I thought hard, then shook my head.
Lily was a straight–A student, always at the
top of her class.
She was so well–behaved that Mom and Dad
adored her, and never yelled at her.
And a breakup? That was impossible. Lily was
in seventh grade and didn’t have a boyfriend.
The police ran into a dead end and took a
<
different approach.
“What about your grandma? Did she say
anything about wanting to end her life?”
“She killed herself after seeing Lily’s note.”
“What did Lily write?”
My eyes filled with tears.
Lily’s death had hurt me, but Grandma’s
death was a punch to the gut.
She had killed herself right in front of me.
I was crying too hard to speak.
The police ended the interview and closed the
case as a suicide because of study pressure.
<
They had barely left when they returned.
Detective Reynolds looked at me, not knowing
what to say.
He paused, then his voice dropped.
“Don’t be too upset.”
وو
“We just got a call. Your father, Tom Baker,
he jumped into the river.”
My face went white.
I began to shake.
The police took me to the river.
Yellow tape blocked off the area.
When the crowd saw me walking through the
tape with the cops, they started whispering.
“That’s the daughter of the guy who killed
himself. They look alike.”
“I don’t know what’s going on. He just left his
daughter without a father.”
“His other daughter killed herself, and he
couldn’t deal with it, so he jumped.”
“His daughter died but what about his other
daughter, how could he leave her?”
Listening to the whispers, my heart sank.
I couldn’t believe that Dad, who was scared of
water, would jump into the river.
L
The police patted my shoulder and handed
me a phone, which played a video taken by
someone in the crowd.
I saw Dad pull up to the river.
He quickly got out of the car, ran to the edge
of the bridge, and jumped.
In the video, he was quick, decisive, without
hesitation.
The churning river washed him away.
Watching the last moments of my father’s
life, I covered my mouth and cried.
Dad didn’t know how to swim and was scared
of the water.
く
He jumped into the river with no chance of
survival.
I covered my mouth and screamed.
I lost my sister, my grandmother, and now my
father.
I fell to the ground, not understanding how
this could happen.
Detective Reynolds gave me a serious look.
“Lisa, I know this is hard, but you need to pull
yourself together.”
“From what we can tell, your sister’s note is
the key.”
“You need to tell us what it says.”
く
I started screaming, clutching my head.
“I don’t know! I don’t know!”
If I could, I would do anything to know what
Lily wrote.
