Dad sat at his computer. He was so proud of that bulky, mysterious machine, and his big fingers made a comforting clicking sound as they tapped the keys.

Somebody knocked at the front door of the trailer.

“Get that, will you, kid?” Dad said, without looking away from the flickering blue words on the screen of his TRS-80.

I laid down my crayon, got to my feet, and hurried to unlock the screen door. Aunt Barbara came in, put a gloved finger to her lips.

I was a kid. I was delighted that there was a surprise afoot.

I barely noticed when Geoff slipped in behind her.

Dad didn’t turn around. “Who is it?” he asked.

Aunt Barbara put her finger to her lips again. Reached into her black shoulder bag.

Everything happened quickly after that.

Barbara pulled a pistol out of the bag, walked over to my dad and shot him point-blank in the back of the head.

Blood splattered everywhere.

Droplets of crimson gleamed on the pages of my coloring book.

Before I could scream, Mom rushed in, eyes wide with horrified alarm. She was wearing a green bathrobe, and her freshly washed hair was wrapped in a towel. She was on the night shift at the truck stop that week. She liked working those hours, because the tips were better.

Barbara turned, fired the gun again.

A bright red wound opened in my mother’s throat. Her eyes, vibrant with fear only a moment before, widened in disbelief. She landed hard on the floor.

Geoff moved Dad’s inert, bloody body and plucked the floppy disk from a slot in the side of the computer. He didn’t seem to mind the gore covering him, soaking his clothes.

Barbara dropped the gun. She went to stand over Mom, put her foot on the body, gave it a cruel little shake.

I tried to scream again, but no sound came out.

“Where’s the kid?” she asked.

I’d taken refuge behind Dad’s easy chair, without being aware of moving at all, but I knew they’d find me soon.

“She probably ran out the door when you shot Ron-the-Moron,” Geoff said lightly. “Don’t sweat it. She’s five years old, and scared shitless. Nobody will believe a word she says anyway.”

I heard a siren shrieking in the distance.

I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.

Was it inside the memory?

Or was it on the road leading to the cemetery, where I was looking up the barrel of Barbara’s gun?

It was a strange, schizophrenic sensation. My mind had literally split in two; I was in both the past and the present at the same time.

“Why?” I croaked, and the word popped me back to my adult self.

Barbara stood rigid on the other side of Lillian’s grave.