Travis can feel the distance. I know it, and he knows it.
Chief’s words are beginning to drown me.
Today, while Travis is at work, I decide to come and talk to Mom about it. I stayed at Travis’ place the last two nights, and I could use a little mom time. I reach the front door and go inside, but it’s quiet. “Mom?” I call out, rounding the corner to the kitchen and not seeing her there.
Weird.
“Momma!” I shout, but there’s only silence.
It’s one of those moments where I feel it right to my core, that something is wrong. I don’t know what it is, but every nerve ending goes on high alert as I walk down the hall. Outside her bedroom door comes a strangled but faint moan. I fling it open and freeze. She’s on the bed—naked, every inch of her skin a bruised map, ribs jutting unnaturally, her hair matted with blood. I stagger forward, hand pressed to my mouth as I cry out her name.
“Mo—Momma, please...” I lean over her, brushing her temple with trembling fingers. Her breaths are shallow.
I fumble for my phone.
I dial 911 with one finger, my voice coming out raw: “Please, my mother, she’s been beaten. I don’t know who did it, but she’s alive. Please hurry.”
They go through every question under the sun; what’s my name, what’s my address, am I alone, is the intruder still there, does she have a pulse. I try to keep calm, answer them all, but tears are flowing down my face and my voice is shaking. I’m scared, the kind of fear I’ve never felt before in my life.
“Ambulance is on its way, ma’am. Please call if they don’t arrive in less than five minutes. I can see they are en route.”
I’ve never felt so helpless. When I finally hang up, I dial Chief’s number. Three rings and it cuts to voicemail. I press redial. Silence.
He’s fucking declining my calls.
“Damn it,” I choke, tears blurring my vision. I reach over, assuring my mom it’s going to be okay, it’s all going to be okay, as I jab at my phone’s screen and call whoever’s number comes up first—Rocko, club treasurer. He answers on the second ring, and I waste no time.
“Rocko, it’s Violet. I need Chief. He’s not answering my calls. It’s an emergency, it’s my mother...”
“Shit,” Rocko curses. “I’ll get him.”
My pulse hammers while I stare at Momma’s face, her skin has gone from golden warmth to something I barely recognize. Every bruise, every welt, hits me right in my chest. Then the voice I’ve been aching to hear—low, urgent.
“Talk to me.”
“Daddy,” I gasp, clutching her cold hand. “It’s Mom. It’s... someone hurt her. Bruises, broken bones, she’s barely conscious. The ambulance is minutes out. You have to—”
“I’m on my way,” he interrupts, voice rough with fury and fear. “Stay with her. I’m coming.”
I hang onto my mother’s hand until the ambulance officers burst through the front door and find us in the room. They kneel beside me, barking questions I answer in a daze, voice cracking so badly I’m surprised they can hear me. They get to work putting her on a stretcher, knowing she needs the hospital urgently.
“Where is she?”
Chief’s booming voice comes rattling down the hall just as they have put my mother on the stretcher, wires and tubes hanging off her for pain relief and to help her breathe. Chief bursts into the room, and when he sees her, his face falls. There is a fear in his eyes I have never seen before. He rushes over, cupping her face with his big hand. “I’m here, angel. I’m here. Baby, I got you.”
His words.
So fucking deep.
He turns to me and I crumble, legs giving out. He comes over, lowering down and scooping me up, pulling me to him. This is a hug I have needed since the big fight we had, but this isn’t how I wanted that to happen. “I’m fuckin’ sorry, baby, for everything. She’s going to be okay. We’re going to find out who did this.”
“We have to get her to the hospital,” a paramedic informs. “Someone can ride with her.”
Chief looks to me. I swipe the tears from my eyes. “You go. I am going to call Travis.”
His jaw ticks, but he doesn’t argue. Ten minutes later they drive my mother away with my dad in the back. Soon after, Travis explodes into the house. I’m on the floor, limbs curled under me, crying because I just can’t stop. He scoops me up as if I weigh nothing and rocks me hard against his chest until my sobs slow and my fists unclench. Together we sit, the silence only broken by the ticking of the hall clock, until blue-and-white cruisers pull into the driveway.
More questions.