Page 33 of Ash and his Dragon

She was in front of me as we started down the next flight, and I was watching my feet because the steps were uneven and my backpack kept shifting against my shoulders.

That was where everything in my head got fuzzy.

She fell.

I remember screaming her name as she tumbled down the stone stairs, and the sound of her body hitting them had lived inside my head ever since.

By the time I reached her, she was lying at the bottom of the flight.

“Mom?”

She didn't answer.

I dropped beside her and touched her shoulder, shaking it gently because I thought perhaps she'd knocked herself out, like people did on television.

“Mommy, get up.”

There was blood beneath her hair, but not much, and for some reason that confused me. People who died on television always bled everywhere, so in my seven-year-old mind Mom couldn't be dead because there wasn't enough blood.

“Mommy?”

I shook her harder when she still didn't answer, and panic finally broke through.

“Mommy, wake up. I'm sorry, wake up.”

Someone must have heard me screaming because doors started opening. I remembered voices, people running toward us, and someone pulling me away from Mom while I fought to get back to her.

Everything after that existed in disconnected pieces: paramedics on the stairs, a police officer asking me questions I couldn't understand, somebody giving me a blanket, and Dad arriving at the hospital hours later.

Mom died the next morning.

Dad showed me the security footage after the funeral.

There was no sound, just a grainy image taken from above and across the fire escape. Mom appeared first, hurrying down the stairs, and then I came into view behind her.

I watched my arms shoot forward.

My hands hit her back.