Somebody had to finish it.
— Lila Bowman
I saw death for the first time when I was nine. I thought the woman's name was Sofia.
Mom was really hard up for money at the time, so we went to visit a 'friend' in LaPorte, which meant I had to wait outside a shitty motel room while Mom went in to earn a few bucks on her back.
I was young but not stupid. I understood the general idea.
A few minutes later, Mom came out of the motel room. She tried to lean on somebody else's door while adjusting her dress, but the door swung open. Maybe it wasn't latched shut. I barely got a peek inside the room before Mom yanked the door shut and pushed me away.
Closing a door wasn't something we did. You see an open door? You go in, to see if there's anything valuable to be found. That was our way. When times were tough, that's where grocery money came from. That's how bills got paid.
But Mom pulled the door closed as fast as she could. Then, she looked at me, and said, "I gotta check on somethin'. You wait here."
I assumed that meant Mom was going in, to snatch something. But she never hid that from me. Why would she hide it this time?
As she went into the room, I looked inside.
A woman was lying on the floor, struggling to breathe. She had a rope around her neck, and the rest of it was sprawled beside her. At the end of the rope, there was a hook. I looked up and saw a hole torn out of the ceiling, where the hook had been. She must have tried to... y'know... but the ceiling gave way before the job was done. Chunks of drywall were scattered everywhere. Some of it was on her dress.
On the dresser, there was a piece of paper and a gun. Maybe that was her original plan, but she couldn't go through with it? I guess she thought she'd try another way, but it didn't work.
You may think one method versus another makes no difference in the end, but I assure you it does. Both are choices. But one lets it happen. The other makes it happen.
As a child, I didn't know that, but I knew what I saw. I knew it was bad. I was horrified.
I looked at Mom, and said, "What do we do?"
"Oh, lord, girl. I told you to wait outside. You weren't supposed to see this."
Again, I pleaded, "Mom!!! What do we do?!?"
"She's already done it, Dandy. She's gone."
But she wasn't.
The woman was gasping. Choking. Crying.
Mom grabbed the piece of paper on the dresser.
She mumbled as she read it. Something, something, "stage four."
"That right?" Mom asked the woman. "You sayin' it's over? Sofia? You sure? 'Cause I can do it if you can't, but ya gotta tell me to. Do ya need me to do it?"
Sofia wept as she nodded yes.
"You gotta be sure," Mom said, "cause this is the kind of thing that can't be undone."
Again, Sofia gasped, and she coughed as she cried, and she nodded, and even begged, yes.
Mom came over to me. She untied the bandana from my hair and used it to pick up the gun, which she placed in Sofia's hand.
She held Sofia's hand, through the bandana, to keep the gun steady.
She pointed the gun upward, at Sofia's chin.
Then, Mom leaned back as far as she could.
And then? BANG.
It was bad.
I shook.
Sofia lurched before she fell still as blood began to spill out of her.
Mom yanked the bandana away, and the gun fell to the floor, still in Sofia's hand.
Mom handed the bloody bandana back to me. "Put this in your pocket, Dandy. We'll talk about it later, OK?" Then she screamed, "Oh my God, oh my God," as she ran from the room. "Oh my God, I think this lady shot herself!"
We waited outside as people arrived.
Things were said. I watched as men with shiny shoes wrote the things on little notebooks, and they lied to us, again and again, saying, "It'll be alright," as if they knew a goddamn thing about pain.
Real pain.
They hadn't seen what I saw.
I think that was the first time I heard the word suicide. Or cancer.
On the way home, I asked Mom why she did... what she did.
Mom said, "She was gone, but somebody had to finish it, Dandy. She was sick. There was too much pain. It was over. Time to free her. I know it's hard to understand, but someday you will. It was the right thing to do."
Mom was right.
I didn't understand, but years later, I would.
The woman's name wasn't Sofia.
It's over?
So free ya.