I remembered how much she hated wearing that patch, but I would gently remind her that it would help her see better in the future. I remember, too, that the stares and the questions made her more compassionate to her friends who may have also received stares because of braces or glasses.
Every restorative justice circle has a centerpiece or a focal point. Ours was the afghan that Ann’s friend Khadijah had crocheted. When Ann was in the hospital, I’d put it at the foot of her bed. Now it rested at our feet, holding items we’d brought from home to represent her life.
There was the portrait the funeral home had created from her photo. We had also placed on the afghan a small box of mementos she’d collected in special moments: fall leaves, seashells, rocks. Plus, a plaster cast that my friend Cindy made of her uninjured hand while she was at the funeral home. This was an especially close reminder of her, because it had touched her and even had taken the shape of a part of her.
Andy picked up Ann’s “Thespian of the Year” drama award and held it up as he shared.
“She found her niche in the Leon High School drama department. She didn’t want to be the star of the stage; she loved the unseen work of stage management. We were the proud parents pointing to the stage during scene changes, saying: ‘That’s my daughter—there in black, pushing the scenery around.’ Or, ‘That buzzer you just heard? That was Ann.’ We were proud of her backstage work and her awards for student direction. She had a feel for things like blocking—where the actors should stand on stage—and a desire to make sure things were done right. We loved hearing how much she contributed to the drama department and how reliable she was in getting things done.”
Conor sat there silently as we talked. The weight of our words fell heavy on him.
“She was great at her job at the baby boutique too. Her boss told me she was confident leaving Ann in charge of the store. An eighteen-year-old who loved working in a baby boutique. We never quite understood her love of Sophie,” I said, holding up the teether.
Andy and I were very teary and emotional as we talked about Ann’s life, but we were also very proud of her. It was a joy to talk about her life and what she meant to us. When I started transitioning to her future—what might have been—my voice got shakier.
“We were certain that someday, Ann would have children of her own. Grandchildren that we’ll never know now,” I said, tears now falling. I noticed Julie wiping away her own tears. They would have been her grandchildren, too, had Conor and Ann gotten married.
Andy continued. “She was barely nineteen when she died. She was looking forward to going to the University of Central Florida. She was becoming a young woman. Really, she was still in that place where parents were mostly uncool.”
My mind raced back to Andy’s last communication with Ann. She was rushing through the house, and she asked Andy what he was making for dinner. Boring grilled chicken.
“Will you make me fettuccine Alfredo?” she had asked. Andy’s specialty—made with half-and-half and Italian cheeses—was her favorite meal.
“No,” he had responded. “We’re having chicken for dinner. This isn’t a restaurant.”
She was upset. “Come on, Dad!”
“Do you see menus here?”
“But I’m going out on a picnic with Conor to celebrate making the dean’s list, and I need to be able to take it with me.”
When Andy saw how much it meant to her, his heart softened toward his daughter and his resolve melted away. Though he wished she’d just eat what he was making her, he realized this was not a battle to fight.
“Okay, Ann,” he told her. After all, what father can refuse his daughter?
He made her what she wanted and put in an extra portion for Conor. He had no idea this would be the last time he would interact with his daughter. This would be her last meal.
“In retrospect, I’m very thankful I made the fettuccine,” Andy told the people in the circle.
I recalled the day the police released her car from evidence. The containers, with remnants of the meal, were still in the backseat.
“We were in the phase of parenting where everything was a battle,” I explained. “We never had the chance to become her friends again.”
“Becoming ‘empty nesters’ was something I was looking forward to,” I said. “Instead, it was forced on me. From now on every holiday will have an empty seat at the table. Every family picture incomplete. There is a space that can never be filled.”
I continued. “Ann sought Jesus in her own unconventional way. She had a quiet devotion to St. Anthony, the patron saint of horses. A Franciscan love of animals. A compassionate heart. She wanted her own wildlife refuge—St. Margaret’s—where she would rescue horses and raptors. She’ll never have the chance to do the good in this world that she was intended to do. Conor, you have to make up for that—you have to do the good works of two people now.”
We also read a letter from my sister Patti, about how Ann had asked her to be her godmother. Since Ann had been baptized when we were attending a Methodist church, she did not have one. Patti also talked about the profound effect of being at the hospital and being in the room when Ann died. It was the catalyst that led to her sobriety after years of drinking.
After I finished the letter, we sat quietly and listened to “Angel Band” by the Stanley Brothers, which was as much Ann’s song as the one that had been dedicated to her memory.
The song ended, and the room was filled with thick silence.
“What do you want to know?” Conor asked.
CHAPTER 17
I want to know everything that happened and why it happened,” Andy said. “From the moment she left the house with the fettuccine until . . .”
His voice trailed off. I knew Andy couldn’t go further to actually say the words, “until she was shot.” Not in this moment. Not on this day.
All eyes in the room moved from the grieving father to the offender.
