Part 4 of Forgiving

My breath coming in short gasps, I tried to slow it down. My husband was speaking but I was not hearing parts of what he said. The sentences were all broken up as if it was a bad recording, first loud then low. My head was hurting too much and my eyes would not look toward the house though everything in me screamed with the realization that the on the stretchers, my mom would be one of the victims.

At last I started taking in what my husband was trying to say so gently. Someone had came out the evening before, threatened my mom and another lady( who had been visiting my mother) with bodily harm. The man had been dating my sixteen year old sister six months before and had steadily been stalking her since. At the time this man showed upon moms doorstep my sister was in the kitchen sitting at the table. My mom and her friend had been sitting on the sofa drinking coffee.

He came with a 12 gauge shotgun in his hand intent on taking my sister with him back to Indiana. When my mother refused stating, "over my dead body", he turned the gun on her friend and shot her at point blank range. My mother upon seeing this started to rise off the sofa. He reloaded and aimed the gun at her pulling the trigger again, sending her slamming into the back of the sofa. Instantly, they were both gone into eternity.

Meanwhile my sister had bolted for the back door intent on escape, running for her very life. One of my brothers had been dozing upstairs. He heard the shotgun blast go off twice and headed downstairs to see what had developed. He was still groggy from sleep. The stairs leading to the rooms upstairs are very narrow and they curve toward the bottom step. As he rounded the bottom of the steps peeking around the threshold he saw the man with the shotgun. At the same time the gunman saw my brother. Back up the stairs he went with the gunman blast away sending shards of wood flying off in all directions. Joe, my brother slipped under the bed backing agaisn't the wall as close as he could get barely breathing for fear he would be heard. As he heard the measured tread of the gunmans boots ascending the stairs he held his breath hoping for a miracle.

Meanwhle my sister Rita knew the dilemma that Joe was in, so she yelled at the gunman hoping to divert him from her brother. Just as the gunman reached the top of the stair landing, he heard Rita and turned around to give chase. Clattering down the wooden steps he saw Rita's back as she fled into a nearby cornfield filled with that falls stubble of cornshocks. Screaming at her to come out he followed her but could not catch up to her easily as she ran as if her hair was on fire!

My brother upon hearing the gunman tear off after Rita clambered out from under the bed, down the stairs and thru the front door running agaisn't time, to a neighbours farm a mile away. He could hear the shouts of the man with the gun yelling Rita's name, as he sprinted down the gravel road on a moonless cold night knowing the gunman was not yet done killing. At the same time Rita in her pajamas, heart beating erraticaly, cried with tears freezing on her cheeks as she ran in the opposite direction. In the dark, on a cold moonless night she felt so alone in this vast field with only curses filling the air behind her.