A Mantra
“What do we do now?” Mae asked as the three of them stared down at Sloan’s body on the living room floor.
“I don’t know. I’m not a doctor,” Wren yelled.
“We can’t call a doctor,” Nicole whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry he did this to your mom.”
“Stop crying. Both of you,” Wren said, annoyed, as the younger girls embraced. “It’s not your fault, Nicole. It’s no one’s fault. She shouldn’t have gone over there.”
“It’s not Mom’s fault!” Mae yelled.
“Shut up!” Wren yelled and knelt down near her mother’s head with her eyes affixed to the knife handle still swaying in the wind.
“Get some clean towels…and, a bottle of water,” Wren said and both girls ran off, returning quickly with the items.
Wren took one of the clean white hand towels their mother kept only for guests and sat the others nearby. “She’s not going to like that we used her best towels,” she said as she reached for the handle when Mae suddenly asked, “Wait! What are you gonna do?”
Retracting her hand suddenly, Wren said, “I’m going to pull out the knife, Mae. What do you think I’m going to do? We can’t leave it in there like that.”
“Shouldn’t we wait for someone?” Mae asked.
“We can’t wait for someone. There is no someone. It’s just us, Mae. Here, hold this towel. As soon as I pull out the knife, you put the towel on the wound and push down. That’s what they told us in health class.”
“Okay,” Mae said kneeling down next to Wren’s side and holding the folded towel shaking in her hands.
Wren hadn’t touched the knife handle yet. She still gazed at its sway. That movement meant her mother breathed but what would happen when she pulled the blade free? Did the sharp point pierce a lung? The blood, she expected, but what about after that? What if she stopped breathing then? Wren closed her eyes and shook her head.
Don’t get ahead of yourself. Don’t over think. One step at a time. That’s what Wren’s father used to say to her at the kitchen table as he guided her through tough math problems. It became a mantra for Wren before tests. Now, the mantra played on a loop within her mind. Don’t get ahead of yourself. Don’t over think. One step at a time.
Her hand reached for the hilt. That’s when she literally felt her mother’s life within her hand. She grasped the handle harder.
“Wait, Wren, maybe…”
And Wren pulled the knife free with one swift yank.
Blood pooled up and began soaking the circumference of the wound. “Now, Mae. The towel.”
“Oh,” Mae said and reached the towel forward, “I can’t.”
Wren grabbed the cloth from her sister and pushed the layers into her mother’s shoulder. Kneeling up, she pressed down.
Then nothing. No one said a word, as if it was any other dull day in the living room playing a game or reading a book. But Wren watched her mother’s chest as she held her down. She waited for the rise and ebb of her mother’s breathing. She felt for it, too.
“It’s getting on the carpet,” Nicole said pointing a finger down at the once beige rug, turned a dark grey after the flooding, and now the damaged fibers were evolving into a shade of maroon.
“Oh, help me,” Wren said, and the three of them rolled Sloane onto her side, placing a pad of towels underneath her shoulder. Turning her back again, Wren pushed down on the wound.
After a time, Wren lifted her palm and saw the bloom of bright red blood growing beneath. “Hand me another towel.”
“Is it stopping? What do we do if it doesn’t stop?”
“We’ll keep adding towels until it does, Mae.”
“Won’t that soak up all her blood? I don’t think we have enough towels,” Mae said suddenly startled.
“Mae, it’s okay. She’s breathing, see?” she said pointing to her mother’s chest. “And her pulse is beating. She’s going to be all right.”
“Why is she still sleeping then?” Nicole asked.
Wren hadn’t asked herself that question, yet. Looking down at her mother, the scene replayed in her mind.
Her mother came out of the house with the knife hilt already stuck inside her. She ran down into the street. She staggered and then fell as she shot Nicole’s father a few times. That’s when Wren remembered seeing her mother’s head hit the pavement. Watched the scene replay in her mind, the sickening thud as the back her mother’s skull slammed down on the road. That was called a concussion, a brain injury. That was bad.
With her clean hand, Wren slipped it under the back of her mother’s head, massaged her scalp, and felt there. She pulled it away and came back clean.
“We have to wait and see. We don’t know what’s going to happen yet.”