March 19th was the worst day of my little sister's life.
March 20th was the worst day of my life. Of my mom's life. My step-father's. My older sister's. Of all of our lives.
In the week leading up to the worst day of Victoria's life, she was in London, Paris, and Rome for a Spring Break trip.
In pictures, she looks very happy.
My parents picked her up from the airport on Sunday night. My mom kept her home from school on Monday so she could recover from jet lag. My mom took that day off work to be with her, too.
On Tuesday she went to school and track practice. She begged my mom to take her to get a haircut. My mom worked it in.
On Wednesday she skipped school. Her best friend usually gave her rides to school, but that morning her friend had a dermatology appointment. Instead of securing another ride to school, Victoria stayed home. My parents didn't notice, because she got up and she seemed to be getting ready for school by the time they both left for work. When her friend noticed she wasn't at school, she told her mom, who then told my mom. When her friend texted Tori and asked her why she wasn't at school, Tori texted back, "I told my parents I forgot about your appointment, but really I just wanted to stay home to think about some things." She elaborated, spoke about trying to kill herself, but in a way that betrayed the seriousness of her intentions. She told her friend not to tell her parents. Her friend kept that promise to Tori.
That day Tori stayed home, that last day of her life, she googled "carbon monoxide poisoning" and "least painful ways to die."
My mom was very mad that Tori stayed home. On their way home together, she and my stepdad talked it over and agreed to calmly talk to Tori like an adult about why she did what she did. They did. She said she was still tired from the trip. They were sympathetic but firm about how she should have talked to them first.
They had dinner together. She did her homework. Then, she told them she wanted to watch a movie with them, waited for them to get their things wrapped up (my stepdad was on the phone, my mom went for a walk), they put on a movie, and she fell asleep on the couch, tucked in between them. My parents went to bed.
Victoria went to her room and stayed awake. This is how I imagine what happened next:
She fought with herself, with her thoughts. Because she was always private and self-reliant, she couldn't admit she needed help and that she was losing an important fight against her thoughts. She thought she was unworthy of living. Her basketball coach made her feel like a failure, some of the players treated her like she was worthless. She was probably soon to be cut from the basketball team. She hated that thought. She had thought hard about suicide and had probably tried to kill herself earlier that day but hadn't gone through with it. Maybe she added that to her self-imposed and harsh list of failures in her life. She always marked off the days of the calendar, one slash mark from the top right corner to the bottom left, usually in purple marker. She marked off the day March 19th from her calendar.
She thought more about ways she could die. And then: a train horn sounded in the distance, and it came to her, quickly, almost like an epiphany. Aha, she probably thought. It was right in front of her the whole time. She knew where my mom kept her keys. She didn't know if my parents would wake when she started the car, but she would take that risk. She walked out my parents' house in a daze, left the door open and drove down the driveway without incident. Her cat was probably in the backyard and not the front, because I think maybe seeing that cat would have stirred something in her. But maybe not. Maybe she did see her cat and she touched him on the top of his head, and then just kept moving, ticking things off her impromptu list.
She drove to the tracks and got out of the car. She left the engine of our mother's car still running. She left her wallet clutch thing with her ID in it. She put her earbuds in. She probably felt a sense of calm come over her, her plan coming to fruition. And adrenaline, that had to be there too. She would have recognized it, her heart beating fast like the start of every basketball game and the thrill of getting to play. And now, she thought, for the last charge I'll ever take. Just this and then nothing else, she thought. Or maybe she didn't.
But so.
Saturday, February 24, 2024
tori IV
I've thought about the way I first heard it phrased, how I repeated it to others close to me.
I'd heard that phrasing before, years ago. It was when my friend, Jon, lost his sister. Weeks before it happened, he had told me that he worried about her, that he knew she battled depression. And then I learned that she had died, and I asked our mutual friend what happened. He said, "she committed suicide. she stepped in front of a semi."
I think when someone leaves us that way, we use that particular string of words because it highlights how small and light the person was, in comparison to the darkness that overtook them. They "step," not stand nor walk nor move, and the mass of the thing coming at them does the rest.
I tried to find more information on people who died on railroad tracks. I found an article that said the force of a train hitting a car was something like 400 to 1. I tried, briefly, to calculate the proportion of a train to a person, but I felt sick. It was too much.
I think of her last act as a symbol, but one I have trouble assigning meaning to correctly. I asked Jon what he made of his sister's final act, but he got choked up and couldn't speak to it. It was unfair of me to ask.
