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It was mid-August, hot as hell. I was on my way to work. It was one of those rare mornings that not only was I on time, but running early. I remember actually noticing the world around me that morning—a stop-and-smell-the-roses moment. The sky was an electric blue, the dew-covered grass an emerald green. Funny, isn’t it? The color of the sky and grass are as strong a memory as walking into the kitchen. I’ll never forget those colors.
Anyway, Marjorie had called me the night before asking if I wanted lasagna or pot roast for Sunday dinner. I missed the call. I’d had too much wine and had fallen asleep on the couch.
I called her when I woke. She didn’t answer. I texted after I showered. No response. This was odd; my mother always answered her phone. When she didn’t answer on my third try, I decided to swing by her house on the way to work—a split-second decision that changed my life forever…
9
Sylvia
Ipulled up my mother’s driveway with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I know now this was instinct.
Never ignore your instinct.
I parked in my usual spot around back, under the massive oak that shaded the farmhouse she’d only recently moved into.
I remember thinking how silent it was, as if I could feel the lack of life before even entering the house.
I stepped onto the back porch, noticing the door was unlatched. Not ominously gaping open, but just barely cracked. My first thought was that my mother must’ve not latched it and perhaps the breeze blew it open. But this was unlike my mother. Having raised an unruly teenager as a single parent, Marjorie was nothing if not aware of her surroundings.
“Mom,” I called out, tapping the bottom of the door with my toe.
“Mom?” The door drifted open, lazily popping on the hinges.
The slow, haunting melody of an old Johnny Cash song sounded from somewhere in the house.
She walks these hills in a long black veil…
She visits my grave when the night winds wail…
It wasn’t the smell that I noticed immediately, rather the absence of it. It was rare to come to my mother’s home and her not have something in the oven, whether morning or evening. Bread, pies, casseroles, my mother was always baking. She loved baking like I love gardening.
I stepped inside, opting to leave the door open behind me. I’m not sure why.
“Mom,” I called again but this time my voice cracked. She should be answering me by now.
She walks these hills in a long black veil…
She visits my grave when the night winds wail…
Nobody knows, nobody sees…
My heart was a beating drum as I stepped around the corner and into the kitchen, the scene slowly unveiling itself to me.
I smelled her before I saw her.
My mother lay in the middle of a puddle of blood on the kitchen floor, one leg bent awkwardly at the knee like a check mark, her head turned to the side, strands of tangled hair snaking across her face.
The first thing I remember was how ghostly pale her skin was. Thin, almost luminescent, like layers of paper. Her eyes were open, a milky white staring at the back door, her mouth slightly agape as if she’d been trying to say something right before she died.
The white and yellow housedress that I had seen on her so many times before was saturated with crimson, the thin fabric shredded across her stomach. Dried rivulets of blood ran from her body, like tiny snakes escaping the scene. An aluminum baseball bat lay a few feet from her arm. The kitchen was a mess, tools, piles of lumber on the floor, stacks of food on the counters.
The following hour was a blur. I’m told that I hyperventilated while on the phone with the 911 dispatcher. To this day, I do not remember the ten minutes between hanging up with 911 and when the first police car came racing down the driveway. My memory began to return with a rush of people filing into the farmhouse, shattering the silence. So many faces. A chorus of loud, urgent voices vibrating with a sick excitement. I was told that I didn’t speak for a while, until I was finally led away from the chaos and taken into the sitting room where my mother used to read, and given something to drink.
It was Detective Johnny Stroud who reportedly brought me back to life. I learned later that my mother’s case was his first since being promoted to detective. The next day, he would be named lead investigator on the case.
I focused on him, his voice, the intense blue eyes pinning me in place. It was only he and I in the room.
I remember a single word materializing in my head—talk.
