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What Happened That Night

chapter one

Bright yellow crime-scene tape blocked the Tomlins’ property, looping around the telephone poles and their mailbox, on that Tuesday morning while my family prepared breakfast. Since there were only two police cars parked on the shoulder of the road, my father speculated maybe they were robbed in the middle of night or something. My mother grabbed the phone from the kitchen counter as she cooked, her other hand reaching to turn down the heat on the oven burner as bacon sizzled in a pan.

“I didn’t hear their house alarm go off,” she was saying to my dad, cradling the phone on her shoulder and flipping the bacon over with a fork. “I’ll give them a call. Maybe—” Her face shifted as the sound of a frantic voice came on the other line. The noise (so loud even we could hear it) interrupted my father mid-sip of his coffee. “Hello, Lisa? It’s Samantha.”

He set down his mug, brow furrowing, as the piercing voice on the other end of the phone continued. “What’s going on?”

My mother’s hand was still on the burner dial when she let out a breath, a word lost somewhere in the exhale. My father was mouthing something at her. I turned to my sister, Emily, sitting beside me as she stirred her cereal, barely looking up as my mother finally took her hand off the dial to cover her mouth, a gasp issuing through her teeth.

My chest tensed.

My mother was focused on something in front of her, like if she stared at the handle of her frying pan intently enough, she’d be able to understand whatever was being said. The bacon started to burn, so my father turned off the heat and moved the pan, still looking at my mother, raising his eyebrows whenever she met his gaze, her lips still agape.

Finally she tilted the phone away from her mouth as the voice on the other end quietened slightly, and she craned her neck to look at my father. I was annoyed with Emily because she was chewing so loudly on her cereal, I couldn’t hear Mrs. Tomlin on the phone.

Mom’s eyes were beginning to turn pink and water as she told us, “Griffin died last night.”