I HOPE THEY’RE SATISFIED now. The police. Those low-life boys who dragged my daughter’s name through the mud, and that pathetic girlfriend of theirs who called herself Suzanne’s friend, and then made it look like my daughter was a slut and a murderer. And the media. They’re the most guilty of all, in my opinion, for the way they sensationalized everything, and made it so Susie’s face was plastered all over the news every night as a suspected killer.
She was a strong person, but everyone has their breaking point, and finally Suzanne just reached hers. She had managed to deal with the pain of her husband’s drug addiction, and even physical abuse. Never even letting on to Earl and myself, she was so brave. She managed to go on with her life, after having Larry taken from her. She managed to keep her chin up, when they put handcuffs on her and took her off to jail. She even managed to deal with the suspicions and abandonment of his family. What destroyed her was seeing herself on the news every night, portrayed as a cold-blooded killer. The way those so-called journalists twisted the truth of her story, for their own sensationalistic purposes. They’re as guilty of her death as they would have been if they’d stood there and pushed her off the bridge themselves.
At night, when I can’t sleep, I sometimes get out of bed and come downstairs. Sit in the family room, where we spent so many happy hours with Suzanne. Take out the photograph albums. Sometimes I’ll put one of her videos on, and watch her doing one of her broadcasts, or singing that song of hers. “High Hopes.”
I try to stop myself, but then I picture her getting dressed that last morning. Putting on her makeup, doing her nails. You know she had fresh polish on her nails when they found her?
There she was, a couple of hours away from ending her own life, but still she wanted to look pretty. She never would cut herself any slack. Always had to be the best she could be.
She was wearing her favorite dress. The little pearl earrings Earl and I gave her for her twenty-first birthday. Her wedding ring, of course. That meant so much to her.
People wonder why she didn’t leave a note. But Earl and I, we understand. There was nothing left to say. Her actions spoke for themselves. Her heart had been broken. The trial hadn’t even begun, but already she’d been found guilty in the press.
I can’t help myself. I keep playing the scene over and over in my head, like a show I can’t turn off. It’s like back in 1963, when they kept showing that same footage of the Kennedy assassination, again and again and again. The way they kept making us watch the Challenger takeoff, kept showing it rising up in the sky, and then exploding. Only this time it’s my own girl that’s blown away before my very eyes.
I see her parking the car. I see her opening the car door, looking out to sea. And then climbing up onto the railing. She hesitates for a second. If only we’d been there to stop her. But we weren’t. Then she jumps.