It was a calm night. No one would have guessed what was going on inside the walls of my small apartment. I knelt on the floor, shaking. My hands, my face, my entire body was covered in blood. His blood.
My father lay on the ground in front of me, the light finally gone from his cold eyes. The knife was still protruding from his chest, but I don’t remember putting it there.
Did I black out? Did I kill my own father? I can’t - can’t remember.
There was a knock on the door that snapped me out of my trance.
“Police! Open the door!”
I slowly stood and went to the door, knowing exactly what the police would think when they saw me and the body on the floor. I didn’t know how they knew to come to my door, but I knew I had to let them in. They wouldn’t need a warrant once they saw the body. There’s your probable cause, there’s your reasonable search and seizure.
I opened the door, and I could see the shock in the eyes of the officers standing in the hallway.
Everything was a blur, but I remember the pain in my shoulder as a police officer yanked my hands behind my back, cuffed me, told me I was being arrested for “the murder of Cane Garcia,” and read me my rights.
I remember screaming as my eight-year-old son came groggily out of his room. I didn’t want him to see the body on the floor. I didn’t want him to see his mother taken away.
Flashes of that night still come back to me, but I think I blocked it all out.
