Death in winter

I stared at the snow. It was so far down...I think. When everything is white, you really can't tell. Footsteps pounded the ground next to me. I couldn't keep up, but he squeezed my hand. I wanted to say something, I wanted to do something besides run. What was he thinking? He was leading us all to a fate worse than what we would experience if one less of us lived out our days. There it was. The hand. She was back up. We reached the ice. My feet stopped moving. I had made up my mind, I refused to continue and die too. But he was faster, stronger and I knew all too soon I was being dragged onto the ice. Oh, no. I realize there is no face above the water. It's been too long, but he refuses to believe that. He persists. "She's too far out," I scream. He screamed too and his glasses fall off. I didn't mean to, but my small feet crush them. Even worse, he's blind now. I scream his name. We won't survive now. I know he keeps it in his pocket. I know it. I'd rather die quickly, than slowly and cold. I reach toward the pocket, fiddling in it as he practically drags me along. "No, Mija!" He screams. Why does he want me to do this? We can't help. It's too late, and we're too far out to turn back now, and yet he won't let me kill. And then I see the hand, reaching up and out of the water, with all the little strength she still had, the upper arm emerging, and then falling. That was the worst feeling ever. Not just that it was my mother, but that arm fell almost completely vertical into the hole, and it felt so weird. Two hours went by and we sat on the ice. I didn't cry, but my father did. He screamed my mothers name then and for many nights to come. Not only had I lost my mother, I had lost him too. The worst part was that he was still physically here with me, a staggering zombie, tongue lolling, dragging his body around like it was the only thing keeping him from happiness. Many screams. Nowhere to go. Many screams...yet nowhere to go.

A scream awoke me. Not again. I staggered out of bed and pulled on my fluffy socks that I had gotten from my grandmother. They were hers before she died. Before she died. Before she died everyone was alive. Now the only person left is my virtually dead father. If only my mother hadn't died. If only she was alive so would my grandmother, and my father, and uncle, and aunt. Too many deaths in a year. There was death because there was love. They loved her so much, and yet me, her daughter, I didn't die. I stayed alive, but I guess I had to for my father.

There was his scream again. He was remembering the day no doubt, he did so too much. I stood up, testing out the slippers. Still soft. I looked out the window. Over the night a thin sheet of snow had layered the ground. Great, we moved here so we would have nothing to remind us of...then. Well now my father was definitely going to have a stroke. I heard another scream and I ran to my fathers bedroom. If there was one thing I learned, it was that if I showed sympathy and care, it would make my father feel better. I burst through the door, putting on my act. "Pa! Pa, are you alright?!"

My father took deep labored breaths. His eyes wide and his palms sweaty. Finally he mustered up the words as I waited, a fake worried expression on my face. "Synthia! I-I! Thank you-for coming!"

I ran up to him. "Is everything okay Pa?"

He smiled-sort of. "Go get your mother, she'll understand." I stopped and stared. Oof. That hurt. My father realized it momentarily and began to cry. He's done this before, he forgets she's not there and it gets really awkward. My mother once told me to take care of my father. She said he gets a little weird sometimes and I should know what to do, how to help him. The solution, which my mother was never able to tell me, was to pretend. In the beginning, I could, but I would sometimes end up crying with him. Then I got better, but now I'm just tired of him and his two year old fits. I get annoyed but I do it for my late mother. It was what she wanted, which normally I don't force myself to do what other people want. I'm not really the caring kind. I'm practical. And that's why...

This happened in front of my third grade class too. My idiot teacher Mrs. Derkins made my tell the story of how my mother died to the whole class! She was a real piece of work. She said her and my mother were friends, but I knew my mother would never be friends with a person like that, because she was caring and practical. My mother even told me once that she didn't like Susan Derkins. That she thought Mrs. Derkins was from another planet. I laughed at the time, being eight, but now I'm 13, and all I remember were my mothers childish jokes. Pathetic. But age doesn't matter when you're grieving. I stood in front of my class and told the two sentence story I had written on a note card. But I got emotional. I didn't let it show, but after the first word, I began to spill all my feelings. I needed to get it out, all of it, and I couldn't with my father, but why did it have to be my third grade class. And then I almost told them about the... I don't know why, I feel embarrassed that my three year old self tried to do that. Even though it was practical. I was just lucky she didn't, and that, the ice didn't break, because my father wasn't getting off it anytime soon. Or maybe I wasn't lucky at all. They would've never let me live it down if I had told them, and by doing so they would be silent, so I could feel all their minds eyes staring at the girl who tried to do that, who tried to kill herself so she wouldn't meet the same fate as her mother, and their minds whispering to each other.

