Mama Said

Mama Said

Chico, California, January 22, 2002

The movie credits roll. 

Mark comes barreling into the house. “We have a game tonight.” His energetic presence and booming voice motivate us to take action. 

Steven mimics his dad. “Yeah, let’s go.”

Kristie kisses Sassy and Chance while they prance on the sofa, trying to jump into her arms. “Not tonight. I don’t care what ‘grandma’ says or that my crazy school lets Chihuahuas come to the games. Not tonight.” 

I take exception to being called a grandma until Kristie gives me her irresistible pout. “I want you to watch me, not them.” She slings her basketball bag over her shoulder and plants an affectionate kiss on each of their puppy dog heads. “See ya later.”

Off we go for another exciting evening of high school basketball.

“Wait!” Kristie, in the van sitting behind her dad, keeps us in suspense as she rummages through her bag. “Uh-oh. My sports bra is among the missing.”

Mark winks at me and shifts into reverse, easing the van down the driveway. It’s the first time I notice the crinkled corners of his eyes. The children aren’t the only ones getting older. I steal a glance at my mirror and pat my wrinkles.

“Dad! Stop. You don’t want me playing without my sports bra, do you?”

He hits the brakes. “You’re right. I don’t.”

Jumping onto the pavement, Kristie sprints to the house before backpedaling and blowing kisses our way.

Steven cheers her on from his window, while Mark and I burst into laughter with me saying, “That’s our Kristie.”

When she returns, I listen for the click of her seat belt. Mark appears to do the same, for he waits before cruising through our neighborhood of inviting homes on spacious lots. He approaches a stop sign when I notice twilight has fallen. I consider telling him to take a left to avoid a burgeoning traffic jam, but he’s maneuvering the steering wheel to the right, our usual route. As I contemplate what’s best for our family, my inner voice intensifies, urging me to say, turn left, turn left.

But the moment slips away. We’re among a line of twenty or more fellow travelers watching the evening Amtrak rolling by. The clock says five-thirty. Plenty of time. We’re fifteen minutes from school. Her game starts at seven.

Mark coaches Kristie from his rearview mirror. “Stay down on defense. Move your—”

“Oh, Dad. I got this.”

The white tips of the crossing gates reach toward the sky and wave us through. We bump over the train tracks and meander toward the school, just a couple miles. Kristie speaks softly to her brother, their chitchat punctuated with laughter.

While the happiness in my face shines back in my passenger window, I can’t help but believe I’m the luckiest mother on Earth. And then it happens. That uneasy feeling encroaches upon my joy. As I’ve done before, I shoo it away. But this time it lurks at the edge, passing through my body like a ghost. The way I panicked when Kristie went missing at school last week, I refuse to give it the satisfaction of knowing how spooked I am and quell the desire to check on my children. I pull my coat tighter under my chin.

We enter the Avenues, a compact, older residential neighborhood with large trees lining the road from corner to corner. Inadequate street lighting turns the night sky to pitch. I flip on the radio and hum along to Jaci Velasquez’s latest hit, “On My Knees.” She’s singing about soaring on the wind and how to survive—

No warning. My forehead smashes against the passenger window as metal grinds against metal and reverberates in the van. At the same moment, one anemic fragment of a word slices through the storm whipping around my face. “Wha—” The lonely protest is impossible to identify … or maybe I’m unwilling to admit that I know whose voice the wind cut short.

The brute force sends our van spinning, like it’s caught in a tornado, rising—a reversal of gravity. My body pushes off the seat, and for a moment, I’m in flight. My seat belt tightens, locking me in place, and together with the connecting strap fitted across my breast, I am no longer free falling but flopping against its support like a rag doll. We rotate through the sky until a sinking sensation pulls me, and we plunge back to earth.

A burial of sorts. We’re trapped in isolation, so I’m desperately seeking a way out to save us. Bitter coldness rushes through the windshield’s wide-open mouth, lined with shards of glass like pointy teeth. The van has landed on its driver’s side and leaves me hanging from my seat belt. My body has twisted so my arms and legs dangle freely over Mark, who lies motionless in a fetal position below me.

“Mark, talk to me. Say something.” Scarlet blotches spread through his white polo, seeping onto his buckled seat belt.

I swing closer to the windshield’s gaping hole. “Help! Someone, help us. Can anyone hear me?”

My fingers clutch at the harness’s cold metal buckle, but fear stops me. What if I fall on Mark and paralyze him? I stretch to touch my husband, to wake him, but he’s out of my grasp. My toes search for footing but find only air.

I hang in the cold, vulgar silence. Even the wind has died.

Died.

From thoughts to screaming out loud. “Not my children. Oh, God. No!”

***

I recall Kristie racing out the front door in her pristine white uniform ready to play. Talking, like her dad, always talking. But not now. By tip-off, a nurse traded her blood-splattered jersey for a hospital gown. The driver T-boned our van at sixty-five plus miles per hour, hitting directly where Kristie was sitting.

