What happened, Father?

I remember that day perfectly. It was a colder day in September. It began snowing lightly far earlier into the season than usual. I remember feeling the breeze through a crack in my bedroom wall Mother didn't have the money to fix for another few months. The doorbell rang out. I was expecting Ren, my best friend, to come over so we could practice our dance moves. Instead, it was one of my father's superior officers in the Japanese Maritime Naval Force to relay the worst news that changed my entire life.

"I'm sorry, Caisen. Your father is going to prison for the rest of his life. He killed most everyone in his unit. We have witnesses. We have evidence. He was a good man. I don't know what happened."

My father was sentenced to life at Tochigi prison for killing 17 out of 21 personnel in his patrol unit. No one knows the details of what changed him into a serial killer. He'd been a decorated officer, having been in the maritime force for almost 17 years. The man who'd been his best comrade was the one telling me the news. I stood, an empty husk of a child who now realized like a stone dropping 1000 leagues under the ocean waves that life was different. Changed. Forever.

My mother didn't cry when she heard about. She just kept nodding her head, as if somehow that agreeing would make it less real. I tried to hug her, but she didn't hug me back. That tore into my heart, leaving an ugly wound that never healed even now. After he left, she simply walked into her room without a word and shut the door to be alone. My brother was crying, and I tried to hug him instead. He hugged me back, and finally the tears gave way until my face hurt from all the salt.