Chronicles Revealed

Chapter 17: Letting Go

After the euphoric experience of the day, Mama and I found it hard to sleep.  Maybe the long and exciting trip to Santa Fe, the apprehension that stirred in our hearts, the  feeling of relief and fulfillment, the thrill of it all, the murder of Mario, were taking their toll on me.  The past, the present, and the future crisscrossed my brain and no matter how much I tried I just couldn't sleep. Mamalo was going through the same thing.  She tossed and turned in bed feeling full and empty in her head at the same time and unable to sleep.

I got up, went down, and made milk for Mama and coffee for me and brought them up to our bedroom.  Unlike, maybe, the rest of the world coffee has no effect on my sleep.  In fact, I drink coffee before I go to sleep.  I remained awake and coffee had nothing to do with that.  After drinking her milk, Mama felt relaxed and rested but still not sleepy.  Instead of turning on the TV, we decided to go down to the living room and talked and contemplated on what lay ahead of us.  We remembered our eldest son.  When he was still with us, he would just sit and read in the living room or play his sounds softly, occupying my favorite seat in the house, when he was having a hard time sleeping.  Maybe, he was right there with us as we thought of the days with him and the days that, forever, will be without him.  Unknowingly, Mamalo and I fell asleep in our seats.  I woke up past five AM and woke Mama up.  We went to bed and went back to sleep.

We slept soundly for about three hours more and woke up fully refreshed.  Time for breakfast.

Time to let go.

All the facts are in, Mama.  We now know exactly who we have to deal with, who the killers of our son are, who should pay. There are no grey areas for us to consider, no room for doubt anymore.  Everything is crystal clear and nothing is ambiguous in the facts we have.  Definitely, It's beyond reasonable doubt.  What remains for us to do is to identify the mastermind and that should not be too difficult to accomplish since we already know the shooter and the driver.  One of them, or both of them, will unmask the cowardly mastermind for us.  After we get the hitmen, we will get this hideous snake.  They are all in hiding now.  Sooner or later they will come out to gasp for air and they will be seen,  and we will get them, one after the other.

What do we do with these facts we have?  Keep them to ourselves or should we turn them over to the Police and let them find, arrest and prosecute the killers?  Tell them everything we know?  Do we have what they consider as solid proofs?  Would they believe us?  Would they do anything about it or will they just muddle and denigrate what we present to cover their inefficiency,  even possibly protect the killers?  Would it not unduly expose all of us?  We are not protected and we can't really protect ourselves.

Alarming to say, the police could use our  own statements against us, twist us around, ask us a hundred questions to rattle us, destroy our credibility, accuse us of  obstruction of justice and whatever legal  matters they can throw at us.  That would be the easier thing for them to do.  They can turn the table around and get rid of us and we become persons of interest. Can we defend ourselves against deeply-entrenched, real life villains, hiding in the cloak of authority?

All our efforts, especially those of our friends, can go down the drain, our safety in jeopardy.

We have no solid evidence to speak of.  What we have can be just dismissed as so much hearsay by the police, by the prosecutor.  Mario is dead and it makes his confession to us meaningless for purposes of evidence, even if on record.  We might even be linked to his murder. We can't make Isabel testify because we promised we won't ask her to do it.  What would be terrifying is that testifying could be a death knell for her and her family.  We can't have a mountain of guilt like that in our hearts and minds.