My baby dies.

Unable to breathe, I say it again. “My baby dies.”

I remain fixed in this mortal world where Kristie is achingly absent. She does not call to me, singing out that this is God’s will for my irrevocably changed life. No. My baby is safely beyond the veil of separation, while my fate remains concealed as I walk without her into the darkness.

The local newspapers tell us what happened. TV news stations show us what happened. The police remain silent about their actions and place the blame squarely on the teenager who took her mother’s car without permission. We learn another detail about the police chase from the newspaper. Within hours of catching the fleeing driver and taking her to the hospital, the officers release the girl to her mother. Eleven days later, I bury my daughter.

California police departments have immunity from liability when the fleeing driver crashes into innocent bystanders, even when the involved officers did not follow their department’s police pursuit policy. To them, our daughter is collateral damage. She doesn’t count. She doesn’t even merit a sympathy card. The courts won’t help us find the answers we seek. That door’s closed.

Today we fight another battle. But maybe not. Ranked officers have told reporters that the fleeing driver will get a stiff sentence, as much as eight to fourteen years behind bars. This is how they justified the chase these past three months. “She’ll be punished.”

The ride to the courthouse is a stark contrast to what came before. No funny bantering. No jokes. Just pain.

The three-sided glass entrance of the Butte County Courthouse gives off a cold, modern vibe. Mark pulls into a parking spot, while my strong aversion to the building’s sharp angles and harsh lines increases. The courthouses of the past, with their stately white pillars, carry great significance. I can trust them.

“Come on.” Mark motions for me to hurry.

We’re half an hour early.

The courtroom we’re assigned is vast, with rows of polished wooden benches. It resembles those in movies, and once again, I’m walking through a life that isn’t quite real. Isn’t quite mine.

We take our seats near the front of the gallery, where John Schwarz, our attorney, joins us. He understands I don’t want to see the defendant. While explaining what we should expect, his compassion comes through. He gives us the information we need and nothing more.

“She’s already here,” Schwarz says and adds that she’s sitting on the other side of the swinging gates that separate those in attendance from the judge and attorneys. I hold tight to my family and friends.

As the clock nears the hour, people continue trickling in until they fill every seat in the courtroom. Kristie is who I should be thinking about, but my attention is on the spectators. We’re surrounded by friends and acquaintances from Champion Christian School, but the police are not here, at least not in uniform. I can’t help but think that the room would look different if the fleeing driver had hit and killed a police officer’s daughter. If that were true, I’m certain uniformed officers would dominate the scene today.

The driver’s counsel begins, stating that his client accepts responsibility. I refuse to look. Representing the district attorney’s office, Leonard Goldkind’s words are brief and not memorable. Before issuing the teen driver’s sentence, Judge Barbara Roberts asks my family to approach the bench, one at a time, to read our victim impact statements to the court.

Mark places Kristie’s sophomore class picture on a wooden easel at the front of the courtroom and motions for Steven and my sister Beverly to step forward. As planned, they stand next to each other and face the defendant. My sister’s voice rises and falls as she reads Steven’s words. “A part of myself is gone. My best friend, who I told everything to, is gone. Not only do I miss Kristie so much now, I’ll miss her fifty years from now.” Beverly reiterates to the audience that she’s reading for Steven, eleven months older than his sister. Yet, I hear my son’s voice. “I’ll miss graduating with Kristie from high school. I’ll miss our college years. I’ll miss her wedding day and the nephews and nieces I would’ve had. My sister was more than I could’ve ever wanted because she had unconditional love for me and my family.”

When Beverly moves to her own statement, she touches the button bearing Kristie’s face on the lapel of her blazer. She gave one to each of us and speaks about how her niece was always bouncing all over the place, rarely quiet, and loved sharing her joy. “I’ll miss experiencing the incredible mother-daughter love and stubbornness I witnessed when traveling the country with my sister and my niece. My nephew remarked on his life’s milestones without Kristie beside him. Well, you also took these once-promising mother-daughter trips from me and my own daughter. You see, we shared those trips with my sister and Kristie.”

Mark approaches the microphone in his dark blue suit, seeming taller than his five feet, ten inches. He draws in slow, steady breaths and turns his body toward the judge. “Instead of going to Kristie’s ballgames or taking her and her friends to their various activities, I now get to visit my daughter at Glen Oaks Memorial Park. Instead of our father-daughter talks filled with laughter and teasing, I now talk to my daughter’s gravesite.”

Many in the audience cry, loud enough that Mark waits before continuing. “My work office is next to Kristie’s bedroom. Her room was always quiet during the day because she’d be at school. Well, it’s still quiet during the day. It’s quiet in the afternoon, it’s quiet in the evening, and it’s quiet in the morning.” 

