I remember that episode and its aftermath today as if I am going back in time. When I think about the state of my mind and how I handled it then, I have to give a glimpse of my education and the mentor who installed stoicism in me at early age. About the school education, I have written in the first few chapters, therefore I will skip that and go back to the informal, and experience-based education my grandfather gave me.
Pappy rarely spoke to anyone about his life in the Army Air Corps that operated from the English coast during the 2nd Great War. He served as a Bombardier in the Liberator Bomber Group. I found out about this, when I, accidentally came across his war medals, the citation details and photographs while rummaging for something in his old trunk. He had to tell me about how he got the medals and who the men in the photograph were with him.

He reluctantly narrated the episode to me, as if he did not want to revisit that memory. The story of the last bombing raid that got him those medals must have affected him in a way that disillusioned him about the faith in god and the Church. It was not about his heroism; it was about the courage and the unwavering determination to fulfill the duty and the responsibility of a man in uniform; the Captain of that bomber. It seems, while returning from the bombing sortie and still flying over the Germany, they came under attack from the German fighters and heavy ground flack. The co-pilot was killed, and the Captain's right arm was blown off. Navigator and gunnery Sergeant were unconscious. Taking the plane and its injured crew back to the airbase was almost impossible task. Pappy was the only crew member who was spared and slightly injured and physically functional. Captain called him up from the bombing compartment in the belly of the plane. When he came up in the cockpit, found the Captain wounded badly, and still trying to stabilize the plane with his only intact left hand. Pappy rushed to him to fix him for bailing out of the plane that surely looked like going down, but he found the Skipper, totally unconscious of his dangling right hand and was chanting:

"Got to fly back, everyone must go home safe."

Man was not even aware of Pappy wrapping a bandage and a sling to support and tie his arm somehow to the arm-support of the chair. Semiconscious and chanting that mantra, the Captain brought the plain across the English Channel, landed it on the runway, and collapsed. Pappy sitting in the co-pilot's seat pushed the throttle quadrant to shut and applied air brakes to slow it down. It's undercarriage did not function properly as hydraulic system was damaged. The plane landed on its underbelly and came to stop. Pappy had helped that Captain to fulfil his promise; he could have bailed out but stood with his comrades in arm. He got up from his seat to take the flyer out of his chair, he looked up to Pappy and asked:

"Did we make it?"

Pappy answered him: "Yes Captain; we have reached home."

Captain looked up to him; smiled and thanked Pappy and let the death free him from the pains; he died with that smile on his face intact.

I wonder often about that man's character and action! What force must have taken control of his body and mind? How did a person who ought to have died at least three hours ago, flew that plane? Are there angels watching people like him? If that's true, where are they when indescribable atrocities are committed by the strong and powerful individuals as well as organized societies? These and other similar questions have no answers coming from any sources including the religious powers and also our science dependent civilization. This, and many similar stories and the aftermath of our heroes have gone in the dustbin of our history, but to me, that Pappy's story became a pillar of strength.

"I can't quit no matter what is thrown at me," became my chant and in each adverse situation, I repeat it in my mind again and again.

I call the journey that Captain took on that flight, a hero's journey to freedom. It is an undertaking that has no guarantees of success in the material world but has an assured place in the spiritual world of eternal life. Each person who is subjected to the overwhelming odds, also can take same journey and come on the top of the odds. In this scheme of things set for the living, there are no guiding posts and markers leading us to a safe shelter. We have to carry the weight of that we bring with us. Only way to be free, it seems is to carry it with smile until end.

From Leo Tolstoy 's story which I read when I was studying in high school sort of gave me a message. I am recalling it:
After the first batch of humans arrived on earth, each person was given a burden. After carrying it for a while, all began calling their Maker and complaining to him that He was not fair in distributing the burden among them as it was becoming obvious that all did not have same size baggage. Some lucky ones seems to have a smaller than the others. Tired of their whining and crying the Maker told the lot that He can only do is to let them come to a meadow, put the burdens down for a moment, step 20 paces back, then wait for five minutes so they can view each baggage carefully, and upon a signal, rush and pick one they desired from the lot. They followed the instructions, and each person went and picked up the smallest bag they could find.

The story ends with the result of that exchange. What happened when those humans took that chance is this: Each person found out that the burden each participant so eagerly picked because it appeared smaller, turned out to be heavier than the one they gave up.
When I read that story, I realized that in life we don't really get that opportunity to exchange that burden with others even though we do try to do so. I have to take mine with me as best as I can, until my final resting moment happens. I believe some say that you carry it to your next life but for now I think I will just concentrate on this life for now.
With this background thinking, I made myself ready to face the consequences of my action. My mom on the other hand went into a tailspin motion. My welfare was not part of her concern before and I did not expect it at that time. She took it for granted that I have a prearranged destiny with a savior angel waiting in wing for holding me up as my Pappy in the past and then Candy did it now.

