C O P D O W N
Seven years in line of service I had known this. Six months ago, it had become what my life revolved around.
That things break all the time. Windows, and mirrors, and dishes, and fingernails. Cars and multimillion-dollar deals and chocolate-chip wafers. You can break a cartwheel, a Guinness record, a wooden ruler, even a MacBook pro. You can break tension. There are lunch breaks, meeting breaks and prison breaks. Clouds break, horizon breaks, voices break. Courage can be broken. So can strength, and someone's world.
Since the last six months of pain, agony and loneliness, I made a list of these things hoping that it would make, going through the nightmare easier to handle.
Friendships break.
Relationships break.
Hearts break.
I thought maybe I should start visiting my demons again. For the first time, I was not afraid; rather encouraged by the idea that I was no longer running away from my problems or hiding from anything. I had nothing to lose anyway. Working over night for countless crime scenes and other dependencies took over my life to the point that I could not accept help when it was offered, nor could I stop running away from a past that haunted me.
People break.
At thirty-four, my memory was not what it once was; brain cells left at too many criminal cases and too many nights of indulgence, but the remnants of the feelings still remained. I could still not fathom how I survived and know, someone was watching out for her.
For Kenzie.
I found myself wanting to document. Wanting to put the pieces together to help her and to maybe help my aching heart.
I found myself staring at a page before me, the ink only just drying, my heart sinking so low in my chest, I was sure there was no hope for the poor senseless thing. I looked at the corner of the room from where I sat. Stared hard at the small, carved out chafed wooden frame housing a picture of me dressed in my spotlessly clean dark blue uniform. But it wasn't myself I stared at. It was the woman in the picture standing with me. With deep auburn hair and a toothy smile pasted on her face, holding up a pair of handcuffs. It was the only picture I possessed of both of us. Not possessions anymore now that I thought of it, just an inanimate object that reminded me of my pain and all that I had lost.
The fair evening's air is thick with the summer's heat and the dying sun's light falls through the blinds, casting pink bars along the dark wooden floor. The silence is broken only by my soft sniffs, not from allergy or dust, but instead from the tears that have been steadily flowing down my cheeks as my nimble fingers hold out the hardest letter I had ever had to read. A letter from a dead mother to her only daughter.
Dear Mackenzie,
I hope you're in good health when you get this letter. I remember you falling ill with fever a lot when you were just a baby.
As you know, I came to Michigan a month ago to speak with you. But you would not see me. I was disappointed but could not blame you. In your place, I might have done the same. I lost the privilege of your love a long time ago when I left and for that, I only have myself to blame now. But if you are reading this letter then I'm grateful for this chance to say a few words to you. Words that always failed me when I tried to get them out in the past years.
Where do I begin?
Your mother has known so much sorrow since we last saw each other. Your brother died when he was just six months old in my stomach. He did not even get a chance to breathe in the world. He did not give me the chance to hear his cries. Thirteen days, I had to carry my dead son in my womb. I was told it would cause my uterus to collapse all together. Thirteen days, knowing I had a dead body with in me. I still dream of him. I dream of my dead child.
