They caught the man who raped our neighbor. Tried him, sent him to jail, but Mother was right. That wasn’t enough.

The woman’s name was Shirley Watson. I knew her better than most adults because I was in love with her daughter, but had never said so to anyone. Lynn was too pretty for me. I was a pal, a friend. She might have even thought me gay. This in the year of our Lord, 1976.

That fall the winds came and the cedar seedlings coated the sidewalks a sooty rust color and clogged up the gutters. Windows shuddered and garbage cans rattled down the pavement. The power winked off and on. Any day that I looked into the sky it appeared coffee-stained, smudged, and it seemed the clouds became sheets of ragged, dirty laundry floating.

Mrs. Watson still made us Kool-Aid and cinnamon rolls. She still let us listen to Sherry’s record collection. She hummed and smiled the same amount as she had before. The weather was different, but for some reason Mrs. Watson wasn’t.

So it came as a shock when she went ahead and killed herself.

Tony, my best friend for awhile, he said Mrs. Watson hung herself using several pair of nylons. I didn’t know how that could be, how they’d possibly be strong enough, but I didn’t share my thoughts. Instead I slugged Tony in the jaw and walked away even while he screamed every curse word I knew at the time.

Lynn’s older sister, Sherry, most resembled their mother. Even my own heart crashed into a million jagged fragments every time I saw her.

After a few months, it didn’t matter anymore. Lynn’s Dad moved them to Canada, someplace in Manitoba.

I looked for Lynn on Facebook the other day. It felt sinful and creepy, yet my pulse raced and my fingers couldn’t stop scrolling. In her photo, Lynn’s head was tilted, gazing northward, and I could tell she’d taken it herself. All her information was locked. In order to gain access, it said I needed to ask her to be my friend.