"Take my hand... Peter?..." The fearful 9-year old boy turned his face away from his dying mother, only to hear the long sound of a heart monitor. "No...No! NO!" Peter screamed and kicked as his grandfather picked him up and carried him out of the hospital room. The man looked down at his broken grandson, trying to keep the tears from falling. "You need to stay here! Please? Okay?" He then walked back into the room to see his daughter one last time.
Peter stood there frozen. He watched as his family wept over his mother's body, but he couldn't hear them. All of the sound around him seemed to have been replaced by a high pitched ringing. He sat down on the cold tile, pulling his knees up against his chest. "I didn't take her hand." His voice was shaking. "I should have taken her hand. She's dead and I didn't take her hand! What's wrong with me?" His words grew louder. "Mom! Mom!? Come back! I need you!" He stood up, but his mother's room began to move further away as his vision was blurred by warm tears. Then, everything went black.
Peter awoke on the Milano; his whole body shaking. He sat up, putting his head in his hands. It's been twenty-six years and the memory of his mother's death was still fresh in his mind. He took three shaky breaths to help calm himself down and wiped his tears away with the backs of his hands. 'It'll be over soon.' He thought. This has become a nightly routine for him. In the nightmares, his mother always offers her hand to him, but he could never bring himself to take it. He uses all the strength he can to stop the guilt from eating him alive. He sat there for awhile; his breathing still short. He then got up and started shuffling through the drawers in his room. He was about to start panicking again until he saw the small cassette tape on a table next to his bag. He quickly grabbed it, popped it into his homemade player, and pressed play.