I too have hated the quiet, but I’d never thought of it this way. My husband’s depiction of the silence in our home feels like a death sentence to my soul.

Mark rolls his shoulders. “Sentencing. Our son and other teenagers are watching this case. The sentence must send a clear message to everyone that there are consequences for crimes willfully committed with a car that result in the killing of others. Our son and the people here want to see if all the teachings about right and wrong mean something. Or does none of that matter? A lenient sentence will send the wrong message.” Mark steps down.

Steven whispers, “Mom, it’s your turn.”

I know what I’m going to say. These words … I hate them. Unlike my husband’s strength, my statement turns into one continuous sob. “Kristie lived her life helping others … helping me. She was a community volunteer.” I talk about Kristie and me, recognizing that I needed her more than she needed me. I suppress my tears to communicate my last remark with clarity. “Besides the court’s sentence, I hope the defendant feels compelled every January 22 to send us these three words: ‘I remember Kristie.’”

Despite our pleas, Judge Barbara Roberts sentences the defendant to one year in juvenile hall, followed by three years of probation. Sitting high above the room, the judge leans toward the defendant with deep seriousness and says, “you’ll have to wait until you’re seventeen to apply for your driver’s license.”[i]

Paralyzed. The indescribable grotesqueness of this lenient sentence becomes more repulsive when I ask myself, Why? Why the chase?

With a clenched fist, Steven strikes his open palm. “One year for killing my sister, and she gets to drive again. That’s it?”

The queasiness in my stomach intensifies as I have no answers to help my son.

The judge explains why the court cannot mandate my three-word request. Her words taste like crumbs of stale bread. Plus, I never asked the court to mandate my request. I paste on a mask and nod, as if I’m believing any of this crap, and I hate myself for pretending. I should’ve screamed at the judge, telling her that this hearing was a sham. That she and the members of her court reduced Kristie’s life to nothing, nothing at all. No one in this entire justice system cares about crime victims.

When the court adjourns, I retreat deep inside myself, shutting out the noise. Reporters call out to Mark, and he responds. I turn away. My sister clutches my hand as friends and strangers pull at me. Confusion dominates the atmosphere in the hallway, but Beverly shields me as she always does. Steven and I link arms. Never let him go.

An older woman in dark clothing approaches me. She looks gaunt, with lines of exhaustion etched on her face. I’ve never seen her, ever, but I know who she is before she says, “I’m the mother. I’m sorry.”

The grace of God gives me the courage to touch her hand and say, “I know.”

That’s right. Mothers know. And so it was with my mother. When I was a little girl, my mom would say, “Be careful what you wish for. It just might come true.” 

I didn’t get it because when I got what I wished for, I was happy.

As I read the teenage driver’s first letter in January 2003, I hear my late mother’s words, “Be careful …”

The driver’s two-page account of her current life seems to announce her return to normalcy. She writes about her school, her friends—basically, the life she has denied my Kristie. Equally painful is that she tells us how people at another church have forgiven her. I set the letter aside, grappling with my conflicting emotions and praying to God that I won’t refuse a sincere apology, as she hasn’t asked for my forgiveness. The letter closes with, “I remember Kristie.”

I can live with that. She remembers my baby.

January 2004 brings a second letter. This typed, one-page is like the first in that it’s about her. I’ve never talked to the teen, never seen her and yet, her letter blurs reality. The teen appears to regard the crash she caused as an inexplicable calamity that had befallen her. She hints at her responsibility for Kristie’s death but seems to shy away from admitting it outright, writing, “How could this happen, what had I done? None of my questions were answered.” Her apology, “I am so very sorry,” is in black and white, but it feels tainted because other comments in her letter contradict truths my friends witnessed.

I wish for the three words that would touch my heart and capture the essence of Kristie’s life. They are not in this letter.

Home from school, Steven is in such a state, so upset. “Tell me how others can forgive that driver for killing Kristie. What gives them the right to forgive her? Are they God? They expect me to be happy about it. Well, I’m not happy.” He closes his eyes, but the tears fall. “They’ve forgotten Kristie.”

I place my hand over his, and then he does the same to mine. Sometimes we are on the same page. “I think like you, Steven. How can they forgive her? She didn’t sin against them.”

Upstairs, I pull the driver’s letter from my nightstand drawer and begin reading, but it’s rattling in my hands, so I talk to God. “Just three words. I remember Kristie. Nothing more, or no letter at all. I don’t want a letter, if I have to read about her. I’m sorry.”

Is it vindictiveness I feel toward this teen? I pray not.

No, I realize. It is horror at a religious system that promises her too cheap a grace. A religion of cheap grace which bears a troubling resemblance to our justice system that summarily dismisses innocent victims of vehicular police pursuits.

I thank God when no more letters arrive.

[i] Vau Dell, Terry. “Teen Who Caused Fatal Crash Gets a Year in Juvenile Hall.” Chico Enterprise-Record, April 6, 2002.