"No, Karen, you don't have to tell me. . . ."
"I want to!" I pressed her to my breast and squeezed back my tears as she continued.
"Her face was all blue. Her tongue was hanging out, and she'd pooped . . ." Karen paused but she wasn't finished. "Dad pulled her down and carried her, running up the stairs, crying. I didn't know what to do. I was crying too. After a while I crept upstairs. Dad was on the phone with Dr. Graham. He'd carried Mom all the way to the second floor to the hospital bed in her room. I crept outside past the pool and pretended I was playing. I couldn't stop crying. I hit myself on the forehead with a stone so I had an excuse for bawling."
"God, Honey, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." I rocked her back and forth and couldn't hold back my tears. I pulled Karen even closer and after a few minutes she continued, in a voice hardly a whisper.
"A lot of cars came, and it was a long time before anyone looked for me. They took me inside and told me all these lies about how mom had died in her sleep and in heaven and she was sad to leave us. It wasn't just me they told, they told everyone. Dr. Graham fixed it up that way. I heard them talking to the funeral guy. He must have seen her neck all twisted but he didn't say anything either. I heard Dad go down in the cellar that night and clean up." She held back a sniffle. "I remember I'd peed myself and was afraid I'd get scolded so I tossed my pajamas away."
"God help us!"
"Timmy was upstairs sleeping all the time. Even Timmy doesn't know, only Daddy and me, and now you."
We never left the love chair the balance of the night. Karen slept soundly cramped against me but I swear I never closed my eyes. My mind was a total maelstrom with what she related. It answered so many questions yet raised so many more. While I didn't agree, I could perhaps forgive Paul for not explaining in detail to the children how their mother died given their age at the time. Lies have an insidious way of hurting far more deeply than the truth, no matter how bitter the pill of honesty. Look at the case at hand? How much has Karen suffered alone with the horrible knowledge she carried? Why would Paul hide the suicide from everyone, compounding the lie and perhaps giving rise to legal problems should the truth be revealed? I sensed Karen's deep problems from the start. She told me when I first met her, all adults lied, including her father. I didn't press her at the time. God knows I should have. There was no adult in her life she could trust with the truth.