Donnie
For as long as I live, I will never forget this night. I can’t get it out of my mind. I keep replaying it over and over again. Love is fragile thing, but it also one of the strongest things I have ever witnessed.
My mother chewed through her thumb to get out of the shackle that had confined her in that basement. When Adam threatened to kill me, she knew she had to get out. She did that for me. I was in awe of her. When I saw her standing in Ness’s kitchen, wrapped in a sheet, blood dripping from her hand and missing one hand-I was in shock. She ran to that house without a care for her injuries. I had always heard that a mother would do anything for a child and now I had witnessed it. I didn’t deserve that kind of love from her. I was a teen age shit. I was self-absorbed. I harbored so much guilt for the way I treated her.
The cops took Adam to jail. He had a hell of knot on his head. I wish I had bashed his brains in. The animal needed to be put down. The ambulances finally came. One carried my mother to the hospital and the other carried Ness to the morgue. Dug seemed to find peace in the belief that his Ma was going to be with her sister, Bernie, his biological mother. I felt that Ness put us before her own safety. She was a tough old woman, who also loved Dug.
Dug rode with me in the ambulance with my mother. He was quite. He didn’t say too much. He just kept patting my mother on the shoulder. The paramedics were irritated we rode in the ambulance but there was no way I was leaving my mother or Dug. My grandparents met us at the hospital. My grandmother was hysterical, my grandfather stoic. I tried to explain to them what happened but my thoughts kept running together and I knew it didn’t make sense to them. The doctor’s made us wait outside the room while they assessed my mother’s injuries. I knew they were going to be shocked at the abuse she had suffered.
“Donnie, is she going to live?” my grandmother asked.
“Yes,” I answered. “She won’t be the same.”
I sat down in the chair outside the room. I was emotionally exhausted. Dug sat beside me. He took my hand and I was glad to had the comfort. “I love you, Donnie.”
I put my hand over his. “I love you too, Dug. I am sorry about Ness. She was a wonderful person.”
He smiled. “She was a good Ma.”
I heard my grandmother crying softly. The doctor came out of the room. “Well…” he started and took a deep breath. He looked at my grandmother. “Do you want the boy to hear this?”
“I’m not leaving,” I said sternly.
The doctor sighed. “It’s amazing your mother is alive. She has an infection from the slashes on her back, from the amputation of her hand.” My grandmother let out a loud sob. “She has also been sexually assaulted several times. There were some pretty severe tears in her vagina and anus. I’m admitting her. She will be getting some strong antibiotics by IV and pain meds. My concern is her mental state of mind when she is feeling better. I highly recommend intense therapy for her. It will be a few minutes before her room is ready. I have given her some morphine so she is sleeping right now.” He turned and went behind the nurses stations to put in his notes. I went in to see my mother. The nurse was bandaging the stump where her hand used to be. I went and stood next to my mom. Her eyes were closed and she looked peaceful but she also looked worn out and older. I bent down and kissed her forehead. “I love you, Mom.”