It was 7 o’clock in the countryside. The sky was painted with streaks of orange and purple as darkness began to overcome the hushed land. It was around dinner time for most people in the neighborhood. It was around the time people began to sit down with their families and discuss how their day went over a meal that still had steam rising from it.

She lived in a small home gated with wooden fences in that neighborhood. She lived with no spouse. She lived with no animals, and no parents or grandparents, and no siblings. She only shared her life with her year-old son. He was the light of her life. When her son was only a few months, the boy would twitch uncontrollably. His eyes would stare at the ceiling as he laid in his crib spazzing and convulsing.
When she took him to the hospital, the doctor told her that his brain was infected. He told her that it was not a birth defect; rather it was an infection brought on by something that has happened within the past few months.
The good thing was that he was expected to live well into old age, but the worse aspect of this is that she could not remember anything, as she suffered from dementia. She always remembered to wash his bottles out with warm water and soap, and she remembered to bathe him and make sure his food wouldn't give him germs. She didn't know of anything that would harm him. But, she just thanked her lucky stars that her son was going to live.
He laid in his crib fast asleep. For some time, she would just watch him sleep to make sure that his breathing was regulated. She stroked his golden-blonde hair, saying his name over and over to herself so that if her brain forgot, her heart wouldn’t.
It was getting dark. She went to the kitchen to find food for herself and the child. “Here’s that doggone food. I was looking for this since Monday,” she would say to herself every single time she found something. Settling on one thing, she took the food back to her room.
“You know, son,” she began to talk to the child, “I may not be the most perfect, but I try. You understand your mother tries.”
Eventually, she sat on her bed next to the crib. She touched his face. He was warm and sweaty. He was not breathing.
She panicked.
She picked him up and ran to her car, putting him in his carseat but being too forgetful to strap him in. She figured it wouldn’t matter, since the hospital wasn’t too far away. She started the car and drove onto the highway in the direction of the hospital. She swerved past cars with ease, until the front of her car collided with the back of a big navy-blue SUV.
She woke up. She was alive. She scoured for her baby.
She couldn’t find him. The paramedics couldn’t either. That was when the emergency helicopter landed, and the mother was put on a stretcher.
The last thing she could remember was her voice struggling to say was, “My son…”