everywhere. inward.

and i can't get her voice
the voice of a mother
i can't get that voice out of my head
when she explained
how her surviving son had begged
had questioned her
innocently,
the way that only children can
"But Mommy, you said you would always protect us.
You promised."

The Note

the address on the envelope was handwritten
and I stared at it
trying somehow
to decipher if it had been written
by a man or a woman
the father or the mother
of a murdered child.

It was not addressed to me
the card
but rather to the person
who sent the check in my name
and I hated myself for noticing
and more for wanting it to be my name on the envelope
written with decided care
and strength
each letter evenly spaced and shaped.

I concluded that it had been the father
based solely on the diagonal slant
at which the return address was written
and the haphazard placement of the stamp
that read

Justice.
FOREVER

The lighthouse on the card
was just a picture
a blue, embossed print
on a white piece of card stock
but I kept watching it,
waiting for it to light the way home.