He sat on the sofa, and I went into the kitchen. I was shaking, and I splashed boiling water on my wrist, but I was so preoccupied that it didn’t hurt—until later.
Sean took a sip of tea, then shook his head and put down the cup.
He said, “The police called today. Some fishermen in northern Michigan found a badly decomposed body. It had washed up on the shore not far from Emily’s family’s cabin. Apparently the body is in such bad shape they’re not even asking me to come out there and identify it. They say there would be no point. They’ve asked me to FedEx Emily’s toothbrush and hairbrush because they’re going to have to rely on the DNA tests to—”
He broke down sobbing. His voice was thick with tears when he said, “It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. I was sure she was still alive. I was positive that she was going to come home.”
What did he mean? How was it supposed to have happened? What did he know that he wasn’t saying? Or did he just mean that Emily wasn’t supposed to die so tragically, so young?
The police estimated that she’d drowned not long after she went missing, though it was hard to determine the precise date. Oh, and some hikers found the rental car a mile away in the woods. There were no signs of a struggle. She’d been alive when she drowned. There were only two sets of fingerprints in the cabin. One of them, they assumed, was Emily’s. The other was Sean’s, which made sense; he’d been there for his birthday. (The cops had taken his fingerprints soon after Emily disappeared, the first time they brought him in for questioning.)
Neither Sean nor I could find words for what we were feeling. I could still hear Emily asking me to take care of Nicky so she and Sean could get away. Asking me to do her a simple favor. I had no idea what Sean was thinking. Perhaps he was remembering their hot stolen weekend.
I said, “Maybe it’s not her . . . Maybe there’s been some horrible mistake.”
“The ring,” he said. “They found the ring. My mother’s diamond and sapphire ring. It was still on her finger. It had somehow gotten wedged . . .”
And then we both began to cry. We held each other and sobbed. Separately and together.
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Stephanie's Blog
Very Sad News
Hi, moms!
I have sad news to report. The police in Squaw Lake, Michigan, the site of Emily’s family’s cabin, have found a body that they believe to be hers. Because of the absence of any evidence of injury, or any signs of a struggle or violence, and because the cause of death is drowning, they are ruling the death either a suicide or an accident. There is no way to know what was in Emily’s mind when she walked into that lake. Maybe she swam out too far, maybe . . .
Emily’s husband, Sean, has gone out to meet with the authorities and bring Emily home. Apparently the police called Emily’s mother in Detroit, but her caretaker said it would be better to wait until she was having one of her “good days” to give her the bad news.
Like the pain of childbirth, the pain of grief and the sheer amount of work that death involves are things we forget. But I went through it with my mother and later with Davis and Chris. Chris helped me with my mother’s death. He’d been there to give me support. But mostly I did it alone.
Now I’ve been trying to remember who that person was, the young woman and then the young mom who was strong and resourceful enough to do what had to be done: the calls to make, the notice to place in the paper, the decisions about the mountains of possessions a person accumulates during a lifetime, even a short one. I still have all of Davis’s things, some of Chris’s, and even a lot of my mom’s stuff in the barn here in Connecticut.
What to do with Emily’s things? It’s too soon to decide. And how are we going to tell Nicky? Sean and I agree that Sean should tell him right after breakfast on a Sunday when he’ll be coming over to play with Miles later in the day.
If Nicky wants to stay home with his dad all day, that will be fine. And if he chooses to be distracted . . . he can play with my son, who will feel genuinely sad for what Nicky is going through. After all, Miles’s dad died, even if Miles was too young to remember. Sean and I trust Miles to make Nicky feel better. Even though he’s only five, that’s who he is. A good little person.
Not long after we got the news about Emily’s death, Sean and I found Nicky, after a long and frightening search, hiding in her closet among her clothes. When Sean brought this up with Nicky’s therapist, he suggested that we begin to move some of her stuff out of the house. (I hope you moms will forgive me if this is oversharing.) If that was what had to be done, I suggested a storage space.
Sean was adamant. He refused to get rid of a single one of her things. Once when we were discussing it, he became overwrought and said, “When she comes back—” and then caught himself. That was how I knew that he still refused to accept the fact that she was dead.
I was just as glad not to have to undertake the awful job of going through the possessions of the dead. And it seemed wrong to give a closetful of Dennis Nylon clothes to the Salvation Army. I certainly couldn’t wear them. Aside from the facts that I’m probably fifteen pounds heavier than Emily and a little shorter, her clothes are not my style. I’d feel like I was playing dress-up, a crunchy stay-at-home mom pretending to be a fashionista career woman. Besides, there’s that part of you that always thinks, What if the person isn’t dead? What if she returns and is mad at us for giving away her beautiful clothes? Such feelings are especially common in cases like this, when there is no real closure. No loving deathbed farewell, no proper funeral.
It’s all so terribly sad. Every time I think about my friend, I cry inconsolably, and I can tell how hard and how bravely Sean has been trying not to break down. Especially in front of Nicky.
No matter what the authorities conclude or don’t conclude, it is our deeply held conviction that Emily’s death was an accident. Sean and I do not believe that she meant to kill herself. We knew her. She loved life. She loved her husband and son. She loved me. She would never have chosen to leave us.
We assume she needed a break, that the pressures of work and marriage and motherhood had gotten to her so badly that, despite the hard-won years (decades!) of sobriety, her old demons—the substance issues she’d so valiantly overcome—resurfaced. She saved up some pills, bought some booze, went to her family cabin to unwind and spend a couple of days by herself. It’s not what I would have expected of her, but it’s possible all the same.
She went swimming. She swam out too far. She miscalculated. She drowned.
According to Sean, she was an okay swimmer, but no more. And the toxicology reports showed evidence of alcohol and prescription pain and antianxiety medication. Enough to impair her judgment and cognition. To seriously affect the common sense that was one of the things I’d loved about her.
I am praying that you all will understand and not judge. Not everyone is strong. We can go a little crazy and do things we shouldn’t do. It could happen to any of us.
And this is one of those tragic cases in which the person didn’t hurt anyone but herself.
And us. Her husband, her son, her best friend.
So please be forgiving. Let me mourn my friend. I know that your love and prayers are with us. Thank you in advance for your heartfelt words of comfort and condolence.
Love,
Stephanie
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Stephanie