Blame and Guilt

A man and his 16-year-old son were sitting in a hospital waiting room, looking anxious. The man was pacing and his son was sitting quietly, listening to music. They both stood up, even more anxious, as the doctor walked in. He had a solemn look on his face that killed what little hope they had left. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Peterson. The car crash was too much for her and she passed before we could get her to the operating table. I’m terribly sorry, but there was nothing I could do,” said the doctor.

Both the father and the son were getting tears in their eyes. The woman that was both a loving wife and a caring mother was gone with no hope of ever returning. The son flipped out on the doctor, shouting about how he killed her and calling him a murderer, getting in a punch to the face in the process. “Eric, stop it! This is ridiculous,” the father said, pulling his son away from the doctor. “He did all he could, the wounds from the crash were just too serious. Calm down!”

“Nurse!” The doctor cried. “Bring me an icepack!” He had his hand over his obvious black eye that Eric had made.

The father sat his son down and helped the doctor up. “I’m so sorry about that, I don’t know what got into him.”

The nurse ran in and gave the doctor an icepack. “What happened?” Then she spotted the teenage boy sitting in a chair, looking really angry. “Oh…” She took the doctor by the arm and walked with him out of the room.

Eric got up and stormed out to the car, ready to leave. His father followed him and they took what seemed like the longest drive home they would ever have. The tension was thick and neither said a word the whole way.

Later that night, when the doctor was about to leave, the nurse stopped him at the door, noticing he looked a little sad. “Don’t let that kid get to you, Tim. He just reacted a little worse than most people.”

“I’ll be fine, Sherri. Have a good night.” He put on his jacket, walked out to his car, and headed home. It really wasn’t the kid directly that had affected his mood. It was what he had reminded him of. He blamed him for his mother dying, and that reminded Tim of a sad piece of his past. Once he got home, he plopped down in his favorite chair where he would sit and read. He looked over to the side at a picture of his late wife and picked it up. Tears started to swell up in his eyes and he kissed the glass piece of the frame, right where her beautiful face was beneath it.
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A man is out hiking with his wife. She has long, light brown hair and blue eyes so bright they challenged the very sun above their heads. They were going up a rather steep hill when she suddenly collapsed into a coughing fit. “Helen…what’s wrong?!” The man was kneeling next to her, worried.

She couldn’t get any words out in between coughs and passed out. Luckily, they had gone high enough to get cell phone reception, so he called one of his friends to come help him get her back down.

This happened multiple times. Finally, she was taken to the hospital in an ambulance when she had fallen down the stairs in one of her fits. Her husband was a doctor and volunteered to be the one to try and help her.

He put in long hours of work to try and save his dying wife, but her time was up. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t save her. No matter what he did, it was useless. Her eyes never opened and her heart beat for the last time. He leaned over her newly dead body and cried. His mind reverted back to the fairy tales you hear during childhood and he kissed her lips, hoping it would bring her back. But, alas, they are simple fairy tales, and nothing more. She didn’t wake and stayed in her eternal sleep.
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Tim woke up screaming in the middle of the night. He hadn’t had that dream in years, but that kid made it happen again. Suddenly, he heard a dish crash in the kitchen. He got up to go check it out and saw Eric Peterson cleaning up an accidentally broken dish. “You’re the kid from earlier…what in god’s name are you doing here at 2 in the morning?!”

“You killed her, you murderer!” Eric was obviously not trying to be subtle anymore. Tears were streaming from his eyes as he shouted. “You could’ve saved her!” He picked up the lamp that was on the table next to him and threw it at Tim.

Tim dodged it and tried to figure out a way to trap him so he could call the police. He spotted a long afghan on the couch next to him so he dashed for it and picked it up.

“What are you going to do? Wrap me in a blanky and make me nice and warm?” Eric laughed a single “Ha!” and ran for the doctor.

Tim held out the afghan as wide as he could and Eric ran right into it then fell to the floor. Tim then grabbed each end of it and tied it so that, hopefully, Eric couldn’t move. His plan worked at least long enough to get to his phone and call the cops. Eric got out and started after Tim again.

A group of cops got there fast and one of them tackled Eric since he was about to attack Tim. Another one, a woman, walked in. “Morgan, why must you tackle every single person we try to catch?”

The man stood up and looked at his partner. “Sorry, Garcia, but he was about to attack this man with a broken piece of glass, I had to stop him!”

Garcia looked down at the man on the floor. Sure enough, he was holding a piece of glass. “Oh, well, lucky you. Guess you were a good boy this time.” She giggled slightly.

Morgan took the glass, just in case he woke up, and Garcia walked over to Tim. “I’m guessing you’re the one who called.” Tim nodded. “Would there be any reason why this boy would want revenge on you for something? Maybe you turned him in for something he did or…”

“I’m a surgeon, you see. His mother died this morning from a car crash and I couldn’t save her. He yelled at me and called me a murderer then punched me.” He pointed to the black eye. “But I never thought he would go this far.”

“You’d be surprised.” Garcia turned to Morgan. “Read him his rights…if he wakes up…and get him in the car.”

Morgan nodded. “Yeah, ok.” Since he didn’t wake up, he just put him in handcuffs and carried him out to the car.

Garcia looked back at Tim. “You’ll be safe as a tech kitten in her little lab now.” She smiled and walked away to take Eric in.