Secret Admirer

         Richard stared apprehensively at the broken picture frame in his hands. He wondered if it would somehow grow fangs to maul him. Only then would it resemble the words scrawled on the folded paper hidden within its ceramic cage.

He’d bought the frame forty years ago to the day, bought it without a hint of the anxiety he now felt resonating through his body.

His wrinkled hands shivered with dread as he looked down at the picture. With a beseeching gaze he stared down at Julia, his love, his life, watching her stare back happily at him through time from a porch swing long ago. Her crooked smile and sun brushed olive eyes had encompassed all of the beauty her soul possessed. His eyes watered while remembering when he’d finally knelt down before her one cool evening in the Arizona desert so long ago. But now …

         What was that behind her?

         Was it...smiling?

         Watching them?

         No, it must be some kind of sick joke.

         They’d had so much grace together; so many happy loving years sprinkled within a variety of setbacks and misgivings, always landing on their feet, always dancing one night away into the next.

If he just hadn’t considered it so important to clean the cupboard today he may have never found the note, but he was meeting his grandchildren Tommy and Maureen for the first time tonight and there were things that needed to be done. The picture frame had simply been knocked to the floor. Shattering the glass within, fragmenting his soul.

         The note’s crimson words screamed at him while he watched his wife outside slowly aiming her rifle at the grandchildren he’d never meet.

         ”My sweet Satan, they will come to you...”