kitchen and got the gun out of the drawer she’d kept there, unused, for protection. Slowly she walked back to her bedroom and quietly opened the door, walked across the room until she stood at the bedside and fired one shot.

Skyla looked down at the body, hearing what sounded like the whole police force pulling up, and took one last look at that beautiful face with the long fiery red hair.