Chapter 4

The next morning after getting only four hours of sleep, I'm wide awake because I hurt like hell and feel like death warmed over.  I wake Dom up to come out and have a smoke with me; I don't want to go alone.  He happily joins me in the garage as Connie comes home from work.  Dom had called her last night and told her what happened.  Connie is an E.R. nurse at the other hospital in town.  

She smiles at us as she gets out of the car.  She hates that the three of us are smokers but she's given up trying to get us to stop.  She gives Dom a hug and kiss and turns to me wanting to see my stitches, and approving of how they were done.  

Once done we head back inside.  Connie showers and when she comes out, she finds Dom and me on the couch with my head on his shoulder and both asleep with the television on.  She covers us up with a blanket, turns off the t.v. and goes to bed herself.  Normally Connie doesn't work third shift.  She's an on call nurse between both hospitals and the shift she works is first.

Three hours later at ten we're all up except Connie.  Dom insists on making us breakfast and he questions Will and Frankie as to where they're going to be living.  Come to find out they've rented the apartment that they wanted to share with me and they're moving in today and it's close to school and their work.  Sometimes I'll probably crash on their couch.  

The next morning, Dom and Connie try to talk me out of going to school and stay home one more day to rest.  Home; what a funny word that is.  For the longest time, that word had such horrifying meanings but now the meaning is safer and warm and inviting.  I still insist on going to school since there's already a police report filed.  

Jason's class schedule is close to Shel's and mine.  Frankie and Will have some of the same classes that we do and they are not in some that that I just have with Jason.  This makes me feel safer.  In the past, Pa has come to school and got me during a class and took me home to use as a punching bag.  Now, there's at least one male in all of my classes and to be with me in the hallways.  I feel safer. 

After school, I tell Shelbie that I'm going to work and then to Frankie and Will's apartment to help them settle in and that I'm going to crash there for the night.  She nods and says that she'll tell Dom and Connie and she wants to know if I'll be home tomorrow night after work and I promise that I will be.

At eight my shift ends and as I come to my car in the staff parking lot in the back of the shipping company, I see a figure leaning against my car.  I pull my mace out of my pocket and prepare to spray it, thinking it's Pa leaning against my car to find it's only Dom.  

"Jesus, Dom!  You scared the shit out of me!  Dulce Jesus madre de Maria!!"  I breathe deeply trying to regulate my heart beat with my hand on my chest over my heart.

"Sorry, baby, didn't mean, too," he looks horrified as he pushes himself off of my car.

"Dom, what's the matter?"  Now I'm horrified.

"Um, I have some bad news," he glances down at the pavement before looking back up at me.  "Your Mom is dead.  Connie and I heard screaming earlier and saw your Dad stumble from the house, pass out on the lawn and as Connie called the police, I went in to check on her."  He looks down again and takes a shaky, deep breath before looking back at me.  "When I got inside the house, I found your Mom dead on the living room floor.  It looks like your Dad beat her to death with a baseball bat."

I stare at him dumbfounded as I start shaking and drop.  I would have hit the pavement and the car if Dom hadn't caught me.  He holds me up and I start vomiting right there in the parking lot.  

"This isn't possible, this isn't happening," I cry through vomiting.  "This is a bad dream!" I scream.  

Since I've stopped vomiting, Dom holds me to him as I continue to cry into his shirt, soaking it.  "This isn't happening!  He killed her because I wasn't there for him to beat on, didn't he?" I ask him.  

"No, baby, this isn't your fault."  Dom hugs me even harder.  "Come on, let's go to the house, I'll drive." 

"I can't leave my car here," I mumble against his shirt.  

"I know, baby.  Connie dropped me off, I know you were going to the apartment but your brothers will be at the house."   He rubs my back and gets me into the passenger seat of my car and then gets in the driver’s seat and I hand him the car keys.  

We arrive at the house ten minutes later to find Pa in handcuffs and in the back of a patrol car and police tape around the house.  An ambulance parked on the side of the road and Jason, Frankie, Will, Shel and Connie in the driveway talking to a Police Officer.  

Shel gives me a hug when I come over to them and then Connie, Frankie and Will.  Jason, very handsome and sturdy Jason; he gives me a hug and I don't let go.  It's funny who people cling to when there is a tragedy.  I cling to Jason like a life preserver.  

Shelbie and Connie are in tears, Frankie, Will and Dom are angry and Pa is screaming profanities from the police cruiser.  I haven't cried since Dom told I and I stopped halfway home and I wonder if I will again.  

