Chapter 30
Gabrielle's POV
“Mommy, you're going to work again? You barely broke your fever this morning.”
“Gabina. Do you forget that I'm the parent? You're the child.”
“That doesn't mean that I shouldn't take care of you as well.” My voice is small.
My mom kneels, hugging me with tenderness before rising to her shaky legs and assuring me. Her face looks haggard and tired. Daddy moves toward her, putting his arm around her.
They hold each other for a long while, whispering something in each other's ears.
“Baby please…” Daddy whispers, but his shaky words trail off into the vocal veil beyond what my ears can access.
…
…
(…Current day…)
People always talk about losing someone as if it happens all at once, like there’s a before and an after.
But for me, it didn’t happen in one moment. It happened piece by piece.
Every shift she dragged herself into. Every time I watched her cough so hard that she had to hold onto the counter.
Every time she told me she was “fine” when I could see the red veins in her eyes bursting from the strain.
It was like the universe took her from me slowly, so that by the time she actually died, I was already half grieving her.
Kim Washington.
She was such a small woman, only 5’2”, barely a hundred pounds unless she’d eaten a big breakfast.
But she carried weight like she was built for it.
My dad used to work the warehouse job.
It paid well.
So well that apparently it made the risk of my parents' health worth it, because it was brutal.
Heavy machines, constant lifting, climbing on and off-loading platforms, fighting with old equipment that should’ve been replaced decades ago. It broke his body long before it broke hers.
The car accident finished the rest. My father's hips and back were shattered. He’s still living with the pain. Still dealing with infections from the surgeries. Even now.
And back then, his pension wasn’t enough to keep us afloat.
So my mom stepped in.
The company did this thing called a spousal swap, where if one spouse was injured, the other could take their position to keep the income steady.
They didn’t like the idea at first. She was tiny, and the job wasn’t meant for someone built like her…
but she proved them wrong fast. She worked harder than the men twice her size.
I mean she had to.
No one could say anything because she kept up, even outpaced some of them. She wanted to take care of us, and that was enough for her.
But her body wasn’t built for what she forced it to do.
Back-to-back shifts.
Sometimes two 16-hour days right on top of each other.
Lifting crates heavier than she was.
Climbing steel racks.
Hauling big ass pallets.
Breathing in dust and cold warehouse air until her lungs burned.
At first… just a cough.
Then it became a rasp.
Then she started losing her breath mid-sentence. Her eyes turned red from ruptured vessels because she was coughing so hard.
And she still went back to work… every time.
Daddy begged her to stop.
I begged her to stop.
But she always just smiled and said,
“We need the money. I can rest later.”
She never got the chance. Or she did depending on how you look at it.
Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, ‘I can rest when I'm dead’.
A mere 3 months after I turned 13… on December 2nd…
My God.
The grief is still there hiding under layers of cope.
I remember the cold.
I remember how early it got dark.
I remember waiting for her to come home, watching the front door like she would walk through it if I stared long enough. If I willed it.
We were told that she collapsed during her shift.
Her body finally gave out.
She fell off a loading platform after feeling dizzy, and when she hit the ground, one of the automated lift arms malfunctioned and dropped part of its load on her. Something the company couldn’t legally be liable as laid out in the fine print of the hiring contract.
They pulled it off her, but she was already fading. They said she whispered my name before she stopped breathing. I don’t know if that’s true or something they told kids to make them feel better.
Someone had called us and said we need to get there fast because… because she was fading.
And my dad sped all the way there…
… and for all the speeding… we didn't make it.
Man… it's the worst thing ever when all you want is to hold your loved one.
When you know all they want in that moment is to hold you.
When you hear whispers from other people having said that your mother begged for you, begged to see you when she was out of it and dying, only to find out that you were late only 5 minutes.
They couldn't even do CPR on her because she was… her whole rib cage was…
I'm sorry.
Even though I… my mom.
Mommy.
God I love her so much.
Every time I think about her, about that day, the tears burn my eyes.
I miss you so much Mom.
I'm so sorry I couldn't get through in time. I love you. All I want to do, all I wish for every year, is that… some way, by some miracle, I could just hold you again and tell you how much I love you.
