My trip to the courthouse was a total bust. It seems attorneys at a courthouse don’t want to be approached by strangers asking for legal advice. I should’ve known better, but I was so eager to find help that I didn’t adequately think through my plan.
Thankfully, I can concentrate on something else today, because it’s a couple weeks before Halloween, and everyone is completely recovered, so my parents have decided to take the whole family to the local pumpkin patch. Like everything in this town, the Playa Bonita Halloween Patch is over the top, with a hayride, fresh-pressed apple cider, tons of pumpkins, and a petting zoo.
“So cruel,” my mom says, shaking her head at the goats and alpacas bleating behind the temporary mesh fence.
Maybe it is cruel. But I still feel bad for Sequoia when he tugs on the hem of my mom’s sweatshirt, begging her to take him to pet the animals. I try to distract him with the one-hundred-pound pumpkin on display instead. I even help him climb on top so my dad can take a photo. And then my dad directs my mom, Poppy, and me to stand next to Sequoia. My mom takes a whiff of the crisp October air and hugs a smaller pumpkin like she’s posing for a cheesy fall catalog for gift baskets instead of a picture for my dad.
After taking a few photos, my dad says, “You know what’d be even more awesome? All of us in the picture.” He turns around, holds out his camera. Asks, “Can you, please?” when a woman passing by looks up from her phone. She glances back at her phone again, recoils from us, and shakes her head no. Her reluctance sends a chill through me. The same chill I felt when Mary and the elderly woman and the young moms at the farmers market huddled together to whisper about my mom and me. Still, my mom, my sister, my brother, and I stand by awkwardly, holding up the line of people also wanting to climb on top of the giant pumpkin to take a photo while my dad keeps trying to find a photographer.
“Let’s just forget it,” I say to my mom.
“It’s fine,” she says even though her forehead creases with worry.
But a dad with a kid finally says yes. We all pose with fake smiles while my dad talks him through operating the complicated camera he insists on using because it takes much better photos than any camera phone. And then the woman who told us no before walks up and pulls the kid away. When the man I assume is her husband turns to face her, the lens of my dad’s camera brushes her elbow and she flinches.
“What are you doing?” she says through her clenched teeth like a ventriloquist, but I can still understand her. “That’s them. The ones from the picture online.”
Her husband looks confused. “What picture? Online where?”
“I just checked to make sure.” She holds up her phone, and I see a sharp photo of my mom and me standing behind our table of herbs and essential oils at the farmers market. “I knew I recognized them from the Facebook group.”
A woman passing by squints at the photo, looks at us, pulls her daughter closer to her side, and hurries away. I notice others nearby with their heads pushed toward each other. Whispering. I catch the word measles. I spot the side-eye.
Does everyone know who we are?
This woman doesn’t want her husband to touch my dad’s camera because she thinks it’s covered in germs.
She thinks we’re covered in germs.
Untouchable. Contagious.
“Mom,” I say, “we should go.”
“We should,” she says. “Russ, get your camera back.”
“No!” Sequoia shouts. “I’m not going.” He slides off the giant pumpkin and darts into the nearby patch.
“We just got here,” Poppy says, crossing her arms. “I haven’t even picked out my pumpkin yet.” My sister doesn’t love Halloween, but she does love carving pumpkins. It’s art. She’s been working on designs in her sketchbook all week, including on the car ride over here.
“We need to go,” I say. “Look around.”
People passing by are staring and whispering, their words spreading like a disease.
Is the person who painted the scarlet A on our door here? Is it that woman wearing the fancy rain boots, even though all we got was some drizzle two hours ago? Is it that man with the cup of apple cider? Or that couple with the double baby stroller?
We slowly back away from the giant pumpkin and step toward the patch to retrieve Sequoia so we can go.
“Hey!” a mom in workout gear shouts as she pushes her kids behind her. “We know who you are. You killed that innocent baby. You’re murderers.”
I rack my brain trying to figure out how so many people know who we are.
Who told? Who is spreading our story? My mom and dad and Poppy wouldn’t tell. Who would?
