“Mom…” I wanted to run to her, want to throw myself in her arms.
She screamed at me, her mouth wide and anguished, “Why did you take her out there? Why?” Then she started sobbing, her hands over her face.
“Mom, I’m sorry.…” I took a step toward her, but McKinney motioned for me to stop and put his arm around her back.
Mom took her hands away from her face, looked at him helplessly. “Frank, why? Why would someone do this to my baby?”
“I don’t know, Pam. I really don’t.” His voice was thick. “But we’re going to do whatever we can to find them. Someone will pay for this.” Now his voice sounded rough and angry, his expression almost violent. I was assured, felt safer. Yes, they’re going to find who did this.
I didn’t know yet what Ryan had realized, that they were already considering us as suspects, already watching our reactions, our words. We were the ones who were going to pay.
*
In the week after Nicole’s murder, Dad spent most of his days and evenings out in the garage or sitting in the living room, his face unshaven, dark shadows under eyes that stared at nothing even if the TV was on, the hiss of another beer opening the only sign that he was awake. He also spent a lot of time staring out the windows, first at the camera trucks and reporters, once even going outside and yelling at everyone to “get the hell off my lawn,” and then, when they faded off, just out at the dark night, like he was waiting for Nicole to come home. Mom wandered around dazed and pale, her hair a mess, looking at me like she didn’t know who I was or how I got in her house. I’d hear her talking on the phone with friends, crying and whispering, “I don’t know why they took her out there that night. I don’t understand what happened.”
I knew what she was really saying: It’s Toni’s fault that Nicole’s dead.
She was right. It was my fault. If I hadn’t brought Nicole out with us, she’d still be alive. I replayed that night over and over again. Trying to make sense of it, but there was no sense to anything anymore. My sister was dead.
I’d go into her bedroom sometimes when my parents were sleeping—the doctor had given my mom pills and she went to bed early. Dad usually stumbled to bed around one or two in the morning, or I’d find him on the couch. I heard him crying down there one night, and it had killed me, listening to him sob like a little boy.
I had my own rituals. I’d lie on Nicole’s bed, holding her pillow, which still smelled of her lemony clean scent. Then I’d take her clothes out, even the dirty stuff still in the hamper, and press my face into them, smelling her skin, her body scent, teen girl. I could hear her laughing in my head, excited about going out or talking with a friend on the phone, then I’d see her face, scared when we left her alone in the truck. And I’d see what she looked like later, when we found her, and the breath would stop in my throat.
I had nightmares constantly. I’d wake abruptly, my heart pounding in the dark. Once, I’d heard crying in her room and for a terrifying moment thought it was Nicole’s ghost, then heard my father’s deep voice and realized it was my mom weeping and my dad trying to comfort her. I cried alone in my bed and thought about Ryan. We hadn’t been able to see each other much since that night but we tried to talk on the phone every day. He’d ask how I was, and I’d start to cry while he tried to comfort me. I could hear it in his voice too, the fear, and the same confusion I felt, the guilt.