At this point in the circle, Conor was supposed to explain what had happened, to give us closure on the events that had transpired that night. Usually in the criminal justice system, the offender and the victims are forever separated, an effort to protect the victims from being further damaged. The offender is coached to never admit any wrongdoing, no matter what. However, this artificial construct leaves no room for an apology from the offender. How often do we read that the prisoner standing before the judge showed no emotion at the trial or at sentencing? Victims are left to think that the offenders have no remorse for their actions.
Because of this legal wall, it is often impossible for family members to learn what really happened when their loved one died. What were their last words? Andy wanted answers to those questions. By knowing, he felt he could somehow come to peace with what happened.
Restorative justice circles and Victim Offender Dialogue (VOD) programs provide the space for victims and their loved ones to have a voice . . . a place for offenders to take responsibility for their actions. This is why we’d come.
In all the times we had spoken to Conor at the Leon County jail, we had never spoken about this. Conor was under strict orders from his defense attorney not to speak to anyone about what had happened. He wasn’t even sure what we knew. Had we read the police report? Seen his confession? What would we do, now that he was going to share with us the details of what he had done? He had no idea. But he did have a baby’s faith. Faith in the God that the Grosmaires had shown him. The God who loves unconditionally.
Before he spoke, he leaned forward and placed his elbows on his knees. He looked directly at us, then cleared his throat as if to steady his voice.
“Ann and I would fight sometimes,” he started, “because I didn’t understand the things that were important to her. I would forget about meeting her for lunch and she would be so disappointed. We would argue, and we couldn’t stop. Neither of us could let it go.”
As he spoke, he described the typical things teens fight about. Honestly, the things over which I,
as an adult, find myself being disappointed.
“Did they fight?” the detective had asked. Don’t all teens fight? I thought. Ann was emotional, like me. I’d had my share of teenage arguments when I’d been caught up in the high emotions of the moment. I remember feeling like a breakup was the end of the world . . . crying behind a locked door while my mom stood on the other side, gently asking if everything was okay. I’d asked Ann the same question before.
“I hit her,” Conor said, distressed by the memory of his explosive anger. “I hit her two times—two different occasions. Once in the stomach and once in the face. With my fist . . . each time.” He explained that they’d both been horrified by his actions. Each time he was sorry for what he had done. Neither of them understood why he had reacted so violently. “We were scared to tell anyone. We were afraid of what might happen, that I might be arrested.”
“Did you know he’d hit her?” the detective had asked. No, we hadn’t. She hadn’t even told her sisters. How many times had I thought about the fight Conor had with his dad? Conor had seemed so distraught. It didn’t occur to me that Conor was learning by example. Fear and shame. Feeling isolated. Afraid to seek help.
He began to talk about what had happened that weekend. How Ann had planned a picnic dinner to celebrate her making the dean’s list. She had expected congratulations, maybe a card, some sort of recognition—not just a dinner partner. Once again he had failed to understand how important it was to her.
He didn’t care, she claimed.
He couldn’t read her mind, he replied.
They had returned to his parents’ house and began an argument that continued until he fell asleep from exhaustion.
He woke up to find her even angrier than she had been the night before. Neither of them had the maturity to walk away or to declare a cooling off period. Ann finally said she was leaving, then walked out of the house.
Conor sat there for a moment before saying more. “I was unsure if Ann meant she was leaving for the moment or leaving for good. I saw that she had left her water bottle, and I took it out to her car.”
Why, Conor, why? I thought when the detective told us about Conor leaving the house. He just had to give her back her water bottle? It was as if some dreadful tether held them together in this place.
“ ‘I wish you were dead!’ she shouted at me. ‘Okay,’ I said. I went back into the house. I got my dad’s shotgun and loaded it. I placed the barrel of the gun under my chin. If I kill myself, would Ann blame herself? I thought.” A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts.
“It was Ann, begging me to let her in. I set the gun down on a table in the entryway, unlocked the door, and opened it.”
Now the question fighting to escape through my mouth was for Ann.
Why? Why did you go back to the door, insist on coming back into the house? You were in the car! You could’ve just driven away.
When I first heard the story from the detective, there just seemed to be so many places where it all could have changed, so many moments when a clearer head would have made a better choice. Hearing it now all again from Conor only reemphasized the insanity. Two young kids tumbling toward the edge of the cliff, grabbing a branch only to let it go and continue tumbling, tumbling, tumbling . . .
“We went back to my bedroom. When she realized I intended to kill myself, she told me that she didn’t want to live either. That’s when I went back to get the gun.”
None of this was new information, but hearing him explain it chilled me to the bone.
“I came back to the room and she was slumped on the floor, sitting on her knees. I wanted to scare her. I started waving the gun around. ‘Is this what you want?’ I asked her. She said, ‘No, I don’t . . .’ But I stopped waving the gun around . . . I pointed it at her . . . I pulled the trigger.”
“Let me get this right,” Andy said, leaning forward a bit in his chair.
