Page 120 of Malice and Surrender
“Fuck you, Jack. I’ve given over the best part of my life to you and that club. Even with all the shit you’ve done and the women you’ve fucked while I sat home and looked after our son, I still stood by you, but I’m not sitting here like a target and just waiting for their next move. I’m taking Kai, and we’re going to my sister’s house in Connecticut. If you decide to leave the club, then you’ll know where to find me.”
The words had no sooner left my mom’s mouth when there was a bang and glass shattered. I covered my head, not sure what was going on, and thought for just a minute that my mom had decided to break one of the glass tables in the living room. There was a loud roar that I knew was a motorcycle, and my hair rustled like a wind was lifting it.
Jumping up, I ran down the few stairs and rounded the corner to the living room.
“Mom!” She was lying on the floor, and blood was seeping into the carpet all around her. Running to her side, I dropped to my knees. Her eyes were wide and terrified.
“I don’t know what to do,” I said, my hands shaking as I stared at the wound in her chest. “What do I do?” She grabbed my hand in hers.
“Run,” she said, her voice soft as she wheezed out the single word.
All I could feel was the pounding in my chest as my heart hammered, and I looked around for the phone. I needed to call for help. It was still in her other hand, and I realized Dad was still on the phone.
Leaning over Mom, I pulled the phone from her fingers that didn’t want to let go. I could hear my dad yelling for my mom to answer him.
“Dad? Help, it’s Mom, she’s bleeding, and I don’t know what to do.”
“Okay, Kai, listen to me. Is anyone else still there?”
I looked around, confused by the question. We’d been alone the entire time. “No, it’s just me and Mom.”
“Good. Now, where is your mom hurt?” I could hear motorcycles revving, making it hard to hear my dad.
“Her chest,” I said as something warm trailed down my cheeks. “Dad, there is so much blood.”
“Hang up, Kai, and call nine-one-one.”
“But dad….”
“No arguments Kai. Hang up the phone and call now.” The phone clicked off in my ear.
“But I’m scared,” I gasped as the asthma attack gripped me. Fear made me wheeze, and my eyes returned to my mom’s face. Her eyes were still open, but she was looking right through me. “No, Mom, you need to stay with me,” I said, gripping her shoulder to shake her. Mom’s expression never changed as her head rocked with the movement.
Her hand was still wrapped around mine, but I pulled it free to stand and stumble into the kitchen. My mom always kept my puffers in the cupboard. It was getting harder to breathe with every passing second, and I knew that I couldn’t pass out or I wouldn’t be any help.
I shook the inhaler and got a puff into me before I dropped to my knees and fumbled with the phone to get those three simple numbers punched in. The phone slipped as I picked it up from the slick blood coating everything.
“Nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?” The guy on the end of the line said.
“It’s my mom, I think she’s been shot, and I don’t know what to do,” I said, barely able to keep the phone to my ear as it kept trying to slip through my fingers.
“Are you in danger?”
“No, it’s not me. It’s my mom,” I cried. I hated to cry. In this house, if you cried, you were not a man, but I couldn’t hold the emotion back as Mom laid there. I’d never seen someone die, but I was sure my mom was dying now.
I couldn’t remember what the man said to me. Everything had become a blur. From the police arriving and the paramedics to my dad showing up and yelling and crying like she meant everything to him. I stared up at him as they carried my mother’s body out of the house, tears streaming down his face. All I could think was that he was a liar. I’d heard the fights and the names he called her. I heard the threats and the promises to kill her if she took off. That wasn’t love, and if it was, then I never wanted to love someone.
I sat on the stairs, no one watching me or even looking my way because my dad was making so much noise. Trying for a part in a movie was my guess. The house became still after everyone was gone. My head lifted and my eyes locked on the front door and the bloody hand print smeared into the crisp white.
Rising to my feet, I slowly walked to the closet that held the cleaning supplies and pulled out a bucket and soap. Tossing in a sponge and the brush I used to get the dirt out from under my nails, I walked into the living room. The blood on the carpet was shaped like a person with a giant blob in the middle. It reminded me of the art projects from school when we would put a bunch of paint on paper and fold it in half.
Lowering myself to my knees, I grabbed the sponge and started to scrub, but the stain wouldn’t go away. Instead, it got larger but faded to a terrible shade of pink, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get the red out from under my nails.
I hated my dad from that moment on. My mom was scared. She’d been terrified that something was going to happen, and he chose to keep us in danger. Then he abandoned me. It was his fault, she died, and I prayed hard that he would die a terrible death.
The last word my mom said to me was ‘run.’ I didn’t run, but I should’ve.
My father left on a Monday night at seven-thirty-one and never returned. By Friday, I’d eaten everything in the house that I knew how to make. I tried to call my dad, but he didn’t answer. At the age of nine years, two months, and three days at exactly ten-fourteen on Saturday morning, the knock that would change my life forever sounded at the door.
