Fate, as explanation, as probable cause.
Father, memory of: Always I see my father walking out doors. I see him shutting the door to my bedroom, refusing to leave the light on, even after he gave me something to be afraid of. I see him shutting the car door, locking me in for delirious summer hours while he drank, sitting near a window so he could keep an eye on me. I see him walking out the front door of our house, suitcase in hand, vanishing forever.
Father, murdered. Gunned down by a complete stranger, outside a bar, in Bay City, Michigan. They had not been fighting, nor had they even spoken, at least according to the murderer. This murderer, he said he didn’t know why he did it, why he felt compelled to pull the pistol out of his jacket and shoot my father dead. We didn’t know either. We hadn’t talked to our father in five years, didn’t even know he was still in Michigan, waiting to be killed.
Fingerprints are hard to get a hold of, but not impossible. I have spent a fortune to get these cards, these five-fingered imprints of the men and women who have torn my family to shreds. I have placed my own fingers over theirs, but they do not match. I am not accountable, at least not in this most surface of ways.
Fingerprints: Once you know your own, you can dust your house, can prove that no one has been there but you.
Fire, as possibility, since it did not claim any of the others.
Forensics, as method of investigation.
Girlfriend, brother’s. Calls over and over, crying into the phone. One reason to get Caller ID.
Guardian angels, non-existent, as far as I can tell.
Gunpowder, smell of: My father’s face, when I bent down to kiss him in his coffin.
Hair samples, stored in plastic bags inside folded manila envelopes. Labeled with name, date, relationship. Fragile, dangerous to handle.
Her, the only one of them that remains.
Her, who has separated herself from me, for her safety, for my own.
History, familial, patriarchal and matriarchaclass="underline" This is not just us, not just my mother and father and brother and sister and myself. This is uncles killed in poker games, aunts smothered in hospitals. This is babies exposed in vacant lots and brothers holding sisters underwater until the ripples stop. This is history as an inevitable, relentless tide.
History, of an event, of a series of events.
History, personal and also partial, as in this index.
Hospitaclass="underline" The place we were born, the place we go to die, the place we will be declared dead.
Identity, as in, Can you identify this body? As in, Is this the body of your father/mother/brother?
Identity, as in, If I could identify my sister’s future killer, could I stop her murder from taking place?
If I can’t have him, no one can. Words overheard but ignored. A lesson about the importance of warning signs.
Index as excavation, as unearthing, as exhumation.
Index, as hope, as last chance.
Index, as how to find what you are looking for.
Index, as method of investigation.
Index, as task, as thing to be completed before I die.
Index, as time capsule, as guide to understanding the collected evidence of a life, of a history, of a family tree.
Index, as understanding, however incomplete.
Inevitability, as a likely end to this story.
Insurance policies, as in, Good luck getting one, if you’re me. They never tell you that being from a family of murder victims is a risk factor, but it is.
J, tattooed on the inside of my right wrist, first initial of a brother lost.
Jars, for holding each organ individually after they are weighed and categorized and examined for meaning.
Jars, full of brains and livers and hearts. They will not give these to me, no matter how persistently I ask.
Knife, as weapon, if you hold it right.
Like being torn from the arms of the father.
Like being wrenched from the bosom of the mother.
Like closed caskets, like graves all in a row, like the last two plots, waiting to be dug out and then filled in.
Loss of limbs is less important to those who will not survive than those who have to see what is left.
Love, as necessity.
Love, not nearly enough.
Luck, as in bad luck, for all of us.
Madness, temporary, blinding.
Manslaughter implies that what happened was a mistake. In my family, we do not believe in manslaughter.
Memory, doing the best it can.
Memory, failing to do enough all by itself.
Memory, inconsistent, remembering the wrong events, seeking significance and signs where probably there are none.
Memory: When my brother and my sister and then I went off to school, my mother gave us each a St. Christopher’s medallion. When she placed mine around my neck, she told me it would protect me, that it would keep me safe from accidents, from accidental death, as if that was all we had to worry about.
Mirror, the only place I see my father’s hairline, my mother’s nose, my brother’s ears, my sister’s thin, frightened lips.
Mother, memory of: Lonely before he left, then worse after. There were men with good jobs and men with no jobs, men with tempers and men with appetites, men who were kind to us and men who used us as punching bags, as whipping posts, as receptacles for all the trash they carried inside themselves. Of all those who have failed to protect our family, she was only the first.
Mother, murdered. Died strapped into the passenger seat of a car, unconscious from a head wound, from a wound to the head. I have heard it said both ways. Her boyfriend—a man she started dating after our father left but before he was dead—thought he had killed her with his fists, but was wrong. It was the drowning after he dumped the car that did it.
Motives are almost the opposites of alibis, but not quite.
Mug shots: One, two, three, all in a row on the wall of my office. A reminder of who they were.
My brother’s dog, which I take care of but do not trust. He failed to bark in the night once before, and he could do it again.
Mystery, unsolved, even after all this investigation.
Nothing, as inevitable as an ending.
Nothing: impossible to index, to quantify, to explain.
Over-protectiveness is something you learn, but always too late.
P, tattooed on the left side of my neck, first initial of a mother lost.
Persistence of fate, of karma, of destiny, of a wheel turning and turning, crushing whatever falls beneath its heel.
Phones, both answered and unanswered. Bearers of bad news.
Phones ringing and ringing and ringing.
Photographs, blown up and then cropped until the wounds disappear beyond the borders of the frame.
Photographs, mailed to me from Michigan, of my father’s body, as unrecognizable as the distance between us.
Photographs of crime scenes, always the same series of angles, repeated for each murder.
Photographs of my brother, dead before he could scream.
Photographs of my brother’s eye, of the knife wound left where it used to be.
Photographs of my brother’s lips, pressed together in sleep, then death.
Photographs of my mother’s face, bruised and broken.
Photographs of my mother’s teeth, on the floor of the car.
Photographs of our family of five, and then of four, and then of three. There are no photographs of our family of two. We do not gather. We do not congregate.
Photographs, plastered like wallpaper until all I can see from my desk are familiar clavicles and jaw lines and hands placed palms up to expose too-short life lines.
Police, as in, I have had my fill of the police.
Poison, a possibility. Must prepare my own food, avoid restaurants, parties, buffets and potlucks.