4:38

My mother died when I was 12. She was in an accident. She was 32 or 34 or something like that; I’m not really sure because I wasn’t aware at that age of how old my parents were. And my father doesn’t like to talk about it, to talk about her. I only know about the accident from pieces of memories I have of the time. For some reason, the thing I most clearly remember is her time of death. 4:38 pm. Her doctor came out of surgery and walked up to my father. I knew from his face that she had died, and I wasn’t that surprised to be honest. I had seen the car she was in, I had driven past it with my father on the way to the hospital. There were cop cars and tow trucks lined up along the side of the road, lights flashing in silence as we drove by. My father didn’t look at the scene, he stared straight ahead and watched the road as if it were an angry, violent beast set to strike at any moment and it required all of his attention to keep it at bay. I, though, had no such concern about the road and looked out the window and into the world of twisted metal, leaking oil, and smashed glass. There was blood. You could see blood all over the car—my mother’s blue VW—both inside and out. With that much blood left behind, I wondered how it was possible for any to be left inside of her. I guess there wasn’t enough. And that’s why the doctor came and told us 4:38 pm and he did everything he could and he was sorry. My father cried and I cried and, after a little while, we drove back home again. My father called my aunt, his sister, to come and watch me while he went back to the hospital to do whatever he needed to do now that my mother was dead. My Aunt Julie came over and she cried, I cried, we cried some more. Then she let me eat ice cream for dinner and allowed me to watch as much television as I wanted. I ate until I got sick and watched until my eyes burned and Aunt Julie told me to go upstairs and go to bed. I fell asleep quickly, but woke in the middle of the night crying. I wanted my mom. I wanted it to be before 4:38 pm, before the twisted blue VW and the blood. I cried quietly so no one would hear me and eventually fell back asleep, hugging an old stuffed animal that I used to sleep with when I was younger. The next day was a school day, but I didn’t have to go. I didn’t have to go all week, in fact. I wanted to go, though. I wanted to have things go back to normal, to go to class and hang out with my friends, and talk about who was dating who and other very adult topics. Not be curled up in my bed with a large stuffed dog crying into its soft, light brown fur. I didn’t see my father much that week. He was in and out of the house, coming into my room once or twice a day to ask how I was doing and telling me to talk to my Aunt Julie if I wanted to ask any questions. He told me that mom was in a better place now, but that didn’t make much sense to me because I had last seen her lying on a gurney in a hospital as they wheeled her into surgery. That certainly was not a better place. I told my father this and he smiled, which I didn’t like. Then he told me that she was in heaven, with the angels. And with God. That didn’t make things much better because I had always been told that heaven was very white and everyone wore white gowns. It seemed just like the hospital. And there was Jesus, dressed in a white doctor’s coat that read “Dr. Christ” above the pocket over his heart and he was walking towards us, my father and me, and telling us that he was sorry but my mother had arrived earlier than she should have.
“She just came in a few minutes ago,” he said, “At 4:38 pm.”