missed the gun. Kyle had cleaned his own room. He’d packed himself for the move. He had insisted on it, and she’d thought he was being responsible. Maybe he’d been hiding the gun. There were kids on his old basketball team who weren’t from New Albany. He could have bought the gun from them, or somebody they knew. Or at an away game.
Sharon leaned back in her chair. “How much would the gun cost? Where would he get the money for a gun?”
“A few hundred bucks?” Chief Holtz turned to Barb. “Did he have that sort of money?”
Barb nodded, stricken. She had given him the money because he’d done so many chores, packing boxes for the move, all the heavy lifting. She’d looked for reasons to give him money, to make him feel good after everything had gone to hell. She never would’ve thought he’d buy a gun. She should have, considering what he’d been through. The therapist had told her he wasn’t at risk, but she was his mother. She was supposed to know him better than anybody else. She’d thought she had. She loved him more than anybody and anything else. More than the sun, the moon, the stars, her life. He was her baby boy, still growing. He was only fifteen. She would never, ever forgive herself.
Barb blurted out, “I thought things were bad, I didn’t know they’d get worse, I was so wrong, I should have known.”
“Honey, don’t do this.”
“But I should have.” Barb couldn’t even finish the sentence, there were so many things she should have done, so many things she didn’t do, so many things she would’ve done differently that she couldn’t even begin to list them all, she could go on and on and on, and all of it, every decision, every action, inaction, mistake, and misstep had led to this moment, and Kyle was dead.
Chief Holtz linked his fingers on his blotter. “Do you have any other questions?” he asked, his tone gentle.
Barb had a question, but it wasn’t one Chief Holtz could answer.
Why go on?
CHAPTER 47
Allie Garvey
It was August, so it got dark outside after dinner, leaving the family room gloomy, but Allie didn’t turn on a lamp. She slumped in a chair in front of the TV, watching music videos. She and her father had just eaten, and he was cleaning up in the kitchen. She’d had mashed potatoes with no butter and chicken breast with no skin, since the doctor said only bland foods. If she ate normal food, she’d get cramps and have to go to the bathroom. Her father had taken her to a gastroenterologist who diagnosed her as having ulcerative colitis. Allie was consumed with guilt about Kyle. Literally, consumed. She was eating herself alive, from the inside.
A TV commercial came on for Blockbuster, and the volume went too loud, but she didn’t bother to lower it. She wasn’t listening anyway. She was thinking about Kyle. During the daytime, she’d get flashes of him walking down the hill to them, or of the gun against his head, or the blood drenching his shirt. She’d hear the gunshot and smell smoke in the air. At nighttime, she’d replay what happened like a horror movie. She slept badly. She was tired all day. She never left the house. She told her father it was because she couldn’t leave the bathroom, but that was an excuse. She lost thirteen pounds and weighed 135, which was the thinnest she’d ever been. She couldn’t keep weight on. She sealed her secret inside.
Suddenly her father dropped a pan in the kitchen, and Allie startled. She was nervous all the time. She expected the police to come knocking on the door any minute. She was terrified of getting caught. She’d read in the newspaper that the police ruled Kyle’s death a suicide, but she still worried they would figure it out. She’d jump whenever the phone rang. Once she was driving with her father and a police car passed. She started shaking.
An ad for Law & Order came on TV, and she stiffened. It seemed like all the TV shows were about murders, the whole summer. NYPD Blue, Homicide. The TV cops always caught the bad guy, and Allie was the bad guy. She still didn’t know how the gun got loaded, but she suspected Julian. He was jealous about Sasha, and he was cold that way. She felt sick to her stomach, keeping his secret. By shutting up, she was helping him