Gone in a Heartbeat

STELLA

My father was dead.

I didn’t have to wait for the doctors to inform me. I didn’t have to hear it from anybody’s lips. The high pitched scream that came from my mother inside my father’s hospital room was all the confirmation that I needed. It was the most gut wrenching sound I’d ever heard. It was raw and painful and deep… it almost didn’t sound human.

My father was dead. The paper cup of w