Subordination:Chronicles of a Domme(45)

After he still didn’t respond, I shook his leg. “Daddy?” I questioned.

When he still didn’t respond, a rising panic choked me, and I fought to breathe. I raced around to the other side of the bed. Taking him by the shoulders, I shook him slightly. “Daddy, wake up!”

I pressed my ear against his chest, listening for a heartbeat. When I didn’t hear anything, I grabbed his wrist and felt for a pulse.

“No, no, No!” I cried. I once again grabbed his shoulders. “Daddy, please wake up.”

I’d known this day was coming. The signs to watch for had been spelled out to us by doctors and nurses. But until that very moment, I didn’t truly believe it would happen.

An anguished scream tore from my lips. I buried my face in my father’s chest and began to sob.

Ansel appeared in the doorway. “Sophie, what’s wrong?”

I couldn’t answer him. All I could do was rock and forth with my father’s frail body in my arms.

“Oh God. Oh no,” Ansel murmured. I heard him fumbling for the phone. “Yes, I need an ambulance to 225 Briarwood Lane. It’s my father. He’s unresponsive.”

I lifted my head and met Ansel’s panicked gaze. “We don’t need an ambulance. He’s gone.”

“He just needs oxygen or shocked back.”

“No, baby. He’s gone.”

Ansel’s face contorted in agony. The phone slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor. I could hear the operator’s voice in the distance asking what was wrong. Tears filled Ansel’s eyes as his chest began to heave. He started over to the bed, taking slow, cautious steps like he had when he was a baby and first learning to walk.

When he finally reached the bed, he sank down beside me. I pulled him to me, wrapping my free arm around him. His broad shoulders caved in and he began to cry. We stayed like that, weeping uncontrollably until the paramedics burst through the door.





A gentle rained streamed against the truck’s windshield as Ansel and I made our way into town. A storm front had moved in overnight. Since I couldn’t sleep, I’d heard the thunder rumbling in the distance before the rain began tip-tapping on the tin roof.

Today the cornflower blue skies that had been so vibrant yesterday were now streaked with gray. It made sense that the world literally should be colorless since that’s how my life felt now that Daddy was gone. I was grateful he had gotten one last good day. Although I had initially feared that going outside had been lead to his death, the coroner and family friend, Jed Sims, put me at ease.

Ansel and I had left the room to let him examine Daddy. After Jed cleared the funeral home to take Daddy, he pulled us both into the kitchen. I knew he wanted to talk to us, but I also knew he wanted to save us from the image of Daddy wheeled out on a stretcher, covered in a body bag.

As I stared into Jed’s blue eyes, I used to think how Daddy would say, “Why he’s as round as he is tall!” In that moment, I tried not to smile. Jed pointed a stubby finger at both Ansel and me. “I don’t want either of you harboring any guilt, or beating yourselves up with the ‘what-if’s. It wouldn’t have mattered if Michael had been in a hospital or a nursing home. No one could have saved him from what the disease had done. The best case scenario would have been for him to live out the rest of his days in the hospital on a ventilator. Knowing Michael like I did, he would have hated that. You two gave him comfort and ease in his last hours.”

I shook my head. “But we went outside—

“Sophie, honey, a little fresh air didn’t kill him. While it looks like a failure of both the cardiovascular and pulmonary systems, there is no way he was doing any exertion that could have caused his heart to stop beating.”

Jed leaned forward to simulantously pat Ansel’s and my cheeks. “You two gave were the sunshine that saw him through his darkest days. You cared tirelessly and selflessly for him. So few fathers can say that of their children. He used to say that winning all those roping competitions was amazing, but nothing like the amazement he felt when he looked at the two of you.”

Tears overflowed my eyes at the sweet sentiment. “Thank you.”

“No, it’s me who should be doing the thanking. Michael was my friend since childhood. I’m so grateful that he had such wonderful kids to take care of him.”

Sniffling, I swiped my cheeks with the backs of my hands. “In case you missed it, my halo is a little tarnished.”

