Forgiving My Daughter's Killer Read online

  “Why do you think it’s taking them so long?” he asked, his eyes grave with worry. Suddenly our roles were reversed.

  “Everything takes time,” I assured him. From my hospital experience I knew that there’s paperwork and a procedure for everything.

  “I think they’re delaying because they just don’t want to break the news to us.” His voice drifted off.

  I glanced at my phone. Its clock automatically adjusted for daylight savings time, which had occurred that day. It confused me, since the clock in the car hadn’t been turned ahead. I tried to glance outside, but the windowless room revealed no clues. Andy felt as if we’d waited for hours, but isn’t that how time works? The more time you want, and the more you need time to move forward, the more it seems to stand still.

  “They’re hiding something,” Andy said, sitting motionless in his chair. At work he was used to being the one giving orders, making decisions. I could tell it troubled him to sit and wait for someone else to come and give him information.

  “You don’t know that,” my friend Sherry said comfortingly. “The doctor will come just as soon as he’s free. Just wait and see what he says.”

  My phone’s reception flickered in and out, but I still managed to alert people of our whereabouts.

  Ann has been shot.

  No matter whom I told or how many times I said it, it didn’t feel real. The trauma settled over me like a fog—keeping me from feeling the cold, harsh reality of the situation.

  When a doctor and a nurse finally came in, they stood in the corner of the room. The nurse held a clipboard.

  “Ann was shot through her right eye at close range with a shotgun,” the doctor said. “She has been gravely wounded. Her right hand was also injured.”

  A shotgun in the eye at close range? I knew enough about guns to know shotguns spray pellets from a shell. They aren’t precise enough to only hit her eye. As my mind raced, Andy asked to see her.

  “Really, it’s a miracle that she survived.”

  “What do you mean?” Andy asked.

  “After being shot at this range, it’s just amazing she’s still alive.” He paused and added, “Her condition is grave, but stable.”

  As the nurse led us—Andy, Sherry, Father Chris, and me—back to a large room to see her, that word stuck in my gut. A miracle? How dare he use that word! This was not a miracle. It was a nightmare.

  It was about to get worse.

  When we got to the room, we stopped near a young woman in a hospital gown on a trauma bed. Her head was bandaged.

  Ann?

  The right side of her head was completely covered with gauze, with just a sprig of hair shooting out. Only a part of the left side of her face was visible. A tube emerged from her mouth.

  Was that Ann’s mouth? Her mouth was perfect, with full lips I’d kissed a thousand times. Well, when she was little. Over time—I can’t remember exactly when—kisses had become hugs, “Mommy” had become “Mom,” and our nightly bedtime routine had become “text me if you’re going to be late.”

  Surely I’d recognize her lips.

  I stood at the foot of the stretcher. The patient’s feet were covered, so I hesitantly lifted the sheets to look at her feet. I saw her ankles, and it began to sink in.

  Her arm was exposed beside her body.

  Is that Ann’s arm? There was so little to judge from.

  “Right orbit trauma,” I read aloud from the label on the wristband.

  “Until the patient’s identity is confirmed, they just label the injury,” Sherry said. “The tube coming from her mouth is there to . . .”

  I looked back at her left hand and spotted a little freckle on her middle finger.

  My mind swirled as Sherry spoke. Life—it suddenly felt—was happening around me. Near me. To me.

  It was Ann.

  Father Chris began to perform the anointing of the sick. This is simply a series of prayers, usually administered to bring spiritual and physical strength to someone who is close to death. Incorporated into the prayers are petitions for the forgiveness of sins.

  We watched as he anointed her forehead and did the sign of the cross on her hand. Normally this is done on both hands, but Ann’s other hand was bandaged. It was a very comforting—and challenging—thing to observe.

  An orthopedic doctor came into the room.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Grosmaire, I’m Dr. Lee,” he said. “I’ve been consulting on what to do for Ann’s facial reconstruction. Plus, she will need work done on her hand as well. Her fingers have been damaged.”

