Grand Theft Auto 5 - Family Ties

Chapter One - Bad News

"Our next top story is breaking news concerning the Bobcat Security bank robbery. The three masked men involved-"

"Ding dong," chimed the door bell.

"Mattie can you get that? I have my hands full," her mother called from the kitchen.

Matilda set her pencil and sketchbook down on the carpet and pushed herself up from her position of laying down and headed for the front door. It really didn't occur to her as odd that their door bell was being rang at seven thirty-five at night. Nothing big ever happened in this town. It was more than likely someone trying to sell something or a neighbor with a reminder that her mom had left her car lights on.

She opened the door and what she saw next definitely took her by surprise and was not expected. There stood two police officers dressed in heavy, dark blue coats. Upon seeing her they exchanged brief uncomfortable glances and both removed their hats.

"Is…your mother home young lady?" the second asked.

"Yeah, she's making dinner…" Mattie said, hesitant of the whole situation. "Is…she in trouble?" she inquired innocently.

"It's…best that you just go get her please," the officer said in a tone that was kind but also reluctant.

Mattie nodded, "Yes sir…"

She closed the door only slightly and headed towards the kitchen. Her mother was busy checking and basting the pot roast in the crock pot. "Mom…?"

"Mattie honey, not now. Your dad will probably be home at any minute and you know how he gets if dinner isn't ready when he comes home. For some reason this stupid roast just is taking it's sweet time getting-"

"It's the cops," Mattie said shortly.

That caught her mother's attention. She set the baster down and placed the lid back on the crock pot, wiping her hands on a dish towel, her mother looking visibly flustered. "Cops?"

Mattie just nodded and looked at the ground nervously. "Yes ma'am…"

"What in the heck could they want at this hour?" her mother asked.

"I don't-" Mattie began but her mother moved swiftly past her, not really waiting for her answer. "Matilda keep your eye on that roast for just a moment, could you?"

Mattie just gave a short nod and glanced toward the crock pot but then cautiously stepped towards the side of the wall to eavesdrop.

"Yes? Can I help you officers?" her mother spoke softly.

What she head next took a while to register with her. The words almost didn't make sense and they certainly didn't hit home.

"Mrs. Jaspers? We…regret to inform you that your husband, William, was shot and killed this afternoon."

A long silence followed and Mattie suddenly felt as though she were standing in a long tunnel. The words seemed to echo in her brain but they wouldn't quite stick and register. Was this real?

Her mother's cries broke through her zone out.

"No. No, no, I-mean…No! It can't…NO! NO! NO! OH PLEASE NO!" she screamed, her voice wracked with pain and grief. Eventually her mother's words turned to pure sobs.

Mattie stood, her back pressed against the wall, swallowing hard, a lump in her throat. Her right hand subconsciously massaged the bruise on her left wrist as she let the words repeat over and over again in her head.

"Killed"

"Regret to inform you"

"Shot"

So many feelings flooded through her eleven-year old being that it was near impossible to process them all. After a long moment, she stepped away from the wall, shaken. She could hear the officers speaking gently to her sobbing mother but she didn't care to listen to anything else that had to be said.

She stepped back over to the crock pot and stared for a long moment at the roast cooking and sweltering inside, it's pleasant smell filling the kitchen.

She then removed the lid and began basting it. It was all she could do.


Many months had passed since her father's death. The funeral had come and gone. Mattie had not known how life would move forward after the news of her father being shot but she had been determined to help her grieving mother in any way possible.

She had taken on the daily chores as of late. Laundry, dishes, dinner, she had taken to doing all of it, anything she could do to help since her mother had retreated into a shell of depression and isolation. As for herself, she had reacted by not reacting. Maybe after all this time it still had not fully sunk in or maybe it just was that in the wake of her father's death, there was now more to worry about than ever. Either way, she tried not to think and dwell on it.

It was a chilly Sunday afternoon when Mattie arrived home, a bag of groceries in her arms. The sky was grey, cloudy and the snow had begun to melt on the ground leaving a sort of gritty slush in the streets and ugly, dirty clumps in the yard.

She hoisted the groceries in one arm and opened the mail box in the other. She grabbed the mail and headed inside.

