Careless Mistakes

I held her hand. It was neither cold nor warm. Just empty. She laid there silent; eyes wide open. Her lips parted slightly and her legs at an awkward angle. The right bent under the other and her left foot twisted. It wasn't natural. It was lifeless.

I was sitting there -cross legged- stunned with a blank expression plastered across my face. I couldn't think. I had called 911; they said they'd be here as soon as they could. It wasn't soon enough. It felt like hours.

And there wasn't any point checking her pulse. She was already gone. I thought about covering her up with a sheet or something, but I just wanted to see her. Dead or not. She was my mom. I found her here –at home- a little more than ten minutes ago. It just seemed longer.

I was coming home from a friend’s “get together” –like I had told her- when I found the door wide open. Normally, I would have thought to call 911 first, but sometimes Mom tends to leave the door open when she’d go out for drinks. Which she had before I left. So, I walked in and shut the door. Careless. Every single bit of the whole thing were part of my mistakes.

The house had been silent. I assumed she had been sleeping. After-all, the buzz was still wearing off from the so-called “get together.” Drinking; another mistake. But then, I saw the mud tracks. Even if drunk, Mom would have never dragged mud through the house. The neat-freak she was. Someone broke in.

I had called for her throughout the house. Another mistake. After the tenth call, a loud thud had come from her bedroom. I immediately raced upstairs after hearing the noise. I had tripped and cut my forehead on a suspicious shard of glass on the carpet. Wasted time.

When I had finally made it to the bedroom, Mom was sprawled on the floor and the bay window was open. There was no one else in here; they had escaped. I had collapsed onto my knees before Mom and had looked her, horrified. I had froze, wasting the time that could have saved her life. I snapped out of it and had called 911. But I couldn't utter words to reply until I had called a second time. The mistakes never ended-

A police officer came rushing into the room and then slowed down when he saw me. He knelt down in front of me –on the other side of Mom. He started checking Mom’s pulse and when he finally knew she was dead, he let out a sigh. “We got here as soon as we could. I’m sorry . . .” He stopped himself, noticing I wasn’t even paying attention to him. I just stared down at Mom, gripping her hand even tighter. The more I squeezed her hand, the more I tried to convince myself she’d wake up.

His clasped on my knee as if I was a child and handed me a tissue. I’m not sure why he handed me it until I could see tear stains on my shirt. I hadn’t noticed I was crying. I don’t know how long I was though. I wiped my eyes with my left hand –the one that wasn’t holding Mom’s- and remained silent.

“I’m Officer Riley. What about you, young man?” I reluctantly tell him my name. “Well, Aaron, I’m going to need you to step away from her, okay? You’ll see her again soon.” I shake my head at him and look up. There are other officers behind him now; one with a tired expression on his face and the other with a sympathetic one.

Riley tries to remove my hand from Mom’s. He’s strong but I manage to keep my hand locked in her’s. I can’t leave her and I won’t let anyone make me no matter what. “C’mon, Aaron. You need to let go,” He tells me.

“No, I can’t!” I say, “You shouldn’t waste your time! You should be out looking for whoever did this to my mom! Go look for them!”

The other officers come towards me and grab my arms. They pull me away from Mom while I kick and scream. Childish. “No! Let me go! Please!” I scream, trying to get away. They pulled me into the corner and held me down.

Two people in uniform carrying a stretcher came in and set it beside Mom. I watched as they rolled her onto it and pulled a black plastic bag over her body. I screamed at them as they did so. They carried her out of the room. Riley closed the door and headed over to me. He sat in front of me and sighed.

“Aaron, your mother wasn’t murdered. She committed suicide.”

“What? No, she couldn’t have! The door was open, the muddy footprints were all over, the loud noise came from here, an-and the window was open! What about the shard of glass? So someone broke into the house!” I yell at him. He shakes his head.

“No, Aaron. Think about it."

I stayed silent and raced through my thoughts. He was right. The door hadn't shown any sign of force entry and the mud tracks looked a lot like the design on the bottom of her flats. The shard of glass had a hint pink on it -like her lipstick. It was probably her wine glass.

Riley pointed to the dresser. A tipped over bottle of pills laid there with pills scattered around. She over-dosed. The loud noise I heard was her falling. I remember feeling something in her hand. I looked at the inside of my hand. There was an imprint of two oval shapes that looked a lot like the pills she’d take for her heart condition.

Careless mistakes.