  A plan to reconstruct her face? And then her injured hand? Was it possible? Was she going to survive this? How could she? If she did, what would that look like? A few years ago in Florida—and all across America—the Terri Schiavo case had dominated the news, leaving everyone with ethical questions about people who depended on life support. I couldn’t help but ask similar questions about Ann. Would Ann actually survive this enough to have her face rebuilt? Would I sit by her bedside day after day, waiting for some sign?

  As the doctor spoke, Andy’s shoulders softened. After convincing himself in the waiting room that Ann had died, even this horrible sight filled him with relief.

  I, on the other hand, had a growing sense of dread. Life as we knew it was over. Whether or not she survived, everything would be different.

  Glancing around the room, I noticed a necklace sitting on a tray. It had been around Ann’s neck the last time I had seen her; it was her favorite, and she wore it frequently. The silver chain had a silver rabbit at the end with a small, round, pink stone tucked in his paws. The necklace was sitting in a specimen cup. It was stained with dried blood. Ann’s blood.

  “Would you like it?” one of the trauma nurses said quietly, picking up the cup and handing it to me.

  Someone stepped forward from a corner of the room. A man with green khakis and a matching polo shirt. The shirt bore a badge, and his belt held a holstered gun. A sheriff’s detective. “No,” he said. “You can’t take that. It’s . . .” He paused for just a moment, as if every word caused him pain. “It’s evidence.” His eyes dropped to the floor.

  Of course.

  My daughter’s bunny necklace was now part of a police investigation. Along with Ann’s necklace, they would also keep her cell phone as evidence. Notebooks in her car. The champagne glasses filled with sparkling lemonade that Ann and Conor had used on their picnic. Everything was evidence.

  “After the investigation, maybe, we’ll see if we can get it back for you,” he said. I set the cup back on the table, then a young woman came into the room.

  “I’m sorry to have to do this,” she said, her big brown eyes full of compassion. “But I need some information for admission to the hospital.”

  “Of course, I understand,” I said. We stepped just outside the door to fill out the paperwork.

  As Ann fought for her life, I dealt with the details. Sign here. Initial here. We accept cash, checks, and credit cards. May I get a copy of your insurance card?

  I could tell she was uncomfortable asking me for this information, so I tried to assure her that I understood. These details actually provided a momentary respite. I knew how to locate my insurance card and check into a hospital room. I did not know how to deal with a life-changing accident.

  As they prepared to move Ann to the Neuro Intensive Care Unit, I went outside to the parking lot to make a call.

  “Mom?” I said into the phone. I imagined she was making her evening meal in Memphis. “There’s been an accident. Ann’s been shot, and you need to come right away. Call Dan or Tim and see if they can drive you.” I knew she was too old to make the ten-hour trip alone, but one of my brothers would be able to bring her safely.

  Afterward, Sherry offered to take us upstairs to show us where they had taken Ann. We walked through the emergency room, down long halls, up an elevator, and around the corner. The Neuro Intensive Care waiting room had three recliners, some plastic chairs, and a little kitch
en. There was also a small desk and a computer. The room only had three walls, and it opened to the hall.

  By evening a crowd of friends, church members, and coworkers spilled out from the small waiting area and into the hallway. My friend Jennifer came up to me, put her arm around my shoulders, and said, “There’s an article online about what happened. About how Conor turned himself in.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Apparently, Conor walked into the police station and confessed to killing Ann,” she said. “He thought she was dead.”

  “Where did you read this?” I gasped. What I was thinking was, Why are you telling me this? I definitely didn’t want to know, but now the information was right there dangling in front of my face. I had to open my eyes and face the situation.

  “The Tallahassee Democrat,” she said. “Apparently, he drove around awhile before turning himself in.”

  Up to this point I figured something had gone terribly wrong. An accident. Jennifer’s information made the shooting sound more . . . intentional.

