Thursday, June 26

I had moved back to Costa Rica. My cousins, who were at my grandmother's house building a car, asked me how I was. I struggled to get out of the car because I was in a little bit of pain: I'd just returned from fighting in Iraq.

They both nodded and showed their respect and went back to fixing their car.

I told my mom thanks for driving me and went inside to see my sisters. We were all going to play lots of board games.

Miranda was a little upset because the way she understood the games vs. how my mom and I understood them was a little different. She was crying and I decided to try one of the games out on my own to see if they'd like it.

It went like this: music was hidden around the house. People had to open things, turn things, look under things--all in an effort to find the hidden music. I found most of it and got ready to go get my mother and my sister.

What I realized next, though, was that my mother was dead. In a drunken fit, my father had killed her. Marcelle was next to her--hurt, but alive.

I took the shotgun from my father--he was crying and apologetic. I called my grandmother to wake her up. She didn't want to come out but I insisted. When she saw that I was holding a shotgun, she got out of bed.

She screamed at the scene. My uncle Robert came out of the closet he lived in and gasped as well.

I handed off the shotgun--I wanted nothing with it--and my Uncle Robert ended up shooting my father too. I cried and tried to save my mother. There was nothing to do, though.

My grandmother ate some of my mother's blood and then her body was dumped outside in a trash bin.
The next morning, when the cleaning people came, they noticed that my mother's necklace was gone. Someone had stolen it.