Just hold your hand and put your head on my lap as you pass.
You broke your body and sacrificed yourself for me and Daddy and we couldn't even be there for you in the end.
She was pronounced dead on the warehouse floor just before 6 p.m.
My dad got the call while we were on route.
So many lights. Red and blue.
When they ushered us in, Daddy got there first.
And I remember the sound he made; a sound I’ve never heard from him before or since.
I remember him holding out his hand, begging the other workers to not let me see my mother. No one gave me real details; all I heard, in bits and pieces from people whispering off to the side, was that her body had been crushed.
I can't imagine how bad she must have looked for Daddy to not want me to see her.
They did patch her up pretty well though at the wake.
I could see the very fake markings of bruising and brokenness right under the skin that was covered in layers of makeup or whatever the mortician used to make her look as pretty as he could.
She’d been gone 14 years now.
Fourteen years, and I still wake up sometimes reaching for her hand.
I still remember her singing songs to me before she had to go to that job and even after that when she was too tired to breathe properly.
“Come on baby!” she would laugh, holding out her hand and beckoning me to dance with her to the music she would play.
She used to play these super old songs, but they had soul in them just like she did.
That day she asked me to dance with her, the music was loud and filled the house with heart. She loved that song.
“Come See About Me” by The Supremes.
Daddy had been dancing with her for a little bit.
“All right you come take over,” he told me, smiling.
Smiling, I danced with her, taking her hands as she twirled me around slowly to the music.
“Yeess!! Get it, baby! That’s my baby! Got moves like her mama,” she would say, smiling widely at me as I completed the twirl to put both my hands in hers again.
“Hahaha! You too mommy!” I laughed.
“Get in here Bruce!” Mommy called out to Dad.
“My back,” Daddy would laugh, sending her away.
“Uh uh. We dance as a family in this house,” she said, going over to him and pulling him up.
She did most of the work, exerting energy I had no idea she had or where she pulled from after being so tired.
Every time I hear that song I remember my mom. Remember how we were all laughing and being silly in the living room, which was lit by the warm glow of the lamp.
Remembering how we all got worried as she doubled over coughing, stopping the dance as the music played in the background, a haunting soundtrack to her spitting up blood.
The echoes of the music fade away back into the recesses of my mind as I sit here in jail.
My whole life feels like it’s falling apart. Everything is a blur. I was already seeing red and then that woman provoked me. I wonder what my mom would think about me now.
When it’s my turn, they fingerprint me and take my mugshot. My phone is confiscated, placed in holding somewhere, and they take down my information.
I’m told after my nap, not knowing how long I’ve been sleeping, that someone posted my bail.
When I go out, Lincoln stands there. The shame crosses my face. But then again, if he hadn’t been with that woman, if everything that happened hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t be in this situation.
Then again, I fully understand that it was my own fault. My mom always told me to use my words. My mom claimed she was breaking her body so that I would have the freedom to use my words.
I know for certain she would not be proud of my actions, even though I was doing it in defense of her.
“You okay?” Lincoln asks.
What a dumb question.
I don’t answer, so I walk past him to his car; a much nicer one than the one he had before. He opens the door for me. I have no idea why I expected to see Sarah in there, but I guess it makes sense she’s not here.
Lincoln sits in the car in silence before deciding to drive off. “Is there… somewhere I can drop you?” he asks.
Is he trying to find out where I live?
“You can drop me at the shuttle station,” I say with absolutely zero energy.
“Do you have a place to stay?”
“Of course I have a place to stay. What do you think I’m poor like your girlfriend does?” I bite at him, just needing something to take my anger out on.
“Of course not,” he says gently.
I remember a time where my attitude, or me merely defending myself or expressing how I felt, would be a fight between us. But Lincoln being so forgiving and gentle is driving me nuts.
Why wasn’t he like this when we were married?
Oh that’s right.
He was at one point… until he started working there.
Until he started hanging out with the witch.
The car takes off slowly.
After we’re driving for about ten minutes, the soft clink of a thin silver chain catches my ear, dangling from the rearview mirror, swaying gently with every turn.