Hope Kane stood and stared into the distance – too lost to bring herself to scream. The thought that he was gone forever froze her mind and body. She heard the sirens echoing through the streets. A tear drop found its path down her cheek. Two men in uniform pointed their weapons at her. She didn’t move, her mind refusing to accept the reality that had unfolded in front of her. Then, after a long while, she gave up. There was no point in trying to fight it. She was stuck in a different world that she could not escape. He had given her no choice. Nothing could pull her from the darkness that engulfed her. There was no longer a right or wrong. There were no more choices to be made. The path for the rest of her life had been paved. She would walk down that road because she had nowhere else to go. They shouted at her to drop the gun. She stood with it pointing down, still warm in her hand. The thud echoed through the room as the black pistol fell to the oak floor. The two officers rushed her. They said things to her, but none of it much mattered. She finally looked at him, lying in the pool of his own blood. His eyes were still open, with the indescribable look of a man who knew it was all going to end. He laid on the floor as the blood poured out of the back of his head. His white shirt had turned crimson red as it soaked up the blood from the bullet hole in his heart. She tried to imagine that he was just resting, but there was nothing peaceful about the stillness that surrounded him.

She turned to the two officers and focused on the younger one. His eyes were large. His hands shook. She remembered seeing him in town. He wiped the sweat from his brows. “You are being arrested for the murder of your husband, Ms. Kane,” he said. He then locked her wrists in cuffs. They walked her out of the house. The tranquil tree-lined street of her Westchester home was now a crime scene, with lights red and blue that lit up the neighborhood in rhythmic flashes. The neighbors that had gathered stood behind the crime scene tape that separated their world from hers. Hope Kane closed her eyes and allowed the officers to pull her into her new world – a world she could never leave.