  The computer just sat there in the waiting room, holding the answers to questions I hadn’t mustered the emotional energy to ask; but I sat down in the plastic chair, reached for the computer mouse, and took a breath.

  CHAPTER 3

  His mother expected him to become a priest, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off the girl behind the food counter.

  “A chocolate milkshake,” he said as he watched her scoop the hard ice cream into the metal canister and fill it up with malted milk.

  Even though it probably wasn’t the best milkshake he’d ever had, he went to the drugstore every afternoon.

  “Another chocolate,” he said.

  “You must really like milkshakes,” said the girl, who was only a high school senior at the time.

  Within the year they were married. By the time she was twenty-seven, they had five children—three girls and two boys—of which I was the second. My dad’s mother never quite forgave my mom for stealing her son from the priesthood. (My mom didn’t buy it. “If he actually had been called to the priesthood,” she said much later in life, “he wouldn’t have been so easily distracted by the sight of a girl with ice cream.”) Even though he never became a priest, my parents loved God and the Church and did everything they could to raise us in the fear and admonition of the Lord. We faithfully attended mass every Sunday. I attended Holy Rosary Catholic School, made my First Communion in the second grade, and was confirmed in the eighth grade.

  This all happened against the backdrop of the exciting but tumultuous city of Memphis, Tennessee. While I was growing up there, a singer named Elvis transformed a Southern colonial mansion into a quirky palace called Graceland, complete with a sheet-music-themed gate of wrought iron, a swimming pool, a racquetball court, and an indoor waterfall. Also in Memphis, the civil rights movement bubbled up as five thousand black Memphians showed up to hear Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. give his first speech in the city. In 1968 he was shot and killed there while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, and—less than a decade later—Elvis passed away in the upstairs bathroom of Graceland.

  Our lives, however, were far removed from the turbulent things going on in the larger culture. My mother stayed home with us while my dad did various jobs, including computerizing the voting system in Memphis. Dad took us to his office, where he showed us how to use a device that precisely punched holes into stiff paper cards. (I knew all about “hanging chads,” and how to prevent them, long before the horrible Florida election recount of 2000.) He was a hard worker, but he also had an artistic side; and he made sure to include us in all of his various craft projects, including a rather complicated rooster mosaic from dried beans that we hung on the wall in our den. He also played bridge, did calligraphy, made stained glass, and performed magic tricks well enough to be invited to entertain at parties. My mother tried her best to keep our hectic household of seven in order, as she somehow coordinated all our activities. We always shared our evening meal together as a family, and with five kids, we always had enough players for any card game we could think of.

  One Saturday afternoon, when I was fourteen years old, my dad was playing bridge with his friends, and my mom was downstairs. I was in my room chatting on the phone with a friend. My twelve-year-old brother Dan was somewhere playing with his ten-year-old friend Bart.

  “Look what I found,” my little brother said, when he found the handgun my father kept in his bedroom closet for personal protection. My dad collected guns, which were arranged quite nicely in a large display case in the living room. Maybe my brother believed that this gun, like one of the antique ones downstairs, was just for show. For whatever reason, he didn’t think it was loaded; so he aimed the gun at Bart.

  “Freeze!” he yelled.

  I was upstairs when I heard the loud bang. My brother had pointed the gun at his friend and pulled the trigger. The bullet went into Bart, who stumbled down the hallway and collapsed.

  My mom flew up the stairs and kneeled over Bart.

  “Call for help!” she said as she began CPR.

  I quickly ended the call with my friend, but after I hung up, for some reason I couldn’t get a dial tone. I ran next door, only to learn with horror that the neighbors weren’t home. Since I was the one in charge of getting help, I smashed the window to their back door, went in, and called the operator.

