The night was cold, the sky was black and cloudy, the stars invisible and the streets lit by the faint glow of the white moon. The wind blew slightly shaking the leaves and carrying the songs of birds through the silent night. Then the silence shattered, the birds songs seised and the wind stopped, everything stood still as blood curdling cries for help traveled down the street and up into a open window. The yells came quiet and from a distance at first then they became closer and strained. The same voice, yelling the same thing over and over again.
“Help me! I-I-I’ve been s-s-stabbed!!” The victim kristy, screamed.

The first person to hear the cries for help was Shirley the victim's mother, as she lept out of bed the shaking jarred the second witness awake...the victim's daughter. Me. Shirley with her newly replaced knee ran an wobbled down to the front door, struggling to unlock it.

I now stood on the stairs. My feet were bare so I could feel the hardwood floor on my feet which would usually send chills up my spine but today it blended it with the chills already present. My body was stiff and my breathe shallow. My mind racing as I watched the front door open and my mother collapse onto the floor. Time stood still as the blood continued to flow. Everything was quiet I could see the bodies moving and the mouths opening and closing but I heard nothing. Then a serious and important command somehow was able to reach me in my haze.

“Get your Aunt Cathy she needs to call 911” Shirley yelled with a shaking voice.

I ran upstairs. Hitting walls and tripping over rugs, the image of my dying mother still fresh in my mind. I yelled “WAKE UP!” tears streamed down my face as I waited for my aunt to jump up and run down stairs for a phone. Her words came out harsh but calm.

“Relax. Stop yelling.” then she slowly picked herself off of her bed and made her way down the stairs. Phone in hand. The third witness, Cathy walks down her stairs slowly. Her words come out calm and hollow “what happened”. Kristy looks up still in a heap on the floor and between breathes says “Carmen stabbed me” blood squirts from an open wound that had penetrated her cheek. Cathy dials 911 as she continues to tell everyone including the victim's 8 year old daughter to, “stop crying and be quiet.”

My mind becomes numb as I picture my mother's outfit before she had been covered in blood. A new white blouse that crossed in the front. Now an angry red. A pair of light blue ripped denim jeans, her favorite. Now stained with the memories of a horrible night. Last but not least her grey coach purse, now covered in dirty brown spots.

Cathy looks down at her niece and her focus is moved from her niece to her “antique” rug. Her voice comes out harsh “she's bleeding on my rug, MOVE HER.” Shirley turns to her with rage in her voice and hate in her eyes “I’ll buy you a new one.”  Soon after the paramedics arrive, and shirley lets them in, they look at kristy laying on the floor bleeding from, everywhere.They count her wounds one, Two, three...fourteen, fifteen. Then they look up at her daughter who still stands on the stairs looking down at her dying mother. Whom she can’t help. Or even hug because of a blood disease that is contagious through contact. The paramedic looks at everyone as he asses the wounds “she’ll be okay” he says but his eyes say differently. The paramedics all work together to contain the bleeding and get her safely onto a gurney to transport her to the hospital. Shirley and I have to stay, Cathy is the only one with a car and a license, she volunteers to follow the ambulance and call with any news.

The lights turn on, red and white flashes and reflects off of windows and walls then the sirens come on and shatter the silence once more. Cathy grabs her keys, then stops and puts them down. She walks over to her “antique” rug and brings it outside. She stays there for about 20 minutes getting her hose out and spraying it down, to get her dying nieces blood out of her precious rug. Then when she is satisfied she finally goes after the ambulance.

I lay in bed next to my snoring grandmother. I can't sleep. I have the smell of blood fresh in nose. I look out of the window and find the road, I can see puddles of blood along the street and sidewalk that shows the path that she had taken. The bright moon that is beginning to set, shines off of each puddle of blood as if framing it. I look out of a different window hoping to find comfort in the trees as I normally do when i’m upset. Instead the leaves morph and use their dark and light greens to depict pictures of my mother. I shut my eyes. Then I see the real thing. I sit for hours and wait for a call. Is she alive? Will she be the same? How many times did she get stabbed? Where is carmen now? Am I even safe? Is my mother safe?

NIght finally turns to day, and I sit on the couch awaiting. There are still small droplets of crimson blood on the walls and the stairs. A Gruesome reminder of the night before. Cathy comes home and assures Destiny her mother is okay, and will be fine. Then the mood shifts, and Cathy's concern moves from the victim to the attacker. Cathy's voice becomes low and she takes my hand. “You know, it wasn't Carmen's fault that she stabbed your mother.” Her words come out like knifes and it's as if the previous night is happening all over again, but this time instead of fear there's anger.