My dad looks flabbergasted. My mom looks like she might pass out from shock.
“Mom?” Poppy says, her voice shaking.
Sequoia hears the shouting and ditches the pumpkin patch to run to my side for protection. Because a crowd has gathered and they’re closing in.
Mob mentality.
People push forward. Wanting to see. Like we’re at the scene of an accident.
But my family is the accident.
I take a step back, fear pulsing. My instinct is to protect Poppy and Sequoia. I pivot my body to shield them. It’s my mom’s instinct to protect all three of us, so she angles her body in front of me.
“We don’t want you here!” The mom in workout gear has gotten close enough that I can see her spittle hit the air when she shouts. “This town didn’t sign up to be victims of your negligence.” One of her friends tries to pull her back, calm her down, but she shakes her off. She points her finger at my parents, her face red with rage. “You have blood on your hands. You know that, don’t you?”
Sequoia looks at my mom’s hands, confused.
My dad’s mouth is a slash. He balls his fists at his sides. I’m genuinely afraid he might punch someone. A woman. A mom.
“Don’t you dare,” he says, standing tall, chest puffed, arms out, in front of all four of us. “Don’t you dare take another step closer to my family.”
My mom spreads her own arms, hands shaking.
“Oh, sure, protect your kids but no one else’s!” shouts a voice in the back.
“Hey now,” someone else shouts. “Let’s be reasonable.”
“Oh, are you an anti-vaxxer, too?” comes the response.
Some people have pulled out their phones. They’re filming everything. Others type, frantically texting the chaos to those who aren’t witnessing it in person because they have errands or soccer games.
“Russ,” my mom murmurs, “let’s get out of here.”
Sequoia stomps his foot. “I want a pumpkin.”
“I’ll make sure you get a pumpkin later,” I tell him. “I promise.”
Tears are forming in his eyes. I look to my mom for help, but she has tears in her eyes, too. Are they from guilt? Humiliation? Is it middle school all over again?
My dad stands taller. “Back up,” he says to the crowd. When he lunges forward, they push away from him, not because he’s scary and forceful, but because they’re afraid he might get them sick. He puts an arm around Poppy and leads us, single file, to Bessie.
“Thank you,” the mom in workout gear says, clapping her hands dramatically. “Thank you for leaving. Tell you what, why don’t you leave this town altogether? You’re not wanted here.”
“Oh my god,” Poppy mutters in full-on exasperation. “Go to yoga and calm down.”
Her words fill me with a weird mix of pride and horror.
On the way home, Sequoia sits in the back seat, twisting his hands together. It’s like I can see his brain cycling through what happened. Eventually he says, “Who did we kill?”
“What?” my dad says, his knuckles turning white as he grips the steering wheel.
“It’s not like that,” Poppy says.
“What’s it like, then?” Sequoia says, looking at me.
“Not now,” my dad says, struggling to stay calm as he looks at us through the rearview mirror.
“Was it with a gun?” Sequoia asks.
“We don’t have a gun,” my mom says.
“But how do you murder someone without a gun?”
Poppy and I lock eyes. We both know there are so many other ways to kill a person. Neither of us will be the one to tell our brother.
“Not now,” my dad repeats.
“But that lady said we murdered someone.”
My dad twists in his seat to face us when we stop at a traffic light. “We don’t have a gun. We would never have a gun. Nobody was murdered. End of discussion.”
The signal changes and we lurch forward.
Sequoia lets out an exasperated sigh and crosses his arms in front of his chest. I want to help him understand, but how do you explain to a second grader what happened to Baby Kat?
I lean against the window. My eyes dart to Poppy’s sketchbook, still open on the cushion between us, her jack-o’-lantern designs on display. A cat. A pirate. A witch. None of them will be carved today.
And Katherine St. Pierre will never carve a pumpkin. She’ll never wear a costume or go trick-or-treating or watch a scary movie. She’ll never grow up and go to college. Or have children of her own.
And that’s our fault.
Whether it happened with a gun or not.