The Black Shepherd - Epilogue
#35 of The Black Shepherd
Art by raventenebris
Note: "Adult content" may/may not be included within the specific chapter but applies to The Black Shepherd as a whole.
Epilogue
Wednesday July 4, 2018
3:36pm
Dandelion-gold winked through bright-green summer grass around a red-brick corner house in Sandy, Indiana. Along with the tickle of a refreshing breeze were the faraway reports of firecrackers and the smell of black powder smoke. Four lawn chairs yawned on the driveway next to the red-brick house, basking in the warm sunlight.
"You two have your date yet?"
Anessa looked to the chair sat diagonally from her--glaring at her father. "Not yet," she told him for what felt the hundredth time since Vincent's May proposal. As Anessa spoke, the little bundle in her arms wriggled and made a tired murmur. Anessa smiled down at it.
"Nap time soon?" she cooed.
Dark, half-lidded eyes gazed back at her.
Isabelle Melody Day-Spriggs--a mouthful, she knew--had her grandma and auntie's black coat. Her father's influence showed in her rather feline take on muzzle anatomy: a little short, a little round for a German shepherd. She was nearing ten months.
From the chair next over, Vincent reached and extended a finger which one little black paw wrapped itself around. Vincent grinned his spoiling father's grin. "Want me to take her?" he asked. He did so with a quick kiss on Anessa's cheek and strolled about the yard.
The chair across from Anessa seated a tough-faced Dane. She was tall--the tallest one in the family--and the left side of her face and jowls were speckled in black. Tiffany J. Harrison: a year into her role as stepmother. A tremolo of exploding fireworks brought her stern gaze over the cover of a magazine, and she grumbled her disapproval. Roger smiled.
Anessa watched as Vincent continued to gently parade their pup.
* * *
Four white walls. Gray trim. Within a black frame: a psychiatric-grade window flaunted the natural blues and greens outside of the East View behavioral health center in southern Hollins, Indiana. Looking out through the window with his one good eye, Tyson thought that he felt okay. Not good. Not well.
Murder, intimidation and sexual battery. Guilty but mentally ill.
His mother's remains had been collected from the exact location he had described upon turning himself in. The trial had been a publication of every dirty detail of the horrors he had enacted and a life sentence in its own right. But things were better now than then. He had already served eighteen months. Only seven hundred-some to go--if he was lucky. Lifetime parole after that.
But still, things were better.
He got to write letters. That relaxed him the most. Most of the letters he wrote went to his father who was good about writing back. His father had remarried, had sold his 944 and the Camaro to help move into a new house in Sandy. His other letters went to Anessa. She hadn't responded during his first year of stay at East View, but he found that she was doing well. She had a kid and was engaged. She wrote about graduating college and living with her fiance. She was still holding out on accepting his apologies, but when he mentioned the crush he had on his psychiatrist she had wished him good luck.
Tyson had tried to write his friends from Sandy, but they seemed to be doing their best to forget him. The only other person to respond had been Elena, but she hadn't messaged back in recent months.
Other than writing, Tyson spent his days cramming anxious, angry bursts between lethargic, miserable stretches. On bad days he wondered back to his last afternoon in the Camaro. On the worst days his mother came to him. Sometimes he wondered what the good days might be like.