Oakwood Regional High School Yearbook 2001-2002

My mom had told me she found my high school yearbook and would send it over in the mail. Months went by without the package arriving—as was mom’s way. I managed to put it out of my mind. When the parcel showed up on the lobby floor, the box bruised and tattered, it startled me. My body seemed to absorb early, instinctively to what my mind would later experience.

I ripped open the box, using my nails like claws, rabid and feral to get inside. My husband teased me that growing up in the desolate woods never left me, every challenge I faced, no matter how minute, would be lashed and lunged at. Hands aching, I opened the yearbook and seeing the shitty quality of the photos took me aback. I felt aged, though the clothing and style of then was current, the graininess of the pages gave its epoch away.

I flipped to my senior portrait. There she was, it was hard to identify with this girl, she no longer felt like me, she was distinct and familiar but distanced. I cringed at the inside jokes listed in the blurb, high school insecurities poorly masquerading as clever jokes, every line crafted as armor to deflect any insinuation of loneliness, ugliness, unworthiness that I could see seeping out of this girl. How she just wanted to do what was right.

I sighed and flipped to the back, to the reason my body felt jittery and the moment felt hot. “In Memoriam of Jenny Grans” the text read and below were photos. I was in most of them, having been friends with Jenny since elementary school. We played soccer together, had countless sleepovers, were each other’s first kiss (some could be prepared when the time came for our real first kiss), and I went on vacation with her every year to Cape Cod, where we would drift around aimlessly around the town. I didn’t have any memories of going to the beach during all of those years, but I do remember wishing the time would go by faster. Though the proof was in front of me, photograph evidence! that Jenny and I were close, nothing close to loss or nostalgia hit me. It was more a steady buzzing sound, anxiety making, and I shut the yearbook. I didn’t want to think about how Jenny died. I carefully made a life far away from Jenny and the town and the mystery of her death. The questions that rocked us: Who would murder this green eyed, freckle-faced, grinning girl? Who could have done this and gotten away with it? Who could have ruined this town, this school, this fucking year book by murdering Jenny G?

We were now a town marked by tragedy. A local woman, Jenny’s neighbor no less, had suddenly died two months before Jenny, a string in her heart had suddenly broken or that is what my memory provided as the cause of death. She had four young children, blue eyed, brown haired, and now motherless. I met the dad once, briefly, Jenny was babysitting the kids and brought me along. He seemed young and bewildered, beleaguered by the dead wife and remaining children. The kids were beautiful but marked with grief, big eyes with dark shadows, straggly hair, and they clung to Jenny and I. I couldn’t get away from them fast enough but Jenny went over there almost every day after school. I didn’t like to talk about it with her because I felt like their pain was contagious and it was coming for me and I felt suffocated by even looking at them. But with the way things turned out, I visit once a year now, to keep tabs on them.

Jenny was a good person. She didn’t deserve what or who came for her. I was interviewed by the police for hours after they found Jenny’s body, officers asking me to rack my mind about who could have done this to her. It was clear what had happened, the bruising around her neck showed someone had strangled her. It seemed to be in a fit of rage, a one time act so brutal it took her away from us. I told the cops about how Jenny would fight with her brother, Dan, he was always drinking and lived at home when everyone else his age had gone to college or moved to another town. Dan would ignore me, as if I never existed, only acknowledging me when he would scream at us to get out of his room. He would throw things at us, curse us, and then crack a beer. I told them about how Jenny’s dad would let us roam free for hours on Cape Cod, never checking in, how I doubted he knew anything about her life outside the home. I told them about Otto, Jenny’s older boyfriend who was old, so much older than us at 19. How he knew Jenny was 15 when he took her virginity and barely spoke to anyone when he was around, Jenny included. I told them how I always got really bad, creepy vibes from Otto. No one knew where she had met him or where he came from. I told them of the relief I felt when he would leave after having sex with her, and how the more he came around, the less I would go over. How eventually it was like Jenny and I weren’t really friends anymore. We would talk at soccer about her babysitting or upcoming tournaments but our friendship had sort of died and no officer, I can’t think of anyone else who may have done it.

One day after my final police interview, my heart racing and feeling as if I was on a television show, how was my friend murdered?!, I went to Jenny’s neighbor’s house to see how the kids were doing. I knew I would never go again, but Catholic guilt demanded I check in at least once to say hello and tell them how much Jenny loved them. It was so remote there, a large property with sagging fences and two skinny cows. I laughed for a second remembering how an eight year old Jenny stepped on a cow pie, how it erupted green goo all over her sneaker. I wonder if it was the same cow.

I saw the oldest daughter sitting on a swing outside, feet dangling in the dirt with her head down. I knocked on the door and her dad opened it, his face grey and lined, his eyes bloodshot. He was holding a big plastic jug of vodka that was almost gone. He was unsteady on his feet. There were beer cans, the white and blue kind, everywhere and the dishes in the sink were piled high. I remember I couldn’t wait to get out of there. I told him I came to talk about Jenny and wanted to see the kids. His eyes teared up at Jenny’s name. He staggered around the kitchen, saying how much he missed her, how he didn’t know what he would do without Jenny, how she was the only one who cared about them, the only one who ever showed up. I became nervous, I didn’t want him to think I would be coming over again, didn’t want him to try to convince me to help him with all this land and all these kids. I said I had to go and ran out to the yard where now all four children were at the swing. The little one with his thumb in his mouth looked at me and said “Where is Jenny, is she ready to come back?” I didn’t know how to answer him. Had his dad not told him Jenny was dead? “Jenny said she needed a break from us.” The oldest, Violet solemnly told me, head barely raising from her intent staring at the dirt. The kids were starting to freak me out, they were so unchildlike, so lethargic, so dirty, so sad. They were so vividly unloved, forgotten, left behind by a mother whose heart string snapped. I heard the dad thrashing around the house, hollering for the kids to come eat dinner, I smelled pizza. I told the kids I had to go. The second youngest one, another little girl, Amelia, asked if she could tell me something to tell Jenny. I knelt down, cringing. “Tell Jenny we are sorry daddy yelled at her when she needed a break. Tell her we are sorry he hurt her and we hope her neck is ok. Tell her we won’t let it happen again if she comes back.” I looked at her, her eyes filled with tears, he gave desperate for me to tell her beloved Jenny the message.

I went home. I can’t remember the drive. I can’t remember anything that happened after. I can only remember those sad, desperate faces and wondering what would happen to them if he went to jail. I remember writing a note and leaving it in the Neighbor’s mailbox. And visiting once a year to make sure he obliged by it.

I dropped the yearbook in the lobby trash. I didn’t like to be reminded that I knew who killed Jenny and what I chose to do with that knowledge. But a teenager has a black and white sense of morality and I did what I thought had to be done. I saw Amelia and Violet over the years, being coached by their daddy at soccer, seeing them at his wedding marrying a lovely woman who yearned for children to take care of, going off to college, finding love. Fifteen-year-old me had wanted to honor Jenny by making sure they were taken care of and I had done it. What is justice anyway? Is it four motherless kids getting a lifeline? Is it a killer sitting in jail while his children go to foster care? Is it a town suffering with the knowledge that a teenager was killed and no one was ever arrested? I felt heavy and laid down. I was right all of those years ago, the pain was contagious. I only ever wanted to stop it spreading.