Usually I write, to quote a Guest Reader, ”short, light and witty tales”. However, every now and then I post a dark story. This is a rather dark story. Actually I think it’s quite dark which is why I have flagged CAUTION above. Please note that there is a reason why.

I never liked driving into town. People acted strangely around me so I usually stayed on my property and put off going as long as I could. Now I really needed the petrol so this morning I went into town. ”Old” Tom at the petrol station wondered why I filled up three jerry cans of petrol. I told him that I was getting old and the new ride-on mower was a gas guzzler. The lawn between the Old House and the lake is huge. So is the Old House. My family built it some 200 years ago. Then we had already owned the land for over a century. Quite a lot of land. Most of it still untouched forests, lakes and mountains. Most people never realized where the border between the National Park and the Delaforge land was. We have always had a very strong bond - the Delaforges and the land.

As usual people looked at me and whispered among themselves. Crazy Carl they call me. I could stand that, it was the pity I found unbearable. They believe that I went crazy when my pervert son ran away fifty years ago. The may be right about me being crazy. I don’t know and I don’t care. But if I am, then I went mad already before I lost my beloved daughter. It was they who had made my daughter’s life hell. Her class-mate (now “Old”) Tom was one of the worst. I really should hate them. I did. I hated them for a long time. Then I grew tired of hating. Their children aren’t as bad. Some of their grandchildren actually are quite decent. I think and hope that my Ronnie could have lived a decent life here had she been here today. I dearly loved my son Ronald. I loved her even more when I realized she was my daughter Veronica. She desperately needed my love then. No matter, Ronnie was my dearly beloved child.

Unfortunately the woman I had married and biologically Ronnie’s mother did not see it the same way. The twins, her children, were even worse. I say her children because I may have sired them but the way they tormented their big sister … well they are no sons of mine.

Ronnie was tormented in school. I tried to get the Principal to do something, anything. He more or less told me that Ronnie deserved whatever ”he” got. The Sheriff said the same thing – only straight out.

Ronnie might have stood it if she could have found a safe haven at home. No such luck. I was weak and didn’t really stand up to my wife. It got a bit better when I built an extension to the garage and Ronnie got a room of her own away from the Old House. By then she hated the Old House. A Delaforge who hated the Old House! That’s when I started to stand up for her. A year later when Ronnie was 15 the woman I had married finally left and took her brood with her. I never saw her again. The twins have made the five hour drive here, once. When their mother died they visited me, mostly to make sure that they’d inherit the land. I told them

- “Who else can inherit it?”

They left, satisfied. Now I get a Christmas card from them every year. I use it to light the Christmas fire. However, they have grown impatient and last week I was notified that they had initiated proceedings to declare me mentally incompetent in order to be able to lay their grubby little hand on the Delaforge land.

Anyway, the year after they left was the best I had with Veronica. She refused to move back to the Old House but we used to sit on the porch in the evenings. Not the one towards the lawn. The other one. The one towards the little garden where you could see the light of the setting sun on the mountains.

Well, the bliss was brief. The bullying in school got worse. Now she was regularly beaten. I tried once more. I insisted. I demanded. I got beaten too. I was still trying until the day Ronnie came home crying, beaten up terribly. No broken bones but I still suspect she had internal injuries. She was 16 then. Sobbing she declared she could no longer live here. She was going away. I tried to talk her out of it. She just looked at me and I understood how ridiculous that was. I told her that we’d go away together. She looked at me with sorrow. She explained to me that I never could leave the Delaforge land. That would kill me. Besides she had caused me too much pain and grief as it was. As she said that she looked me in the eye or rather at the shiner I was sporting at the time. Once more I was weak. I told her that I’d drive her to the railway station. I left her room and closed her door while she started packing. I started the car engine and made some final arrangements.

Thinking back to the last day I spent with Ronnie I drove up to the garage. I left the car there. I activated the timer and carried the jerry cans up to Old House. I had a lot to do before I could sit down on the garden porch to see the sunset light on the mountains.

Now that everything is arranged I finally sit on the porch. I’m calm and relaxed in a way I haven’t been for a long, long time. The sunset is spectacular today. The lights play on the mountains that used to belong to the Delaforges. Fortunately I made a deal with the government a couple of years ago. I gave my country all of the Delaforge land on three conditions:

1) That I would have the right to live here as long as I lived
2) That all of the Delaforge land would be included in the National Park
3) No public announcement would be made until after my death.

Eat that Devil’s spawn. I made that deal the week after you had visited me. Years ago when you still assured everyone that I was perfectly sane in expectation of the inheritance. If you contest this … Good luck fighting the government.

An evening out here in the garden is really something. Ronnie used to love it. It was the only part of the Delaforge property she loved in the end. That’s why I buried her here.

BOOM

I look at my watch. 17.08. Exactly 50 years after the death of my beloved Ronnie. The timer I set for the explosive charge in garage worked perfectly. This means that there should be several fires starting in the Old House now as well. I have doused the building thoroughly using all three jerry cans of petrol to ensure a swift fire.

My darling Ronnie was such a sweet child. So sweet, so innocent, so naïve. She had no idea of the pain she’d had exposed herself to out there. I couldn’t let that happen to her. She was so naïve. She had no idea how lethal carbon monoxide is and how insidious carbon monoxide poisoning is. When I had switched off the car engine, removed the hose and opened the door to her room I had been afraid to see her by the door I had locked. No, she was lying on her bed, a smile on her face. She’d looked happy and content for the first time in years.

It was terrible thing I had done. At the time I felt I had no choice. I grieved. I was relieved. I was guilty of a terrible crime. I sentenced myself. I was cruel.

I sentenced myself to LIFE.

Every single day since that day exactly fifty years ago I have remembered her. I have doubted that I did the right thing. I have missed her. I have suffered. It has been intolerable. It has been exactly what I deserved. If not for ending her life, then for allowing things to develop until the point I felt there was no other option.

I’m 86 years old now. In my old age I have gone soft. Prompted by my greedy off-spring I’ve commuted my sentence to only fifty years. My punishment ended one minute ago. I feel the heat of the flames that consume the house that has so many happy memories from my childhood and so many terrible from hers. Waiting for the flames to consume me as well, I delight at the lights of the setting sun playing on the mountains just as Ronnie and I used to do. I’m content. I’m happy. I have been released.