I don’t have many concrete memories from that day. There are no photographs or home movies to fill in the missing pieces. What remains are fragments—voices, expressions, nervous energy, and feelings that are difficult to put into words even now.

Everything felt surreal. I remember being anxious for George and me. I remember knowing that something terrible had happened without understanding what was going to happen to us next. No child should have to experience that kind of uncertainty.

“When are we going home?” I asked in my small voice.

No one answered.

“Would you like to stay here with us?” Aunt Connie asked. “Would you like to go to school here?”

Again, I didn’t answer. My father stood up, visibly frustrated, and went outside. My grandfather muttered under his breath.

“These children need to stay here.”

He was right.

Even as a child, I could see that my grandfather was upset. Something about the situation wasn’t sitting right with him. My father came back inside and asked to speak with Aunt Connie and my grandfather alone.

“It will be okay. I promise,” my cousin Mike told me.

I nodded. He tried to get me talking.

“Who’s your best friend?” he asked.

“My mom,” I answered immediately.

There was nothing complicated about my answer. I was nine years old. My mother was my best friend.

My father, aunt, and grandfather disappeared into the kitchen, where they talked for what seemed like forever. It may have been thirty minutes. To a frightened child waiting for adults to decide what would happen to her life, it could have been hours. Mike stayed with me. He asked about my friends. My school. Anything he could think of. He did everything he could to distract me and help me relax. Nothing worked. At some point, I saw Aunt Connie step onto the porch and light a cigarette. I would later learn that she was stressed and frustrated with my father. I knew they were talking about Mom. I just didn’t know what they were saying.

My grandfather was visibly rattled. He was uncomfortable and upset, and I began shutting down.

Who wouldn’t?

I was nine years old. My mother was dead. And the adults around me were having conversations I wasn’t allowed to hear about what would happen next. I began to cry. Then I heard my father on the telephone.

He was talking to someone named Dotti. His voice was stern.

“That’s enough. No more. We’re done. I will be home soon. Kiss our new baby for me.”

I didn’t understand what those words meant. Not then.

My grandfather came over and kissed me on the forehead.

“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay.”

But it wasn’t okay. Nothing was okay. I felt angry and sad at the same time.

More than anything, I wanted to scoop George up and run away from all of it—to take my little brother somewhere safe, although at nine years old I had no idea where that place might be.

That little girl is still very much a part of me. I can still see her sitting there, trying to understand a world that had suddenly stopped making sense. I could hear my grandfather questioning my father, trying to get information from him that my father didn’t seem willing to share. I didn’t understand the questions then.

Years later, I would have questions of my own. What did my father know?

Why was my grandfather so upset?

What were the adults saying in that kitchen?

My grandfather didn’t get the answers he was looking for that day. Neither did I.

As I grew older and eventually began searching for records surrounding my mother’s death, I discovered how little documentation existed. Her death had been ruled a suicide.

From the limited records I have been able to uncover, I have found no evidence of a broader police investigation. I have found no record showing that my father was formally questioned about his whereabouts or that neighbors were interviewed. I have found nothing indicating that other possibilities surrounding her death were investigated. Perhaps records once existed that I have never found. Perhaps there are things I still don’t know. But I can only tell this story from what remains. And what remains is remarkably little.

For the nine-year-old girl sitting in my aunt’s house that day, none of those questions existed yet.

She wasn’t wondering about investigations, records, timelines, or unanswered questions. She wanted only one thing. She wanted her mother. And she wanted to go home.