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“See ya.”
The moment I walked out of the body shop, Scott’s car gave chase. The sucker didn’t know this part of town though, and by cutting across lawns and small alleys I left him behind in no time. I had other things on my mind, like celebrating my mom’s birthday. I’d gotten her white roses, her favorite flowers. She told me they reminded her of Russia and the winter garden she used to have. I knew all about the house she used to live in, from the hardwood floors to what flowers her gardener used to grow. I could picture the place in my mind effortlessly, as if I’d actually been there.
She never said a word about the people she used to live with, however. Not a single syllable about her parents, siblings, or the name of the town or village. She and I were the only family we had, and it was enough. It was everything. One day I was going to buy her a mansion so big she would get lost in it. And it would have a winter garden filled with roses. We would finally get a dog. Today was a good day, and no one was going to ruin it. Not even Scott.
I knew something was off the moment I stepped into our apartment. Nothing seemed out of place, but there was a pressing silence that hung over our roof like a wet blanket. Usually, our pad was filled with music during the hours before my mother went to work. Vivaldi or Bach should have been blasting through the speakers. No Beethoven though; she found him too dark and a little twisted. I, on the other hand, loved dark and twisted. Vivaldi was what peoplebelievedlove felt like. Beethoven, my man, he played what loveactuallyfelt like. If it ever came down to it,Für Elisewould be the last song I’d play right before the world ended.
And when I walked into the kitchen, that was exactly what happened: the world stopped.
My mother lay in a pool of blood. On her back. Her head was slumped against the wall next to the sink and her flowery skirt was raised up to expose her belly. She was naked from the waist down.
A sledgehammer rocked into my chest, and I dry heaved. Slowly I walked up to the most beautiful woman in the world who lay in the most vile position. My feet waded through her blood that had already started to dry. I dropped to my knees and lowered her skirt to cover her legs.
My clenched hand holding flowers went slack and the bouquet dropped onto the floor. The white roses turned red as the petals soaked up the blood.
I pressed an obligatory finger to her neck, checking for a pulse, but there was none. All I felt was the coldness of her skin, of the giant cavern of emptiness inside me.
It was two days before the neighbors called the police. For forty-eight hours I didn’t move from my position by her side. By then, the smell of my mother’s decaying corpse must’ve gotten to them. In my mind, she still smelled of roses and cinnamon.
The moment the cops spilled into the house, everything went very fast, yet in slow motion at the same time. Two of them pulled a gun on me. It took me a second to realize that they were yelling at me to put my hands up. When I didn’t react fast enough, they wrestled me onto my back and cuffed me.
Two more days passed. Days in which I didn’t speak a word unless my state-appointed lawyer was present. What were the odds of me getting out any time soon? Did I even care? Frost had settled over my body, freezing my lungs, my precious hands. The hands and nimble fingers of a surgeon. Digits that now felt cramped, useless.
On the third day, they hauled me into a room at the police station.
“Ballistics came in,” the detective said. “You’re cleared.”
He looked at me with anticipation. Was I supposed to thank him for not suspecting me of matricide anymore?
When I didn’t react, he added, “You didn’t shed a tear, kid. And you were sitting next to her and that kitchen knife. What else were we supposed to think?”
As if tears could express what I felt. An ocean of them wouldn’t be enough.
I looked at the throbbing carotid artery along the side of his neck. The man was only a few cheeseburgers away from a heart attack. Grabbing the lawyer’s pencil and shoving it into the cop’s neck would hardly be a challenge, but what was the point? What was the point of anything anymore?
He cleared his throat. “Child Protective Services are on their way.”
“I turn eighteen in less than a year.”
I got another look of pity. “Like I said, they’re on their way.”
The lawyer—I’d almost forgotten he was in the room—gave me the rundown on how my life was going to look like for the next year. But someone had murdered my mother in broad daylight. And now no one seemed to remember that. As if her light leaving this world hadn’t made a dent in the universe at all.
“What about my mom’s killer?”
The lawyer stopped mid-speech and exchanged a look with the detective who was already halfway to the door.
“We don’t have any leads yet.”
When I didn’t take my gaze away from the detective, he sighed.
“Look, kid, considering your mother’s profession, there’s a whole list of Johns who could be suspects. We’re going to talk to her…um…escort agency, but the odds of getting any solid leads are slim to none.”
Always think of the odds. What were the odds of a client breaking into our house in broad daylight?
“I need some air.” I needed to think, to regroup. To fuckingfeelsomething. Anything but this chill that had settled over me like a suffocating winter coat.
No one tried to stop me when I grabbed my stuff and left the station. The lawyer was already busy on the phone, working on his next case, and the detective was probably thinking about lunch.
