A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy(9)

“How could he do this? How could he do this?” I kept asking. I had no idea what “this” was. Byron shook his head in silent disbelief, his arms still around me. There was nothing to say. Part of me thought, I’m his mother. I should pull myself together, be a role model here, be strong for Byron. But it was impossible for me to do anything other than weep helplessly, a rag doll in my son’s arms.

The police began to arrive, and they escorted us out of the house to wait in the driveway. It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm, the kind of day that makes you feel like spring might finally be here to stay. Under other circumstances, I’d be rejoicing we’d survived another long Colorado winter. Instead, the beauty of the weather felt like a slap in the face. “What are they looking for? What do they want?” I kept asking. “Can we help?” Eventually, an officer told us they were searching our house and our tenant’s apartment for explosives.

It was the first time we’d heard anything about explosives. We could find out nothing more. We were not allowed into our house without a police escort. Tom would not be permitted to go to the school, or anywhere else. Later, we learned that no one had been allowed in the school. The first responders hadn’t entered the building until long after Dylan and Eric were dead, surrounded by the bodies of their victims.

As we stood there, waiting in the sunny driveway, I noticed that three or four of the officers were wearing SWAT team uniforms and what appeared to be bulletproof vests. The sight of them was more puzzling than alarming. Why were they at our house instead of at the school? They crouched and entered our home through the front door, their guns drawn and held at arm’s length with both hands as if in a movie. Did they think we were harboring Dylan? Or that Tom and I would somehow be a danger to them?

It was completely surreal, and I thought very clearly: We are the last people on earth anyone would expect to be in this situation.

We spent hours pacing the driveway like frightened animals. Byron was still smoking then, and I watched him light cigarette after cigarette, too overwhelmed to protest. The police would not engage with us, though we begged for information. What had happened? How did they know Dylan was a suspect? How many gunmen were there? Where was Dylan? Was he okay? Nobody would tell us a thing.

Time warped, as it does in emergencies. Media and police helicopters began circling noisily overhead. Our tenant, Alison, who lived in the studio outbuilding on our property, brought us bottles of water and granola bars we couldn’t bear to eat. If we needed to use the bathroom, we did so with two armed policemen guarding the other side of the door. I wasn’t sure if they were protecting us or if we were suspects. Both options horrified me: I’d never done anything illegal in my life, and it had never, ever occurred to me to be afraid of my son.

As the afternoon stretched on, we continued to pace the driveway. Conversation was impossible. The Rocky Mountain foothills surrounding our home had always soothed me; Tom and I often said we didn’t feel any need to travel because we already lived in the most beautiful place on earth. But that afternoon, the tall stone cliffs seemed cold and forbidding—prison walls around our home.

I looked up to see a figure coming up the driveway. It was Judy Brown, the mother of one of Dylan’s childhood friends, Brooks. Alerted by the Littleton rumor mill that Dylan was involved in the events at the school, she had come to our house.

I was startled to see her. Our boys had been good friends in first and second grades and then reunited in high school, but they hadn’t been close, and I’d only seen Judy a few times in the years since elementary school. We’d chatted warmly a few weeks before, at a school event, but we’d never done anything together except when our boys were involved, and I wasn’t sure I could manage any social niceties. I was too disoriented to question why she was there, but it did seem odd for her to have materialized during this most private of times. She and Alison sat on either side of me on our brick sidewalk, urging me to drink the water they’d brought. Tom and Byron paced up and down the front walk with brooding expressions as we all struggled with our own splintered thoughts.

My mind was a chaotic swirl. There was no way to square the information we had with what I knew about my life, and about my son. They couldn’t be talking about Dylan, our “Sunshine Boy,” such a good kid, he always made me feel like a good mother. If it was true that Dylan had intentionally hurt people, then where in his life had this come from?

Eventually, the detective in charge told us he wanted to interview each of us separately. Tom and I were happy and eager to cooperate, especially if there was anything we could do to shed light on whatever was happening.

My interview took place in the front seat of the detective’s car. It’s unthinkable now, but during that interview, I really believed I could straighten the whole mess out if I could only explain why everything they were thinking about Dylan was wrong. I did not realize I had entered a new phase in my life. I still thought the order of the world as I’d known it could be restored.

I pressed my trembling hands together to still them. Solemn and intimidating, the detective got right to the point: Did we keep any weapons in our home? Had Dylan been interested in weapons or in explosives? I had little of relevance to share with him. Tom and I had never owned any guns. BB guns were standard fare for young boys where we lived, but we’d bucked the trend for as long as we could—and then made our kids create and sign handwritten safety contracts before giving in. They’d used the BBs for target practice for a while, but by the time Dylan was a young teenager, the air rifles had found their way to a shelf in the garage with the model airplanes and G.I. Joe action figures and the other forgotten relics of the boys’ childhoods.