Revenge

Decisions Decisions

            The days when I was pampered are long gone. Sometimes I find myself sitting in my room imagining how my life would have been if things had gone differently.

What a difference a decision makes. You think you’re making this choice that will only affect the person intended, never once thinking about the fallout of the entire situation. I imagine the consequences of his actions never went through the head of the bastard that set my father up, but I could very well be wrong. Believing he’s a filthy prick who deserves everything I’m going to give him makes him easier to hate, easier to hunt.

            I walk out of the overly sterile hospital room and let the door ease to a close behind me. I watch through the window as the under paid and over worked nurse drapes the white sheet over the face of the only person I had left in this world, my mother. The cancer finally took her from me marking today, the twenty-ninth of August, the second worst day of my life.

The door closes with a final tiny huff in front of me and I take my last look into the room and turn around to leave. My mother gave me strict instructions to follow once she was gone and as the one final thing I can do for her, against everything in me, I’m abiding by them. I quickly walk down the hall and make a sharp left for the first exit I can find.

Once out in the blistering heat, I keep walking, get in my car and drive away. With no money for a proper funeral or casket, my mother asked me to leave her body at the hospital and let them handle it.

“No use in going broke over my vessel. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord l' amore,” I remember her saying.

Reaching with one hand to wipe the stray tear that fell, I use my other hand to open the map in my passenger seat. I have one stop to make and then I’m off to start my mission.

            I push down the handle on the overstuffed suitcase my mother used to own and take one last look at our tiny apartment. My mother and I lived here for twelve years. Although it’s not the best and we had damn sure had better, we made it feel like home. I’ve packed the essentials but regretfully I have to leave most of our belongings here. The one thing I’ve been sure not to take off since my mother put it around my neck yesterday is the diamond sunflower pendant my father gave her.

“This is the last birthday present I’ll ever give you l' amore. Your father gave it to me the day we got married and now I’m passing it on to you. You were always his little sunflower,” she said softly.

I wipe away another set of tears at the not so distant memory and without further hesitation leave the apartment.

            The drive from Atlanta to New York is a grueling affair. The memories of my mother’s passing, our struggle for the past fourteen years, and my father’s death fill my mind and fill me with rage in the process. The anger in me is so bottled up I feel like I can drive the entire fourteen hours off of it alone but I decide against it and stop in Baltimore to rest.

I pull over and lock my car doors and lean my seat back. The blanket I have in the backseat receives a warm welcome from my overly chilled body. Before I close my eyes for the night I grab my Smith & Wesson Bodyguard 380 from my glove compartment and sit it in my lap. After I have it cocked and locked, I cover myself up and lie down and close my eyes. They burn after being open and focused for so long, the tears that start to form and fall don’t help my situation any at all.

I think back to the day my father died, fourteen years ago today, and here my mother is passing on the same day. Finally they’re together for eternity, the thought makes me smile. My frown and tears return soon after at the realization that now it’s just me here. A part of me hates myself, maybe if I hadn’t been born there wouldn’t be so much grief circling around the day.