When he said that, my body just let go. I remember the exact traffic light I was at. For a moment there was a complete vacuum of sound, and then I cried tears like I had never cried before. I collapsed in heaving sobs and moans. I cried as if every other thing I’d cried for in my life had been a waste of crying. I cried so hard that if my present crying self could go back in time and see my other crying selves, it would slap them and say, “That shit’s not worth crying for.” My cry was not a cry of sadness. It was not catharsis. It wasn’t me feeling sorry for myself. It was an expression of raw pain that came from an inability of my body to express that pain in any other way, shape, or form. She was my mom. She was my teammate. It had always been me and her together, me and her against the world. When Andrew said, “shot her in the head,” I broke in two.
The light changed. I couldn’t even see the road, but I drove through the tears, thinking, Just get there, just get there, just get there. We pulled up to the hospital, and I jumped out of the car. There was an outdoor sitting area by the entrance to the emergency room. Andrew was standing there waiting for me, alone, his clothes smeared with blood. He still looked perfectly calm, completely stoic. Then the moment he looked up and saw me he broke down and started bawling. It was like he’d been holding it together the whole morning and then everything broke loose at once and he lost it. I ran to him and hugged him and he cried and cried. His cry was different from mine, though. My cry was one of pain and anger. His cry was one of helplessness.
I turned and ran into the emergency room. My mom was there in triage on a gurney. The doctors were stabilizing her. Her whole body was soaked in blood. There was a hole in her face, a gaping wound above her lip, part of her nose gone.
She was as calm and serene as I’d ever seen her. She could still open one eye, and she turned and looked up at me and saw the look of horror on my face.
“It’s okay, baby,” she whispered, barely able to speak with the blood in her throat.
“It’s not okay.”
“No, no, I’m okay, I’m okay. Where’s Andrew? Where’s your brother?”
“He’s outside.”
“Go to Andrew.”
“But Mom—”
“Shh. It’s okay, baby. I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine, you’re—”
“Shhhhhh. I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine. Go to your brother. Your brother needs you.”
The doctors kept working, and there was nothing I could do to help her. I went back outside to be with Andrew. We sat down together, and he told me the story.
They were coming home from church, a big group, my mom and Andrew and Isaac, her new husband and his children and a whole bunch of his extended family, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews. They had just pulled into the driveway when Abel pulled up and got out of his car. He had his gun. He looked right at my mother.
“You’ve stolen my life,” he said. “You’ve taken everything away from me. Now I’m going to kill all of you.”
Andrew stepped in front of his father. He stepped right in front of the gun.
“Don’t do this, Dad, please. You’re drunk. Just put the gun away.”
Abel looked down at his son.
“No,” he said. “I’m killing everybody, and if you don’t walk away I will shoot you first.”
Andrew stepped aside.
“His eyes were not lying,” he told me. “He had the eyes of the Devil. In that moment I could tell my father was gone.”
For all the pain I felt that day, in hindsight, I have to imagine that Andrew’s pain was far greater than mine. My mom had been shot by a man I despised. If anything, I felt vindicated; I’d been right about Abel all along. I could direct my anger and hatred toward him with no shame or guilt whatsoever. But Andrew’s mother had been shot by Andrew’s father, a father he loved. How does he reconcile his love with that situation? How does he carry on loving both sides? Both sides of himself?
Isaac was only four years old. He didn’t fully comprehend what was happening, and as Andrew stepped aside, Isaac started crying.
“Daddy, what are you doing? Daddy, what are you doing?”
“Isaac, go to your brother,” Abel said.
Isaac ran over to Andrew, and Andrew held him. Then Abel raised his gun and he started shooting. My mother jumped in front of the gun to protect everyone, and that’s when she took the first bullet, not in her leg but in her butt cheek. She collapsed, and as she fell to the ground she screamed.
“Run!”
Abel kept shooting and everyone ran. They scattered. My mom was struggling to get back to her feet when Abel walked up and stood over her. He pointed the gun at her head point-blank, execution-style. Then he pulled the trigger. Nothing. The gun misfired. Click! He pulled the trigger again, same thing. Then again and again. Click! Click! Click! Click! Four times he pulled the trigger, and four times the gun misfired. Bullets were popping out of the ejection port, falling out of the gun, falling down on my mom and clattering to the ground.
Abel stopped to see what was wrong with the gun. My mother jumped up in a panic. She shoved him aside, ran for the car, jumped into the driver’s seat.
Andrew ran behind and jumped into the passenger seat next to her. Just as she turned the ignition, Andrew heard one last gunshot, and the windshield went red. Abel had fired from behind the car. The bullet went into the back of her head and exited through the front of her face, and blood sprayed everywhere. Her body slumped over the steering wheel. Andrew, reacting without thinking, pulled my mom to the passenger side, flipped over her, jumped into the driver’s seat, slammed the car into gear, and raced to the hospital in Linksfield.
I asked Andrew what happened to Abel. He didn’t know. I was filled with rage, but there was nothing I could do. I felt completely impotent, but I still felt I had to do something. So I took out my phone and I called him—I called the man who’d just shot my mom, and he actually picked up.
“Trevor.”
“You killed my mom.”
“Yes, I did.”
“You killed my mom!”
“Yes. And if I could find you, I would kill you as well.”
Then he hung up. It was the most chilling moment. It was terrifying. Whatever nerve I’d worked up to call him I immediately lost. To this day I don’t know what I was thinking. I don’t know what I expected to happen. I was just enraged.
I kept asking Andrew questions, trying to get more details. Then, as we were talking, a nurse came outside looking for me.
“Are you the family?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Sir, there’s a problem. Your mother was speaking a bit at first. She’s stopped now, but from what we’ve gathered she doesn’t have health insurance.”
“What? No, no. That can’t be true. I know my mom has health insurance.”
She didn’t. As it turned out, a few months prior, she’d decided, “This health insurance is a scam. I never get sick. I’m going to cancel it.” So now she had no health insurance.
“We can’t treat your mother here,” the nurse said. “If she doesn’t have insurance we have to send her to a state hospital.”
“State hospital?! What—no! You can’t. My mom’s been shot in the head. You’re going to put her back on a gurney? Send her out in an ambulance? She’ll die. You need to treat her right now.”
“Sir, we can’t. We need a form of payment.”
“I’m your form of payment. I’ll pay.”
“Yes, people say that, but without a guarantee—”
I pulled out my credit card.
“Here,” I said. “Take this. I’ll pay. I’ll pay for everything.”
“Sir, hospital can be very expensive.”
“I don’t care.”
“Sir, I don’t think you understand. Hospital can be really expensive.”
“Lady, I have money. I’ll pay anything. Just help us.”
“Sir, you don’t understand. We have to do so many tests. One test alone could cost two, three thousand rand.”
“Three thousan—what? Lady, this is my mother’s life we’re talking about. I’ll pay.”
“Sir, you don’t understand. Your mother has been shot. In her brain. She’ll be in ICU. One night in ICU could cost you fifteen, twenty thousand rand.”
“Lady, are you not listening to me? This is my mother’s life. This is her life. Take the money. Take all of it. I don’t care.”
“Sir! You don’t understand. I’ve seen this happen. Your mother could be in the ICU for weeks. This could cost you five hundred thousand, six hundred thousand. Maybe even millions. You’ll be in debt for the rest of your life.”