As the Paramedics bring out a stretcher with Mom's body on it in a black body bag zipped up that's when I lose it again.  I step away from Jason to walk over to the paramedics fast, dodging the police and the tape.  I've tuned everything and everybody out as I start running toward the stretcher.  

I grab the side of the stretcher and startle the two Paramedics.  "Young lady, please, we need to load the body in the ambulance."  

They try to move past me but I've got a death grab on the stretcher.  "She's not a 'body,' she's my Mother!" I scream in hysteria.  "I want to see her, to see what he did to her!"

Frankie and Will have made it over to us and try to pull me off the stretcher and get me to calm down.  "Marr, come on, you don't want to see her, believe me, it's not a pretty sight.  I had to go in and confirm that it's mom."  

"I need to see what he did to her!"  Officer Fagen comes over at the commotion and tells the Paramedics to show me.  

One of them unzipped the bag to Mom's chest and I stopped struggling in Frankie's hold.  Pa had beat Mom from the chest area that I can see up to and around her head bad enough that the right side of her skull and face are caved in as is her chest wall.  If I hadn't left that would have been me instead of Mom.  I'd be the one on that stretcher dead and Mom and Will and Frankie would be safe and Mom could have been happier.  ""Dulce Jesus madre de Maria!" I whisper.

Officer Fagen has the Paramedic zip her back up and they load her on the ambulance.  I'm shaking so hard now and Frankie's hold tightens on me as we go to our knees and he's crushing his chest to my back as I'm doubled over so far that my forehead is almost touching the ground.  Frankie holds us together as we both cry hysterically as if he knows what I'm thinking.  

Will comes over and Frankie opens an arm for him as Will gets down on the ground with us on his knees and Frankie pulls him into our awkward hug and the three of us sit there crying for what seems like a lifetime.  Finally, Will and Frankie get up and wipe their faces off and help me up as I try to wipe my face off as well.  

As we come back over to Dom and Connie's driveway, Jason looks surprised when I come to him and put my head on his chest and wrap my arms around his waist.  He pauses momentarily before he wraps his arms around my back and holds me.  Three hours later all of the police were gone, and the ambulance and the patrol car with Pa in it.  I'm as numb as I pull out a smoke and light it as does Shelbie and Dom.  

"I wish that had been me instead of Mom.  Maybe Mom, you and Will would have had better and happier lives if I'd just stuck it out," I tell Frankie, blowing out a puff of smoke. 

"Marra, it wouldn't have ended with that.  Pa would have killed you both," Frankie tells me as if he truly believes it. 

"Hey, I'm going to head home," Jason told me, waiting for me to loosen my grip on him again after I finished my cigarette.

Except I didn't let go as he tries to gently step away; my grip tightens on him even more.  I bury my head in his neck and turn my body flush with his.  He looks up in shock at my brothers and the others, not knowing what to do.  

"Marra, Jason has to go home," Dom says gently.

"Nope," I mumble from his neck.  "He has to stay; he seems to understand the ugliness and doesn’t judge."

An older couple comes wandering over from across the street looking nervous and a little timid.  They focus on Jason when they see him and are surprised at the death grip I have on him.  "Jason, you're Dad called.  He'd like you to call him back," Jason's step-dad says.

"Thanks, Jackson,' I hear him tell his step-dad.  

"Mom, Jackson, this is Dom, Connie, Shelbie, Will, Frankie," he says pointing to each person and then I feel his hand come back to hold me again.  "And this is Marra.  This is my Mom, Jessica, and my step-dad, Jackson," a round of ‘hellos’.  

"Come on, Marra, let's go inside," Frankie says trying to dislodge me from Jason.  I finally let him go, making him promise to see me tomorrow after school, which he does agree with. 

I sit with my legs pulled up to my chest with my arms wrapped around my knees and I lay my head on my knees on the couch in a haze.  Frankie and Will each sit on either side of me with an arm around my shoulders.  We sit in silence for the longest time ever.  

"Have you eaten at all since lunch?"  Will asks me, his voice coming for the top of my head.

"No and I'm not hungry," I tell him.

"Still need to eat," Frankie says getting off the couch.  "Come on, let's get something to eat."  Frankie reaches down to grab my hand and help off the couch.  

"Frankie, really, I'm not hungry," I grumble at him as we head to the kitchen.  

"Tough," was all he said as he opened the fridge and pulled out leftover lasagna.  He warms up a plate.  When the microwave dings he grabs it out and hands it to me with a fork.  "Sit," he says pointing to the table as he sits with me.