But I was desperate for something I'm not sure is there. I think it means my sister hated herself. I think it means she was certain she wanted to die. I think it means she maybe wanted to spare my parents the horror of finding her, but I'm very uncertain of that. I think, along with the previous speculation, that maybe the fact that she got out of my mom's car meant she wanted to spare my parents any further casualty. I think she didn't think of the conductor, although he says he blew warning horns, desperate pleas to save her and himself.
But ultimately I just don't know. I heard of a girl who died on those same train tracks, a few miles farther south of where Tori died. She was a student at the college I went to. She tweeted something really sad and disillusioned before she pulled her car onto the train tracks and waited.
"stepped in front of a train."
I'd heard that phrasing before, years ago. It was when my friend, Jon, lost his sister. Weeks before it happened, he had told me that he worried about her, that he knew she battled depression. And then I learned that she had died, and I asked our mutual friend what happened. He said, "she committed suicide. she stepped in front of a semi."
I think when someone leaves us that way, we use that particular string of words because it highlights how small and light the person was, in comparison to the darkness that overtook them. They "step," not stand nor walk nor move, and the mass of the thing coming at them does the rest.
I tried to find more information on people who died on railroad tracks. I found an article that said the force of a train hitting a car was something like 400 to 1. I tried, briefly, to calculate the proportion of a train to a person, but I felt sick. It was too much.
I think of her last act as a symbol, but one I have trouble assigning meaning to correctly. I asked Jon what he made of his sister's final act, but he got choked up and couldn't speak to it. It was unfair of me to ask.
But I was desperate for something I'm not sure is there. I think it means my sister hated herself. I think it means she was certain she wanted to die. I think it means she maybe wanted to spare my parents the horror of finding her, but I'm very uncertain of that. I think, along with the previous speculation, that maybe the fact that she got out of my mom's car meant she wanted to spare my parents any further casualty. I think she didn't think of the conductor, although he says he blew warning horns, desperate pleas to save her and himself.
But ultimately I just don't know. I heard of a girl who died on those same train tracks, a few miles farther south of where Tori died. She was a student at the college I went to. She tweeted something really sad and disillusioned before she pulled her car onto the train tracks and waited.
Tori parked my mom's car, and then got out. I don't know how long she waited. If she waited, if she ran. But she did step in front of the train, without the metal shell of a car around her, with the night in her face and probably the wind (it's West Texas, so there's always this wind) on her skin.
tori II
For 25 years, my parents have lived together, out in the country, in a house 1.5 miles away from the railroad tracks. Victoria had lived there her whole life. We had to cross the tracks to get anywhere, practically: to school, to town, to friends' houses. Every day. It was a nuisance often, because about 1 out of every 7 times you crossed them, you'd have to wait on a train. Occasionally, you'd have to wait on a train that had stopped on the tracks, blocking the crossing. I know their house is 1.5 miles from the tracks, because I've tracked it for running purposes: a trail from my parents' house to the church nestled next to the railroad crossing. I realize now that I never once continued my run up to the train tracks. Never actually crossed them, on foot, though I believe I did maybe once or twice on bike. Rarely can I recall being near them without being in a car. They always gave me the spooks.
A boy who used to ride the bus with me, Patrick, was killed on those same tracks, at the crossing northeast of the one by our houses. It was near Christmas, and he was with his sister or sister-in-law and her three kids. It was icy, and I don't know quite how it happened, but their car got stuck on the tracks, and a train came. His sister made it out, along with one of her daughters. She told Patrick to get the two other kids from their car seats in the backseat. Of the three, none escaped before the train hit. That happened after we had graduated high school, but the effects of it were haunting for me. Patrick and I weren't close, we just knew each other and were friendly. He was a nice guy, and he'd always reminded me of a character with the same name in Louis Sachar's Wayside Stories collections.
I am almost positive I'd told Victoria about what happened to him. I often thought about it as I crossed those tracks. The newspaper wrote that he died a hero, which is true. I thought about his sister: what she must have gone through, what she must still be going through to this day.
When my sister said that Tori had stepped in front of a train, I knew what that meant, but I couldn't believe it. It didn't ring true. I told my husband we had to go to my parents' house and repeated, word for word, what Jessica had said to me. My husband started getting dressed, and I, frantic, wanted to rush him. Instead, I grabbed a shirt and a pair of jeans and tried to calm down. I wanted to panic and scream, but I concentrated on planning, on thinking rationally. A long sleeve shirt, here's some jeans. These shoes will go with it. I'll change out of my pajamas later.
