A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy(20)

The darkness outside the large storefront windows left me feeling terribly exposed; I could barely make eye contact with the bedraggled, haunted creature staring back at me from the mirror. My hairdresser chatted nervously as I cowered under the glaring fluorescent shop lights. In the course of conversation, she mentioned that one of the victims’ mothers had been to the salon for her own hair appointment, earlier in the day.

That stunned me. I might have been sitting in the same chair where that other mother had sat—perhaps under the same stained plastic cape. The thought of the two of us performing this perfunctory grooming task in order to get ready for our children’s funerals touched me and horrified me in equal measure. For a split second, I felt as I had in our driveway, like I was part of a community of people who were grieving.

But then it became intolerable, the sorrow my own son had caused another mother. I wanted to feel close to her, and I did, but I was the last person on earth she would allow to offer her words of comfort, and the sense of isolation and grief and guilt following so quickly on the heels of that sense of connection devastated me.

I practically dissolved in gratitude when my friend Peggy and her daughter Jenny arrived—a surprise. They’d left Tom with Peggy’s husband, George, so the men could talk. It was humiliating to be seen in such a pathetic position, my wet hair plastered to my face while I slumped over, almost too weak to sit up in the chair. My friends could see how hard I was working to keep myself together, and the two of them held my hands and kept up my end of the conversation with the hairdresser while I struggled imperfectly to hold back my tears.

I finally got out of the chair with my hair still wet, as I always did. As I went to pay, I remembered my cash supply was limited: the Browns had lent us some money to walk around with so we wouldn’t have to reveal our identity through checks or credit cards, but I was loath to spend any of it before I knew when we’d next be able to get to the bank. So I asked if my hairdresser would allow me to mail her a check instead of paying cash as I usually did.

The subsequent silence startled me; I sensed mistrust in her hesitation. Then she summoned her courage and explained it was the salon’s policy to request payment at the time of service. A flush of shame crawled up my throat as I fumbled with the bills and paid her. I was not the person she knew before the tragedy; I was the mother of a criminal now. Dylan’s actions had changed who I was to others, as well as to myself.

Still preoccupied by my dwindling money supply, I was caught off guard when my hairdresser asked if it was okay to tell people she’d seen me. I flashed on that other mother sitting in the salon chair, and the fleeting moment of connection I’d felt with her over the simple grooming ritual we’d shared. Foolishly, I told the hairdresser it was okay to talk about my visit. Perhaps she would be able to create a bridge between me and the community ripped apart by my son.

Those were still early days, and it frankly did not occur to me that she would talk to the press. She gave an interview that night. It was a generous gesture, an attempt to help us: she described my shock and grief, my insistence that we hadn’t known anything about what had been planned. But the story took off, and suddenly I was Marie Antoinette, getting in some self-indulgent “me time” while parents grieved over children lying dead in the school. The story got national attention, and I got hate mail from as far away as Texas.

This narrative fed into a story the media had already been cultivating: that Dylan was a spoiled brat raised by negligent, self-serving parents. News reports focused on Dylan’s BMW—never mind that Tom had picked it up for $400, vandalized and virtually undrivable, so he and Dylan could fix it up together. Aerial shots of our house made it look like a massive compound but didn’t mention it had been a handyman’s special with a mouse problem we’d gotten for a song because of its neglected condition.

These misperceptions and others bothered me. Tom was more immediately tuned in to his grief for Dylan, his beloved son and close companion. The two of them had spent hours at a time shooting the breeze about baseball scores, fixing up cars, building speakers, playing chess. Tom was heartbroken Dylan hadn’t said good-bye. It was one thing that our son could commit this appalling act, but he had done so with no explanation at all. A note, as insufficient as it would have been, would have been something.

My own focus was on the response of the community around us. Like many women, I was raised to think first about others, and to care about their good opinion of me. I had taken pleasure and pride in being an active and respected part of my community, in being thought of as a good mom. The censure beginning to emerge was excruciating.

The gentlest portrayal of us as parents in the media was that we were checked out, useless: bumbling and blindly oblivious. In other accounts, we had knowingly shielded a hateful racist, turning a blind eye to the arsenal he was assembling under our roof, thereby exposing an entire community to danger.

I completely understood why people were blaming us. I’d certainly be furious beyond measure with the parents of that child, had it been the other way around. I’d hate them. Of course I’d blame them. But I also knew that neither of those caricatures of us was true—and that the truth was far more disturbing.

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On April 22, two days after the shootings, we learned from our attorney that Dylan’s death had been ruled a suicide. The coroner was ready to release his body.

With that announcement, a new and appalling problem reared its head: What would we do with his body? We assumed we would automatically be turned away from any funeral home in Littleton. Even if they didn’t refuse us, it was sickening to imagine we might further upset or dishonor the victims’ families, or interfere with their own ceremonies. I had no idea what to do.