We Are Not Like Them(99)

Through the panel of windows, I watch fluffy white flakes flutter through the ink-black air. As I work up the nerve to say what needs to be said, I hear the most beautiful sound.

Do it, baby girl. Show him your heart. Gigi is back.





Chapter Sixteen JEN




Dear Tamara,

I don’t know if you’ll read this letter, and maybe it’s selfish or wrong for me to reach out to you, but I had to try.

There’s nothing I can do to take away your pain, but I want you to know how badly I feel for your loss, how I think about your son every single day, how I will regret what I did for the rest of my life.

I have a son now too. His name is Chase and he’s six weeks old today. Becoming a father has changed me, made me a better man. I think about this little person all the time. I’ll do anything I can to keep him safe, to protect him. I’d die for him. And I don’t know what I would do if anyone ever took him away from me.

I can’t make excuses for what happened in those five seconds, but I want to own up to what I did. You deserve that. You deserve your son back; I wish I could give that to you, but I can’t. One day I will have to tell my own boy what I did. I’ll have to tell him so that he understands the power we all have to harm other people even when we don’t mean to.

I’ll tell him because I want him to be better than me, to do better than me.

I became a cop so I could help people, not hurt them, and I fell short. And even though I’ll never work as a police officer again, I hope I can still find a way to help people, to do some good.

I don’t know if you want to hear this. My wife says as a mother this is what she would want to know. I held Justin’s hand while we waited for the ambulance. He told me his name and I told him to hang on. He asked for you and I said you were on your way.

I don’t want you to think that I believe there’s anything I can say or do to make this right. There’s not, I know that. I don’t expect you to forgive me. I only want you to know that I will carry your son’s memory and do the best I can with my own life to honor his.

Kevin Murphy



The letter lies there on the kitchen table, tucked beneath a vase of fresh deli daisies. The words slant across the page in Kevin’s best penmanship, the cursive the nuns taught him at St. Francis. He had debated typing it.

“No. That’s too formal. Typing it wouldn’t be right,” he said, to himself more than to me.

Each time he messed up he started over with a fresh piece of paper, the discarded attempts crumbled and scattered like little rocks across the floor. Until finally, he had a version he was happy with—then it sat right here on the table for two days, while Kevin decided what, if anything, to do with it. Neither of us has touched it, by some sort of unspoken agreement.

I don’t want it to be the first thing Riley sees when she gets here. It’s just Riley, I remind myself.

My kitchen’s a wreck and I regret I didn’t clean up more. There are half-packed boxes everywhere, adding to the chaos. I make a half-hearted attempt to wipe up spilled breast milk from the table with my bare hand, throw some odds and ends cluttering the counter into a box, along with the letter, laid carefully on top before I close the flaps.

The bread sizzles in the frying pan on the stove. I add more butter, brown sugar, and the bacon bits. I had to go to three different stores to find them. I flip each slice one last time, then turn the heat to low and cover the pan.

When the doorbell rings, I start to holler to come on in, then look down at Chase, strapped to me in the BabyBj?rn, and think better of it. He’s not asleep, but he’s not exactly awake either. I cross through the living room and fling open the door. There’s a burst of air that carries the faintest hint of an early spring.

Fred makes a mad dash to greet our visitor. I can barely see Riley over the giant baby stroller she’s struggling to push around the dog and up the one step of our porch. With its dual cup holders and cozy detachable bassinet, it’s the opposite of the stained and rickety hand-me-down of Annie and Matt’s that we’ve been using since Chase came home from the hospital.

I stand there a little dumbstruck.

“It was on your registry.” Riley says it so casually, like it’s a rattle and not a $500 stroller, the nicest item on the list. “I bought it months ago. When you first posted it.”

We manage to wrestle it into the tiny foyer. “It’s incredible. Thank you.”

I want to hug Riley hello, except the stroller stands between us, a barrier, and by the time she maneuvers around it in the narrow hallway, the moment has passed. Instead of reaching for me, she peeks at Chase in the carrier. “Is he asleep?”

“Sort of. I need to feed him pretty soon. I should also feed Fred. I just remembered that. Nothing makes you forget that you have a dog like having a baby.”

Riley trails behind me to the kitchen and I see her take in the mess—all the boxes.

“What’s all this?”

“Surprise?” That was stupid, but I’m nervous to see Riley and tell her my news. “We’re… we’re moving. I wanted to tell you in person.”

Riley looks around for a place to sit and I rush over. “Here, here, let me get that.” All of the kitchen chairs are filled with various junk, a string of Christmas lights, piles of old tax returns. I grab everything and push it into a pile on top of the table. “Sit, sit.” I gesture to the chair as if it’s a throne.