In 1980's New York, Barbara Fritz is the "meek and mild" little librarian assistant that nobody thinks twice about. Shy, soft-spoken, and ridiculously self-critical, she doesn't turn any heads. Not until she brutally kills her own father in cold blo...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
*Trigger Warning:* This scene includes a depiction of suicide. Not a POV character.
***
On a warm day in August of 1956, I came home from school and found my mother dead. She was hanging from the ceiling with a rope around her neck that she'd tied to the rafters.
At first the sight paralyzed me. Her body dangling in the air with no apparent injuries was quite unsettling. I may not have even realized she was gone. Perhaps I was too young to understand.
I remember, vividly, reaching up to tug on her arm. Her skin felt wooden and cold to mine.
The loving ocean-blue eyes that had once shed warmth upon me were now stale and somehow icy. I stood in her vacant gaze trying to imagine what would possess her to do this. Whatever her reason, it was too late to save her.
When the reality sunk in that she wasn't moving and couldn't speak, I ran to my neighbors house and asked them for help, but there was nothing they could do.
My mother had killed herself.
Time began to pass by rather slowly. Since we lived alone, and my family was so distant from us, two police officers had to remove me from the scene. I was driven to the nearest station, where they attempted to find a place for me to stay. The only relatives I could recall were my aunt Claire and my cousin Shannon, but they were living in Indiana, two states away.
It was a holding place for eternity, I thought. The majority of my time in that unfamiliar room, with the gray walls and the blue chairs, was spent staring at the frosted glass door, hoping for someone to come through it and take me away. I was so cold that an officer lent me his coat and draped it over my shoulders, but they didn't stay long. I was completely alone with my thoughts.
"Mommy is dead."
Aunt Claire arrived the next morning, and I started living with her and Shannon. All things considered, it was nice being in touch with them again. We used to be much closer but for some reason her and mom had stopped communicating. I remembered them fighting when I was younger, but wasn't entirely sure why.
Unfortunately, my stay was short lived. My aunt was sorry that she couldn't take care of me, but she didn't make enough money to "feed another mouth," in her words. She was also seven months pregnant at the time, and her house was far too small for me to occupy. Having nowhere else to go, the state took possession of me, and I was shuffled around to different places until I finally moved in with my father; a man I'd never met....
* * *
September, 1956.
It was a long drive. The windows were down, blowing my hair all over the place and making a mess of it, but I was too seated in my thoughts to give a damn. The Long Island air was dense and tasted off to me—more artificial, less alive, in contrast to the air in Pennsylvania where I grew up. I wanted to spit it out.
