In 1997, i was ten years old; it was a thursday evening, September 11th. to be exact. i was in the 5th grade and had a load of homework. we had had dinner and i was sent to my room to handle my homework, as my dad, (common law) stepmother, her brother, and his wife sat on our back porch talking over a few beers. i remember doing my math homework and having trouble, deciding to grab the HW i was stuck on and approach my dad for assistance.
as i went downstairs and through the living room/dining room combo, i stopped for a moment peering into the kitchen. i saw my then step mother with a few Budweisers on the counter top, opening them. as i stood there watching her i watched her drop a few pills into one of the cans. i recognized the pills as my fathers nitroglycerin, which he was prescribed for a diagnosed heart condition. when my step mother turned to leave the kitchen, i ducked behind a gigantic bird cage that was in the living room to hide myself, walking out onto the deck moments behind her.
where they were sitting was a roughly 50 foot wife by 25 foot deep deck, with a roof. out of the door to my left was a jacuzzi, refrigerator turned into a keg machine, recycling and trash cans, and miscellaneous things. to the right of the door was a sitting area, with a 2 person bench like seat against the house wall, an outdoor coffee table type table in front of it, and various other chairs circling it. dad was sitting on the right side of the bench if you were facing it.
as i walked into the circle i attempted to tell my father what i had seen in the kitchen, but my then step mother stood up, elbowing me in the nose as she did, playing it off as if it was the booze and apologizing to me. being ten, i was quite upset over the pain and didn't realize how important it was that i say what i had seen.
i walked over and sat down next to my dad, asking for his help with my homework, within about 5 minutes he had explained everything to me, while drinking the spiked beer he had been delivered. my then step mother was attempting to shoo me out of the area the entire time. finally now that dad was done helping me, he gently told me to head back up to my room and finish my homework, then i could hang around with them before bed.
as dad finished this sentence, he slumped back on the bench, his arms flew out to his sides as if making an airplane motion, his head jerked back and he started making gutteral snoring noises before crashing to the floor. when dad's arms flew out to the side i was struck in the nose a second time.
no one moved for about 30 seconds, they just continued their conversation. i was the one who ran for the phone and dialed 911. i can't remember if i spoke on the phone at all, or if it was snatched out of my hand immediately. i just know it was. i remember watching my then step mother who at the time worked for the DoD perform what i now know is NOT any form of CPR, but merely motions to mimic the sounds through the phone. her brother and his wife spent all of this time trying to corral me, and force me into my room.
i had met the ambulance at the end of our long driveway as even at ten i knew our home wasn't the easiest to find, as i ran off to do this i was yelled at by one of the two women i'm not sure which. the moment EMT's started working on my dad, my step mother called my mom, told her that my dad had died (he was more than an hour from being pronounced dead at this point) and that she needed to come get me.
my mom arrived about 40 minutes later, which is roughly how far away she lived from dad's at the time. by the time she had gotten there the ambulance had left, my step mother drove herself to the hospital, not riding along in the ambulance, and her brother and his wife had left to go home. my mom showed up to just me sitting on the floor of the deck crying, holding the shirt they had cut off of my dad.
we started to drive to the hospital in hopes dad was alive, i'm not sure exactly how far we made it, but mom saw step mom driving back toward the house in the opposite direction, spamming her horn and shaking her head no. we pulled over into a parking lot, where step mom said in a voice no different than one would say that it's raining, that dad was dead and there was nothing they could do. stepmom then asked mom to follow her back to the house so i could "get my shit" and go home with mom.
i left my home that night with a single trash bag full of clothes, and never saw anything else that was mine, or my fathers after that. my father was a very wealthy man. then step mom refused an autopsy, and rushed the funeral as fast as possible. stepmom was deceased by the time i had turned 18. her children have inherited all of my fathers hard work, and when i ran into my former step brother about fifteen years ago (about two years after his mom died.) he laughed and said that his mom killing my dad was the best thing that ever happened to him.
i don't know why i'm writing this, just having a really hard go of it lately, as this event was the catalyst for a very depressing life. i feel cheated and forgotten. is there even any way to get justice all this time later?