The house was no warmer than the outside. She had insisted on leaving the heat off in the house to save on power.

She set the brown bag of groceries down and closed the door softly, wiping her boots on the rug. She turned towards the side table by the door and set the mail down. She didn't have to thumb through it because she already knew what most of the letters were by now.

Bill. Notice to pay. Late fee. Delinquency notice. Collections notice. It was all the same. Different day, same notice.

Today would be different though. She wasn't going to let her mother see the bills or the notices today. She wanted today to be different and the bills would only give her mother more cause to worry and despair. Things could change, but one of them would have to break the cycle of gloom that had invaded their lives ever since her father's death.

She took her boots off and headed up the stairs towards her mother's bedroom. "Mom?"

No response but that was normal. Most days lately her mother just sat in the floral patterned chair near her window and stared outside absent minded, alone with her thoughts.

Today would be different though.

"Mom! I got groceries and… I had an idea," she began talking loudly for her mother to hear, feeling her hope surge with every step she took. "I got us a cake mix because, well, I don't know if you remember this …" she continued, smiling just a little for the first time in a long time. "But my birthday is in a couple of days and I know it's…pretty…early to celebrate but … I just…I don't know, I want to do something fun, just you and I," she said, getting to the top of the stairs and heading down the hall to her mother's room. "We need to do something together, you and I. Something different, something fun, if only for one day."

She headed down the hall and saw that her mother's door was ajar just slightly to let a small slice of light creep into the hall.

"Mom? Did you hear me? Even if it isn't for my birthday, let's just-" she pushed the door open and the words froze in her throat.

Her mom was laying on the bed on her side. At first glance it would have appeared that she was fast asleep and normally Mattie would have thought nothing of it. But the trail of blood leading from the small bathroom to the bed was what caught her attention this time and told her that things were not okay.

She felt her body begin to shake and it took a very long moment before she could let go of the door handle and allow herself to step into the room, around the bed towards the side where her mother was laying. When she finally mustered up the courage to do so, her reaction was immediate. This was nothing like when she had heard the news of her father having been shot. The image hit home immediately.

Her mother was laying on her side, one arm curled into her while the other was stretched out over the edge of the bed. On the floor, by the side of the bed, resting in the middle of what seemed to be an ocean of blood, was a large kitchen knife.

Her mother was pale. Her skin had lost it's warm fleshy color and was replaced with a subtle grayish-white that looked so strange and foreign to Mattie.

Mattie looked and saw through tear filled eyes that the cuts extended down along the veins on her mother's wrists, her mother's hands and arms red from the blood letting.

Her hands shook as she reached out to touch her mother's. She grasped her mother's hands in her own, frightened by how cold they felt and at that instant she felt her heart, her whole being rip apart.

"WHY!?" she screamed in raw pain, feeling the sobs over take her as she rested her forehead against the bed, the blood soaking through the knees of her jeans.

She cried for what felt like hours but was in reality probably around ten or fifteen minutes. Dazedly she lifted her head, still sniffling. She knew that she couldn't leave her mother like this. Just looking at her brought a fresh wave of hot tears to her hazel colored eyes.

"Help…" she whimpered to no one in particular and looked around desperately, tears still streaming down her cheeks. She took notice of the phone sitting on the bedside table and scrambled over to it, through the blood pool, grabbing the phone as though her life depended on it. Her hands shook violently, making dialing the three numbers that she needed near impossible to do.

"Nine one one emergency how can I help you…?"

"Help," she began, already feeling herself wanting to break down all over again as she said the words. "My mom…my mom…" she struggled to tear the words out of her mouth. "Dead…she's dead…please help…help me" she sobbed, gripping the phone.

"Your mother is…dead?"

"Yes, yes she, she hurt herself and she isn't moving and she's pale and-" she cried, her words just running together into one big jumbled heap.

"Okay, okay, I'm going to need you to try your best to calm down, breathe," the woman instructed and Mattie fought herself hard to follow the instruction given to her. If her father had been seen her like this he would have back handed for it.

The memory caused a brief pause in her sobbing and allowed her to speak a bit slower. "My mom, she cut her wrists and she's dead. I mean, I think she's dead, she's not moving and there's all this blood," she explained, her voice still shaking and choked up.

