The "Perfect" Family

• Bailey Mcmullen, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2016

Sophie was the ordinary 8 year old girl, she enjoyed playing with dolls and was obsessed with jewellery, she had a mother named Samantha and a father named David. Samantha was a housewife, looking after the house while her husband was at work in the heart of the city, making a living inside a lifeless accounting firm, of which he despised. David loved his daughter, but grew tired of his wife, discarding his ring at any opportunity he could. Julie was an apprentice inside the accounting firm, working as hard as she could to get the qualifications she needed in order to get extra credit in university, that was, until she met David.
Sophie had come down from the attic to attempt to get a glass of water to drink, however to her luck, her mother was already through a bottle of wine and opening another. You see, Samantha was a heavy alcoholic, repressing as much of her childhood as she could, whenever she could.
Samantha saw that Sophie had come down from the attic and put down the bottle, acting as if she had never drank a drop, and went over and embraced her daughter. Sophie already knew her mother was an alcoholic, and her father was not loyal to her mother, which were both unknown towards the couple.
David had pulled up to his driveway, sighing as he was thinking of excuses as to why he had come home later than usual, he had decided on the typical excuse that his boss needed him to stay back to help finish paperwork, but Samantha knew that this was not true.
As David had opened the front door, he was met with an intoxicated wife, and his daughter presumably playing in the attic. Samantha has instinctively kissed David on the neck, and holding him in an act of love, catching a whiff of an unknown perfume lingering on her husband.
The following uproar was one that Sophie could never forget, David and Samantha were yelling at each other to a point where the walls throughout the house shook. Sophie decided that she needed to see what was going on, which as soon as she had, Samantha had cracked her finished bottle of wine over David’s head.
The instantaneous regret that had poured over Samantha’s face was obvious, even to that of her child. David was gone, and Samantha had started to finish her other bottle of wine. Upon finishing her other bottle of wine, Samantha had gone up to the attic to find her daughter and tell her about how her father had tried to attack her, but it was too late.
The loud knocking on the door was quickly answered to by Sophie, as Samantha was in the attic searching for her daughter. The look that was struck over Sophie’s face told the police everything they needed to know as they took her out of the house and searched the home, finding two bodies inside.