My throat is tight. My palms sweaty. My mind fills with questions. But I say nothing. Its as if my mouth is sewn shut. There are so many words and phrases swimming around my head. I want to call her a b**** and question her loyalty. She acts as if she didn't just see my mother bleeding out from multiple severe wounds , for god's sake she was practically dead on her damn floor! I look her in the eyes and I can see she juvenile believes this, at least in her heart she wants to believe this isn't Carmen's fault. Very quietly I ask her “so does that mean it isn't a rapist's fault when they rape someone?” I feel my face burn with hate and just as fast as the conversation started its over and i'm sitting on the couch alone.

It's finally time for me to go visit her mother.

I’m sitting next to my older cousin Junior. We don't say a word to each other. As we pull into the hospital parking lot my eyes begin to water. Junior nods at me, telling me without words its okay. I walk up to my mother's room. Slowly.  I ask my mom the words i’ve been dying to ask for over 24 hours. “What happened?”

Kristy looks at her daughter and in a weak voice tries to explain all the reasons she doesn't want to know the details. “Your too little” “You’ve been hurt enough” “it's over”.

Ten Years Later
I call my mom. The phone rings three times. Then she answers. “Hello?” my throat goes dry and I stutter. “What really happened that night?” I manage to squeak out. “I am an adult and i'm sick of living with this mystery.” There is a long pause so I fire off my questions. “Why did she barely do anytime?” “How did she get off for good behavior?”  “How wasn't she arrested that night?”

Kristy clears her throat.  “We all went out to a club for the night. Me, Carmen and her boyfriend.” She pauses as if she needs to choose her next words carefully. She sighs heavily. “We all drank, but-Carmen and her boyfriend, they were drunk.”

“Camen's boyfriend called me a w**** and I yelled and I asked Carmen if she was going to let him talk to me like that, then...”  she pauses and her voice swells with apology. “I’ve never told you this part, you were so young”.

“Carmen started to yell at me to leave and get out of the house, I said I’d leave in the morning. I went to go back to the room and when I turned she grabbed a knife from the butchers block”

I cringe at the words “butcher block”. The vision on if flashes through my mind light wooden block with slits in it for the knives and scissors. My whole body shutters.

Kristy clears her throat and continues “she kept stabbing me. First in the back then when i turned she stabbed in me in the face and arms. She didn't stop until I was able to get away from her and outside. That's when I showed up at the house.”

She sighed and quietly says “I never told you the police part either, the real reason why she wasn't locked up longer”

My heart stopped. My mouth dropped. I was FINALLY going to find out the real reason the women who almost took my mother's life got away with it.

Kristy continues, her tone soft and pain in her voice.

“By the time the cops got there Carmen was gone. The cops who arrived on scene didn't take any evidence, no pictures of the blood and blood spatters not even the weapon used. They left it all there and didn't document a thing” Her voice began to harden. “When I was brought to the hospital I had to go right into surgery because of the severity of my bleeding and my wounds, so I wasn't able to fill out a police report.”

There's regret in her voice “Carmen turned herself in but they told her she could go because there had been nothing filed.”

Her voice shakes. “During this time she was able to go back to the house and get rid of all the evidence. She cleaned up all of the blood, the evidence of struggle and she even took the knife she used, and because of that and that the cops didn't take any evidence there was nothing we could use against her in court. So she was only held for a few months, and with no evidence was even able to get out early”

I’m angry. Before I can stop myself i'm speaking. Accusing. “Why wouldn't you tell me?” “Why would you leave those things out!?” With every question my voice rises and tears threaten to fall.

Her voice becomes soothing and her words comes out like honey and they warm my whole body “I didn't tell you because the cops made a mistake, it was one mistake made by a few cops, I didn't want you to go the rest of your life hating cops and not trusting them because of it I also didn't want you to live your life seeing certain things and picturing me half dead that's why I left all the details out as long as I could.”

And just like that I suddenly realized knowledge isn't always power. Knowing all of this made me feel weak made me brittle. It made me scared. My views on cops had changed drastically and although I knew all of them couldn't be blamed I couldn't help myself from doing so. Ten years later I had solved the mystery, and sometimes I wish I hadn't. I've never truly understood “somethings are best left unknown” until I knew how my mother almost died.