The Locket

Cindy was at the window, gazing out between the boards. It was an upstairs window, her bedroom, and like all the other windows in the house, it had boards criss-crossing, nailed into the siding. Many of the homes in this neighborhood were likewise boarded-up, abandoned. She wanted hers to appear abandoned. She was hiding out there, retreating from the mayhem that was going on all around her. She reflected on what had transpired to bring her life to this point.

She thought back to 11 years ago when her daughter was tragically killed during a school shooting. Mandy was 17 years old and sitting in her calculus class with 23 other students when the shooter rushed in and killed her and eight other teenagers that day. They told her she died instantly, and there was just a bit of solace in knowing that she did not suffer. Two of the victims weren’t so lucky and held on to life for a short time before joining the list of the lost. It was a horrific tragedy that would change the direction of her life.

A total of 9 young people were killed that day and many many more injured. There was also a teacher, trying to save some of the children, who was injured and later passed away. She thought about how many times the same thing that happened at other schools all over the country, how often she listened to the news in horror, but never ever thought that it could happen at her child's school. She had always thought that she could imagine the pain of those involved, but once she was in those shoes, she realized that the human mind apparently has an ability to compartmentalize something so dreadful, keeping the mind from truly accepting it as reality. She had concluded that it was a defense mechanism that essentially saves us from fully accepting the evil that exists in the world and living in constant fear.

She picked up her cup of steaming coffee and took a sip as she observed five young men walking past her house in the street with what looked like machine guns. How had it gotten this bad, she wondered. Her other hand went to the locket around the neck and gently stroked the delicate filigree as she pondered the question and peered out the window, carefully sitting back far enough and staying still enough that no one passing by would notice her observing from above.

After Cindy found her way through the grief of losing her daughter, she forged forward to find a way to bring something positive out of the devastation that had affected so many. During the time that she was researching a direction to take to use her experience, the mother of the boy who gunned down all those victims showed up on her doorstep. When she first realized who she was, she was appalled at her nerve to seek out a victim’s parents. But she very quickly realized that this woman was every bit as devastated by the actions of her son as the families of his victims – maybe even more so because all of the victims weighed on her conscience. And that day brought about a bond between the two women that gave each the strength to find an avenue to change what had become the “new normal” of school shootings.

Cindy quietly got up from her observation chair and walked across the room to a corner where she had set up a table with a coffeemaker, hot plate and mini fridge, and topped off her coffee. Except for a couple times a week when she would venture to the kitchen or basement for some provisions, she stayed in this room to minimize the chance that someone would notice activity inside. She had been living like this for a few weeks since the mayhem started, and she knew that sooner or later, she would run out of food and have to make a decision on what to do next. All of her payments that allowed her life to continue were automatic, and since she made a very good living before all of this, the money wouldn’t run out anytime soon. But none of that had much value with the craziness that was happening.

After refilling her cup, she sat back in her perch above the world and gazed at the street below where she saw abandoned cars that had been stripped of wheels or doors, some with hoods up. A neighbor across the street sat on his porch with a shotgun across his lap as he smoked a cigarette. The houses on either side of him were boarded up like Cindy’s. She hadn’t watched any TV to find out the state of affairs since she locked herself in this room. There was a TV downstairs, but she didn’t want to attract any attention with either the noise or the glow of the screen. It didn’t matter – she could see what was going on, and the media didn’t seem to want to acknowledge what was happening when it first started.

Her hand went back to the locket. Stroking it seemed to calm her feelings of fear and hopelessness as her mind wandered back to her comrade in suffering, Amanda, the shooter’s mother. She and Amanda had spent the next few years talking to groups of parents about teaching their children how to respond during a school shooting, and to legislators, trying to affect change in gun control laws. Nothing was going to bring their children back, but at the very least, this was a positive coping mechanism and with a little luck, they hoped to have an impact that might save a life or make a parent recognize the signs of mental illness in a potentially dangerous child.

But in the end, Cindy felt as if they were spinning their wheels, so to speak. The parents they talked to seemed empathetic, but just like her before her daughter’s death, they could not grasp that it could happen to them. She was sure that they were going on with their lives as if there was no danger. She could feel that legislators had no interest in making it a little harder for people to own guns. And school shootings were becoming so common that people barely took notice anymore. A tear ran down her face as she relived the moment when she realized their efforts were not making the impact they had hoped for.

Cindy’s mind then wandered to the day her husband left – “I can’t handle you making me relive the awfulness of Trina’s death over and over!” he shouted at her. “I need some peace in my life and I can’t have that here.” And with that, he was gone. She should have been devastated, but she was only numb. No loss could ever compare to losing her daughter. One by one, friends also withdrew from her life. She could understand why – she probably sounded obsessed in her quest to make people wake up and realize there is something terribly wrong going on. It was their need to hide from the terrible truth that caused them to avoid her.

Suddenly, Cindy stood when she heard voices in her home, coming from near the kitchen as near as she could tell. They sounded maniacal, threatening. Was it those young men she saw earlier? She couldn’t hear the exact words, but she was sure they would probably find her. Then what? She looked around, trying to think quickly. She grabbed the chair she had been sitting in and jammed it under the doorknob. The voices grew louder and the steps creaked as they advanced up the stairs. Cindy yanked the locket from her neck, snapping the clasp, and held it in her palm. She opened it and put the little white pill that was inside in her palm so that she could see the tiny heart-shaped photo of her daughter, her sweet smile looking back at her.

The door shook as the intruders aggressively pounded, voices muffled by the heavy door. Cindy closed her eyes, somewhat relieved that her pain was about to be over as she tossed the pill in her mouth and quickly swallowed. As she crumbled to the floor, the chair broke and the door burst open. A man and a woman rushed to Cindy’s side as a third man walked in and assessed the situation. He pulled out a cell phone and dialed 911 as he asked, “What’s wrong? Does she have a pulse?”

“I can’t find a pulse!” the woman cried in anguish. “Get an ambulance, quick!!” And with that, the man spoke with 911 as the woman started CPR on Cindy. The man who had been kneeling next to Cindy with her picked up the open locket that had fallen to the floor. He saw Trina’s picture and grasped the locket, chain hanging through his fingers, pounding his fist to his forehead. “She just couldn’t get over it!” he said through tears. “Losing our Trina was just too much for her… Maybe if I had stayed…” his voice drifted off.

The paramedics arrived quickly and used a defibrillator to try to get her heart started without success, and soon they put Cindy’s body respectfully on the gurney, covered her up and started down the stairs. Her ex-husband, sister and brother-in-law followed them, the sister leaning on her husband and sobbing uncontrollably. They followed them out the door and stood on the porch as the ambulance pulled away.

As they stood on the porch consoling each other and deciding on their next move, the sun shone on the quiet street as if all was well with the world. The neighbor across the street who had been having an iced tea on his front porch looked across at them, probably curious but not wanting to intrude. A neighbor next door was in her yard, gloved hands poised to trim her rosebush as she peered at the threesome on her friend’s porch when the ambulance pulled away. She reluctantly walked around her bush into Cindy’s yard and approached them, soon realizing that one of them was her former neighbor. And for the next hour, they commiserated about Cindy’s plunge into a world of despair.