We got into the car, I texted my boss to say I wasn't coming into work today, family emergency, and Jeff drove us out to my parents', a 25 minute drive. We didn't talk for almost all of the drive. Nearing the first turn to their house, I said, Jeff, I don't feel anything. And he asked me what I meant, and I said I feel numb. How do you feel? I asked. He said he didn't know, that he didn't know what to feel, that he didn't like his thoughts and asked me, what exactly it was that Victoria did. Was it like in Infinite Jest, he asked. I struggled to recall the plotline where characters would jump across a train and try not to get hit. The Wheelchair Assassins. No. I said slowly. No, I think it means she committed suicide. And he breathed out and said "Jesus." And as we rounded that first turn to my parents' house, we saw police lights at the railroad crossings. My heart started pounding. What I recall feeling most was scared. Scared to go any further. To learn any more.
A boy who used to ride the bus with me, Patrick, was killed on those same tracks, at the crossing northeast of the one by our houses. It was near Christmas, and he was with his sister or sister-in-law and her three kids. It was icy, and I don't know quite how it happened, but their car got stuck on the tracks, and a train came. His sister made it out, along with one of her daughters. She told Patrick to get the two other kids from their car seats in the backseat. Of the three, none escaped before the train hit. That happened after we had graduated high school, but the effects of it were haunting for me. Patrick and I weren't close, we just knew each other and were friendly. He was a nice guy, and he'd always reminded me of a character with the same name in Louis Sachar's Wayside Stories collections.
I am almost positive I'd told Victoria about what happened to him. I often thought about it as I crossed those tracks. The newspaper wrote that he died a hero, which is true. I thought about his sister: what she must have gone through, what she must still be going through to this day.
When my sister said that Tori had stepped in front of a train, I knew what that meant, but I couldn't believe it. It didn't ring true. I told my husband we had to go to my parents' house and repeated, word for word, what Jessica had said to me. My husband started getting dressed, and I, frantic, wanted to rush him. Instead, I grabbed a shirt and a pair of jeans and tried to calm down. I wanted to panic and scream, but I concentrated on planning, on thinking rationally. A long sleeve shirt, here's some jeans. These shoes will go with it. I'll change out of my pajamas later.
We got into the car, I texted my boss to say I wasn't coming into work today, family emergency, and Jeff drove us out to my parents', a 25 minute drive. We didn't talk for almost all of the drive. Nearing the first turn to their house, I said, Jeff, I don't feel anything. And he asked me what I meant, and I said I feel numb. How do you feel? I asked. He said he didn't know, that he didn't know what to feel, that he didn't like his thoughts and asked me, what exactly it was that Victoria did. Was it like in Infinite Jest, he asked. I struggled to recall the plotline where characters would jump across a train and try not to get hit. The Wheelchair Assassins. No. I said slowly. No, I think it means she committed suicide. And he breathed out and said "Jesus." And as we rounded that first turn to my parents' house, we saw police lights at the railroad crossings. My heart started pounding. What I recall feeling most was scared. Scared to go any further. To learn any more.
tori I
I am going to take a break from reviewing books for a while. The only books I've read lately are ones on depression and suicide, and I haven't run across one that has really spoken to me much. Since I eventually want to compile something about my experience and about Victoria, I'm going to post these little pieces I've written so far.
I remember her second birthday, but I only recall holding her and not her walking. Her party was Blue's Clues-themed. My step-father recorded it. I ask her how old she is in this video. Her lips are blue from cake icing, her hair is braided in pigtails, and she says triumphantly, thrusting her chubby arm and positioning her little fingers into the "peace" sign, "TWO." I remember her small weight on my hip, but it's been awhile since I've seen the video. I wonder if there's a shot in it of me putting her down on the ground, her toddling off. If so, maybe based on her mastery of the steps displayed in that video, I can narrow down the timeframe of when her first steps were. Probably not the most accurate way to judge, but at least I could definitively say that sometime before two years of age, my little sister took her first steps. She had to've. There's got to be a video of her first birthday, too, but I don't remember the theme of it at all, either. My step-dad was fanatic about recording milestones, holidays, as soon as Victoria was born. Maybe there's a video of her first steps. I'll never know, I'd never ask, I feel the response would give harm. But I do wonder, when did she first walk?
I learned of her last ones on March 20th, around 5:30 am. My older sister, Jessica, called me on the phone at 5:02, and it woke me near the end of the ringtone. Instead of answering it, I chose to let it go to voicemail. I thought, in that weird space between awake and sleep, that maybe she had unintentionally called me. An early morning pocket dial, maybe one of her dogs did it: these possibilities seemed more likely than anything else at the time. When my phone began vibrating again, "Jess" lit up on my phone's screen, my husband stirred beside me. "Is someone calling you right now?" he asked, irritably. As I slid my finger across my phone to answer the call, I said to him, "Yes, it's my sister," and then "Hello?"
