Alone. The word was a constant void in the very core of her. It was the thing she feared most in the world. More than dying. Even more than God.
The loneliness was swallowing her up whole. She felt it rising up inside of her like a tidal wave. She couldn’t catch her breath. It was drowning her. Her heart began beating faster and faster as the panic began setting in. It was time.
Trembling, she pulled up the sleeve of her sweater. The pressure continued to build inside of her head until she thought it would burst. She had to do it.
Now! The voice in her head yelled.
“Shut up!” She whispered.
Coward. Do it!
She quickly dragged the knife across her wrist and waited for her tear-blurred vision to fill with blood. The pain was strong but welcoming.
She felt weak-kneed and light-headed as the place she called home for the past year swam before her eyes. She remembered the words of a famous song as she started slowly falling. “She’s just like you and me but she’s homeless…she’s homeless.”
The ground was cold. Her whole body shivered with it. She waited for death…begged for it.
It’s over. I win.
When Tracy opened her eyes, she felt dead from the neck down. Her arms felt impossibly heavy, and her head seemed disembodied from the rest of her. It took a moment for her to realize that she was lying in bed in a dimly lit hospital room, and she wondered why.
Then she remembered.
It came to her in a sudden, overwhelming, vivid rush of powerful images and memories so real she felt as if she were experiencing the last year of her life all over again.
She was back standing in the long line at the Chinese take-out place a few miles from her house. She never intended to bring Maya that hot summer day but after she’d cried for several minutes, Tracy conceded and brought her along.
The store was crowded. She and Maya had been waiting for over ten minutes and the line still hadn’t moved. She listened to the two women in front of her complain about how long it was taking the cashier. Soon the man behind her joined in the debate. The natives are getting restless, she thought.
It had grown almost completely dark outside. The lights in the restaurant were dim causing eerie shadows on the walls. The air seemed to crackle from the heat and tension.
Out of the corner of her eye, Tracy spotted a group of rowdy boys’ rush into the store, pushing and shoving one another. One of the boys collided into a man in the line.
Tracy yanked her daughter’s hand. “Let’s get out of here.”
A fight immediately broke out between the two men, causing instant chaos.
Tracy was jostled and elbowed. She felt the panicked rush of the crowd, the sweat under her armpits and between her breasts, the look of stark terror on her five-year-old daughter’s face as their hands disconnected and she vanished into the sea of people.
Gunfire rang out.
All senses deserted Tracy as someone knocked her to the floor. Time stopped. Sound, sight, smells…all disappeared. The world faded into blackness for one brief moment, but came roaring back with the sound of her daughter’s scream.
Tracy scrambled to her knees and whirled toward the sound just as blood sprayed in a geyser on her face and clothes.
“Maya!” She screamed.
It all happened so fast. One minute Maya was looking straight at her, her face rigid with fear, and in the next moment she slumped to the floor. Struggling, Tracy crawled over to where her daughter lay and pulled her inert body into her arms. Blood was pouring from the gunshot wound in Maya’s back. It soaked Tracy’s clothes and hands.
“Someone help me!” she cried. “My daughter’s been shot. Call an ambulance!”
The store was empty except for the bodies lying on the floor.
“Don’t worry, baby,” she whispered into the silence. “I’ll get you out of here.”
Heart pumping raw adrenaline through every muscle in her body, Tracy pushed herself up, shouldered Maya’s still, tiny body, and began staggering toward the door.
Gotta hurry. My baby needs help.
At her car, Tracy fumbled with the keys. She almost dropped them, then missed the car door handle lock several times before finally fitting the key in with violently trembling, bloody hands. A siren shrieked past, but Tracy didn’t notice. She laid Maya gently into the back seat, making sure not to forget her seatbelt.
She closed the door and stumbled to the driver’s side of the car. The keys slipped out of her hands and fell to the street. She dropped to her knees and began groping, groping and crying, groping and screaming, groping, groping… And then she was just wailing, a dry-mouthed acute sound too terrible to express any other way.
Maya!
The guilt was overwhelming. Her only child was dead and it was all her fault.
