The Night

Chapter Six

        I peacefully fell asleep with dearest Victor that evening.  I didn’t mean to fall asleep, but I was just so sleepy and comfortable.  He lay next to me, both of us snuggled against our tree, while he stroked my head and our breathing in synch.  I woke up the next morning alone, however I wasn't surprised since I knew he disappeared against his will every sunrise.  I could still feel his presence with me, the chilling and somber yet captivating feeling.

            Suddenly reality came crashing back to me.  I had never come home.  Checking my wristwatch, the time said 7’oclock.  Maybe mom was still asleep.  I ran back to my house and snuck back in the way I always did.  I tiptoed through the halls and I dove into my bed.  Good.  She hadn’t heard anything so she wasn’t up yet.  I would be in so much trouble if she found out about this.

            Sometime after this, my mother seemed to be in a less-explosive mood, but she was so gloomy.  Then I remembered that today was the day my dad left thirteen years ago.  I was only four.  She seemed to be over him except for today, during the holidays, and some other random times when she gets reminded of him. I hardly remembered my father but I resented him for what he did to my mom and me-literally abandoning us.  I never even heard from him-my own father.  I felt so sorry for mom because I can understand her depression even though she didn’t treat me well.

            “Hey, Crys, do you want to get out today?”  My mom asked, stuffing some money into my hand.  This was so odd because she never acted in this way.

            “Really?” I replied incredulously.

            “Yeah.  Why don’t you go to the movies or something?”

            Something was not right.  But I was going to go along with it so I could find out.

            “Okay.  Well I guess I’ll go then.  I can walk.”

            “Alright, sweetie,” her lips broke into a smile, yet behind her blue eyes there were tears waiting to tumble out.

            “Thanks, mom,” I smiled back at her.

            “Yeah, no problem!” She kissed me on the forehead (something she rarely did.)

            I left, but I decided to wait for a few minutes before coming back.  I didn’t want her to get mad at me so my excuse was going to be that I forgot something.

            Inside my house, mom wasn’t downstairs.  I rushed up the stairs and found her in her bedroom.

            “Mom?” I said with a shaky voice.

            “Crys?” She didn’t turn around.  She was sitting on her unmade bed and facing the bare wall. “I thought you were leaving,” her voice choked.

            “Yeah, but I…”

            “Just go.” She still hadn’t turned her gaze from the wall.

            “No, not yet.”  I rushed to her side, but to my horror I saw that she had a gun in her lap.  My eyes grew wide.  “Where did you get that?” I quivered.

            She sighed.  “Remember the guy who came over a while ago?  He left it under the bed by accident.  I pretended not to notice that he had it, and I don’t know why he never came back for it.  I guess he really doesn’t want to see me again.” She took a swig of whiskey from the flask on the nightstand.  “Hell, he was gone before I even woke up.  I mean usually they have the decency to say goodbye in the morning after we have a nice breakfast but he didn’t leave so much as a note.”

            “I’m so sorry, mom, that’s awful.”  I had no idea why that man had a gun in the first place.  Was he planning to shoot her with it?  Perhaps he was the kind of person who carried a gun for safety precautions (maybe he was afraid that she was a psychopath), but then he left it so carelessly.  Or he was an undercover policeman or agent or something of the sort?  Or a thief or a drug dealer.  Never mind.  I didn’t want to know.  I needed to stay calm; I didn’t want anything to happen.  I carefully sat down next to her on the bed.  “Can we talk about it?”  I asked.

            “There’s nothing really to talk about.  I just can’t do this anymore.  Your father left so long ago and that’s what truly broke me.  I blame myself for the most part but I still didn’t want us to end the way it did.”  She sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand, simultaneously exposing fresh and old scars trailing down her wrist.  “I wanted to be married to him forever, even though I didn’t act as if I did.  And after that I tried everything to fill that gaping hole.  Of course everything I tried only gave me happiness at that time.  Your father was the only one who gave me a lasting happiness, and I ruined it.”  She gulped some more of her drink.  “None of my relationships have worked out and I’m just becoming more and more miserable every damned day.  And I’ve been so terrible to you, Crystal.  You don’t deserve such an awful mother like I am.  This cruel game of life has beaten me and I give up.   That’s why I wanted you to go; I didn’t want you to see this.”

            “Mom, don’t do this,” I began internally panicking.  This was not going to happen.  No matter how she’s treated me she was my mother and I loved her.

            Picking up the gun from her lap, mom turned it over and over in her hand as she stared at it.   She cocked it.  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.  It seemed as though her life had gone from her already: her light blue eyes looked so empty upon her ghostly pale face, almost as pale as Victor’s.

            “Just promise me one thing,” her voice still a hush.

            “What?” My lips quivered.

           “That you won’t end up like me.”  The words barely trickled off her tongue. 

            My heart fell into my stomach so far I could have heard it drop with a thud.  Tears streamed down my face like never before.  I couldn’t control myself anymore, hysteria immersed me from my head to my feat.

            “Mom, NO!”  I pleaded.  “No, no, no! Please, NO!”  She refused to look at me.  I had to save her from herself; I didn’t care if I got hurt as a result.  I grabbed the gun and tried to take it away but her hand gripped it as though it were made of iron.  I pulled it to get it out of her hand.  All of this happened so quickly and it was such a blur; I remember we were fighting over it. I continued tugging on it for her life, like we were playing a sick game of tug of war.

            “Just let go!” She wailed pleadingly.  “Just let go! Please, Crystal.  Let me go!!!”  She tugged back at it.

            “NO, MOM! I won’t….” I panted to get the words out as I continued to pull, “let you… take… your own…LIFE!” I foolishly and unwittingly pulled it towards myself and away from her. But her finger was still on the trigger.  I heard the gunshot.

            For some reason I looked at her to make sure that she was unharmed, and of course she was.  The gun wasn’t pointed at her, after all.  She looked at me in a way she hadn’t looked at me in forever: a state of horrified shock and simultaneously a state of love.

            When I felt a warm liquid pouring from my stomach I knew I had been shot.  I was so stupid to struggle with the gun, especially the way that I did, but I wasn’t going to sit there and watch my mother commit suicide.  I collapsed to the white carpet, which would soon be stained with my blood.  I could almost see myself in one of those movies or television shows, falling dramatically in slow motion.  But this wasn’t a TV show.  I wasn’t Sherlock, predicting how exactly I would fall.  I had no control over this, my reality.  Just as I was blacking out, I witnessed my mom with her phone in her quivering hand, dialing three digits and putting it to her ear.