  I was too nervous to go back into the house. Shortly after the emergency responder arrived, my younger sister came home and my mom asked me to take her for a walk. I was grateful to be away from the frenzied scene surrounding our home. On my walk I tried to make promises to God in return for Bart’s life. Bart had been shot through the heart, and nothing could be done to save him.

  My father sold all his guns and never played bridge again. A couple of years later, my parents separated for a while. I always figured my dad never got over the guilt of having a loaded gun where someone could find it.

  We never really talked about what happened, but it shaped my outlook on life—and on guns and tragedy—forever. My mother particularly avoided the subject. Years after the incident, she was at breakfast with her little group of church friends when someone brought it up.

  “Where do you live, Teresa?” one of them asked.

  “Kirby Road,” she replied.

  “Wasn’t there a little boy who was shot on that road a long time ago?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know about that.”

  My family kept to ourselves, except when we were surrounded by other like-minded folks at church. Occasionally, when we weren’t at church, people reminded us that the South was not typically amenable to Catholicism.

  “Catholics are going to hell,” a little girl from our neighborhood said at the park.

  “My dad says that priests are minions of the devil,” said another.

  The more people criticized, the more it reaffirmed our differences and our need to stay connected with other Catholic families. In 1972 my family started attending St. Patrick Church in downtown Memphis, which was the first church I’d attended that had embraced the tenets of Vatican II. They encouraged Catholics to have friendships with people from non-Christian faiths, permitted Catholics to pray with other Christian denominations, and suddenly began saying mass in English rather than Latin.

  It invigorated me! I loved that the church was willing to operate in the modern world, which was—and is—so desperate for faith. After the 1960s, which had given us the Vietnam War and the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., the 1970s were much more relaxed. St. Patrick’s mass reflected that spirit. Instead of a traditional choir, we had a bona fide Christian rock band: acoustic guitars, flutes, and tambourines. Our songs had more of a “sing around the campfire” vibe to them than traditional hymns, and the “sign of peace” was a five-minute hug-fest. Once I brought a non-Catholic friend to church, and she was so confused during the “sign of peace” because people walked from one end of the church to the other to
get hugs. It seemed to go on forever.

  “Is mass over?” she whispered.

  The church’s charismatic feel connected with my heart.

  Then, in 1981, I laid eyes on a tall, blond, and handsome Presbyterian who would also connect with my heart. He was the first man I dated who I felt treated me well. Previously, I’d dated a boy from college who was far too controlling. He would place his hand on my back at parties and guide me in the ways he wanted me to go. Once at a party, I found him making out with another girl—but he insisted that, as my boyfriend, he should take me home. Then, in a climactic end to our terrible relationship, we had a fight outside a pizza place. He angered me so much that I tried to run over him with my moped. It didn’t work. First, mopeds aren’t that fast, so he had plenty of time to get out of my way. Second, I hit a gravel patch, and the little bike slipped right out from under me.

  When I met Andy, I had finally found a man who treated me with sweetness and care. He was charming and attentive, and he always seemed to be laid-back. Two years after we met, we were married in St. Peter’s Church.

  St. Peter’s Catholic Church. As one of the oldest structures in Memphis, its vaulted ceilings, hollowed arches, and gorgeous stained glass fixtures made for a stunning backdrop. But the real reason we married in a Catholic church was to make a sacred pact in front of our community. Catholics, like many other Christian communities, don’t view marriage as an isolated relationship between a man and woman. Instead, they view it as a partnership that includes future children, the community, the parish, and God. As such, we vowed to raise our children as Catholics.

  And we had every intention of doing just that. Once we were married, Andy continued with his college classes, and I continued to work as a records clerk at a local hospital. Though we weren’t regular church attendees, we made sure to attend at Easter and Christmas. When God gave us a beautiful baby girl just a year into our marriage, she was baptized at St. Peter’s in a private baptism ceremony in the chapel. I was amazed by this little miracle. I would cry thinking about how this person began as just two cells joined together inside of me. I could get lost for hours looking at Sarah’s little feet and hands.