To My Baby Girl Cheryl

To My Baby Girl Cheryl,

I apologize for the length of time it has taken me to write this letter to you. I have tried several times to get down in writing what I wanted to say to you.

Death row is every bit as grim and unrelentingly nightmarish as you might imagine. I am sure it must be daytime, as the lights are on, and I have already had one of my three square meals. Later, I will get some time in the yard, so I will have the pleasure of the sun shining down on me. It's always a welcome sight and helps make this all worthwhile.

I have struggled to write to you for many reasons. Not least because I don't want you to worry about what it is like here.

For around 22 hours every day, my cell is my home. My cell is my bedroom, bathroom, office, kitchen/diner, and living room. I could lie and say it’s comfortable enough, but I think I’ve done enough lying for one lifetime.

Please do not misread these comments to be anything more than observations. They are not complaints, for as you know, I pleaded guilty to the charges against me.

That is how our judicial system deals with criminals like myself who break the law, believing they are above an arbitrary set of man-made rules.

I am at peace with it.

Know that I love you, and my slowness to write to you is not a sign of my unwavering love and devotion to you faltering. I am as desirous of you now and as full of gratitude as I was when we started dating.

Your blonde curls, captivating brown eyes, soft porcelain skin, ruby red lips, and legs for days are what I dream of at night to chase the nightmares away.

Your voice echoes through my mind every waking minute of the remainder of my pitiful existence. It helps to chase away the screams of my victims.

I miss you and wish that circumstances were different from what they are now. I wish that we could live out the rest of our lives in the sublime happiness we knew before the world went to absolute shit.

After my sentencing and the first time you visited me, you asked me something I still haven't answered.

"Do you regret what you did? Do you feel remorse or sorrow?" I have had a lot of time to think over those questions, and initially, I thought my reluctance to answer was because I didn't want to make it all real and admit that I neither feel regret, remorse, or sorrow for what I did. However, my reason for not wanting to answer those questions was that I feared your view of me would be changed forever. I understand, of course, that it has changed entirely since I pleaded guilty to my murder charges. Not addressing the subject directly with you meant I could pretend for some time.

As I sit in my small cell, though, waiting for my time to finally come when I will face our maker, there is no point in pretending.

The truth is, Cheryl, I would do it all again.

Before I found myself here, I thought people on death row were hardened criminals—men who had lived lives of ill deeds and evil.

Even if that is true for some people, many more must be in a similar situation to mine.

Do you remember life before those monsters did what they did to you? It was not always sunshine and lollipops. That much is true. It had its ups and downs. But we had each other, and we were happy. We were both working hard to make sure we could eventually start a family. I had scarcely broken a single law before that fateful day. I ran a red adolescent thievery, and that one time, we got drunk and stripped off at that park late one night.

Until I made the decisions I made and took the law into my own hands, I had been a law-abiding citizen. Now, everyone has an opinion of me, the double murderer. Some are supportive or at least understanding, but others are full of vile venom. I guess it is justifiable. I did take the lives of two people.

Some would even have the audacity to suggest that "my love and respect for my wife" is a poor excuse for disregarding the laws of the land.

I would argue that it is not the flim-flam excuse many would paint it as. Flawed, it is, but as your husband, it was and is my duty to protect you and to make you feel safe. As an extension of that, if evil descends upon you, as it did, and I truly love you as I do, there is no fiber in my very being that could stop me from wanting to do something about it.

So when they chose you as their next target and prey, they had sealed their fate.

I am a man of principle and a strong personal code of justice and morals. Again, it may be flawed, but I have to stay true to myself, flaws and all. It's the only way I know how to live.

It's not lost on me that my decisions led me to where I am now: locked up and separated from you.

How long has it been since we last embraced? Since our lips met, since our bodies intertwined? It feels longer than the months since I came to my new home.

There is not an aspect of your physical body, your personality, and all your little quirks and mannerisms that I don't miss. Even the extreme inflections in your voice when you get particularly excited—I may have spent much of our time together complaining about it and making snide remarks. But, know this, Cheryl, that those were in jest. I think you do know. But I want it in writing anyway.

Having limited contact with the guards and even less with the other prisoners has not been kind to my psyche, I will admit.

Part of me is glad, though, as I honestly do not know how I would cope with dealing with other people day in and day out. All are waiting for the same eventuality, the reprieve from this life that death will bring.

Although I do not regret what I did and accept the punishment, I will admit that the whole experience has changed me, not for the better, either. As I said, before they attacked you and before I sought out revenge, things were normal for us, for me.

All that changed, sadly, the moment I played God with their mortality and deemed it my job to end their miserable existences. The man you loved and the man who loved you and defended your honor, sought out revenge for the deplorable way they treated you, is gone. He is a shadow, and I am a shadow.

Darkness fills all the corners of my mind, where the bright light used to be. I would never hurt you, so it's not that I'm worried about that. But I fear I will never be the same again. And...

I don't want you to see me like this. I know what you're thinking, "For better or worse, Harry," but I can't bear to see you in this state. I know you will be kind, warm, and sympathetic and still love me.

God, I wanted so badly to usher in a new era, a new decade, with you by my side, my Baby Girl, Cheryl.

But the truth is, I raised my hands—I killed two men in a rage. A premeditated rage. It was a crime of passion for you, but I planned everything meticulously.

I do not know how I move forward. I can't be that kind and gentle creature you fell for anymore, and I don't want you to feel indebted to me or that you need to accept me for the monster I've become.

Even if I don't kill anyone else, their blood is on my hands and my soul. They deserved it. My conscience is clean as far as I'm concerned. But I can't see past the darkness that is swallowing me.

I don't want you to see me like this.

I want you to live a full and wonderfully rich life. I want you to enjoy the 70s, for I feel they are going to be a special time. The world is changing, and you deserve to be part of it.

Just as I do not regret my actions that fateful night, I do not regret meeting you and falling deeply in love with you. I do wish our paths had led somewhere else to where we are now. But that's life, unpredictable, eh?

We still have Christmas '67 under the stars in the shadow of the Rockies.

You will always be My Baby Girl Cheryl.

Your Harry

xxxx

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Thanks for reading!

Here is my other entry to the same challenge, and a couple of other things: