December sunlight sliced through the french doors and fell in a swath on my kitchen island. Having just come home from taking the kids to school, I dropped my keys next to the sink and inhaled the silence of the empty house. Another day of rushing Rowan through his morning routine had me on edge. I felt guilty for yelling at him when he was slow to get out of the car. I turned on the stove and a small flame erupted under the tea kettle. My cell phone rang and I glanced at the screen. It was Summer, my friend and realtor who was working with Randy to help sell his house before it went into foreclosure.
“Kendall,” she said breathlessly. “I’m calling with the worst news.”
My mind invented a handful of scenarios in which the house sale fell through. Randy had barricaded himself in and refused to leave, the inspector had discovered some catastrophic structural damage, the whole place had burned down.
“It’s the worst news,” her voice cracked. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. Randy killed himself. Randy is dead.”
“Oh my God,” I said, grasping at the countertop. Two glasses of raspberry smoothie sat where the kids had left them, a purple puddle at the base of one.
“I’m so sorry,” Summer was saying. She was crying. I envisioned her blonde hair, long and straight and rimmed with sunlight. She was the embodiment of her name, Summer. Bright and beautiful with an open smile of white teeth and red lipstick.
I had no peripheral vision. Just the smoothies and the conviction that this could not be happening to my kids.
“My kids,” I said.
“I know,” she replied. The tea kettle whistled from miles away. I stared at the stove, confused, then slowly switched it off.
“How did he do it?” I asked, forcing it into reality.
“He hung himself.”
My limbs went numb.
“The inspector had an appointment at the house this morning,” she said, rushing now. “He found Randy in the living room, saw him through the window in the front door. The buyers were with him. He hurried them back to the driveway and called 911. He’s traumatized. Just traumatized.”
An entire slideshow reeled past my eyes, pictures that I would never leave me. I wasn’t sad or angry or horrified. I was dazed.
“That poor inspector,” I said, wondering if Randy had planned it to spare Karyn from finding him.
“It’s so awful,” Summer said.
“I should go up to the house,” I was pacing now, searching for my keys.
“No, don’t go up there. There’s nothing to do except stop and breathe. You have to take these moments of quiet before everything starts happening.”
I draped myself over the kitchen island, my arms on the wood, trying to inhale. Something about the moment felt familiar. I had been bracing for it for years.
“I always thought he was such a gentle soul,” she said.
“You’re really brave for making this call, Summer. It’s better coming from you than from the police.”
After we hung up, the whole world had shifted. My mind searched for a place to land, as if scrolling through the static in search of a radio station. I couldn’t believe he had actually done it and succeeded. There was no way I could protect my kids from the news that would destroy their childhood. I looked at the clock on the stove and did the math. I had five hours to learn how to usher them through the trauma. I opened my laptop and Googled, how do you tell your kids that their father has died. Be prompt and straightforward, it told me. Avoid euphemisms. Use the word, dead. It avoids confusion and helps the grieving process. Good thing honesty was my superpower, I thought.
I left a message for Greg, it’s important, can you call me back as soon as possible?
My friend Karli came over and kept me company.
I asked Rowan’s therapist on the phone, “Should I tell them it was suicide?”
“Be truthful, Kendall. If you don’t tell them now, you’ll have to tell them later and that’s worse. You don’t want to make the subject taboo.”
“And if they ask me for any details? Like how he did it?”
“It’s best to answer their questions. Keep it simple and concise,” he said.
“I’m so scared this is going to destroy them.”
“Look, there’s research that says, having one solid parent is enough. They will be alright.”
“I hope so. What do we do with ourselves in the coming days?”
“Let them decide. If they want to go to school, that’s really good. Maintaining continuity is key and the sooner they can resume their normal routine the better.”
This gave me an unlikely sense of confidence. While I was rehearsing what I would say, I was startled by a loud knock on the door. I tugged it open to find a team of uniformed officers standing in a half circle.
“Are you here about Randy Laird?” I let them off the hook. They nodded. They introduced themselves. Officer Somebody, police, coroner, two victims’ advocates.
“Can we come in?”
We sat on my gray sectional couch. I held onto the cushion with two hands the way you might hold the edges of a sled at full speed. It was soft, crushed velvet. Karli took the dog for a walk. In the kitchen my phone was ringing. I ignored it.
“Your name came up in the database. You were married to Randall?” the police confirmed.
“We were divorced,” I said.
They handed me pamphlets. They mentioned an autopsy, support groups, funeral homes, told me to contact social security. The Christmas tree stood by the window, strings of lights on the floor.
I heard the door swing open. I stood up. Greg rushed into the foyer. I was surprised that he had left work without even knowing why. He scanned the ominous crowd and got a frantic look in his eyes.
“I could tell by your voicemail that something was really wrong,” he said.
