Before I Die

“No, I didn’t say that. We’re investigating. We’ve called your brother, but he isn’t answering. Unfortunately his neighborhood doesn’t have any cameras. Until we get ahold of him, we’re keeping the case open.”

I don’t even know what to say. I know what I saw. He was dead. I closed his eyelids!

As I stare at the images in front of me, I remember that I needed to tell them about my belongings. “My purse was left at his house, in the living room. My shoes too. Did you see them anywhere?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “We can go back and see if maybe you left your stuff in his room or—”

“They couldn’t have just upped and walked away,” I say, cutting him off. “They were in the living room. Inside my purse is my phone. If they took it, we can log in and track it.”

Detective Roberts gets me a laptop and I pull up the Find my iPhone website like the guy at Apple showed me how to do. But when I click on my phone, it shows it’s untraceable.

“This can’t be right. They had to have done something to my phone,” I tell him.

“I’ll add this to my list of things to look into,” he promises before he walks me to the front of the station. When we get to the door that leads to the outside, he says, “If we hear from him, we’ll tell him you’re worried and to call you.”

“And when you don’t hear from him?” I ask, because I know they won’t.

“We will get to the bottom of it,” he assures me.

I nod my understanding, completely stunned and confused about what just happened, and thank him.

I spend the rest of the day in bed. I don’t read or watch television. I don’t call anyone to tell them I don’t have my cell phone, or even eat. I just lie there, trying to recount everything that happened. It doesn’t make sense. I know what I saw, but I have no way to prove it.

Finally, I fall asleep, only to have nightmares replaying the image of my brother’s dead, lifeless body on the floor.

As I walk into the church, I realize I’ve been running on autopilot. It’s been engrained in me for so long to get up and go to mass, I didn’t even realize I was walking through the doors until I was already in here. I consider walking back out, until I catch sight of my parents sitting in the pew. They’re listening to the sermon, without a worry in the world. Because they don’t know what I know.

Stephen is gone.

Where was God when I was hiding in his bathroom listening to the sounds of his murder? Where was God when I begged and pleaded with him not to take my brother?

As I stand in the back of the cathedral, listening to a priest I’ve known my entire life preach about forgiveness—oh, the irony—all I want to do is scream, “Where was this forgiveness when Stephen was alive?” But I can’t. I don’t even know if my voice could go higher than a whisper.

So instead, I stand in the back quietly, as he wraps up his sermon with a prayer, and think about my mother and everything I’ve learned.

Do I forgive her for the secrets she’s kept from her family? For judging everyone all these years while painting this picture of being the perfect Catholic wife and mother?

My answer is no.

I don’t forgive her.

I can’t.

And now that Stephen is gone, she’s going to have to live with the fact that while he was alive, she not only judged him and made him feel like an outcast, but she lied to him about who his birthfather was. He died believing she didn’t love him and that’s something she will never be able to fix.

I’ve also decided I’m done with this church. I’m done teaching at this school and running the youth group. If my mother is associated with it, I want nothing to do with it.

And while I’m at it, I’m done with God.

My heart constricts at the very thought. God has been a part of my life since I was born. With every decision I’ve made, he’s been who I’ve turned to. Who my parents have taught me to turn to. But no more. I don’t think I want to turn to the man who sat back and watched my brother get killed. My brother may not have been perfect, but he was a good person and didn’t deserve this. So, God and me…we’re on a break, indefinitely.

When I leave here, after I’m done confronting my mother, I’m planning to go back to the police station to see if they’ve found any new information. They can’t possibly expect me to wait around until they realize my brother isn’t on some vacation, but was murdered. There is a man on the loose, a murderer, who has my information and can come after me any time. And this time, I’m not leaving until they tell me they’re going to do something about it.