Crystal said, mostly to her sister, “Listen, I’ll see you guys later. Don’t wait up.” She tried to sound casual and brave. She had seen her older siblings do this—put their foot down, march right past the old man and let him unload after they slammed the door behind them. The aftermath wasn’t pretty, but she wouldn’t be there for it. She’d be free.
Just as she turned the hollow brass knob of the door, Ray reached out a strong, wiry arm. He threw it out, really, and Crystal thought that he was finally going to hit her. Gloria saw her flinch. They both knew that if he started, if he hit her once, he’d keep going. He’d been waiting a long time, after all. And she wasn’t a baby anymore.
Instead, his hand clamped down, hard, on Crystal’s skinny upper arm. He held her there, yelled that she was a slut, told her to go ahead and leave if she couldn’t do what he said in his house. He yelled a lot of things, punctuating his points with vicious shakes of her arm. But she didn’t hear him very well. His arm coming out so fast, and his hand gripping her so hard, had sent a hot wave of panic through her. He had scared her so much that she peed, standing right there in the kitchen. And then she couldn’t hear him. Her shame deafened her.
Finally, Ray let her go and pushed her outside. She stood on the porch for a moment, pants wet, then got on her bike and rode into town.
Crystal became more scarce, while Gwen stayed home and laid low, thinking, I only have a couple years until I can get out of here and go to college. She tried to keep out of Ray’s way as much as possible—a skill that Crystal never really had.
Gwen missed her little sister, only occasionally catching glimpses of her at school. One day there was a massive food fight in the cafeteria that quickly got out of hand. A boy named Larry threw a chair, and before she knew it Gwen was on the floor, bleeding from the head. She was dazed, but she would always remember Crystal running across the cafeteria, at her side before she could even start to get up. The sisters hadn’t spoken in weeks, but that moment of pain reunited them immediately, Crystal bending over her sister, oblivious to the blood staining her beautiful white pants. It was that image of the blood on the pants, Gwen says, that locked the moment into memory.
Crystal helped the teachers on duty press paper towels to Gwen’s head while someone ran to call the house, but she couldn’t go home with her sister. It was Ray who picked Gwen up, and for some reason he took her to his chiropractor, who made them wait through several other patients before stitching her up. Telling the story, Gwen laughs and says, “Why didn’t anybody in the waiting room see this kid bleeding and say, ‘Hey, go on ahead of me!’?” Like nearly all terrible stories in our family, this one is told with laughter. The chiropractor used a big, curved needle, and no anesthetic. Later that night, when she lay down to sleep, Gwen reached to the back of her head and felt wetness under her thick hair—she was still bleeding. Finally, her parents took her to the hospital, where the doctor on duty removed and replaced the chiro’s amateur stitches. Gwen couldn’t wash her hair for some time, so she wrapped a colorful scarf around her head and carried on. She refused to miss a day of school—she had perfect attendance every single year from eighth grade through graduation. No matter what happened, she kept studying, waiting for her chance. She’d go to college, maybe train to be a dental hygienist, like Glenice. She’d get a good job and a decent place to live, and then Crystal would come to live with her.
* * *
Once they were all adults, most of Grace’s children met every Thanksgiving and every Christmas, and eventually gathered once every summer around the pool Carol installed at her house in 1990—a sparkling, communal luxury. Complicated love compelled them to include Grace in these gatherings, and I wouldn’t hear of my grandmother’s negligence until I was a preteen. Ray was just a cranky voice in the other room, yelling at everyone to be quiet, until he died of emphysema in the late 1980s. And Howard was a dark ghost, rarely spoken of, his life ended by alcoholism, or a shotgun accident, or suicide, depending on who’s telling the story. Next to his body was a list of telephone numbers—people he’d failed to reach.
Now I watch home movies of those annual family pool parties: Grammy waving coquettishly at the camera, Glenice taking center stage with a story, Wendall showing off his skillfully carved watermelon—one year a pig with a curly tail, one year a Bud-weis-er frog. There was always a prize for anyone who could guess the watermelon before he unveiled it. My mother wanders in and out of frame, ever thin and energetic, with a flat-footed walk and a ready smile. Gloria teases her affectionately, Carol’s husband jokingly mimes throwing her in the pool, Glenice and Gwen flank her for a photo, arms looped around her thin waist. Almost everyone has a good job, a stable home, a quiet life. There is a lot of love in these videos, a sense of hard-earned relaxation.
It is breathtaking to look back and watch them, so carefree, so young. The parties of recent years are more subdued; there is a sense of lost, irretrievable magic. I can’t remember the last time anyone even bothered to make a video. Glenice now says, “We all struggled so hard, and we all made it, and then that happened. We all made it but your mother.”
8
* * *
after
Dick Pickett was followed by more cops on that first day, and still more the day after. More than any single conversation, I remember my exhaustion, and everyone else’s. I remember my red-eyed aunts coming to me and announcing the arrival of more officials, clearly torn, hesitant to hand me over to the scrutiny of strangers. They explained repeatedly that I had to do my best to help whoever came, underestimating my eagerness to do so. If I just kept talking, I thought, the cops might find the person who had done this. But I did keep track of how often I was interviewed: nineteen times in those first three days. By the end there was nothing left of me; I was only this story of an evening. I felt like life would not continue past that night, beyond this retelling.
The police told me it was very important that I not share the details of what I had witnessed with anyone but them and other officials, because there were things that only the killer and I could know. We had to ensure that if someone other than me revealed any of that information, it would be incriminating. So the killer and I were bound by a dark connection that only the police could see. I didn’t discuss the events of that night with anyone in the family, and no one asked me questions. I couldn’t figure out if they were trying to avoid upsetting me or if they couldn’t handle hearing my answers.
I was also informed that the men who had loved Mom—Tom, Dale, Tim, Dennis—were all suspects, so I shouldn’t have contact with any them, just in case. I wasn’t tempted.