2 Times Cross

Chapter 2: October 29,1968

That night though I couldn't sleep, what happened had me thinking about what might have gone down. Eventually all that thinking made me go to sleep. I woke up the next morning to my mom throwing a chancla at me. She screeched in full Spanish about me coming home late and not having dinner with her. I soon apologized to her and told her about what happened to Cedric and his wife Dottie.

"Well that's what he gets for marrying a white woman."

"Mama."

"I ain't wrong, they cause a lot of trouble. Your Tia Luisa married a white man and come to find out he was part of some mafia gang . We don't need to get into the details of what happened. Come come, help me do chores before you go to work."

     I did everything mom told me to do around the house to clean from cabinets to floors. I always help my mom with cleaning when she has her day off from her day job. It's like spring cleaning but every two weeks. I know what you're thinking, that's a lot of dishes to do, but no worries I do that every day. I know it's a lot of dust that was going around, ooo so unsanitary.

     Anyways I went to work like usual, but today didn't feel like it was normal.While I was going to work I saw a lot more dead deer than usual, maybe the thought of what happened yesterday is still there. When I arrived at work I felt a bit better because it was some sort of distraction. I went on the train and this time I was in the front talking through the microphone, what a relief.During the first few hours of the day I was feeling great, it was my last train ride when we hit a black bear walking across the tracks.

     Affortionally, the bear survived, but fate has it that the baby had major injuries and wouldn't make it. This accident made me have a small panic because the thought of the hurt baby bear was like seeing Dottie's small infant dead. We had the second conductor in the back to turn the train around. When the train finally arrived at the station, we apologized to the passengers of the last ride of the night and offered to give them a full refund if they wanted their money back. About half of the passengers did want their money back after the incident, while the other half-ish didn't claim their money which is ok.

     I was going home after a long day of work and wanted to stop by my moms night job to see if she needed me to pick up anything on the way home. I had gotten there when she would be on her break. I went to one of her work friends to see where I could find my mom and she told me that my mom didn't come to work today. Her friend Tanisha told me that she had to call in sick due to a family matter. Tanisha was concerned that I had gotten sick or injured, but was relieved that I was ok. I thanked her and left the work place to go home and see if mom was ok. I arrived back home and immediately went inside to check up on her.

     I checked around the house to see if I can find her. I couldn't find her in the main areas, so I went straight to her room. What I saw was a nightmare, I saw her body on the floor. So I ran to her to see what was wrong, but before I asked I noticed 30 stab wounds on her back and a cracked skull. There were five stabs on each shoulder joint, 10 stab wounds on the lower back and 10 on middle to upper back. I immediately got up, ran to the kitchen and called the emergency call center for help. While I was on the line with them I looked around to see if there was any note or information that I could find. There were 2 notes addressed to me on the counter, so I informed the dispatcher before opening.

"Don't open them. I will go ahead and tell the police that there are letters addressed to you and they might have to open them."

"Ok, but what if it's something important from my mom"

"Don't open them! If they are the police may or may not let you see them"

"Ok."

     I mean how hard is it to look at the letters your dead mother wrote you. Finally the police and ambulance had arrived. The police had to interrogated me to see what happened, where I was at the time of the attack, and how I knew where to find my mom. So I told them how I was at work, then went to my moms work to check if we needed anything. I also told them that if my mom wasn't feeling good and didn't go to her night job she would be in her room sleeping.

       After they were done interrogating me, I asked the police officer if they had found any new evidence from the last time I had met them.  He told me that they found two notes,but what they found inside and who they were addressed to are classified. He continued by telling me that the case is still open and they are trying their hardest to find who the murderer is. Although, the officer did mention that he was there earlier today to tell my mom that her sister died yesterday evening. He thought it was a coincidence that this happened right after he told her that.

     Before they left they asked me if I had another place to stay or a place of my own. I had informed them that I had nowhere to go. I continued by telling them my mom has a work friend that I can ask if I can stay with her, until I get a place of my own. So one of the officers told me to grab just the necessities, while another officer had escorted me into the house and to my room. I grabbed a week's worth of clothes, a tooth brush, toothpaste, my hair brush, deodorant,etc.

     When I finished I told the officer that I was ready to leave. He escorted me to his cop car and started driving to Tanisha's house. On our way there I asked about the two letters that I found on the counter at my house. The officer told me that one was from my mom and she wanted me to know that my Tia Luisa died and apparently she was pregnant with a baby girl, who also died. She also wanted me to know that I should go stay with my dad back in Mexico. The second one was apparently from an anonymous source saying that the guy who killed my mom is looking for me, and warns me that if I don't leave the country in three days I and whoever that is close to me will die.

    I was quite worried because I had a small amount of time to get enough money and travel out of the country. I was also worried about Tanisha and her family because my mom and I are very close to them. The officer said that it's probably safer if I left the country, so no one else gets hurt. I don't want to leave the country that I grew up in, I hardly knew my dad and I don't want to leave Tanisha. Where do I go from here? If I stay, me and everyone else I know will die, but if I go no one will die. After 1-2 minutes I knew what to do and told the officer my plan.