"Broken Bones and Lacerations"

When my mother finally arrives, she is quick to ask us how school was while she sneaks glances from her rearview at Meeka. Nothing about my mother is subtle, and the way her eyes take in Meeka’s striking beauty is no exception. Unfortunately, Seth’s story is easy to buy.



Meeka leans awkwardly against her seat, her body tense with the percolating idea that yes, maybe my mother truly is a murderer. It is clear that she wants nothing more than to flee our car. Good.


Meeka’s the only one I’ve voiced the truth to—other than the murderer herself. She is the bartender I’ll never see again. She is, funnily enough, safe.


I am sitting in the car beside Meeka, but my mind is at my father’s shiva. It was there that I learned of my mother’s ability to kill someone she (supposedly) loved.


The last day of school; the last time I saw my father, there were sunny skies and the kind of humidity that leaves a layer of sweat. It’s been said that if you don’t like the weather in Houston, wait ten minutes. But my dad didn’t wait. The humidity from all day decided to burst out in angry showers on his way home from school. My dad’s navy Corolla hydroplaned from a nasty puddle into a fortress of Willow Hybrid trees, turning over from the force. Before he could even get out, a truck slammed into him from the driver’s side.


The driver got whip-lash, and was too consumed with guilt for us to get angry. Besides, it hadn’t been his fault: Mother Nature was still ranting down fierce shards of rain when the truck driver turned a blind corner.


Ten minutes later, there was sunshine again. It was the hot, determined kind that lets a person know Summer has arrived, and It would not be offering any cool reprieve from a little rainstorm. Ten minutes later and Howard Fluchter, a six-foot-two man with a wife and two kids was an unconscious heap of broken bones and deep lacerations.