Mom Without Me

By: Kimbriell KellyThe 6-year-old boy scrubbed the towel back and forth against the kitchen floor to remove the dried blood from the grout between several feet of white tiles. It was two days after Easter. And earlier that day, the boy, Brian, was at home with several family members. He lived in the basement with his mother, Charmain Cook, and his two sisters, Diana and Felicia. Charmain Cook and her estranged boyfriend, Louis, began arguing.

Brian was watching TV when he heard Charmain Cook rebuffed while trying to kiss Louis, who then allegedly pushed her to the ground. Brian went upstairs to get help, returning with an older cousin. As the boys walked back down the stairs, Charmain Cook ran past them and then back down again. Unbeknownst to them, she had a knife in her hand. When the boys got to the bottom of the stairs, they saw Louis collapsed in a corner with a growing bloodstain on his shirt encircling his heart.

Later, Brian watched as police officers, without explanation, handcuffed his mother and drove her away. At the time, he didn't know what was happening. Today, he has a clearer picture. "I try not to think about it. And I'm not thinking about it now," Brian said.

Charmain Cook, a 1996 Thornton Township High School graduate, was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison. Her projected parole date is April 6, 2014. She's being held at Lincoln Correctional Center, a medium-security prison for women, nearly three hours from her children. Before the stabbing, Charmain Cook's only contact with the law was to report a domestic violence complaint while living with Louis in Tennessee. Her sister, Shirley Cook, said there were several physical fights between Charmain Cook and Louis, but that Charmain was too afraid to report the others.

Following the stabbing, none of the family could bring themselves to go to the basement where the stabbing occurred. So the children slept on a couch in the living room. About seven months after the stabbing, 10-monthold Felicia suffocated in her sleep as she lay on the couch with her older brother and sister. Her death was ruled an accident by the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office.

Brian was placed in counseling shortly after the stabbing and his sister's death. He attended for a year but never shared his feelings about what happened, Shirley Cook said. Brian's behavior and academic performance has been up and down since then. He's been held back two grades and is now 14 in the 6th grade. He was recently suspended from school for three days after throwing a snowball at a teacher.

There have been recent academic improvements. Last fall, Brian pulled his reading grade from an F to a C-minus, social studies from an F to a B-minus and art from a B to an A. Math remained at a C." Me and math don't get along," he said. But his mother wants better. In a hand drawn birthday card, she wrote:

"Everyday, life brings on a new challenge and I try very hard to handle things. Maybe things don't always be the right answers. However, I do try my best. I pray you continue to write and continue to do well in school. Sorry about my handwriting. I'm rushing. Love always, Mom."

Shirley Cook has gotten Brian in after school tutoring programs and extracurricular activities, like football and basketball. "I told him, 'I know you're missing your mother, but you still have to get your learning because your mother is going to come home.'" Last month, Shirley Cook pulled Brian out of basketball following his run-in with his teacher.

Life wasn't always that way for Brian.

When he was 5, he was an exemplary student. As Brian recalled, one day his kindergarten teacher told his mother: "He's been a good student. "And his mother replied: "I know. I've got a good son."

Weeks later, she gave Brian a box wrapped in leftover holiday wrapping with a striped pattern and topped with a bow. It was a new Sony Playstation. "I don't get all that stuff [now]," Brian said.

The family lives in a small single-family home in Harvey, a short distance from where the murder occurred. It's a humble and clean home that until recently Shirley Cook furnished with couches, dining room furniture and lamps picked up off the street from what others had put out for garbage collection. Shirley Cook said she can't always afford to give the children what they want, but they have a home, family and good food.

For years, Shirley Cook's only sources of income were the money she got from public assistance and her son's disability check. In February, Shirley Cook got a job working security at nights in Robbins- her first job since her sister's children starting living with her. She works from midnight to 8 a.m. four nights a week.

She catches two buses to get from home to the job, leaving at 9:20 p.m. to get there on time.

In order for the children to see their mother, with little money and no car, the family relies on free transportation provided by Lutheran Social Services of Illinois. About four times a year, the family wakes up at 4:30 a.m. on a Saturday to take a bus to 87th Street and the Dan Ryan Expressway. From there, they catch a chartered bus for the three-hour trip to Lincoln where they spend three hours with mom before returning home.

For a couple of years, Brian would leave home to spend three consecutive days with his mother as part of the annual "Mom and Me Camp." It's a program for 7- to 12-year-old children of inmates at the women's prisons in Decatur and Lincoln. Brian went alone because Diana wasn't old enough. He liked the time alone with his mother because it gave them time to catch up. "I talked about my [football] games. I'm a good runner, a good tackle," Brian said. He'd always ask when she was getting out. Her answer was always the same: "Pretty soon." They'd sit down to play UNO, one of Brian's favorite games.He won most of the time.

When the day was over, the children were taken to cabins to swim, play games and sleep before returning to the prison the next day for much of the same. He would often return home sad, like after most visits, and go to his room to sleep. Shirley Cook tries to distract him by sending him out to play with friends or sitting him down to talk. "I would let him know… it's not going to be the last time you're going to see [your] mother," Shirley Cook said.

Now that he's 14, Brian is too old to participate in the program.

It's now Diana's turn. Last year was her first year at the camp. She and her mother made t-shirts with their names and palm prints scrawled across the front in fluorescent paint. Diana doesn't remember the day her father was murdered. She was just a year old at the time.

She knows only details from the stories family have told. Her only memories of her mother are behind bars. And in those opportunities she tries to connect as many similarities she can with the woman she doesn't see often. At home today, Diana runs to her room and returns with a Polaroid taken about a week before Christmas last year. It's a picture of her mother, brother and aunt.

She stares at it for a while and then remarks: "Doesn't she look just like me?" With the excitement of a child promised a trip to Disney World, Diana talks about the spaghetti her mom will make for her when she comes home. And while she has never tasted her mother's cooking, Diana imagines how good her favorite dish will be when the woman in the picture cooks it.

Charmain Cook is now trying to gather paperwork to pursue an early release. Shirley Cook could not say on what grounds it's being sought, but that there are classes her sister has taken in prison that could help her shorten her sentence. But Shirley Cook said neither she nor her sister can afford a lawyer.

Brian blames Louis for his mother being where she is. "She was just giving him a kiss. He didn't have to put his hand on her," Brian said. "I told her I was going to be a lawyer; get a lot of money."

That way he could help people who can't afford a lawyer, like his mother. "She don't belong in there," he said.