Tracy sat mutely and dry-eyed beside her husband, Malcolm, as the preacher spoke about eternity, black on black crime, and a young life being taken too soon. In front of them sat the tiny casket with their beautiful daughter inside. Even in death she looked angelic.
Malcolm turned to Tracy and studied her face. She was still ghostly pale. The doctor said she had been suffering from psychogenic shock when they brought her into the hospital after the shooting. He explained that Tracy didn’t have any faculties because her mind had been blown by the shock of what she witnessed. And if untreated, could be life threatening. Tracy’s blood pressure had fallen and she was considered hypotensive. For awhile there, he thought he was going to lose her too. Finally, he got word that they had gotten her stabilized and sedated. He could still hear the doctor’s words; “She should sleep through the night. Physically, she’s
going to be fine. We’ll keep her overnight for observation.”
“And mentally?” Malcolm asked softly.
He shook his head. “She’s suffered a serious trauma. Different people handle post-traumatic stress in different ways. I would recommend counseling since the decision has been made not to admit her to the psyche ward. She’ll be awake in the morning and you’ll have a better idea then of her mental condition. But let me warn you, Mr. Carter, she may never be the same.”
The doctor was right. Tracy hadn’t been the same since he brought her home two days ago. She hid away from the world. She spent all of her time curled up in their bed, watching television with mindless inattention. She made an effort to present a sane self to him but none of it was real.
At night, insomnia punctuated her screaming nightmares. He knew every time she closed her eyes she saw Maya. She wouldn’t sleep, eat, or talk. He didn’t even think she could feel. And there was absolutely nothing he could do to reach her. She was too far away. He felt like he’d lost the two people he loved most in the world.
The service was finally coming to an end as the percussion of friends and family were led around to view the body. Each person bent to hug Tracy and Malcolm offering sympathy.
Tracy’s in-laws were last to be led around and Malcolm and Tracy both stood to embrace his parents. His mother shook off the embrace and whirled toward Tracy. Her stricken face was mottled red from crying, but her eyes sparked at Tracy with such force she nearly stepped back.
“It’s all your fault,” she said through clenched teeth. “You killed my grandbaby.”
“Mom,” Malcolm said in gentle warning. “Not here.”
The woman’s eyes widened with hatred. “Malcolm told you never to go in that part of the city. He warned you about the shootings but you didn’t listen, did you? Now my baby is dead.”
She placed her hands on Tracy’s chest and shoved her. Tracy stumbled backward, every nerve ending in her body alight with humiliation and distress. She turned her horrified gaze on Malcolm who averted his gaze but not before she saw the truth of his mother’s words in his eyes.
“It should have been you,” she cried. “Why couldn’t it have been you.”
Malcolm’s father stepped forward and placed a firm arm around his wife’s waist. “I think that’s enough. We’re leaving now.” She allowed herself to be guided through the people but not before Tracy heard her final parting words. “I told Malcolm that marrying her was a mistake.”
Tracy spent the entire day enduring looks of pity, hurt, and accusation as people she didn’t know sat around, ate food, and laughed in her house. Her child was dead. What could they possibly be laughing about, she thought. She realized then that there was no escape. Nowhere to go to get away from the pain, the relentless guilt, the overpowering terror of that day. She felt like she was losing her mind. She didn’t know where she would go, but at that moment she knew she had to leave the house. She went upstairs and changed her clothes then went to Maya’s room and grabbed her favorite toy; a stuffed bear named Tootsie. Armed with everything she felt
she needed, she took one last look at the house she bought seven years ago with her husband before slipping out the front door. No one even noticed her leave.
Tracy turned over onto her side in the hospital bed and curled into the fetal position, pulling the covers up to her chin. She hadn’t seen Malcolm since that day she walked out. It was still hard for her to believe that it had been over a year. A year since she’d seen the man she’d loved,
since she’d slept in a bed, since she’d had a decent meal, since she’d felt alive.
Life on the street hadn’t been enough punishment. Only death could appease her guilt. She stared out the window. A weight settled onto her chest, so heavy her heart ached. Someone help me. Please, I need help.
