When they sat down at the kitchen table, all three boys were wide-eyed and clearly frightened. Their nine-year-old, Joey, thought for sure Mrs. Furlong had called his mom like she said she would if he got out of his seat one more time, and six-year-old Frankie thought they were going to have to move because one of the kids in his kindergarten class had to move and he was crying about it all that morning. Frankie didn’t really know what “moving” meant, but he knew it wasn’t good, and he hoped that wasn’t why his mom and dad looked so serious.

Luke was just confused and worried.

“Listen, boys, we have some really bad news we have to tell you,” Mitch started, “and, well, there just isn’t any easy way to say it.” Uncharacteristically, the three boys were silent. Carolyn’s sobs were the only sound in the otherwise silent room.

Mitch took a deep breath to steady himself and said, “Danny, Rachel, and Evan died today.”

Now that it was out there, the news was greeted with a chorus of confused questions all around the table. Frankie started to cry; then the other two boys followed suit. Finally, Luke turned to his mother for confirmation and said, “Mom, is Dad right? Are they really dead?”

“Yes, I’m afraid it’s really true.”

“What … what happened?” he replied as his lip started to quiver.

Carolyn wished for any other answer than the one she had to give. A plane crash, car accident, house fire, even that they were murdered by some stranger—as awful as all of those explanations would have been, they paled in comparison to the truth. But she and Mitch had agreed they owed their children the truth. She tried to be honest while she softened the blow, but there really wasn’t a way to sugarcoat the reality regardless of what she said, so she told them in as few words as possible.

“Danny was sick,” she began. “I mean sick like in his mind, and he shot Rachel and Evan, and then he was so sad about what he did that he killed himself.” Once again, Carolyn had the sense that someone else was talking while she was saying these things, that she was watching herself sitting at the kitchen table telling her children this horrible news.

It took almost a half hour of answering questions, hugging, and crying, and then all five of them curled together on the couch and held each other. After a little while, they all sat quietly; even little Frankie (who was known for talking nonstop) was speechless, because words were inadequate at that moment. Eventually, the family headed upstairs to go to bed.

Finally the boys climbed in their beds, and said their nightly prayers. Each asked God to bless the souls of Danny, Rachel, and Evan. When it was Frankie’s turn, he looked at his father who was kneeling beside him.