When you were barely a teenager, you imagined the death of your parents to see if it would cause you any pain. Lying in bed, you would create details in your mind to make it seem as real as possible.

…A policeman sits you down in an interrogation room. Behind the two-way glass other family members are watching. I’m sorry, son but your mother is dead. No reaction. Bad news boy your father was killed, too…

Nothing. No tears.

What was the matter with you? The game created more questions than it had answers. You could only roll over on the bed smashing your face into a pillow; less ashamed for having played such a wicked game than frightened it was proof that love wasn’t real. Not for you anyway.

You still played the game, did not outgrow it. Only now you are the father and your children are the pawns. An unnamed killer gives you an ultimatum: either you die or one of your daughters. He is holding a gun. You have seconds to decide. You’d like to think choosing death for yourself would be easy. But it’s not. You find yourself looking for options: a deal you can cut with the killer, a way in which you get to live too. Give us both a running start, you say. Count to ten. Instead of pleading for your child’s life you plea-bargain.

Your wife is sleeping beside you. What would that be like – her death? You know your children would be traumatized. Would you? You imagine the funeral, all eyes upon you. And once again you are an empty vessel, no tears, not one. Grimly, you wonder if the gathered would suspect you had killed her. An argument could be made.

Then you must imagine the end game, your own funeral. Your wife looking stonily at the casket, tossing a clump of dirt upon it. She isn’t letting go of you. She is getting rid of you. The daughters you let down stand behind her. Young adults now, they look at their phones, texting friends: it’s almost over. There is your estranged brother, his face unreadable. Is it possible he’s smirking? You got what you gave, brother, he undoubtedly thinks. Your mother and father are buried elsewhere, or cremated, their ashes tossed into an ocean. Anyone else? Where are the friends from the old neighborhood? Former colleagues? Is not an old girlfriend present, Michelle perhaps, standing far back, in a tight black dress, smoking a cigarette?

Where is love then?

In every version of the game death is the common denominator. Where is love?