I took him by both hands and said, “Randy has killed himself.”
He grabbed me in an abrupt and crushing embrace. The intensity felt suffocating. He came and sat down. I couldn’t retain one fact the somber team was telling me. Greg took notes. He gathered up the pamphlets. I let myself drift on the surreal tide. The victim’s advocate, a tall gawky gray haired man kept patting my back as if a complete stranger’s affection would bring me any solace. It didn’t.
After they left, Greg made me a sandwich, but I couldn’t eat it. I went to the kids’ rooms and got their favorite stuffed animals. I carried them to the living room and sat them on the couch. Then I decided that would be weird. They’d wonder why the animals had traveled downstairs. I tried hiding them under the throw pillows. I called a friend and asked her if she could drive the kids home from school. In order for the car ride to seem normal, I didn’t explain why.
That afternoon I had to tell my kids that their father was dead. Greg asked if I wanted him to stay and I told him no, it had to be the three of us. I watched through the living room window as the carpool arrived. The grass was winter brown and the tree branches looked brittle. The long low afternoon shadows snaked over the yard. Chloe skipped toward the front door. Rowan dropped his backpack and raced to the trampoline for a quick backflip and I thought, this is the last moment they will ever be happy. They had just turned eleven years old.
I heard the front door unlatch and the dog’s toenails tapping in the hallway as he hurried to greet them.
“Hello puppy, puppy, puppy,” Chloe sang out. Dog tags jingled.
“Hi guys, can you come to the living room?” I hollered. I was seated on the coffee table. My legs had turned to stone. I suddenly wanted to apologize to Rowan for yelling at him that morning. What a terrible thing to do on the worst day of his life. Chloe plopped onto the couch with a smile. Rowan looked suspicious, as if he already sensed my dread. He turned to make his escape.
“Row, come back, I need to talk to you about something important,” I said.
He moved slowly to the couch and sat.
“I have some very difficult news,” I said.
Before I even began to unleash the rehearsed words, he covered his ears.
“No,” he said.
“Daddy has died,” I told them.
“No,” he yelled.
He pressed his hands more tightly onto his ears and came off the couch until he was kneeling on the floor. He screamed like pure agony. I have never heard anything so painful. I hated Randy in that moment. Rowan sank to the floor in anguish and then tried to run from the living room. I caught him in his tracks and gave him his teddy bear with the crooked ears and the frayed nose. He embraced it and fell back onto the couch sobbing.
“We’re a team,” I told them. “We’re getting through this together.”
Chloe sat silent, her eyes wide.
“Did he kill himself?” she asked in the smallest voice.
I nodded. She began to whimper without tears. I moved to the couch and held out my arms like a tent that could shelter them. They leaned and then collapsed against me and we formed our own tiny circuit in the middle of a giant universe.
“Mommy, can we decorate the Christmas tree?” Rowan asked.
“Yeah,” I replied, surprised by the new mood.
The kids bolted from the couch and rummaged through a box of ornaments.
“This is my favorite one,” Chloe said. She held a guitar playing rabbit.
Rowan picked up a black lab dressed as a firefighter.
Greg came home then and stood beside me without a word. I reached for his hand which was cold from the winter air. Our temperatures combined and met in the middle. When the tree was filled, it almost looked like a normal December day. Rowan clutched his stocking while he reached for a hook on the mantle. Chloe slumped in a blue armchair.
“Mom, how did do it?” she asked.
Something leapt in my abdomen like a kick in utero. Rowan spun to face me. The Christmas tree had only been a short respite from the hazardous journey ahead.
Chloe was pacing the hallways of her mind, trying to make sense of the inconceivable. I was afraid of giving her information that could haunt her forever.
“Are you sure you want to know?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said with the composure of an adult.
“No,” Rowan said.
How could I tell one, but not the other? If Chloe had to grapple with not knowing, her imagination would fill the gaps and she would be alone with those thoughts. Silence didn’t make an awful thing disappear, it just closed off any avenue to process it. I decided to trust her.
“Let’s talk,” I said to Chloe. She followed me into my office. My desk was piled with papers that had seemed important yesterday.
I didn’t know if she was old enough to understand what it meant to hang oneself, so I sidestepped the details and said, “He did it with a rope.”
She nodded, looking at me steadily.
“Do you know what that means?” I asked.
She nodded again and asked, “Where?”
“In the living room.”
I listened to her breathe in and out.
“This sounds like a game of Clue,” I said, picturing the little plastic coiled rope, the revolver, the lead pipe.
Everything was quiet for a moment.
“I’ll never think of that game the same way again,” she answered. And we laughed. Everything was shattered, but we laughed.
When it was quiet again, I asked, “Are you Ok?”
“Yes,” she assured me.
I thought to myself, there is no way she can actually be OK.