“Yes! I just found him! Please come! ¡Dios mío! Please come! There’s so much blood! His heart . . . I can’t feel his heartbeat! ¡Auxilio!”

Auxilio: “Help.”

In minutes the night was alive with sirens and flashing lights. Soon Nick’s neighbors were on the sidewalk, cops were everywhere . . .

. . . and my mother was kneeling by one of those pretty trees and vomiting onto the dirt. A few policemen tried to talk to her, but she was barely coherent.

That’s when Detective White showed up. He stood over my mother, seemingly impassive and disinterested.

I knelt by my mom’s side and held her hand as Detective White asked his questions.

“Are you an illegal?” he asked her.

The question was enough to startle my mother into silence, her sobs catching in her throat as she shook her head. She managed to assure him that she was born here, in America, but had been raised in Mexico. She then tried to bring Detective White back to the point. “Did they find the attacker in the house?” she asked. Had he seen Mr. Foley, on the ground, covered in all that blood? Was he really . . . dead? Who could have done that to this man, this man whom she loved? This man who was kind and gentle . . . and important. A senior VP at HGVB Bank. This kind of thing just didn’t happen to men like that! It couldn’t!

“You were sleeping with him?” Detective White asked.

My mother had simply stared at the detective, open-mouthed. She then glanced at me, shame covering her face.

“Hey, don’t worry, I get it,” Detective White continued. “You were already on your knees scrubbing his floors, so when he walked up to you, his fly in your face, you figured, ‘What the hell, I’ll clean his pipes while I’m down here.’ ”

My mother got up, pulling me up with her. “Mija,” she said sharply, “get back in the car.”

But it was too late. Another officer came over. A woman this time. “This the kid?” she asked before kneeling down and taking my hand, pulling me gently away from my mother. “It’s going to be okay, sweetie,” she cooed.

And that’s when the world started spinning. Detective White was suddenly slapping handcuffs on my mom while he read off her Miranda rights. He wasn’t rough about the way he handled her. There was no hint of the lecherous bully who had been questioning her only seconds earlier . . . not now that the other cop was within hearing distance. Now he was the picture of professionalism.

The female officer led me even farther down the street, shielding me from the sight of my mother being hauled away. So I didn’t have to see that.

But I heard it.

I heard my mom screaming my name.