Morning came through the curtains. I met with my father in the hall outside his apartments. Catherine, whom I asked to accompany me, stayed silent by my side.

"My apologies, Monseigneur; I had been drinking." That wasn't true. After the wedding, I promised myself I would refrain from drinking except, of course, at supper and sometimes at night. "I find you might empathize."

He looked hard. I smiled. He brushed past. I often pondered why he never retaliated against me. Though I have a guess as to why, it was Catherine. Despite being my wife, she was still a Rohan, a part of a large, extensive family with connections to Court and Society. If he were to mistreat me or anyone in my family, with her witness, she could easily tell her family of it. As her father-in-law, I suppose he had some rights over her, but my father wasn't a fool. His worst fear would be that his good name would be ruined in the eyes of his peers, the only people who mattered, who saw him as a noble man of reason. I decided that for the rest of my time in Calais, he would not find me without her.

I thought it best we left later that morning. I helped Catherine into the carriage before I turned back towards the tall gray tower. I blocked the sun's rays with my hand as I gazed into one of the windows. The cold wind blew, and under the dim glass, I saw my mother watch over me. I smiled and waved. My father came into view to her left. My smile dropped.

I can never stop thinking of her. In the depths of night, in moments of silence, and in moments of distraction, I see her again. I see again the things my father had done to her, and I feel again the guilt I have knowing that he's still connected to me despite the time and distance. The guilt of knowing she is still trapped forever in the past, silent and suffering, pleading and begging, awake and unconscious, both dead and alive. I sense a near void where she once stood. Before my very eyes, I perceive her, and as I run into my ink black horizons, she is the white luminescent wraith that haunts me. When I hold my wife's hands, I feel hers-lithe and cold-against my own. When I look up at her portrait, I see her for who she is. My past and my present. She is everything I could've been and everything I am.

Yet there she was, sinking still, and I, her son, had left her there. It was my duty to protect her and my responsibility to make her happy. There was nothing I could do when I was young and small, but I was then a man grown. I had options. I had plans. I may have escaped in my own way, but I could not leave her, not with him, never again.

In my moments of anger, I imagined pushing him down the stairs so he would break his neck, of slipping into his room at night and suffocating him with a pillow, or of taking one of his pistols and shooting him directly in the forehead. But in reality, it wasn't a simple thing. A son murdering his father is just as sinful as killing His Majesty or Cain murdering Abel. If I were to succeed, no amount of water would cleanse me. For the rest of my life, I will walk the world as a man damned and when I pass, my soul will burn forever into eternity. In my dreams, I saw myself walking up to the gallows and the executioner's sword gleaming in the afternoon sun. I preferred to keep my head on my body. If my family was going to be together again I had to be alive to see it, so being sent to the gallows would've been quite counterproductive. My father dying of some odd accident or illness in the near future did not seem in the sights. He was still quite young and healthy, with no problems with his health as far as I knew. In the mornings, he would go on walks around the estate, ride, and hunt with no signs of slowing. If I were to follow the natural course of things as God intended, I suspect he would've had quite a long life. If he were to die, preferably sooner than later, there was one option I could think of: I had to poison him. 

At night, I stared at the bottle on my nightstand. The candlelight flickered from the glass. I had to ask myself: would it be worth it? When I thought of myself, I believed it wasn't. When I thought of my mother, I believed it was. A life without her wasn't a life I wished to live, and as time grew, my mind conjured up dark thoughts on how he must have been treating her. I jolted awake in the small hours, and as I stared into the darkness of my room, my blood boiled again within me, and I prayed for him gone. He was the perpetual leech that robbed me and my family of our lifeblood. I could never be happy if he was alive, never safe; he would always be there lurking. In the corners of my room, behind my shoulder, and inside the depths of my mind. But in that darkness, I also saw the figure of my mother that I had long reached for. She was my comfort; she was everything I had known; she was the anchor in the restless bashing waves and crashing thunder; and she was the one I cared for-the first woman I truly loved. I would damn myself for eternity for her, as long as I knew she was at peace. I would smile and laugh at the flames, and as I burned, that knowledge would be my solace, and her happiness would become my own.