Andy rarely gets angry. When he’s anxious or worried, he grows still. He’s like a stone statue, immovable, strong. But there’s a softer side to Andy—the side I normally see—which was revealed as layer after layer of emotion was being ripped from him as he listened to Conor speak.
“You shot her while she was asking you not to?” he asked. “While she was on her knees?”
As I watched Andy, I realized that his paternal instincts were still very present, even though Ann was gone. His baby had been in danger. He would have protected her with his life, and there was no doubt by the look in his eyes, by the way he seemed to become larger just sitting there in the chair. But he hadn’t been there—didn’t know to be there. And his father-protector spirit was crushed. For the first time he realized what people meant when they talked about heartache, because his heart began to physically hurt.
“Yes,” Conor answered.
My mind raced as he spoke.
He had said it, in his own words. In one crazy instant, he had aimed the gun and pulled the trigger.
“We need to take a break,” Jack said. It was as if we were all under a spell of grief and regret, and Jack’s announcement punctured it. People stood up from the plastic chairs and stretched. Sujatha reminded everyone that in order to keep the integrity of the circle, we shouldn’t have side conversations outside the room. If we felt the need to say something, it should be shared with everyone in the circle.
Andy and I immediately walked out into the reception area, followed closely by Jack Campbell, who apparently had no intention of abiding by Sujatha’s no talking rule.
“You don’t have to go through any more of this. I can end it right now,” he said. “Just say the word.”
End it right now? I thought. We just heard about our daughter’s last conscious moments on Earth. How much worse does he think it will get?
“We want to continue,” I said. I hadn’t worked for almost a year for this circle to just walk away from it now. Always for me the whole thing was bigger than the Grosmaires and the McBrides, bigger than this tiny room. We had unlocked the door and stuck our foot in. There was no direction but forward. I had borne the unbearable. The worst was over.
Sujatha approached us to remind us it would be best to keep the conversation all together. Before she had a chance to open her mouth, Jack cut her off.
“I’m talking to the Grosmaires right now. Move away.” After she took the cue, he turned back to us. “You don’t have to go back in there.”
Andy repeated what I said: “We want to continue.”
Jack acquiesced.
Now that the rule had been tossed out the window, we went up to Sujatha to tell her what had transpired between Jack and us.
“I thought it would make sense,” Andy said. “I thought that somehow, something he said would explain what happened. He was waving the gun and his finger slipped . . . but there is no reason, no explanation . . . it will never make sense.”
Andy had come face-to-face with the futility of asking why.
I had not come to the circle to find answers, to know exactly what happened to Ann. I knew enough to know that it would never make sense. While his heart ached for Ann, my heart ached for Andy, who thought that somehow this impossible question could be answered.
We filed back into the room, resituated ourselves on the plastic chairs, and yielded the floor back to Conor.
“After I shot Ann, I thought about killing myself,” he said. “But I couldn’t do it. I got in my car and just drove around. I didn’t know what I was going to do, where I was going to go, so in the end, I drove to the police department.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” He looked at Andy and me, his eyes filled with the remorse that victims seldom see in their offender’s eyes.
There it was.
He’d told us a story of two young people who had been caught up in their emotions. They’d wanted to leave, but for whatever reason, weren’t able to. They were teenagers with teenage emotions. Their angry words and tears should’ve been a squabble, a quarrel, a breakup fight. But since
there was a weapon present, this normal fight suddenly escalated into something people frequently called “an unimaginable tragedy.”
Michael’s eyes were rimmed in red, as Julie unfolded some papers she’d brought from home that contained her thoughts.
“I cannot believe that my son has caused such a great harm,” she read, her voice full of raw emotion. In fact, she only got through about half a page before she abruptly stopped, looked up at us, and sighed. “That’s all I want to say for now,” she said, as if she were barely able to utter another word.
That meant that the floor was Michael’s. He shifted in his chair; his turn had arrived a bit earlier than anticipated.
“I just want to say that I’m so sorry. If I ever thought that my gun would have harmed anyone, I would never have kept it in the house. I know that I’ve had anger issues for a long time. When my brother died almost ten years ago, I got angry with God and the world. I stayed angry, and now I’ve taught Conor how to be angry,” he said regretfully. “I feel that I also have some responsibility in this. I wish I could’ve been charged with a crime and made to serve jail time with Conor, because of my anger.”
“Wait,” Jack Campbell interrupted—a forbidden gesture in the circle. Because everyone had been so respectful and polite while others talked, we hadn’t had to use Sophie the giraffe as the talking piece. All of us turned, surprised to hear what he had to say.
“Sir, you are not responsible for what happened,” he said. “Conor alone is the one who pulled that trigger.”
We all knew what Jack meant. By the letter of the law, Michael was not guilty of any crime against the state. But the circle is also about harm caused to the community. He was willing to admit the effect that his anger had on his son. He wanted a place to express his sorrow for allowing his anger to control him for so many years. This was everyone’s chance to say what they wanted to say, and I appreciated Michael’s honesty.
Forgiving My Daughter's Killer Page 16