Because as of Monday it would be exactly twenty-five years. Twenty-five years to the day since my mother died, my siblings died, my father died, and I lived to tell the tale.

Except I had nothing to say. A quarter of a century later, I was not magically wiser. I didn’t know why my mom and Natalie and Johnny had to die. I didn’t know why my first life had to end, and I didn’t know why this second life was still so hard for me.

“Did you read about that case in the paper?” I heard myself ask. “The family killed Thursday night in Dorchester?”

Dr. Frank nodded.

“Yesterday, two detectives came to our unit to ask questions about it. One of our kids was involved. His parents discharged him last year against our advice. Turns out we might have been right about that one.”

Dr. Frank was accustomed to my sarcasm.

I couldn’t sit anymore. I was too edgy, agitated. I’d dreamed again last night. My fucking father standing outside my fucking room with a fucking handgun pointed at his fucking head. Fucking coward.

“This morning, they were talking about another family, too. In Jamaica Plains. Though maybe that was a drug deal gone bad. Nobody seems to know. Four kids, baby through teenager. Gone, just like that. If it was a rival drug dealer, why the infant? A baby can’t be a witness, a baby can’t rat anyone out. You’d think the shooter could’ve left the baby alone.

“Then again,” I heard myself ramble, “maybe the baby didn’t want to be left alone. Maybe the baby heard the shots and started to cry. Maybe the baby knew already that her mother and siblings were dead. Maybe the baby wanted to go with them.”

“What about the baby’s father?”

“Fuck him.”

“The baby didn’t miss her father?”

“Nope,” I answered, though his attempt to turn the baby into me is so Psych 101 I should laugh at Dr. Frank instead.

“There are no survivors,” I said. “Do you think they’re happier that way? Maybe there’s a Heaven. Maybe the mother and her children get to be together there. And maybe, in Heaven, children don’t have to listen to voices in their heads and parents don’t have to scream to make themselves heard. Maybe, in Heaven, they can finally enjoy one another. I don’t think it was fair of my father to deny me that.”

“Do you want to join your family?” Dr. Frank asked me steadily.

I couldn’t look at him. “No. I don’t. And that sucks even more, because I hate my father for killing my family, then I have to turn around and be grateful to him for sparing me.”

“You don’t have to be grateful,” Dr. Frank said.

“Yes I do.”