So, to answer the question of why I decided to kill my father, I only have to say this: I can't say I did it for me.

I received word from her again. I was slower to respond as I had little time to recover from my last visit, and I had no wish to call again, but I did. I pondered the ways I could've poisoned him, but none seemed smart or possible. I thought of some poisonous plant in his food. I must have had a book somewhere with some information on it. But only the kitchen staff in the small outbuildings were near any of the meals prepared, and they would find it odd if anyone in the family, outside of my father, ventured there. Even if I found myself some pretext, there would be no way of being certain I wouldn't also poison myself or anyone else in the process. For the same reasons, I could do nothing in the wine cellar. The only place I could possibly have access to without arousing suspicion was my father's study. He drank the most in the depths of night, when he found his rage, and after the mornings I would see the bottles that littered his desk. If the drinking caused his rage or only intensified it, I do not know. Some of the worst things he did to us happened then. He was often calmer the day after, unsure if it was exhaustion or repentance, until he became increasingly agitated. Then the cycle repeated.

I only had to poison one of the bottles in his cabinet. How I did not know. I couldn't open a bottle there and easily close it. I had the expensive wines and liquors in my own study. There were many possible plants I could've used, but I feared any peculiar or violent symptoms would give me away. I had only the laudanum. I thought that if he drank the bottle during one of his drink bouts, his physician would think he died like all other drunks do. This plan left a good margin for error. I knew there was a chance he would never drink it. There was also the chance I would have to wait days, weeks, or months for my plan to be realized. The flaws did not worry me much. Once I gave him the bottle, it would be out of my hands, and I found I preferred it that way. It would be up to God at that point. I would not have to be the sole executioner. I could've never killed him as directly as I sometimes wished I could; he was still my father after all.

If he were to die, I did not want Catherine to accompany me. Which was a task I found more difficult than my decision to kill him in the first place. She did not understand why I didn't want her to come with me, and I didn't have a good enough answer. She relented eventually, with some tears, but I believe seeing my father dead would've been worse for her.

The one thing I hated about my plan was that it required I waste a good Burgundy on him. In my study, I took a bottle, poured the laudanum, and re-corked the bottle. That was it. It was quite simple. It seemed quite low-risk a thought that may seem callous. Which it is - because I am.

"I've brought this for you," I said with a disarming smile as I stood in his study. I was not comfortable being in the same room with him, but it was a risk I needed to take. No one needed to know I gave him anything.

He took the bottle from my hands, stared down at it, and huffed. "Cheap."

I supposed I had failed.

He set the bottle on his desk with a thud. "Have you brought your accounts?"

"Yes," I muttered, and I handed him a stack of papers detailing my expenses since I moved to Varlemont. He sat in his chair and studied the papers for some time.

"500 livres a month to your wife?"

"Yes."

He shook his head. "You will spoil her."

Like I cared.

We sat for supper for the last time in the same salon we always did. I stared at my father from across the table for the last time. My nerves heightened. I feared he would try to anger me yet again. I didn't eat anything for fear of shaking, so I only drank.

"Where is Catherine?" asked my mother.

"In Varlemont," I said, "she's ill."

"Oh! Is she alright?"

"Yes, she's fine; it's," I said. "It's nothing serious."

"You should be there with her."

"It's fine, truly."

"With child?" asked my father with his brow raised.

I paused, "unlikely."

He did not like that and did not speak to me again during the rest of our last supper. Though I had long since stopped caring. It was not my responsibility to please him. Instead, I spoke with my mother about things too small and inconsequential to remember now. It was quite peaceful, actually. The few candles on the table burned low and reflected off the crystal in the cold night. I had almost forgotten. It was only me and my mother. He was no longer someone I worried about; he was dead already.

After a few hours, my father stood up from the table, saying nothing.

"Father?" I said. He stared at me for the last time. "Goodnight."

I had no knowledge that he would actually go to his study and drink the wine I gave him, but I liked the dramatic effect in any case. I decided there that no matter what happened, I would never see him again. I retired to bed and for the first time in a long while I fell asleep without thinking.