Papillon de nuit
A seemingly-straight sorority girl meets a lesbian artist at a college party. Love ensues, life happens, and, for some, ends.
My name is Ashley Harrison.
I am a woman, an interior designer, and a mother.
And as of a few days ago, a grief-stricken shell of who I was.
I still cannot process it. I don’t think I ever will. That night when I came home with Rose, my infant daughter, in my arms and found my Emma, the love of my life, lying cold as ice on the floor of her study.
I dialed 911 but was unable to speak properly. Everything feels like a horrible blur, like a distant nightmare from which I am unable to wake up. Ondine, Emma’s step-mother, later told me that I was so hysterical, refusing to let go of Emma, that they had to sedate me.
Her death was ruled an accidental overdose. Emma had been prescribed both antidepressants and sleeping pills and was instructed to take the former in the morning, and the latter before bed. She may have taken several of both at the same time, and there was a half-empty empty bottle of wine on her desk.
“It was an accident”, we were told over and over again. “She had an unexpected reaction to her medication.”
