No Way Back

“No way back” by Marcelo Flores

November, getting cold, a gray time of the year. The spirits of the people on the streets just waiting for the holidays. Something is wrong in the Franklin marriage. The Franklin´s have two kids a 16 year old girl that has always been “daddy’s little girl” and the other is an 11 year old boy in the need of his mother. Martha Franklin just found out something that may change her entire life. Shouting as she gets into her home.

“Michael!” – Martha said. Mr. Franklin knew what was wrong. The discussion started and eventually continued heating up. The kids were hearing the shouts and came down just to eavesdrop the conversation.

“I know what you did. I can’t believe it. I don’t want to know anything about you ever.” – Ms. Franklin said. Closing the door in her husband’s nose with such a strength that the door might actually had broken. The kids went running back to their respective rooms in an apparent cry. Ms. Franklin was devastated, for 25 years of marriage Mr. Franklin had always been a great loving husband. He cheated on her.

The next morning Ms. Franklin woke up in the living room with a bottle of wine spilled in the floor. The kids were already eating breakfast in the kitchen but didn’t know what was going on with her mother, something was wrong. She started telling the kids what was going to happen, their parents were going to part different ways, without telling the reason of their splitting. The kids didn’t reacted as expected. Both just said “O.K.”.

As the days passed Ms. Franklin was in a great depression, she continued drinking and didn’t go out of her house, and she was still devastated. Their kids needed attention, they were by their own. One day Mr. Franklin decided to pass by the house. He knocked the door and no one answered, after a lot of tries he decided to use the key he had. With a big surprise just as he opened the door, with a very bad smell and in a very big mess the house was, Ms. Franklin still in the living room. The kids frightened went running downstairs as their father opened the door, as they saw him they went running to hug him. They started talking about what was happening and Ms. Franklin started shouting him to get out. As he was going out he said to the kids in a whisper- “Tomorrow I’m coming for you two”.

The next day, now with the company of child services Mr. Franklin came into the house, now without knocking. Shouting “Kids! Come here, you’re coming with me”. Kids went with his dad and Ms. Franklin ran for them, she frightened the children with the way she went against them. Crying and shouting as her kids were going out through the door, child services people hold her inside the house. The kids were not there anymore.

Now even more depressed Ms. Franklin didn’t know what to do with her life. She continued drinking now in a much bigger rate. Child services came again and said that it was probable that she was never going to see their kids again, there was not going to be a trial for the kids.

 

Devastated and now crazy she started thinking in ending her life there. She went into the bath tub, thinking about what she could do. After a while there she decided that the better way was with pills. She started drinking them one after another until she finished the whole bottle. As she was waiting she heard a knock at the door, it was the mail. As she went downstairs without balance and struggled to open the door because the effect of the pills was coming to an end. She opened the mailbox and saw a letter from Child Services. With a fuzzy look she just saw that the letter said, “GOOD NEWS. TRIAL TOMORROW, YOUR KIDS MAY GO HOME WITH YOU”. She went down, thinking about what could have happened, thinking about her kids.

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