Page 112 of LOT 62

No more living in fear.

No more running.

No more threats to the people I loved.

No more panic and pain.

Life could finally move on.

Mom had given me the best wedding gift I could have ever asked for. Even though she’d given up her lucidity to do it, I had a feeling she would be okay with that. I left that bastard to turn cool on the deck and knelt in front of my mom.

“Thank you, Mom. I love you.” I kissed her cheek and smoothed out her hair.

All the people my dad bribed, the people like Harris he fucked over, the deals he made, the crimes he committed to pull off this job… and here he was, dead on a deck.

The backyard filled with park residents, and soon after, the cops showed up. I stood with Maddox and our brothers, watching my dad’s body get tagged, bagged, and carted away. I didn’t feel sadness. I didn’t feel grief. I felt something, but I didn’t know how to name it.

We all gave our statements to the police, and after singing like canaries about it being self-defence on our mom’s part, Hanes shoved me and Nate to the side with an angry huff.

“What the fuck, Hanes? We need to be with her right now,” Nate snapped at the officer.

Hanes glanced around all sketchy-like. “Look, I’ll be blunt here, but I have an idea.” He leaned in to speak softer. “Does your mother have a medical diagnosis for her condition?”

Nate looked confused. I mean, she did, but we never knew if it was the right diagnosis or not. “Drug-induced hysteria and early onset dementia.”

Hanes rubbed the back of his neck, nodding. “Then shut up about it being self-defence. If she has a doctor who can provide her medical records to the court, she won’t go to a traditional prison. She’ll go to a mental health facility for criminals.”

“How’s that any better?” I asked, annoyed by this conversation.

“She’ll be in a private room, locked yes, but she’ll be provided with care, medications, medical staff, food, and support.” Hanes gave us each a look. “Doesn’t she… need all that?”

I reared back, wondering if he was saying what I thought he was saying. “Wait, let me get this straight. You’re saying that if she’s charged with murder, she’ll get all the care we’ve been trying to get her for years… for free?”

“Yes. As long as a doctor can provide the right medical diagnosis.”

Nate laughed again. He slapped a hand over his mouth to shut it up, but it was no use. “Are you shitting me? She just solved our dad problem, our money problem, and her own medical care problem with one lucid evening?” He barked another laugh. “Fuck, that woman knows how to get shit done.”

I laughed, too. Maddox looked at me, and whatever he saw, I was sure it was something worse than shock. Lunacy, maybe.

“Can we visit her there?” Nate asked.

“The facility is in Arbour, so it’s a bit of a drive, but yes. They have visiting hours just like a regular prison or a regular hospital.” He pulled his phone from his pocket. “Let me make some calls to confirm everything, but in the meantime, keep your mouths shut about this.” He walked away with his phone to his ear.

I stood beside my brother, watching everything unfold. Maddox spoke to a cop, but his eyes were on me, and I liked the way he looked at me with love and worry all swirled together. Naomi drank wine straight from a bottle while Seth consoled her, and my mom still sat in her chair at the table with the mismatched foods we hadn’t had the chance to eat yet.

“This is so fucked,” Nate finally said. “But I feel… something.”

“Free.”

For the first time in our adult lives, we didn’t have to worry about our parents. Dad was gone, and he’d never come for us again. Mom would go to the kind of place she’d needed for years. One gunshot solved all our problems, and I didn’t know how to fully appreciate that yet.

“You think she knew?” Nate asked. “About Dad and all he’s been doing, and this was her way of taking care of us?”

I nodded because I wanted to believe that. It made the whole thing poetic. I mean, she turned to drugs and fried her brain to endure Dad’s wrath so we didn’t have to, which was the only way she ever knew how to protect us. She couldn’t leave him, or she at least believed she couldn’t, but she’d done everything she could to keep us as far out of his path as possible. It hadn’t always worked, but she tried. In her lucid state, she shot Dad, not us; that gun never pointed in our direction, which meant she loved us. She protected us when it counted, and in the process, she freed us from having to care for her. She knew she was a burden, but I hated that she knew. I saw it in her eyes all evening, so this had been her final act of motherhood. Truthfully, she gave us everything we’d ever wanted.

“Nate and Devon Sawyer?” The coroner walked up to us with a clipboard. “Any requests for the deceased’s body?”

“Burn it,” Nate said.

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