HARDAWAY | trilogy

V2 - Chapter Four.

               Memories of her laughter filled my mind. She had the smoothest tawny brown skin and a round face complimented with threaded eyebrows shadowing her brown eyes, a small button nose, and full lips. A full-blooded Nicaraguan woman with thick coarse, black hair touching her collarbone. She loved the color lavender. She loved singing to me when I was younger to get me to sleep; specifically Selena Quintanilla Dreaming Of You.

               I listened to the weeping around me while I sat in the chair staring blankly through my dark shades at the casket in front of me. It's a cloudy day, low drizzle of rain falling from the gloomy sky. I had on a black Giorgio Armani Cashmere Napoli suit with black dress shoes. My arm rested on back of the chair my grandmother Luciana Chamorro sits in wearing her black dress and hat. My gaze landed on the picture of her wearing her police uniform; Martina Chamorro, the woman who birthed me.

My mother have been a police officer since graduating college with a bachelors degree in criminal justice. She joined the police academy and went from there. I never liked her being a police officer especially with what's going on in America today with killing unarmed black men and the hatred people have for officers; even the good ones. My mother was one of the good ones. She actually cared about people and change.

So I never understood why my mother was killed. All I remember is getting the call from my grandmother in the middle of my sleep and her crying so hard she could barely talk. I knew what is was then; my mother was killed. No one knows why she was chosen to be shot during a drug deal gone bad. It was only her and her partner around at the time it happened and from what he told, they gotta tip about a drug deal happening and since they were close, they detoured there even though my mother should've been back at the station to clock out and come home.

That's my mother for you. She's so persistent in putting away bad guys that she allowed herself to stop a drug bust and not proceed to the station. Apart of me is angry with her because it could've been prevented, but she's my mother and I love her.

She leaves behind four children; my eldest brother Brayden Daniels, who is ten years my senior with a two children of his own, sits to the other side of me; emotionless, but comforting my crying nieces Martina Anne and Gloria. Secondly, my sister Valentina Daniels, who is five years younger than Brayden with no children, but married and lives in Saint Louis. Then, there's me, the nineteen year old tattoo artist; free of children. Finally, fourteen year old sister Camila Daniels; a sophomore in high school.

Camila, and Valentina sat on the other side of our grandmother, sniffling and dabbing their tears with a tissue.

The whole Oklahoma City police were in attendance with a mixture of our family. A total of eight men fired commanded drill shots into the air in my mother's honor. Afterwards, the United States flag that once covered her casket was being folded into a triangle and handed to my grandmother by the police Chief Scott Justice, who had on his uniform. He kneeled in front of her as she placed her hands on the flag.