Shot in the Heart - Mikal Gilmore [200]
Then she laughed. “Oh, but there I go, prattling like an old woman. You must think I’m awfully silly.”
A moment later, she was studying the dark dirt of her floor, as if she were looking for secrets under all its blackened levels. “God, I miss Gary,” she said. “Why did he want to die? Why did he kill those two boys, and then want to die? I don’t think I’ll ever understand it.” And then she covered her face with her hands, and her sobs filled the darkened space of her trailer.
That was the last time I saw her alive.
YEARS LATER, FRANK TOLD ME ABOUT THE END. He told me about other things as well. He told me about what it had been like to live with my mother in the years after Gary’s death.
“She was hurting, obviously,” Frank said, “but the combination of all the physical and emotional pain sometimes pushed her toward the irrational. She would sit around and say stuff like, ‘Is there anything in the world besides hurt?’ She would say that a lot. She became convinced that somehow the renewal of the death penalty had been designed to get Gary—or to get her by getting Gary. Sometimes she would go completely off her rocker, screaming: ‘Gary’s the only one they’ve killed, the only one who will ever be killed—they’ll never kill another person in this country. Those goddamn Mormons did it because they hated me. Those are the people who shot your brother’s heart right on the ground.’ It would become so bad and so relentless, finally I would get up and leave.
“Part of what made her difficult during this time was her diet. She had to be careful about what she ate, but of course she wasn’t. Chocolate became her basic diet, and with her stomach in that terrible shape, you can imagine how healthy that was. One of the few things she would eat was a special kind of bread. I remember one time I went to the store and they didn’t have it and she just went hysterical. Accused me of not bringing it home on purpose. The argument between us got so bad, I’m sure the neighbors must have heard it.
“I didn’t want to be mean, but she was impossible. She wouldn’t do commonsense things, and she wouldn’t take anybody’s advice. And sometimes I’d forget myself, and I’d get loud—the way you get when you’re frustrated. I’d say, ‘Man, you’ve got to start eating better. If you don’t, I’m getting a nurse and bringing the nurse here.’ Then she just went completely hysterical and said. ‘You boys, you boys—you want to put me in a rest home.’ And then I’d say, ‘Oh, come on—please, just calm down. The last thing Mikal or I will ever do is put you in a rest home. We’ll never put you in a rest home.’
“Mom had this thing in her mind that when I grew up, all I would ever do is care for her—that I would never think of having my own life. But I couldn’t stay there all the time. I’d leave—sometimes a week at a time, but usually only a weekend. She considered this a betrayal. I was still, at my age—almost forty—staying there most of the time. That’s far more than most sons ever did. But because I couldn’t handle it all the time, and I’d get away for a few days, she considered this a betrayal, like I was a Judas. When I’d return after some time away, she’d say: ‘You’re just like your father.’
“This was the thing I was living under. If I tried to help her I was accused, all the time, of trying to put her in a rest home, and that was not something I was going to do. But I couldn’t get that through to her. It was just like getting her to take the right medicine or eat a solid meal-impossible. It was a bigger job than I could handle. I shouldn’t have even tried to help because I wasn’t qualified. But what else could I do? I tried many times to get her to see doctors or a counselor, but her response was always the same. She would grow frantic. She’d throw things. She’d cry. She did not want to leave her home for anything, and even though I hate to say it, I don’t think she really wanted to get better. I think I always had in the back of my mind that someday Mom was just going to get up and change. That was a big weakness I had. I always thought she was