I shook my head. No, I've got to stop thinking about this. I looked to my father. He had fainted. Great. I walked out of the room.

In the kitchen I found a cold compress. I ran it under cold water and brought it to my father. I just left it on his head. He could take it off when he woke up. I was tired of being his bedside nurse.

I heard the mail truck roll up to our house and headed to the small door side window. Sure enough, the mail truck was just leaving. I grabbed a hat and walked outside, bundled in a coat. I headed toward the mailbox and opened it. "Thanks Al!" I yelled. Just a few slips of mail. Trash, bills that we wouldn't-I'm sorry, couldn't-pay, and, a letter from grandma. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Grandmas dead, did someone forget that. I stared at it. Was someone trying to prank me, a friend maybe? Oh wait, I don't have any. Well, 2 years ago I would've just tossed the letter onto the street. But today I'm going to read it. I brought the mail inside the house and found my father out of bed, in the kitchen. "Hi chiquita!" He called, calling me a Spanish pet name even though he wasn't. I rolled my eyes at his wheelchair that he didn't need, All he was, was dramatic. "Eggs are on the counter," I droned. He smiled. Yeah, like that was real. In two minutes he'd be crying and forcing me to get him fast food like a three year old. All my life savings wasted on him cause he doesn't have any money.

I walked to my room and sat cross-legged on my bed. I tossed the rest of the mail on the blanket beside me, but held onto the letter. I bit my lip as I ripped it open. I pulled the letter out and noticed for the first time it was addressed to me. I shrugged. The only thing that meant was that she hadn't sent money to my father for him to waste. Good. The letter looked aged. Very aged. What was it, her will? I mean, she is dead. I unfolded the letter in anticipation and curiosity. A slip of paper fell out. It also looked very aged, but I let it fall, I could look at it later. I spread the paper out on my bed. Not her will, but something else.

But before I could start reading, I heard my father scream. I rolled my eyes. I'm not helping him now. Two more screams and then silence. I turned back to the paper, but only read the word 'Dear' before I heard something peculiar. It sounded like a choke. I got off the bed slowly. I slinked through the hall and approached the kitchen. I saw my father in his wheelchair, hands on his throat. What was he doing? Then he fell off his wheelchair, and I ran.

"Daddy!!" I screamed. A word that had never escaped my lips for 6 years. My father clawed at the air and I realized he was choking. I screamed and he tried to hack. "Daddy please!!" I shrieked. He tried to grab me. Impulsively, I moved so he couldn't. His lips moved as if he was trying to say something. And then; "Tell...your mother I love her..."

That was when I shattered. I stared at him. Fires burned in my eyes and I got up and he wheezed. And then, the biggest decision I ever made-also the quickest-, I walked away.

I got to the entrance of my bedroom and stared. I was still in shock for what I had just done, but I took a deep breath and continued into my room. No cameras, I didn't kill my father, a piece of egg did, he was the only person that would know I tried to help, my only worry now was if he survived. I noticed the slip of paper on the ground and knelt down to pick it up. It was small and I turned it over. Only a few words were written on it, in a handwriting I recognized. I can't do this anymore, he's killing me. I took a deep breath. This note had obviously been sent to my grandmother. It was written by...her. A million thoughts rushed into my head and I felt they were all true. Even before my mother died my father was a big baby. The few true memories I have of him before her death mostly consisted of him whining to my mother. I stood up. I heard a final wheeze from my father before there was silence. I bit my lip to keep from crying because of what I had just done. I looked at my grandmothers letter and scanned over it. I knew it was true now.

This letter was a response to my mothers suicide note.

I ran out of my room and headed toward the door, passing my fathers body on the way. I reached the door and took a deep breath, coat now on. My hand grasped the handle and I took another deep breath before twisting it. The door flung open and a snowy wind rushed in. It was snowing. This would be hard, but unlike my father, I was practical, and I could get through tough times without falling apart. I ran through the snow, my slippers becoming cold and numbing my feet, but I kept running. Finally I reached it. The ice over Sleasant Lake was thick nor thin, but I knew it was a killer. But now I wouldn't run. This ice hadn't took my mother from us, it had saved her. She knew she couldn't run from him, or me, so she ran from life. Practical.

I was no longer afraid of the ice, or the memories. They did good. If at least for my mother. So with my frozen energy, I lifted my foot and placed it on the cold surface ice of Sleasant Lake.