1999, as I guzzled
Yuengling Lagers and
waited for planes to fall
out of the Y2K sky, my
father called for the first time in a year. But he
was so drunk that he
didn't recognize my
voice. In fact, he
insisted I wasn't me. I
pleaded with him - Dad, it's really me - but he slurred at me to go find
his daughter. Somehow,
this was the proverbial
straw. Our relationship had
been pockmarked by
years of abuse - by
violence and emotional
bullying so fierce that I'd
had little to do with him since I was 16. I knew
the dad I'd been dealt
biologically wouldn't
magically morph into the
one I wanted, but I still
wanted a dependable dad. I wanted a
mythological TV dad. I'd spent my life
forgiving him and his
unstable behavior, but I
decided right then - let's
call it a resolution - that
if my father didn't know my voice, he didn't
deserve it. That was the
last time I spoke to him. About 4 years later,
another call came. This
time, it was my brother.
There was such a deep
silence on the line that I
thought we had a bad connection. Finally, my
brother's voice broke
through: "Lis, I think dad's been
murdered." I immediately began
shaking - a deep quake
that seemed to swell up
from my bones. I'd
secretly wished him
dead so many times that I couldn't be sure if I
was shaking with grief
or relief that my life-long
tormentor was dead. In
retrospect, I think it was
both. I told my brother to come over right away. It turns out he wasn't
murdered. He was the
murderer. My father fatally shot his
live-in girlfriend and her
15-year-old daughter
before he killed himself
inside his small yellow
bungalow. Those were the facts. That much we understood. But the rest
of it - the why it happened, the what makes a man fall so
horribly apart - we'll
never understand that. Beyond dealing with the
shock and pain of all of
this, there was my
father's estate. I had to
clean it up. In 2003, people were
buying and flipping
houses for sport, but
what would I do with this
house? This crime
scene? I was 27 and soaked through with
grief. At first my brother
and I were in it together,
but that meant two
signatures on every
document and discussions on every
decision. It was a snail's
pace. Within a month or
so, we went to the
courthouse and I was
named executrix, a sexy-sounding word
that, as far as I can
figure, is Latin for "the
screwed one." Nearly as
soon as I signed that
paperwork, my brother disappeared. Poof.
Another ghost. I don't blame him.
Nowadays. I did then,
but I was so lost, so
unable to think clearly
that I couldn't see that
he was simply protecting himself. It's
the smarter move; step
away from the
emotionally dangerous.
Instead, I was hell-bent
on feeling every bit of the pain; ram your head
against the emotionally
dangerous. Again and
again and again. Large
swaths of
carpet had
been
removed by
the police; the exposed
floorboards
in their
absence
were stained
the purplish brown of
dried blood.
But still, I
thought, I
can fix it. For a while, my plan
was to fix up the house
in order to make a little
money - some
compensation for having
a shitty dad seemed in order. But the house.
Good god, the house:
The bodies had
decomposed in it for
days, the stench of it so
thick and acrid that it cut right through the Vicks
VapoRub slathered
beneath my nose. Large
swaths of carpet had
been removed by the
police; the exposed floorboards in their
absence were stained
the purplish brown of
dried blood. Bits of blood
splatter flecked the
walls. On the stove, a pot of corn, the water
turned milky as a
cataract, topped with
dozens of fat, black
flies. But still, I thought, I can
fix it. First, I hired someone
with a dumpster to gut
the place. I'd taken only
a few items: photos that
I can't bear to look at, a
CD player that enjoyed making my favorite
songs skip, and a coin
collection that my
brother and I spent on
cheap, yellow beer at a
local happy hour. I gave away everything else. I
sold his boat for $500 at
a bar. No idea how
much it was really
worth. I handed away
the titles to vehicles to a guy I barely knew. "Just
make them go away and
they're yours," I said.
It's clear that someone
else - maybe anyone else - would've been a
better executrix. At the time, I was
between degrees and
tending bar, so I started
lining up help from my
blue-collar regulars. A
carpenter. An electrician. A painter. I'd
given John the painter
the key to the house so
he could give me a
quote, and when he
came back, his face was ashen. He removed
his hat.
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