“Bullshit. Anyone who knows you and your dad doesn’t think that one bit. They know that you went above and beyond because of your love.” He glanced between me and Ansel. “Now promise me the two of you aren’t going to blame yourselves.”

“We’ll try,” I replied as Ansel bobbed his head.

The shrieking of the wipers against the windshield brought me back into the present. One of Ansel’s hands momentarily left the steering wheel to flip on the radio. It was as silent as a tomb in the cab since neither one of us felt like talking. It had been the same last night. Around midnight, the door to my room had unceremoniously opened, and Ansel had come in. When he approached the bed, I threw back the covers, and he slipped inside. He’d done the same thing when he was a little boy, and he was scared of the dark or monsters under his bed. I’d cuddled him to me and told him everything was going to be all right.

Last night, I didn’t even try to comfort him. He stayed on his side of the bed, and I stayed on mine. I didn’t bother with any hollow sentiments. There were no words I could say that make things better for him, and there was no way things were going to be all right. Even though his mother was out there somewhere, he might as well have been an orphan like I was. All we had was each other.

Ansel pulled into the empty parking lot of Granger Funeral Home. It had been where Daddy wanted to be taken. It was my mother had been and Grand-Maman and Grand-papan. After Ansel turned off the ignition, we remained sitting there, staring out the windshield.

He banged his hands against the steering wheel. “Fucking hell, I don’t want to do this,” he muttered.

I snorted contemptuously. “Who in their right mind would?”

“That’s just it. I’m in my right mind. I need some major alcohol to fuck me up,” he replied.

“I guess as your guardian, this is the moment when I’m supposed to tell you that you shouldn’t be thinking about getting drunk since you’re underage, right? Not to mention that drowning your sorrows is pretty useless in the end.”

“Yeah, well, you only have to be my guardian for five months. Then you can move on and have a life.”

I glanced down at the folder in my lap. It held Daddy’s will and life insurance policy along with the plans he’d made for his funeral. It also had the paperwork naming me as Ansel’s guardian. He’d also written a letter to me about what he wished for me and for Ansel. “You know, I don’t need a notarized piece of paper to tell me you’re my responsibility. You’ve been my responsibility since the day your mom walked out. Even when you turn eighteen and that paper is void, I will always feel a responsibility to you. I feel that because of love, not because of obligation.”

Ansel stared at me for a few seconds before shifting in his seat. Drumming his thumbs on the steering wheel, he appeared to be having trouble finding what he wanted to say. “I do love you, Sophie. I know that sometimes I don’t act like I do, and I don’t say it enough, but I do love you.”

Tears pricked the back of my eyelids. “Thank you for saying that. Although I know that you love me, sometimes it’s nice to hear you say it.”

“I know what you mean.”

I unbuckled my seatbelt and slid across the seat towards him. I thought he might shy away or tell me to get the fuck away from him. Instead, he met me with open arms. We both let go of the thin veil holding back our emotions. Our bodies shook from weeping uncontrollably.

When we were finally through, I pulled back to wipe the tears from his cheeks. “We’re in this together, baby brother. We always have been, and we always will be.”

“All for one and one for all, huh?” Ansel questioned with a smile.

“Damn straight.”

After we both had had a chance to catch our breath and clean up, Ansel jerked his chin at the windshield. “I think we’re being summoned.”

I followed his gaze to where Mr. Granger stood in the doorway. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

Mr. Granger gave us a sad, sympathetic smile that I’m sure he gave to every family who came through his doors. “Sophie, Ansel, I’m so very sorry,” he said.

After shaking his hand, I said, “Thank you, Mr. Granger.”

“Your father was an amazing man. And what a life he led. I still remember watching him break the roping record at the state championship.”

“This is my brother’s and my first time arranging a funeral, so what do we need to do?”

“Usually, I sit down with the family to decide what kind of funeral they want.”

Patting the folder in the crook of my arm, I said, “My father already did all that.”

“Wonderful. It’s always best to have the deceased’s wishes in their own words. So why don’t we get the casket out of the way first? I assume you’re doing a burial. If not, we can look at cremation urns.”