The Collective(12)

Tell your story, the angel tells me, over and over, in the depths of my imagination—that hiss of a whisper. A snake, wrapped around nourishing fruit. Tell your story. You’ll feel better. I guarantee that you will.

I haven’t told my story. Not since five years ago, when I took the witness stand in my ill-advised pencil skirt, the defense lawyer smirking at me, my daughter’s angel-faced, wide-eyed murderer mouthing It’s okay at his weeping mother. I’ve never told the story without being judged for it, and so I’ve promised myself that I’ll never tell it again.

Again, that tempting whisper. This page is no courtroom. These people do not judge. They are people like me.

People like us.

I create a post:


Camille Gardener

January 10 at 1:41 a.m.

I’m ready to tell my story now.



My finger is on the touch pad, my gaze pinned to the screen, to the tiny pointing hand hovering above the post button.

Do it, the angel whispers.

I hold my breath. My finger moves.





Four


NIOBE

MEMBERS: 132 MEMBERS

Description: Don’t let your pain turn you to stone.

Camille Gardener

January 9 at 11:42 p.m.

Hi. My name is Camille, and I live in upstate NY. Thanks for inviting me to join this group.

Seen by 110 people



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30 , 20 10 comments



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Daria Ann (admin): Welcome, Camille! Do you want to share your story? Niobe is a safe, judgment-free space full of like-minded mothers. Many of us (me included) have given up traditional therapy since sharing here.

Camille Gardener: Why are there no men?

Melissa Reese: Too much mansplaining!

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Daria Ann (admin): Lol, Melissa. We did have some dads in the group when we started, Camille, but we found it made it more difficult for some of us to share.

Tara Jacobson: In other words, like Melissa said lol.

Violet Langford: It isn’t their fault. It’s just the way we’ve all been conditioned. Every parents-of-victims group I’ve belonged to has been mostly women, yet there’s always been a man in charge. They talk, we listen. It’s the way of the world, but it’s also part of our pain and anger. On top of everything else, we don’t ever get to feel heard. Men don’t understand that, bless their hearts.

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Daria Ann (admin): It’s not that way of our world, though. We listen to each other.

Tara Jacobson: Amen.

Camille Gardener: Well, thank you again. But I don’t think I want to tell my story. Is that okay?

Daria Ann (admin): Everything is okay here, Camille.

Camille Gardener

January 10 at 1:41 a.m.

I’m ready to tell my story now.

Seen by 79 people



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Daria Ann (admin): We’re listening.

Camille Gardener: My daughter was killed at a fraternity party. It happened in January, on a Friday night. She was fifteen years old. I wasn’t around when she asked if she could go to the party. She had been invited by a boy—a freshman at Brayburn she had met a few weeks earlier. Her dad said yes. I wouldn’t have. For years I’ve tried to think about my ex-husband’s line of reasoning: This boy wasn’t the first older friend my daughter had made. She was an only child, and wise beyond her years. She had several close friends who were seniors, and a college freshman didn’t seem that different. Brayburn is small and not that far away from us, and it’s not a notorious party school. She promised she would be home by her eleven p.m. curfew. My ex-husband, I’m sure, had any number of reasons. I still wouldn’t have let her go.

Anyway, at the time, I worked for a Hudson Valley tourist magazine, and we were closing an issue that Friday, and so I didn’t get home until close to eleven. It was one of those nights that was too cold for snow, a clear night with a sky full of stars and a full moon. I looked in the closet and saw that her winter coat was missing, and I remember saying to her dad, “At least she brought her coat.” We both knew how she hated wearing a coat, no matter how cold it was. She found it constricting. She found everything constricting—her school, her town, her parents. It was nothing unusual. She was just at that age. My husband said, “I’m sure she’ll be home soon. She’s a good kid.” But then midnight came, and there was still no sign of her. She didn’t answer our texts. That was when her dad told me it was a college fraternity party she’d gone to, and that she’d gone with a boy who had picked her up at our house. Her dad didn’t have a cell phone number for the boy, just a name. The boy she had met a few weeks before at a friend’s house. I can recall my daughter saying that this college freshman was “very nice,” and that I would like him if I met him. The good news was, my husband remembered the name of the fraternity. We looked up the number and called its landline, over and over and over, hoping to find him and our daughter. No one answered for a long time. Then finally someone did. It was a very drunk-sounding boy. He said he couldn’t find either one of them, and that he was pretty sure there were no underage girls at this party, which from the sound of things was still in full swing.