Only Child(90)

Mommy looked in the front seat of the van, but no one was there, so she knocked on the side of the van. The side door popped open and I could see Dexter and another man coming out of the van. Dexter was holding a plastic container with food in it—rice and chicken, it looked like—in his one hand and a fork in the other hand.

“Oh hey, guys, um…” Dexter looked at the food container in his hand, and then he put it inside the van and wiped his hands on his pants. “Hey, what’s going on?” Dexter asked. He looked at Mommy and then over at me and Daddy. I looked down at my feet because I didn’t want to look at Dexter.

“I would like to give a brief statement,” Mommy said.

“Right now?” the man who came out of the van with Dexter asked.

“Yes,” Mommy said.

“Oh OK, cool. That’s cool,” Dexter said. “Can you give us just a minute? We didn’t expect…sorry, we were just eating lunch.”

“That’s fine,” Mommy said, and another big wind came blowing up against us and made her hair fly all around again. I could feel the wind go all the way through my clothes and I did a shiver. Daddy put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close to him.

Dexter and the other man went back inside the van, and Dexter came back out with a camera. It looked like the ones me and him put up in our living room, only smaller, and Dexter pushed some buttons on the side of the camera, and then he put it on his shoulder and looked through the one end of it at Mommy.

“Where do you want to be?” he asked Mommy.

“Oh, I don’t care. Right there is OK,” Mommy said.

“Sure, great,” Dexter said, and then the other man came back out of the van with a microphone in his hand.

“OK, if you’re ready, we can begin,” he said, and he pointed the microphone at Mommy. Mommy looked at Daddy, and Daddy gave her a little smile and shook his head yes. Mommy looked back at the camera.

“This is just a recording, so don’t worry. We can do this a few times if you want,” the man with the microphone said.

“OK,” Mommy said. “Um, so I wanted to say, just briefly, that I have decided to no longer pursue the Ranalezes about…in regards to the shooting. I’ve spoken to the parents of the other victims and we…we agree.” Mommy’s lower lip went up and down like her teeth were clicking together from being cold. She put her sleeves over her hands, and she crossed her arms and tucked her sleeve-hands into her armpits.

“I know I’ve been very outspoken since the shooting committed by their son, and I’ve placed the blame…I blamed them for his actions and for the death of my son Andy.” Mommy did a pause and then she took another big breath and kept talking in the microphone: “I’ve come to realize that further pursuing them, the Ranalezes, is not…it’s not going to bring my son back. It’s not going to undo the terrible thing that happened to me, our family, and the families of the other victims.” Tears started rolling down Mommy’s face.

“What my family is going through—I don’t wish that on anybody. And I…I can now see that the Ranalezes themselves are also faced with loss. They are grieving, like us. They are going through hell, like us.” Mommy looked over at me and did a little smile. I smiled back. I was feeling very proud of Mommy that she was saying these things.

“My very wise son Zach was the one who made me see that. We…our family is going to focus on taking care of each other now and trying to heal, together, and figure out how to keep on living without Andy in our lives. Find some peace. We would like to, in the future, try to figure out ways how we can contribute to…how we can help prevent something like this from happening again, to other families. To help keep guns from ending up in the wrong hands and to help protect our children and loved ones. That’s it…that’s really all I wanted to say.” More tears were running down Mommy’s face, and she wiped them away with her sleeve-hands.

“Thank you,” the man with the microphone said. “I think, I mean that was good the way it was, right? We can keep it like that unless you want to do it again or something?”

“No,” Mommy said, and her voice came out very quiet.

Dexter took the camera off his shoulder and stared at Mommy. “Wow,” he said. “That was big…of you,” he said.

“OK,” Mommy said, and then she turned around and walked over to me and Daddy.

Daddy touched Mommy’s arm and rubbed it up and down. “You all right?” he asked.

“I’m OK,” Mommy said. “Freezing. I just want to go back inside with you guys and close that door behind me. What do you think?”

“I think yes,” I said, and I ran ahead and sprinted up the porch stairs.





[ 55 ]


    Still Here with You


DADDY PARKED OUR CAR, but he didn’t turn it off right away. We just sat there, me, Daddy, and Mommy, and no one said anything. My heart was pounding loud in my chest and my ears. I looked out the window and in the almost-dark I saw all the rows of gravestones, and further in the back, on the right side, I saw someone standing.

“Shall we?” Daddy asked, and turned off the car, and I said, “We shall.” Mommy didn’t say anything, but she opened her door and started to get out of the car. I picked up the flowers from the seat next to me, and Daddy opened my car door. When I got out of the car, I saw Charlie’s car parked right in front of ours.