“Mom?” I rasp, remembering that she was further ahead of us.
“Don’t move. Promise me!” Dad barks out. He’s an alpha, and his tone washes over me as I nod. There’s no way I’m going to disobey him when he sounds like this.
“I promise, sir,” I whisper, frozen as he pushes his horse into a gallop.
“Michelle!” Dad screams, barely coming to a stop before jumping off his horse. The cows seem to move away from where he’s at, and soon I can see the crumpled figure on the ground.
“No,” I whisper, moving without thinking as I dismount.
The cattle have calmed as quickly as they lost their minds, and I pass them as I walk mindlessly toward my parents.
“You don’t want to see this,” Derek rasps, not able to pull his gaze from my father as his body is wracked with sobs.
My mother’s body lies broken, and I can see that she couldn’t stay on her horse.
“She was thrown from her horse,” Derek says, pulling off his hat and letting it hang by his side.
It’s not simply that she was thrown, the cattle stomped on her. Her skull is cracked, and I’ll never see her eyes again since her face is so sunken in as her mouth remains open in a silent scream. My mother is unrecognizable.
My brain is having a difficult time processing that it’s even her, but her hat is nearby from where she lost it, and her once brown hair is now matted with blood.
Blood is tracked everywhere since it’s all on the hooves of the cattle as they walk. I think the ranch hands will be washing my mother’s blood off them for days, if not weeks because some ofour cattle are continuing to wander off. This isn’t the legacy she would have wanted to leave…
Somewhere, I also think about how she would complain about the mess she’s leaving, and now I can’t fucking breathe…
Black spots press against my vision as I watch my parents on the ground, one alive and floundering, while the other’s soul is no longer with us. My father doesn’t seem to know how to pick her up to hold her because she’s bleeding and broken in so many places.
“This was done on purpose,” I whisper. It feels wrong to say anything louder, and tears burn in my eyes before escaping.
What will we do without her?My mom is our emotional glue. I don’t…I can’t…
Dad’s gaze is pulled away from my mother and he finally sees me, his eyes narrowing as he realizes my chest is heaving with emotion. I watch as he pulls himself together for me.
“Derek, go back to the house with Bentley and call the police,” he says, his voice strained and hoarse. You’d never know tears are staining his weathered skin, or that his fists are clenched on either side of his body to keep from getting more blood on his hands. “We have a death to call in.”
Either way, the blood seems to refuse to stay in her body. The knees of his jeans are already soaked with blood, and I can’t tear myself away now that I’ve noticed it.
“You mean a murder,” I sob out. “They wouldn’t have reacted spooked like that otherwise.”
“We…don’t know that,” Derek says thickly, turning me around. “You don’t want the last memory of your mother to be this. Remember her just before this, smiling and laughing.”
Death isn’t something that’s abnormal to me living on a ranch. I’ve seen animals killed, my parents have run predators off our property with shotguns. My grandfather also died three years ago. I know what death feels like.
This just feels worse than anything else I’ve ever experienced before.
Time moves funny as the police are called once I’m back at the house. The hours flow too quickly yet slowly too as people are told about my mother’s death, and my sisters insist on sleeping in my bed.
I need comfort, too, so I won’t refuse them. I feel so different than the confident kid I was before, and I definitely no longer think I’m smart. If I was, I’d have known what was going to happen right? I’d have told my mom that I would stay at home with her.
There are too many ‘ifs’ in my life now.
Blinking, I find myself staring out at the play yard at school. I can’t tell you how many days have passed since my mom died, but the funeral is tomorrow. I’ll have to say goodbye to my mom then.
I don’t think I’m ready, especially since it won’t feel like she’s there. The casket has to be closed due to the damage the cattle did, and Margie and Hazel keep asking why they can’t see Mommy anymore. I know the twins don’t know any better, but their questions sink a knife deeper into my heart with every question.
I’m not playing today, simply leaning against a pole as I gaze sightlessly at the sunbathed yard. There are kids laughing and playing, but it’s hard to let any of that happiness touch me right now.
“Hey, Bentley!” Felix yells, walking up to me with Bobby laughing behind me. I hate these guys, and I have a lot of anger and sadness bubbling up inside of me.