I opened the door slightly and peeked into my mother’s room. On the floor was a small cardboard box, and surrounding it were numerous pieces of paper which from where I was standing seemed to be old faded newspaper articles. I shifted my eyes to her bed. She appeared to be asleep. 

I pushed the door open a little more.

“Mother?” I said softly.

Curious of what it was she had spread around the floor, and being careful not to wake her, I walked into the room softly, hoping to at least get an idea of what it was she had been doing.

It didn’t take long.

One article positioned beside the box immediately caught my attention based solely on the word “murder” being in the headline. I glanced at her, made note of her snoring, and reached for the article. As I raised it high enough that the small black print was legible, I fought to keep quiet.

An east Wichita couple murdered during broad daylight last month has been officially linked by the Police Commissioner to a series of previously unsolved murders based on the modus operandi.

The commissioner gave few details regarding the investigation in the murder of Brandon and Velma West, which left their six-year-old son a ward of the state, but did agree to a press conference regarding the previous murders, which is now scheduled for Tuesday...

Feeling confused, almost sick, and curious at the same time, I carefully placed the article back where it was. If the people in the article were Blake’s parents, I wondered why my mother would have clipped the section of newspaper and kept it for so many years. As I mentally dismissed it to her simply keeping track of the investigation of a local psychopath long since deceased or imprisoned, I noticed another article at the foot of her bed. I tilted my head to the side and gazed down at the article.

According to the prosecution team, Jaye Campbell’s testimony was paramount in the conviction of Ted Wayne Mastick in the murder of her husband, Jonathon. Assistant District Attorney Nelda Freemont shared her belief with Wichita Eagle reporter Tom Whiteside that the trial was destined to be a mistrial until Mrs. Campbell came forward immediately prior to the selection of jurors.

With her throat cut and left for dead, Mrs. Campbell walked to a neighbor’s home and calmly asked to use the phone after realizing her phone lines had been severed during the invasion of her home…

I began to sob.

Apparently, my father had not been killed in a car wreck, and my mother’s scar wasn’t the result of a glass shard. Within seconds my mother was up on her feet attempting to comfort me.

“Why…what…I can’t…even think,” I blubbered.

“Riley, please. Listen…”

“To what,” I shouted. “Another lie?”

“Riley,” she said as she wrapped her arms around me. “I couldn’t tell you the truth. I just couldn’t. I was trying to protect you.”

“From…from what?” I asked as I pushed her away.

“From being hurt,” she said.

Now a full-blown sobbing mess, I stood with my hands against my thighs and cried, heaving to find my next breath. She leaned over, wrapped her arm around my shoulder, and held me against her side.

“When you’re a mother, you’ll understand,” she said. “You will. Everything I told you was true. Your father and I were in an accident, he died, and my throat was cut and I ended up in the hospital. All I failed to tell you was the truth about what exactly the accident was.”

“He was…he was murdered,” I blubbered.

She was much calmer than I was comfortable with. As I continued to fight for my next breath, she stood and held me. I guessed she had a few decades of time to come to terms with what happened, and I had only had a few minutes. As she patted her hand against my back, I remembered what I had read about the West family.

I turned my head to the side and glanced up and into her eyes. “And Blake. Were they…were they his…”

She nodded her head. “Those were his parents mentioned in the article, yes.”

I bit my lower lip to prevent it from quivering.

“What…why…How did you know?”

“Last night, when he told me his name…” She paused and inhaled a deep breath. After a long sigh, she continued. “I figured out he was the orphan from that murder. After what happened to your father and me, I became obsessed with the case for a while. It was my way of letting go. Riley, I’m so sorry.”

I tried to stand, couldn’t, and continued to lean against my thighs. My mother pulled me to the edge of the bed and helped me sit. As I sat with my face in my hands, she continued to explain.

She began to speak in a soft comforting tone without much emotion at all. As she spoke, I did my best to listen, and hoped to understand why she did what she did.

“That man killed people here for a long, long time. I testified against him in court. I put him away, Riley. It was harder than you might think, and setting that part of my life aside would have never happened if you knew the truth about what I had gone through. Forgetting it would have been - and still is - impossible, but even functioning with a daily reminder of what happened would have crushed us both. I felt if I told you the truth you’d go through all of the pain and hardship I went through, and I just couldn’t do that to you. All I wanted was what was best for you,” she said.

It wasn’t difficult for me to understand how much pain she had gone through. Just with my experiences with Stephen, I suffered greatly. She was right. For her to share what happened with me as a child, my life would have been totally different.

And, for me to understand what life would have been like knowing would have been impossible. As I turned to give her a hug, I hoped deep in my heart that Blake had no idea of what happened to his parents. I hoped somehow he escaped the truth no differently than I had.

“I love you,” I said as I wrapped my arms around her.

“I love you so much,” she said as she held me in her arms.

As we sat on the edge of the bed and held each other, I realized everything she had done she did with the hope of preventing me from being hurt. She realized the pain I would go through based on the pain she had felt.

Ultimately, my mother was protecting me from harm.

And I loved her even more for doing so.