“The day he lost his voice. His hearing. The day the unthinkable happened to him.”
My chest feels like it’s collapsing in on itself. I don’t speak. Can’t.
“I remember waking up to loud, frantic banging on the door,” she says, her voice barely stable, a raw tremble underneath every word. “It was just past midnight. We’d just come back from Tim’s graduation. I thought maybe it was John, or a drunk neighbor… but when I opened that door—”
She stops, her lips parting like the memory physically hurts to recall.
“It was my son.” Her voice breaks. “ he was bruised, severely, and was soaked in blood.”
My stomach tightens.
“His shirt was drenched. His hair was matted with it, his face swollen. There was blood dripping from his ear,” she says, like she can’t believe it even now. “And his eyes… they were glazed. Distant. He was high out of his mind. His words wereslurred. His voice was barely a whisper, hoarse and broken like something inside him had snapped.”
She looks away, biting the inside of her cheek.
“My first instinct should’ve been to call 911,” she says quietly. “But I didn’t. I couldn’t.”
Her eyes flick to mine, pleading, desperate for understanding she won’t find.
“I panicked. I carried him to Martha’s trailer. She’s the Doctor who used to live here. Fired from her hospital job years ago, no one knows why, but she treats folks around here when they can’t afford the ER. Doesn’t ask questions. Just patches you up and takes her little cash.”
She swallows hard.
“I didn’t take him there because it was cheap,” she says, and now her voice has a sharp, defensive edge. “I did it because if I called 911, the cops would come. And if the cops came… they’d ask questions. Questions that would bury Lucas and me, too. I didn’t know what happened to him, but looking at my boy at that moment, I knew I couldn’t involve the police.”
Her breath rattles as it leaves her chest, and she hugs her arms around herself like she’s trying to hold her shaking body together.
“Before he passed out, just as Martha was trying to clean him up, Lucas grabbed my wrist. His mouth was barely moving, but he whispered something. Just four words.”
She looks up at me, and for a second, I swear the light is gone from her eyes.
“‘The tree house window.’”
The silence that follows hangs heavy.
“I didn’t know what he meant,” she murmurs. “But something inside me knew it mattered. So when Martha sedated him, I ran. No coat. No shoes. Just ran through the dark like something was chasing me.”
She drags a trembling hand through her hair, her other hand pressing to her chest like she’s trying to keep her heart from falling out.
“There’s only one tree house in this town, and it’s by a lake. Almost all the teens hang out there. So I went. I climbed up those rotted stairs quietly in the dark and—”
Her voice cracks. She has to close her eyes just to continue.
“And that’s when I saw it.”
She’s not crying now. Not really. Her voice is too flat, too hollow.
“Three boys. Teenagers. Standing in that cramped space, their shoes covered in blood, arguing over what to do… and who to blame. There was a body on the floor, and it belonged to a teenager, too; he was bleeding out with a knife still lodged in his stomach. Just lying there like a discarded animal.”
She opens her eyes, but the light is gone. Only emptiness remains.
“I didn’t make a sound. I didn’t breathe. Just stared at them. And then… I saw it, his camera, tucked between the window slats. Half-hidden behind the frame.”
She inhales sharply.
“They didn’t see me,” she continues. “So I took the camera, and I ran. When I got back to Martha’s, she told me Lucas was badly injured. So badly that if he didn’t get surgery, he wouldn’t survive.” She swallows hard, her fingers twisting in her lap. “I was livid. Confused. Terrified. I didn’t want him anywhere near the police or a public hospital—one wrong question, one call, and everything would fall apart. I didn’t want them taking my boy away. Martha… she said she knew someone. An unlicensed surgeon. A man whose license had been revoked years ago, but who still practiced in secret.”
Her eyes flicker up to me, sharp with remembered fear.