"Okay, I need you to sit tight, don't go anywhere. I'm going to send an ambulance and some police over. I got a trace on your call. Is your address 1432 Windhaven Drive?"

Mattie nodded quickly, eagerly before realizing that there was no way that the woman over the phone could see her nod. "Yes…yes…" she confirmed, her whole body shaking. She felt on the verge of throwing up.

"Okay, I'm sending the police-"

Suddenly, through her sorrow, the thought occurred to her as though triggered by the word "police". The cops would come, what then? They'd take her mom and then what? Both her parents were dead now. Where did that leave her? What would the police do with her?

The only relative that she knew of was her aunt on her mother's side. Her grandparents on both sides were either passed or gone, her mother never having known her father so her grandfather was completely nonexistent. Her dad was an only child so no aunts or uncles on his side.

Her aunt, her mother's sister, had relinquished contact with her mother around the time that Mattie had been three or four years old but she knew where she lived or at least her address. Family friends had their own families and the chance that they'd take her in for any longer than a couple of months was probably not likely and not something she wanted to chance. At least her aunt wouldn't, COULDN'T turn her away. She couldn't. She had a responsibility as family member to at least take her in.

"Hello? Miss? Are you still there? Hello?" the operator asked. All of a sudden, Mattie slammed the phone down on the receiver and forced herself to stand up. She had seen enough television and movies to know what happened to kids without parents was never pleasant. Foster parents, if she was lucky and if she found a pair that stuck. In every movie she'd seen the orphans would bounce from home to home.

"Fuck that," she thought wildly and began stripping off her bloodied clothes as she headed for the bathroom down the hall from her mother's room. Once inside she dropped the clothes into a pile and lunged at the sink, beginning to scrub the blood off her hands, leaving droplets of red stained water all over the sink and floor.

She stared briefly in the mirror at her reflection, swallowing hard and summoning all her courage. She looked as terrible as she felt.

Today was supposed to be different.

Within minutes she had run to her room and redressed, shoving clothes into an old purple duffel bag she had used in the past for family vacations. She glanced around for anything she could find that would be useful, stopping to look at her favorite stuffed animal, a stuffed pumpkin kid with a smiling jack-o-lantern face that she had gotten one Halloween from her father when she was younger. She picked it up and stared at it. It had often brought her comfort when her dad had hurt her or her mother and reminded her that deep down, somewhere he loved her and she had loved him too. And that's when it hit. It had taken months but it finally hit her and she felt her whole upper body clench against the physical and mental pain.

"Dad…" she whimpered and clutched the pumpkin kid, hugging it. "Why did you have to die? If you hadn't died mom would still be here. Things could have been different! I would have been different…I would have been better," she sobbed, digging her fingers into the soft plush of the toy. Her father's death had ruined everything, it had destroyed her family, what little shreds of it there had been to begin with.

It was the sound of sirens in the far distance that made her tears momentarily cease and caused her sobs to down grade into sniffles. "No time for crying now," she thought.

She shoved the pumpkin kid into her bag and hurried to her parents' room. She immediately grabbed her mother's jewelry box and dumped it's entire contents into her bag, whispering softly, "I'm sorry mom." She'd need money to fund her trip to her aunt's house and she had heard her mother speak recently about potentially pawning what remained of her jewelry for money to pay bills.

She then hurried downstairs and ran to the kitchen, grabbing another knife from the knife block in the kitchen. She noticed that the big one was missing and remembered that it was currently taking up residency in a pool of blood in her mother's room. She shoved the smaller knife in the bag and zipped the bag up hastily. She ran to the patio doors out the back and slid it open, letting the cold night air wash over her. She drew in a deep breath, looking out into the darkness of her back yard, keenly aware that this was the last time she'd ever see the place she called home. "Now or never," she thought and then slipped out the door quietly into the night without a second thought.

She didn't look back.

Author's Note: Thank you for reading. I want to make it very known that I'm not seeking to make this a romance. There will be romance in it to some degree just as there will be action, suspense and humor but it is not the primary focus on my story nor is it the primary reason for creating my O/Cs. I understand that in writing O/Cs they can be hard for some to embrace but I ask that you stick with me and give them a chance to tell their story before you judge them. Thank you :)