Jim Coates drove me to Lewisville, Texas, and dropped me off at the ACE campus. I carried in my few possessions and stopped at the admissions office. A kind woman met me and ushered me to her desk. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. I’m Joan Baker, director of admissions.” She smiled constantly, causing wrinkles to form around the corners of both eyes.
“It’s nice to finally be here.” I twisted my hands in my lap and tried to focus on her face, instead of letting my eyes wander around the room.
“As you know, we’re happy to have you as part of our student body. However, as we discussed over the phone, the administration has some concerns. If parents of other students find out about the recent events in your family, especially since one of the murders took place nearby, they might be gravely concerned that their children could be at risk with you going to school here. We don’t agree with that. In fact, we would never have admitted you and invited you here if we didn’t believe all of our students, including you, would be safe. But it’s critical that we keep those events a secret, or we could have parents overreact and withdraw their students from our school.” She leaned forward, resting her forearms on the desk. “Do you think you can do that?”
I nodded and said, “Yes.”
“There’s one more condition.” Joan riffled through some papers on her desk, selected one, and pushed it toward me. “We need you to go by a different name while you’re here. The LeBaron name carries too much notoriety. Would Keturah Baron be all right with you?”
I stared at the paper in front of me and read it quickly. “Yes, I can do that.” I chewed my lower lip and signed my “old” name on the line, agreeing that I would use my “new” name here at school.
For a long time, most students never knew my real name or anything about my history. Then one day, a friend asked if she could look at my high school class ring so she could see the details on it. Without thinking, I slid the ring off my finger and handed it to her.
She read the engraving on the inside. “Hey, why does it say ‘Anna K. LeBaron’?”
Blood rushed to my face and neck, and I stammered before answering, “Listen, I can’t really discuss it, but would you just keep this between us? Please?” I hoped my eyes begged enough.
My friend agreed and placed the ring in the palm of my hand.
A few weeks later, I lay on the top bunk in the room I shared with a girl named Crissy, when I heard a voice. That’s odd. The voice came from inside of me, but it seemed different from my other thoughts. The voice said, “When someone dies, you can’t go back.” What does that mean? I finally concluded that I couldn’t go back in time and undo things, to make the outcome different. When someone dies, they’re dead. They’re gone. I accepted the explanation, even though I wondered why such a thought came to me.
The next morning was Saturday, my day to do laundry. I was sorting my clothes when the phone in the room rang. Crissy answered, handed the phone to me, then disappeared down the hall.
“Hello?”
“Anna, is there someone nearby who cares about you?” Celia’s words filled me with dread, as I stared out the dorm room window at the cloudy north Texas day.
“Lillian is dead, isn’t she?” The words just popped out.
“Anna, go and get someone who cares about you and come back to the phone.”
“Lillian committed suicide, didn’t she?”
“Please go get someone and come back to the phone.”
I hollered down the hall for Crissy. She hurried back from a friend’s dorm room.
“I’ve got someone with me now. What is it?”
“You’re right, Anna. Lillian is dead. She committed suicide, and Emily found her body this morning.”
“Please contact Jim Coates and ask him to go to the house and not let anyone near the kids who might tell them that Lillian didn’t go to heaven because she committed suicide,” I said, recalling a tragic memory from when Isaac committed suicide at Lillian’s house. Several people at Spring Branch Church of God told me that because he took his own life and didn’t have time to ask God for forgiveness, he would go to hell. I didn’t want Lillian’s children to hear that devastating lie, so I needed someone to run interference until I could get there. I just had to protect them! I wanted them to know their mom and dad were now together in heaven.
“I will.” Celia hung up the phone.
I stood there frozen, holding the receiver up to my ear, as if somehow my refusal to put it down would negate the conversation. I turned around and saw the look of horror on Crissy’s face. She stumbled toward me and hugged me tightly.
I drove to Houston with Bob and Phyllis Carpus and their kids, friends from Spring Branch Church. Once I arrived, I felt the weight of many decisions. Lillian’s sister-in-law Laura and I picked out Lillian’s clothes for burial and then drove to the funeral home to identify the body. Despite the fact that Laura was still grieving the death of her daughter, Jenny, and her ex-husband, Duane, she was a big support to me in planning the funeral. I had just turned twenty a month before, and I felt the burden of making decisions that were far beyond my years.
When Laura and I arrived at the funeral home, the director ushered us into the room where Lillian was lying in the casket. We took one look at her and decided that the garish makeup that the mortician had applied wasn’t Lillian’s style at all. In her final caring act for her sister-in-law, Laura pulled out her own makeup to soften Lillian’s look. I was thankful she made her appear more like the Lillian we knew and loved.
Lillian’s funeral was a small affair, with mostly local family in attendance. A few of her sisters came into town to pay their respects and figure out what would happen to the kids. Lillian was dressed in the clothes Laura and I had chosen, a pretty white button-down shirt with small pleats down the front and a long mauve skirt with a modest gathering around the waist. She looked like she was ready to go to church.
I don’t remember much about the funeral itself. I focused my energy and attention on taking care of the kids and being there for them. At the visitation the night before the funeral, I had made sure I accompanied them into the room for the viewing. I wanted to protect them as best I could, but I also knew they needed to see their mother in order to have closure. At the service, we sang “It Is Well with My Soul,” one of Lillian’s favorites. After the funeral, while I was still in Houston, I took care of the kids and stuffed my own feelings down.
Lillian’s death pushed all of us —me, her children, Celia, and my other siblings who knew her well —closer to the brink. Mark and Lillian had served as my surrogate parents for all of my teenage years. Trying to grieve both of their deaths and the gaping hole they left in our family overwhelmed me to the point that avoidance of my emotions felt like a better route, certainly a safer one.
Although many of my family members thought I would be the natural person to fill Lillian’s shoes, I just couldn’t face the idea of raising the children alone. I might have been the closest person in their young lives, but I didn’t have the strength to do the job well. Thankfully, a couple from the church, Bob and Phyllis Carpus, offered to take in all six of Mark and Lillian’s children.