That night, our sole focus was on the most basic of human needs: shelter. Hotels and motels were out of the question as the media flocked to Denver. We couldn’t give our distinctive last name at the front desk, or register with a credit card. We couldn’t leave town. Even if the police would allow such a thing, what would happen to Dylan?
A possibility entered my mind. Too absorbed in our own crisis, we’d barely considered what our friends and family members must have been going through as they watched the tragedy evolve, but Tom’s half sister Ruth and her husband, Don, lived in a quiet suburban neighborhood about twenty-five minutes away from the epicenter of the tragedy, and they did not share our last name. If they were willing to have us, their home would be a good place to be.
We didn’t see Don and Ruth often, although they had always been there for us. When we’d first moved to the Denver area, they’d been invaluable in helping me to get settled. After Dylan was born, Ruth was one of my only visitors at the hospital, as I hardly knew anyone else in town.
They were good people. When my children were small, we’d endured a long season of illness, passing chicken pox and a bad flu around the family for several weeks. On my birthday, I was too ill even to answer the doorbell when it rang; I dragged myself downstairs in time to see Ruth’s car pulling away down the drive—and at my feet, an entire home-cooked dinner, complete with a chocolate birthday cake and candles.
I was appalled we hadn’t thought of them sooner, and could only attribute the oversight to my impaired level of thinking. I pressed the number into Tom’s cell phone while he cruised the silent streets. The houses we passed looked inviting and cozy with their lit windows, and I could imagine kids getting help with their homework after the soup kettle had been cleared from the table, and all the other ordinary weekday activities that should have been taking place inside. That night, though, I knew that every family in the area would be tuned in to breaking coverage of the horror at Columbine High School. In some of those houses, as in our own, nothing would ever be normal again.
When Ruth answered the phone, I was relieved to hear the welcome in her voice, and I nearly wept with gratitude when she said we could stay with them. I called Judy to thank her for her offer, and Tom called Byron at his apartment to let him know the new plan. Years later, Byron told me he’d mistaken his father’s voice for his brother’s. For one joyful moment, he thought Dylan was calling to tell him he was fine, and that the entire day had been a huge misunderstanding. It was not the first time, or the last, that one of us would engage in the kind of magical thinking that allowed us to hope we could erase the events of the day.
Before we could take shelter at Don and Ruth’s, we had to meet with our lawyer. At 8:30 p.m., we pulled into the convenience store parking lot and waited only a moment in the light rain before a car drew into the space next to ours. Gary Lozow looked over his shoulder to make sure nobody was watching, then approached the driver’s side of our car. I reached over Tom and put my hand out the window to introduce myself, grasping Gary’s wet hand in my own.
We opened the back door so he could come in from the rain. Gary folded himself carefully into the available space in the backseat, wedging his feet between a litter box and a cat-carrying case. One of the shoulders of his camel-colored overcoat pressed against the steamy car window, the other against a towel-covered birdcage. He asked us to drive into a nearby neighborhood so we could talk. A short distance later, Tom parked the car, turned off the ignition, and we both twisted in our seats to look into the face of the man who would help us through the difficult times ahead.
Gary’s manner comforted me. He not only had a great deal of professional experience, but there was an underlying compassion in the way he spoke to us. He conveyed his concern for us as a bereaved family and acknowledged our need to cope with a devastating loss. Then he asked a series of probing questions about Dylan, about our family, and about our role as parents. As we had done earlier in the day with the detective, we told him everything we knew to be true about our son.
He was trying to establish whether we knew of Dylan’s plans. After listening to our answers, he announced he did not have “one scintilla of doubt” we had not. I felt a flood of relief. Though it didn’t make the slightest difference in the world, I was desperate to know someone believed us. The earth might be roiling and shifting under my feet, but the fact that we’d no inkling of whatever Dylan had been up to was the only truth I could still be sure of.
But our lawyer’s face was serious as he told us: “Your son is responsible for this, but he’s dead. You’re the closest that people can get to Dylan, so they’re going to come after you. After the last victim is buried, there will be a firestorm of hatred leveled against your family. It will be a very difficult time. You will be blamed, and you will be sued, and in the weeks to come, you must think seriously about your safety.”
Firestorm of hatred. I would have cause to think of the phrase many times over the years: it would turn out to be an eerily prescient, pitch-perfect description of what was to come.
Gary suggested steps to ensure our privacy and protection, and he told us he’d be in touch with the officials about retrieving Dylan’s body. I appreciated how clearly he outlined his next steps, and that he told us exactly when he would speak to us again. Then we drove him back to his car. The rest of our drive was silent, as Tom and I struggled to process what Gary had said.
Don and Ruth were looking out for us, and they opened the garage door as we approached so our car wouldn’t be spotted on the street. I’ll never forget that slit of light slowly opening to a bright rectangle in the blackness, or how deeply surreal and science-fictional it felt to glide into their garage, as if we were docking a spaceship. At the time, I was conscious of a profound sense of unreality. I was wrong. This was our new reality.
Tom turned off the ignition, and we sat together a moment in silence. I took a deep breath before opening the passenger-side door. I was upset to be inconveniencing Tom’s family so greatly, and afraid we were bringing the threat of exposure to their lives, but the predominant emotion I was feeling was shame. It was hard to get out of the car.
Both of Tom’s parents were dead by the time he was twelve. He had been raised by his half brother, but Ruth was older and out of the house by then. (Tom and I are nearer in age to Ruth and Don’s children than we are to Ruth and Don.) Although there was great affection between us—I thought of them like an aunt and uncle—I still felt a bit formal, too, always trying to put my best foot forward.
Don is the son of a farmer, generous to a fault—the kind of salt-of-the-earth, hardworking Midwestern guy you hope to end up with as a neighbor. Ruth is known for her loving generosity. They’re both gentle and soft-spoken and kind and have four beautiful daughters, all of them successful in their own right. And yet, there I was, slinking into their home under cover of darkness, the mother of a criminal.
Don and Ruth’s greeting was warm but quiet as they helped us unload the car. I was profoundly thankful when Byron arrived minutes after we did. We set up camp in the basement apartment. I was relieved to see two alert faces with bright-orange cheeks peering out at their new surroundings when I removed the towels from the birdcage. Because of Ruth’s allergies, we put our two cats, Rocky and Lucy, in the utility room, and they slunk behind the dryer in the unfamiliar space. I wished I could do the same.