The phone rang at 2am.

The phone rang at 2am.

We were asleep in our house in Indianapolis. Still new — just built, boxes not fully unpacked, everything in its place but not quite settled yet.

I remember the sound cutting through the quiet in a way that didn't feel normal. Phones don't ring at that hour unless something is wrong.

I answered.

A woman asked for Christopher.

I told her she couldn't call at that time of night without telling me what this was about. There was a pause. She said she was a friend of my mom's. Something had happened. She needed to speak to him.

I handed him the phone.

I remember sitting there, watching him, listening to his side of the conversation.

"Okay… yeah… how many people were involved?"

That was the moment something in me went quiet.

Not panic. Not even fear.

Just… quiet.

My brother shot and killed his wife, then himself, in the entryway of their home.

A few days before that call, I had been on the phone with him. I called to tell him I was three months pregnant with my first child.

He had a lot going on. Stress I didn't fully understand, but I could feel it in the way he talked. He had mentioned suicide in the past but not in a way that felt immediate, but enough that it stayed with me.

I told him he could come stay with me for a while. Get out of Savannah. Have a break from everything and see life outside of what he knew.

I had already started looking into ways to get him there.

It felt like something I could do.

I didn't know what was already in motion.

He and his wife were separating. She had filed for divorce. He had been staying with my mom, across the street from their house. She had been staying with her mom, along with their toddler.

That night, she came back to the house to do some laundry. Pick up a few things.

He waited.

I don't know what was said.

I don't know how it unfolded.

I only know what came after.

Everything after that felt automatic.

Booking a flight. Packing a bag. Moving through the house like there was something I was supposed to be doing and I just needed to keep going.

At some point, I ran a bath.

I sat there watching the night sky through the window, waiting for morning.

I could feel it happening, even then. The shutting down.

By the time the sun came up, I had already left the version of myself that existed the night before.

I just didn't know it yet.

_________________________________________________________

Music that pairs well with this time in my life:
Darklands by JAMC
In the Blood by John Mayer
Brother by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

Photo below from is is from the summer 1993, he died in December of 2001.