The Between Years

might have paid for my tardiness. I broke more than a few traffic laws trying to make my appointment with Randy on time, and what I saw once I arrived was nothing short of amazing.

    First, I parked near Randy in front of the tool shed that looked liked someone had broken into it, so I could pull out more easily. That driveway always was a pain in the ass. I'd seen light on in the house from a distance, but when I pulled up close, the sight was markedly different. The lights were actually off, but small slivers of light were still visible. And I'm not talking about the slivers of light you would get from Venetian blinds. I'm talking about paper-thin, jagged, vertical lines of illumination amid pitch darkness.

    Part of me wanted to fish out my cell phone and call ahead before I entered, just to make sure everything was fine, but why shouldn't it have been? I mean, it's not like Randy had sounded suicidal or given me any reason to believe that he was heading over the edge when I spoke with him on the phone. So I stepped out of the car and sprinted to the back door, which had been left unlocked just like Randy had promised.

    When I turned the knob, I braced myself and stepped inside. I felt like I'd walked into the middle of a war zone. The entire house had literally torn apart, but I saw huge blocks of darkness consuming most of the downstairs. My first instinct was to turn away, but I felt sucked as in if in an undertow. Also, I decided I wanted to find Randy and haul him out of this place for good. Call it a maternal instinct, but I wanted him to be safe in his own home.

    I navigated my way through the darkness as best I could until I'd cleared the kitchen and reached the hallway that led to the stairs. Once I reached them, I heard Randy muttering nonsense words, as if he was shouting at the walls. The sounds were very faint but unmistakable, and they kept me at bay at first. I needed to make sure that he really hadn't lost his marbles and had no big ideas about hurting me. So I shouted at him to get his ass downstairs and leave the house, but he refused. Finally, he said, “Carol, get the hell out of here and stay safe!”

    Whenever anyone takes that tone with you, it's best to do what you're told. So I got the hell out of the house, but I didn't get the hell off the property. He would have to have taken a much harder line with me to do that. Randy was (and is) still my husband, and therefore I did not intend to leave him high and dry. After all, who knows exactly what was going on in that house? I hopped into the car and meant to stay for moral support if for nothing else.

    But moral support wouldn't do anything to save him. I know that and he knew that. I finally did fish my cell phone from my pocket, but not to call Randy. Instead, I dialled 9-1-1 and told them I thought my husband was suicidal. They asked me if he had a gun and I told him that he was firmly opposed to guns, but that didn't mean he couldn't pull it off other ways. The truth is, I didn't know what Randy was thinking; I just needed to say something that would get the cops to take me seriously. Would Randy have appreciated that? Hell no, but I did what I had to do for his own good. If no one likes that, I can live with it.

    By the way, no one should ever make fun of the cops. No pig jokes, no doughnut shop remarks, nothing. After that night, I gained an appreciation for just how fast the police can arrive on the scene, particularly when your case is a huge priority. Kenny's passing in the October storm was the obvious exception to this. I'd barely had time to stuff my phone back into my purse before they arrived.

    When I sat the blue and red sirens, and the cop cars pull up in front of the house, I immediately hopped out of the car, and sprinted out to the front lawn to meet them. A muscular cop with short black hair approached me.

    “ Mrs. Fuller?” he asked.

    I nodded.

    “ You know where your husband is?”

    “ In there!” I pointed at the house. “He's upstairs and it's chaos in there and I don't know what he's going to do to himself!”

    I led the way to the back door. But before he and the three other cops that followed could reach the back door, the roof blew off of the house, and shared of brick and shingle rained on the back lawn and even broke the windows of the house next door. A wide beam of light surged from the inside and I thought the house looked like a lamp on the edge of the neighbourhood. And it wasn't just any