Why is a bee buzzing in my ear? Vanessa thought.

Make it stop, she groaned.

Make it stop? It might sting me.

Vanessa bolted upright in her queen-sized bed.

Her bedroom was in total darkness, well, not precisely, because a sharp fluorescence light was present between her two pairs of light green and white pillows.

My phone, she thought, reaching out and sliding it from between the four pillows.

The caller ID said Unknown.

Vanessa groaned.

And I was getting such a good night’s sleep, and the good Lord knows I need it. Work has been so crazy for the past couple of weeks.

The phone stopped vibrating.

Vanessa checked the time, and it was twelve minutes after three in the morning. She slid the phone between the pillows, dropped her head onto it, and was asleep within seconds.

Vanessa woke up a little later than usual, but that was okay because it was Wednesday, which meant it was her day off from work. She stretched her long legs in the bed and sighed contentedly. She stared unseeingly at the peach-painted roof of her apartment building as her mind wandered, grabbing hold of nothing. Then her mother’s face with that beautiful, sad smile entered her thoughts, and she grabbed hold of it.

Mom, she whispered, I should give her a call to see how she’s doing.

Vanessa pulled out the phone housed in a black and white polar bear case from between the pillows and speed-dialled her mother after glancing at the time. The answering machine kicked in after five rings.

It’s nine o’clock. Where could she be?

“Hey, Mom. Where are you?” Vanessa asked into the phone.

She checked her messages and saw that she missed three calls, two from her older sister.

The phone vibrated in her hand, and she saw it was her sister.

“Hey, Sis,” she greeted, her voice still thick from sleep.

“Why didn’t you answer your phone? Did you just wake up?”

“Yes, and boy, I needed that rest.”

Silence came from her sister.

“Sis?” Vanessa asked after a few seconds of air.

“I’m here,” she said.

Vanessa slowly sat up in bed.

“Are you crying? Why are you crying,” she asked.

“It’s Mom and Dad,” her sister said. “Mom is in Maxwell Hospital, and I don’t know if she’s going to make it and Dad… Dad…”

“What about Dad?”

“Come down to the hospital,” she said, “I’m in the waiting room.”

“I’m on my way,” she said, jumping out of bed, and about thirty minutes later, she had driven to the hospital and all the while thinking, he finally did it, didn’t he? My dad finally hurt my mom so badly that she may die.

Vanessa’s anger flared towards her mom as she recalled their conversation a few years ago.

“Why do you keep allowing him to abuse you?” Vanessa, seventeen at the time, asked.

Her mom and she had stopped at the corner coffee shop after school. It was busy in there, and the smell of coffee, blueberry muffins, hot chocolate, apple pie, and more helped to calm the torment within her.

Vanessa was about an inch taller than her mom, but it was not readily apparent as they sat in the shop.

“I don’t allow him to do anything,” her mother, wearing blue jeans and a blue and white floral sweater, replied, “Your dad does what he wants.”

“Then leave him. I’m not saying you should divorce him; just leave him,” Vanessa replied. She was also wearing blue jeans but a black sweater with a zipper in the middle and pockets at the sides.  

Her mother sipped her warm coffee from a light brown and white disposable cup.

“I don’t know what you see in him anyhow,” Vanessa muttered.

“Hey, watch your mouth,” her mom replied, frowning, “he is still your father, and he has been a good one to you and your sister.”

“A good father but a bad husband?” Vanessa asked, looking at her mom over the rim of the white cup from which she was drinking the hot chocolate.

“Watch your mouth,” her mother said again.

“Sorry, Mom,” Vanessa said, sighing as she put down her cup and picked up one of the two muffins on her light blue disposable plate, “But why do you still stay with him?”

Her mom put down the cup.

“I can’t talk with you about this because you are my daughter,” she said.

“Then talk with someone else. Please, Mom.”

Her mom studied her face for a moment before she nodded once.

That was four years ago.

When Vanessa entered the waiting area in the hospital, her sister grabbed her in her arms and quietly cried. Vanessa cried, too.

“Did the cops arrest Dad?” Vanessa asked after they stopped crying and sat two chairs away from a couple bracing against each other with their eyes closed.

“Dad is dead, and the doctors have put Mom into a coma to help in her recovery,” her sister said, as tears entered her voice.

“What?” Vanessa exclaimed.

“The cops think she killed Dad,” she whispered before bursting into tears again.

The End