January 28th, 2024 - NEIGHBOR OF 209 LYNWOOD ST. – Loretta Kim

From what I’ve heard, Clarissa was the first on the scene of her son’s death. I couldn’t imagine. I was making my afternoon tea–3:05pm, I always make my tea then–and I heard her.

God, it was like she was dying. I swore she was. I heard her in my kitchen, all the way from her backyard. All the way, two houses down.

The neighbors are already talking. I overheard Lisa Abernathy claiming it was the house, or the grandkids, or Clarissa herself who did it. The boy’s body is barely even cold yet. Two days, and already the rumor mill is churning. Nothing has ever been private for that family. Half of everything I hear about them comes out of someone else’s lips.

Everyone’s got a story involving a Brighton. Even if they’ve never uttered a word to one themselves. Most of them claim to know the family well. They don’t. And I suppose I don’t know them all that well either.

Just Clarissa.

I met her the second year of University–back when we were just girls. We weren’t all that close, but I needed friends, and Clare had those in spades. She’s always been one of those tomboy types. Back then, she wrestled, and I would come to her matches. I remember she broke her arm during a match once. It was real brutal. Some girl had picked her up and flipped her.

It was the type of thing where you know someone’s gonna land wrong before they even hit the ground. Even against the padded mat, she snapped her arm sideways. Now, I screamed, but there wasn’t a peep out of her. She walked off the mat furious, tears streaking down her face, but she hadn’t made a sound the entire time. She’d always been a silent sufferer.

So when I heard her wailing like that, I thought the worst. …And I suppose it was the worst. I’ve got some girls of my own. 2 of them, alongside some grandkids. You live your entire life assuming you’ll pass before they do. Your children dying before you? It’s unnatural. Terrible.

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And to be the one who finds him? One of her grandkids—the blond one—he’s been talking, telling anyone who’d listen what happened. She peeled up the pool cover and found him there. Floating. Her only son. Blood everywhere.

By the time I’d grabbed my cane and found my way down the street, the police had filled out their lawn like ants, stomping on the grass and their flowerbeds. I had half-a-mind to come in screaming if it hadn’t been for the state of Clarissa.

She was gone. I could see it in her eyes. I’ve got a talent for that, you know? I can see where someone’s head is at with one glance, and she was gone. Larger than life Clarissa Brighton, swaddled up in a comforter and empty to the world.

It was like she’d taken a dip in that pool herself. Her arms, her top, all soaked in that bloody-water. They’d found her cradling her son, despite the state of his face, and weeping against him. Now, she was dead silent, staring at the grass as though it would carve itself into the shape of her son.

I walked up to her, all up out of sorts and beside myself. I hadn’t wanted to, at the time. That much condensed agony is hard to interact with. I felt inadequate, holding her, letting her dusty gray locs fall over my shoulder. Like I was an asshole for not crying with her. Like I would be an asshole for crying—for even pretending to understand her suffering.

The only thing I could do was rub her back, and have my husband bring out a cup of tea. Although I cared for the boy, he was not my son.

He was not my son. I couldn’t know.

I never got the chance to talk to the son, Jacob, either. Not since he went strange. It feels horrible to talk about him that way now, after… well, after all that's happened, but he did. He was a sweet boy. I remember, he used to play soccer with my girls out back. He just–he changed one day. He had that look in his eye Clarissa had last Wednesday. Like something had been taken from him. Like he was dead, standing. Hardly ever left that awful house.

I hadn’t asked Clarissa about it. It just hadn’t seemed like my business, and it certainly isn’t now.

I’m going up to see my girls this weekend. All the way up to New York. Things like this remind you of how easily you can lose them, and I don't feel safe here anymore.

I just hope whoever carved his face up like that is caught. Who would do that to a person?