Tracy opened her eyes as music drifted into her room. Curious, she pulled off her covers and climbed out of bed. She put on a robe and walked the short distance to the door. She walked into the hall and followed the singing. The sound was coming from the tiny chapel. Tracy walked in and sat in the back. She listened to the choir sing and got up to leave just as the
evangelist walked to the microphone.
“Young lady before you leave will you at least allow me to pray for you?”
Tracy turned and stared at the woman in the white robe.
“Yes. I’m talking to you. God heard your prayer and he wants to help.”
“I don’t believe in God,” Tracy whispered.
“You used to before you gave up on Him.”
Tracy walked towards the woman and stopped directly in front of her. “God gave up on me the day he allowed my daughter to get killed.”
“Who do you think has been taking care of you all this time you’ve been on the street? Who do you think has been protecting you?”
Tracy stared at the woman in astonishment. “My daughter was the one who needed protection, not me. He should have protected her.”
“Everything happens for a reason. You may not see it or understand it but it does.”
“I’m supposed to understand God taking away everyone I’ve ever loved. My parents, my child, my…”
“God hasn’t left you nor has he forsaken you. He loves you. He sent me here to tell you that.”
A tear rolled down Tracy’s cheek. “I just want the pain to go away,” she murmured.
The evangelist closed the distance between them and put her arms around Tracy. “It’s not your fault,” she said softly.
Tracy clung to her and cried until she had exhausted herself and there were no more tears left.
She stepped back and lifted her hands as the evangelist began praying for her. “Lord, we take back right now what the devil has stolen in the name of Jesus. This woman’s mind, her life, her faith…
I can’t do it, she thought, listening to the woman’s words. She tried to shake off the thought but the despair threatened to overwhelm her again.
“God wants to use you but he can’t if you keep fighting him. You have to forgive yourself. Release it,” she entreated.
Tracy felt an electric current flow through her body.
“Can you feel the presence of God?”
“Yes,” Tracy cried.
“Call out to him. Tell him what you want.”
“Jesus. I want my life back!” She shouted.
She placed her hand on Tracy’s forehead. She fell.
Evangelist Mason smiled at the woman lain out in the spirit. “It’s already done in Jesus’ name.”
Tracy knocked on the door and waited. Nervous, she shoved her hands in the pockets of her coat. She felt around for the business card and pulled it out. The card read: Evangelist Angela Mason, Pastor, New Hope Baptist Church.
Tracy recalled how almost against her will, she told Evangelist Mason everything from the shooting, to her life on the street, to her suicide attempt.
Evangelist Mason just listened. She didn’t say anything, allowing Tracy to release the flood of words that had been pent up for so long. And when she was through, she handed Tracy her card, a piece of paper and told her to come see her any time she wanted. Her door was always open.
Tracy pulled out that piece of paper now. It was her hospital bill stamped paid in full. God was good.
The door opened. Tracy took a deep breath. For the first time since Maya’s death, she felt in control of herself, of her life, but as she looked into her husband’s eyes she felt that hard-won control slip.
Malcolm was in shock. The impact of Tracy’s sudden presence as powerful as if he’d been punched in the gut. He hadn’t realized, he thought, how hungry he had been for the sight of her. How much he missed her.
She looked battered, and bruised but also beautiful in a green canvas coat too big for her.
Instantly Tracy’s heart lifted at the sight of him, at the way he looked, at the frown on his face as he looked at her. And just as instantly her nerves tightened. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice strained. “Please forgive me.”
Malcolm opened up his arms. Tracy walked into his embrace. And just like that she was back where she belonged.
Tracy stood. “Giving honor to God, and Pastor Mason; I’d like to testify about how good God has been to me. The past year of my life was a living hell. I lost my daughter, was living on the streets, and tried to kill myself but through it all God has been faithful. His grace and mercy
sustained me.” She reached down and grabbed her husband’s hand. “And finally his gypsy woman has come home.”
Robin M. Carroll
Copyright 2001
