Many years ago, before Ken and I were married, we would get frisky at our favorite parking spot down by the river, but tonight we’re here sharing a peanut butter sundae with two spoons. Different kind of frisky. Late summer thunderstorms power the swift current. When our children were teenagers, we would tell them we were going out to watch the submarine races. “Ew,” Erin would say. “Mom,” Wesley would add, making a face like the one time I made him eat lima beans. We just needed an excuse to get out of the house, and they were old enough to fend for themselves. We’d come down here to stare at the river and be together.
The half-moon reflects off the undulating water. Our windows are up. We learned the hard way all those years ago when mosquitos (which I swear were the size of hummingbirds) were attracted to my bare skin like it was nectar. The truck’s AC cools us as we share the sundae with the quiet calm of a long and mostly happy marriage.
“How was your day, Hon?” I ask.
“Hot. The fans I brought to the farmhouse didn’t move the air at all.” He is doing a kitchen and bathroom update for a city doctor looking to retire to the country.
“Did you stay hydrated?”
“Coffee.”
“That doesn’t count,” I remind him.
“Sure, it does. I made it with water, didn’t I?”
We have this argument all the time. “Well, I didn’t drink enough water this morning before I went for a walk. I got dizzy, and luckily found Emelina at Abe Schatz’s yoga studio. He says hello, by the way.” That part is true. I fail to mention my crying jag or the tightness in my chest. I don't want to worry my man.
He finishes his scoop and asks, “Were you okay?”
“Tea and a raspberry gluten-free scone fixed me right up.” Moving on to avoid further inquiry I say, “I had grand intentions of having you grill a couple steaks, while I did the corn and string beans—Bill the butcher says hello too—when I met Yvette Strohmeyer at the store. That’s how I learned about Jake.”
“Talk about a rollercoaster for Mabel and Warren,” he says. “To go from planning a wedding for your youngest to standing next to his casket. I can’t imagine how his family is dealing with it.”
“Sharon McGrath, his bride-to-be, was utterly alone in her despair. I did my best to comfort her. She doesn’t want to believe that Jake killed himself.”
He ropes me back to the earlier part of the day. “I never got to ask you how you felt about not being in the classroom.”
“It hit me harder than I thought it would. I really missed being there for the kids on their first day of school. I felt like I was playing hooky when I went for my walk. Emelina and Abe talked me through it, though.”
“Any thoughts on what to do?”
“Besides car-racing, hang-gliding, and learning to play the violin?” I wink at him. “Nothing else pops up right now. Emelina says retirement is a state of mind, and Abe advised that my future purpose would come to me in time.”
“No rush, no pressure from me. The kids are doing fine, and we have enough saved in the emergency fund.”
“The kids are doing fine,” I repeat. “We should call them and tell them about Jake.” I want to do that as much for me as for them, to reassure myself that my kids are well, my grandkids are well, and we have much to be grateful for. Small towns are not immune to sudden deaths. A car wreck, a heart attack, and yes, even death by suicide are all parts of the cycle of life here.
I hold the ice cream boat in my hands and don’t give in to the temptation to lick it clean while Ken drives back to our latest fixer upper. He speculates on houses in town. We live in them while he fixes them up so he can later flip them. He’s done that since Wesley moved out. Buy low. Sell high. The locations of each were always within walking distance of Milford Elementary. I guess he can widen that circle now.
“What’s wrong, Mom?”
“Nothing, Wes. Can’t a mother call her son to see how he’s doing?”
“I’m fine.”
“Okay, how’s work coming along?”
“Fine. I’m really busy with projects all the time.”
“That’s good. Do you like them?”
“Did you call me up to talk about my job?”
“No, honey, not really. There was a sudden death in town this week. Did you know Jake Dawson?”
“Kinda. I went to school with his sister, Candace. I think we were a couple of years apart. He went to Vo-Tech, didn’t he?”
“Yes. He and Brian Yelito have an auto body shop in town and fixed your grandfather’s car. We went to his viewing tonight. Jake was twenty-five.”
There is silence now. Wesley has more patience than me. He’s not even asking me how Jake died. “I just wanted to hear your voice,” I say. “Do you think you will make it home for Sunday dinner?”
“Not sure. I’m really busy lately. Can I take a raincheck?”
“Let me know if you can make it, so I can set a place for you.”
“Will do, Mom. Gotta go.”
I say, “Love you.” Not sure if he hangs up first.
I call Erin. She answers on the second ring. “Hi Mommy, what’s up?”
“Just checking in on my favorite daughter.”
“I’m your only daughter,” Erin teases me back.
“How are the kids?”
“We got them down about a half hour ago. Just finished cleaning the kitchen and family room. Getting everything ready for the morning. I’m a little late logging on to work.”
“How well do you remember the Dawson family?” I ask.
“I was in the same class as Warren Jr. Didn’t they have like six kids?”
