Beyond the Rage by Michael J. Malone

His father’s torment was present, an energy that caused a vacuum of thought around him. The shape of his mother was distressing but one where the full implications had yet to strike home.
    Again, he could see his dad. The moment when their eyes met. His father’s expression formed an apology. It was like he was taking full responsibility. He mouthed a single word.
    ‘Sorry.’
    There was no volume in the memory and that was how it presented itself to Kenny now. His father’s open mouth forming two syllables. The sound gone, sucked into the black hole of his grief.
    ‘It was like Dad was apologising to me,’ Kenny said, the sound of his voice sounding too gravelly in the confined space. ‘Do you think’ – Kenny turned to face Vi – ‘that, knowing what kids were like, he was trying to tell me not to blame myself?’
    ‘No,’ said Vi. ‘I think he was telling you he was blaming himself.’
    ‘What?’ Kenny looked at her. Where was she going with this?
    ‘I’ve been worrying at this for the last seventeen years, Kenny. I knew your mother better than she knew herself and if she was the type to commit suicide then my name is Shirley Temple.’
    Kenny looked at the steering wheel. Examined the dashboard. Looked out of the window. Then he turned to her and spotted the tear that was sliding down her cheek. ‘Are you sure you’re not just looking for something else, Vi? Nobody ever completely knows someone else. Your sister, my mother, died and yes it was a tragedy.’ He gripped her knee. ‘Suicide is such a betrayal. The grieving process is never quite over. I know that better than anyone. ‘
    Vi shook her head. ‘Your mother and I lived in each other’s shadows. We were closer than peas in a pod. Our dad used to call us The Twins. Here’s The Twins, he ’d say, even though we were born three years apart. So don’t tell me I didn’t know my sister, Kenny. I knew her and what you’ve just told me has convinced me more than ever...’ She pulled a paper hankie from her handbag and dabbed at her cheek.
    ‘Your mother didn’t commit suicide, Kenny. She was murdered.’

9
    The water was dark and deep and frothing, rushing below and under him from his position on the bridge. He fancied the water was angry, surging towards the next obstacle content in the knowledge that nothing could withstand its power.
    The riverbanks were a steep tangle of brambles, broom and nettles. Here and there it looked like the local youth had gone in for a spate of ornamental gardening and their ornament of choice was the ubiquitous supermarket shopping trolley.
    He leaned forward, the wall of the bridge reaching his midriff and planted his elbows on it. He looked into the brown depths and at the memories trapped under its shifting surface.
    The first letter was a disappointment. The writer was tentative, frightened even, subsumed by the need to make friends. The information was scant, the apology brief as if they were afraid to mention the reason for the writer’s absence and that any mention of it would have the reader reaching for a match and an ashtray.
    Kenny learned nothing about the writer of the letter and was so confused by its blandness he almost refused to believe that it was written by his father.
    The next two letters, which would have arrived when he was nineteen and twenty, were equally as nondescript. If they had been food, they could have been compared to watered down consommé.
    Kenny threw the letters back in the box after he had finished reading them. They offered him nothing. It was as if the writer was going through the motions. As if the act of writing the letters was some form of punishment. Like he was only writing them to please someone other than himself and the intended recipient.
    He dropped his aunt back at her house. She was tripping over herself to apologise. He was tired, numb and counting the minutes before he could be on his own again. Emotions too many to number were crowding his mind,