by Brenda Williamson

“Happy Father’s Day,” she told him, as they stood in the moonlight on the boardwalk at the deserted marina. “When I kill you and you vanish, the kids will think you abandoned them; this will be the last Father’s Day they will remember you fondly.”

Droning on and on, I saw she had the nickel-plated pistol aimed at him. “You’ll be chum in the water, no corpus delicti” –a term she must have gotten from her new boyfriend, the boat-owning lawyer and self-styled “Capt.” Jim. No one heard me pad quietly up behind them, the only sound being the waves gently lapping against the pilings. Her hair, then as always, was curled up and styled like the old queen, Elizabeth II, outlined in the moonlight. “Dishwater blonde,” Daddy always called it.

She repeated the children wouldn’t love him anymore or even keep his pictures. I could not see Daddy’s reaction but could guess it. He was going to try to reason with her, his motto being “Where there’s life, there’s hope.” She raised the gun, pointing it at his head. That’s when I shot her.

Her dead body hit the water with a splash. Taking Daddy’s hand, I led him back toward his pick-up truck and said, “We will always love you. Happy Father’s Day!”

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Brenda Williamson lives in Mississippi with her husband, Civil War author David Williamson, and their cat, Wilde Oscar (a Katrina-rescue cat who is working on his memoirs.) Learn more about David’s books on his website. You can also follow Brenda and Wilde Oscar on Twitter @BrendaPerrott and @WildeOscarCat