“Five, their youngest was Jake.”
“Was?”
“Your father and I went to his viewing tonight. They say that he shot himself.”
“Accidentally?”
“No, they are calling it a death by suicide.”
“That’s terrible.”
“He was to get married to Sharon McGrath. Did you know her?”
“Vaguely.”
“Both Jake and Sharon were in the same grade. They were always together. He died Friday night, and they were to get married the next day. “
“Oh my God! That’s so sad,” she says.
“Both his mother and Sharon don’t know what to believe. Warren, Jake’s father, is saying that it had to be drugs, but Sharon is adamant that Jake was not taking any drugs. He appeared happy at the rehearsal dinner and wasn’t drinking much.”
She says, “The autopsy should include a toxicology report, but they don’t always check for all the drugs, just the usual suspects like marijuana, cocaine, heroin.”
Before her part-time internet job, Erin was a true crime junkie. She knows the story of every serial killer since Jack the Ripper. The girl has an encyclopedic memory. She had inhaled the Oxygen, Investigation Discovery, and Court TV channels. Then she began listening to true crime podcasts and joining their closed Facebook groups. We had even attended a cold case symposium on a mother-daughter weekend last year. She is the right person to talk to.
“I can’t make sense of it, honey,” I tell her.
“What do you think happened, Mom?”
“I’m having trouble believing that Jake committed death by suicide.”
“Why?”
“I’ve known him and have seen him around town since he was five years old.”
“People change.”
“I know.”
“What else?”
I taught my daughter well. “His mother can’t offer any reasons.”
“And?”
“His fiancée said he didn’t shoot himself.”
“Who were the last people to see him?”
“His groomsmen wanted to have a drink with him back at his cabin.”
“When did they last see him alive?”
“Sharon said he died around midnight.”
“How does she know the time?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
“What else did Sharon tell you?”
“He blew his head off.”
“And the last time she saw him?”
I recall the bloodshot eyes and mascara-covered face in the funeral home’s bathroom mirror. “Erin, it was the rehearsal dinner.” Can I separate my feeling at the viewing from what was said to me there? For Jake’s sake, I suck it up.
“Let’s assume that I am right,” I say. The true crime junkie and her mother have had some practice at this. We reverse roles and she plays Watson to my Holmes. “For the sake of argument, let’s say that Jake Dawson didn’t shoot himself.”
“Who did then?” Erin asks.
“Are you asking the right question?” I prod.
“No, you’re right. Why was he killed?”
“What else?” I ask.
“Why the night before his marriage?”
“What reason did somebody have to kill Jake the night before he was to marry?” I pose a statement as question to her.
“Because something changes when he gets married,” she says.
“That something gets him killed,” I respond.
We sit with this working hypothesis. Erin is offering no other questions or solutions.
“What are you going to do now?” she asks me.
“Sleep on it or try to, at least,” I reply.
“How’s it feel to be back in the sleuthing saddle again, Mom?”
“That was just beginner’s luck.”
“Beginner’s luck, my derriere. You remember what the FBI agent said? You have a gift. Which reminds me—I have to get to work.”
Thanks to Erin’s digging on a cold case last year, the number two person in the FBI offered her a part-time civilian gig working with a hand-picked intelligence analyst on cases having huge social media footprints. Erin has the smarts and drive to succeed at her task. She’s a woman possessed when she digs into a case. Since then, I just viewed my contribution as a fluke. I was Erin’s mom. But a gift? I don’t know about that.
It’s late, I realize. “Okay, honey. Love ‘em and hug ‘em for me.”
“Hugs and kisses for your grandbabies in the morning, I promise,” she says.
I head off to bed and slip in next to Ken. I stare at the ceiling with racing thoughts as I toss and turn. What if I’m right? What if Jake was murdered? I can’t get comfortable no matter how I position myself. This is not like me. I am electric. Ken has to get up in the morning. I’m exhausted, but I can’t stop thinking about Jake’s death.
I slide out of bed and go down to the kitchen and brew some chamomile tea with lemon, then go to my scrapbook. I slowly flip through thirty-five years of kindergarten class photos with the children’s names written under each photo. Each class brings back a flood of memories.
Finally, I arrive at the one I am looking for. I take the page with Jake, Sharon, Yvette, and Mike’s smiling faces in the group photo and carefully remove it from the binder. I tiptoe upstairs past our bedroom on the creaky wooden floors and down the hallway to a spare room I use for my workspace. I center the photo on the corkboard where I used to keep lesson plans, and with a piece of chalk, I write on the slate board next to it: Jake Dawson. Suicide?
I contemplate what Erin said about having a gift. Can I be there for just one child on this first day of school? He needs me to get to the truth. If it’s a death by suicide, why did he do it? If it’s not death by suicide? That answer may come from one of those kids smiling back at me in the photo.