I think mom on the other hand looked upon her calamitous life as similar to the life of Greek mythological dud named Sisyphus. Ordered by the Zeus, this character had to push a huge bolder up the mountain, and as the story says, upon reaching on the top, that bolder would slip from his hand and roll all the way to the base from where he started. He had to keep doing that exercise for a long time until the head honcho Zeus told him to stop. All her life, mom has been pushing her own huge bolder: her life, up the mountain top of poverty, only to watch it rolling back all the way to the bottom of the mountain, for her to go through that pushing it up exercise. Again, and again, she struggled and then came Anton, and her encouraging event that she had hoped would give her a hand in finishing the job of getting over the mountain.

When I thought about all such history of our lives, and the conditions we faced, I became aware of the fact that the child welfare laws had forced her to be my guardian parent, and now had become a huge part of that bolder she was pushing up the hill. A frightening thought emerged in my mind, to avoid that additional responsibility, she may spill the beans about the rape and that would give the investigators a motive for the murder, and if the death is established as a homicide, I ran the risk of becoming a person of interest. Because at the time of death, I alone was at the scene and the cause of collapse was due to an impact on the machine that was jacked in an unsafe manner. It then already been a foregone conclusion as Candy's questioning me indicated.

I understood Candy's mental condition. Her close friendship with me, if not the intimacy, was a general knowledge, and staying away from me was the only prudent option she had. Under the circumstances, she had to limit involvement in the investigation. She also must have recognized the risk to her career and person. She had removed a piece of evidence from the scene of crime and withheld important information from the investigators. Perhaps, she worried about mom's ability to keep information that would attract attention to me, secrete.

With cynicism creeping in my thinking, my mind began playing different scenarios about how police inquiries may proceed. A thought that mom may turn me and Candy with me, in. She would reveal Anton's assault on me with hopes that it would convict me and as a minor, that would make me a state ward. If I would be spending time in the juvenile prison long enough time, then upon release I would have reached the adult age and would not be her ward and be permanently out of her life. So much mistrust between us and no emotional attachment, I had to imagine all other possibilities and settings.
I also had a suspicion that realizing that her hopes of getting out of the drudgery of life dashed to pieces, she would connect my previously displayed violent tendency to hurt others who have wronged me, to Anton's death, and like Candy, would believe that I pushed that equipment with my body deliberately. Exhausted with such mental planning and plotting, I decided to face each hour as it came without saying a word to anyone. I expected a team of those specialist like the group I had encountered after Walter affairs, would take turn to reach at the bottom of my hidden psyche. I had prepared myself to be on guard and uncooperative until I know to which direction the inquiry would be going.
However, that day went without anyone bothering me and I remained locked in the bedroom to continue building my strategies of defense and what next situation I may be facing. That protective mode, I did not realize, in a rapid regression was transforming me into my old personality. During high school days, I wore a mask of a perpetual, 'on guard person' and that person then had ruled over me and caused my actions and reactions. That repressed West Virginian me had freed itself and was working feverishly to kill my recently emerged soft, loving and cuddly persona.

I think, the absence of loving touches and the fear of its permanent disappearing can push a person into the abyss of dark and psyche disintegrating depression. In such situations, a hostile and diabolic monster becomes active and ready to undertake hideous acts of violence. We have often seen it emerging due to such state as I was in. We have seen this specific Avatar emerging in a form of an active shooter who does the mass shootings of innocent school children or kill the very person they love. Remember Ophelia, and her lover Hamlet, suffering from the Oedipus Syndrome, and his torturing behavior towards his lover that led to her death? At that time, it appeared to me that a possibility existed where I would reach to that stage of deteriorating mental conditions. I was calm and collected outwardly but I was worried about my mind engaging in the thinking I described.
I didn't know where mom was and by the time night fell, the area became quiet, night prowlers began their foraging and the nocturnal folks alive, went about usual businesses of their lives; those dead, they had nothing to worry about all this were at peace. Anton's body was removed to the morgue and lawmen had gone home for night.
In that darkness, I diverted my mind to thinking of my independence. I believe you are allowed to become one at 16th birthday. Some lucky young girls I believe, think of how they will navigate their love-boat that they would be launching in the ocean of endless opportunities. I, and people like me, have to think about a different course. We are less likely to have the rights of passage into the life of so called, 'normal' human beings.
Hardest part in doing such exercise of planning one's future is the recognizing one's vulnerability and where from one can get a helping hand. In my case, I already was aware of the negative circumstances, and couldn't think of a source of help. There was no returning possible and path to move forward was invisible in the thick fog on the river of my life. I remember the Captain and my mantra and repeated in my mind: "I am going forward; no bailout." I got up and eat some leftovers and went back to sleep.

My dream returned and once again I reached the paradise; one the Morpheus arranged for me where Somnia, his son took form of my beloved Candy; the one who never visited me in my life. The Raven also went away for good when she left me at dawn.