Three Years Blind, One Song Broken Chapter 09
Jackson didn’t argue anymore.
He simply led me outside into the garden. Sunlight spilled across my skin, but it still couldn’t warm me.
“Mimi,” he said softly, “the roses are still here. I plant them every year.”
He picked one and placed it gently in my hand.
“They bloomed beautifully this year.”
I loosened my fingers and let it fall.
“Jackson… what exactly are you doing now?”
“Trying to make yourself feel better?”
A bitter ache spread slowly through my chest. He still thought I was the same girl from years ago—the one who would come running back the second he reached out his hand.
But I wasn’t ten anymore.
Jackson’s breathing faltered.
“It’s not like that.”
“Mimi… I just want to make you happy again.”
I stayed silent.
After a while, he spoke again, quieter this time.
“I keep remembering when we were kids. You used to follow me everywhere holding onto my sleeve. Every time you called me Jace…”
He let out a broken laugh.
“I thought I was the luckiest person alive.”
“The night before we got married, I spent hours picking out what to wear. I was
so happy I couldn’t sleep. I just sat beside your bed all night watching you.”
I almost laughed hearing it now.
“So what?”
I turned toward his voice.
“And how did that end?”
“You abandoned me anyway.”
I slowly opened my palm beneath the sunlight.
“When I got pregnant, I thought maybe your heart would come back to me.”
“But in the end… I was the only one trapped.”
After that day, Jackson rarely came home.
Sometimes late at night, I’d feel him slipping quietly into bed behind me, holding me carefully before jerking awake from nightmares about our daughter.
I never asked what he saw in those dreams.
Pretending not to notice was easier.
That weekend, he stayed home instead of going to work. I smelled food downstairs, and when I entered the dining room, he carefully reached for my hand.
“I made Cajun food. You used to love it.”
His voice carried cautious hope.
“If you want something else instead, I’ll make that too.”
I pulled away immediately.
“No thanks.”
Tracing the edge of the table with my fingers, I deliberately walked around him.
Jackson lowered his hand slowly.
“Mimi… I just want to do something for you. Can you stop pushing me away?”
“No,” I said.
Suddenly he grabbed my wrist tightly.
“As long as it makes you happy,” he said hoarsely, “I’ll do anything.”
I shook my head gently.
I was too tired for this now.
Then suddenly—
“It’s your fault!”
“I’m gonna avenge Mommy!”
Two childish voices screamed nearby.
I froze.
“I’ll kill you!”
“Daddy belongs to Mommy!”
Chaos exploded instantly.
Jackson yanked me hard against his chest. I heard him grunt in pain, and a sharp metallic scent spread through the air.
“Who gave you permission to touch her?!”
His voice thundered through the room.
“Stay away from her before I lock both of you up too!”
The twins were still screaming hysterically.
“She hurt Mommy!”
“She’s evil!”
Then came rushing footsteps. Something crashed violently across the floor, followed by a sickening wet sound.
And then—
Something rolled.
Silence swallowed the room whole.
Several endless seconds later, Jackson grabbed me tightly. His hands were warm and sticky with blood.
“It’s okay,” he whispered roughly. “Mimi… it’s okay now.”
I didn’t understand what had happened until the police arrived later that night.
The twins had attacked me with scissors. Jackson blocked them, but when he kicked one pair away, the scissors flew straight into the older boy’s chest. The younger twin fell backward down the stairs trying to run.
Neither survived.
The police eventually found Sloane dead in the basement wine cellar.
Half naked. Already cold.
The officers hadn’t even started questioning anyone before Jackson spoke first.
“I did it.”
He confessed calmly.
When they handcuffed him, he never resisted. Before leaving, he walked over slowly and wrapped his arms around me one last time, resting his forehead gently against mine.
“Mimi.”
His voice sounded unbearably tired.
“I never stopped loving you.”
My heart still trembled hearing it. I didn’t even know whether that should’ve made me happy or sick.
He lifted a hand and carefully smoothed my hair back, just like he used to when we were younger. Back when he was still learning how to take care of me.
“Mimi… take care of yourself.”
A long silence followed before he whispered softly,
“I’ll go apologize to our daughter.”
I never answered.
I only listened to his footsteps growing farther away until the front door finally closed.
Leaning against the wall, my nails scraped harshly across it as old memories surfaced.
I remembered being sixteen, curled up with cramps while Jackson awkwardly searched online for ways to help me.
“Our Mimi’s growing up,” he’d laughed softly.
Every birthday, he baked me cakes himself and smeared frosting across my face. Whenever I missed my parents, he held me close and whispered that wherever he was would always be my home.
But Jackson Vale—
You broke every promise you ever made to me.
I never visited him after the arrest.
Not during the trial.
Not during the appeals.
The night before his execution by lethal injection, he called me.
Neither of us spoke for a very long time.
“Then finally, Jackson asked quietly,
“Did our daughter have a name?”
“So I can find her.”
I tightened my grip around the phone.
“You won’t.”
My voice barely came out.
“You’ll never find her.”
Jackson laughed softly on the other end.
“Okay.”
A pause.
Then gently—
“Goodnight, Mimi.”
After he died, I never claimed the body.
Now I live alone in this cold empty estate.
And I know better than anyone—no one else is ever coming home again.