In the space between 5:02 and 5:20ish, my family was still trying to find her. My stepdad had woken around 4 am, saw the front door wide open, my mom's car gone, Tori's room empty. They had tried to find her between the two of them, had texted her, called her, called her friend's mom, woke her best friend, etc. My mom had called Jessica to see if she knew where she was, then told her to call me, to see if I'd heard anything, or if I would look on her facebook and see if there were plan with friends, a party, anything informative visible. Unlikely possibilities, but we were looking for anything that would make sense of her sneaking out of our parents' house. I said to my sister, after learning these details and briefly checking Tori's facebook, that my parents needed to call the cops. They wouldn't have to press charges, but we need to mobilize more people to find her, I said. I said, before she hurts herself or someone else. I hung up with my sister, and relayed to my husband what was going on. We exchanged phrases like: "teenage joy ride," and "she is being so rebellious lately," and "I wish I was sleeping right now."
My little sister didn't even have her license; she had her permit, though. Jessica and I would sometimes let her drive our cars, illicitly and unbeknownst to our parents. Once, Jess let her drive her car while I sat in the backseat and tried to suppress a chuckle as Tori experimented choppily with braking and accelerating on a turn. There was something thrilling about her learning to do something I'd grown numb to. She stirred up reflections of my own first uncertain turns of the steering wheel, the clumsy switching of the foot from brake to accelerator. I think she reacted to my tiny chuckle in good humor and said something like, "I'm still learning!" But she was still so insecure, as though she was expected to be master from the moment foot touched pedal. After we finished, Jessica and I had both told her she did a good job. She had.
Around 5:30, I called Jessica again. At first, I thought our phones were on a bad connection. Something sounded loud and muffled, wind-like, and I thought there must have been some technological glitch; our connection was sometimes bad. I don't know why I didn't hang up when I came to this thought, though. Maybe right as I was about to, I recognized the sound as a human one, and then: that something was terribly wrong and Jessica was crying, hysterically, in response to it. I could hear the effort it took her to gather her breath. And then to say, "Go to Mom and Kevin's." I said, "Why? Tell me." She repeated herself, adding "Just" to the front of the command this time. I steeled myself, repeated more firmly, "Tell me."
And then a wave of grief unlike any I'd ever known. And the new obsession with Tori's first steps. And the words I'll never forget, the ones that brought me to my knees, to which the only response I could muster was "Oh god please let that not be true," the ones that marked the end of something for our family and the beginning of an awful new something else.
My sister said, in one long cry, "Tori stepped in front of a train."
-
I can't recall when my little sister took her first steps. When I learned of the last ones she had taken, I was often preoccupied by that thought. I was eleven years old when Victoria was born. I had to be around 12 when she took her first steps. This means I was living at home, in the same space as she was, and when I try to remember that huge milestone, it's all black, a void, nothing. I remember her first word. She used to say "coo." I was the only one who thought that should count. I even tried to get her to add a "p" sound to the end of it, thinking people would take her first word more seriously if it had a definitive end.I remember her second birthday, but I only recall holding her and not her walking. Her party was Blue's Clues-themed. My step-father recorded it. I ask her how old she is in this video. Her lips are blue from cake icing, her hair is braided in pigtails, and she says triumphantly, thrusting her chubby arm and positioning her little fingers into the "peace" sign, "TWO." I remember her small weight on my hip, but it's been awhile since I've seen the video. I wonder if there's a shot in it of me putting her down on the ground, her toddling off. If so, maybe based on her mastery of the steps displayed in that video, I can narrow down the timeframe of when her first steps were. Probably not the most accurate way to judge, but at least I could definitively say that sometime before two years of age, my little sister took her first steps. She had to've. There's got to be a video of her first birthday, too, but I don't remember the theme of it at all, either. My step-dad was fanatic about recording milestones, holidays, as soon as Victoria was born. Maybe there's a video of her first steps. I'll never know, I'd never ask, I feel the response would give harm. But I do wonder, when did she first walk?
I learned of her last ones on March 20th, around 5:30 am. My older sister, Jessica, called me on the phone at 5:02, and it woke me near the end of the ringtone. Instead of answering it, I chose to let it go to voicemail. I thought, in that weird space between awake and sleep, that maybe she had unintentionally called me. An early morning pocket dial, maybe one of her dogs did it: these possibilities seemed more likely than anything else at the time. When my phone began vibrating again, "Jess" lit up on my phone's screen, my husband stirred beside me. "Is someone calling you right now?" he asked, irritably. As I slid my finger across my phone to answer the call, I said to him, "Yes, it's my sister," and then "Hello?"
In the space between 5:02 and 5:20ish, my family was still trying to find her. My stepdad had woken around 4 am, saw the front door wide open, my mom's car gone, Tori's room empty. They had tried to find her between the two of them, had texted her, called her, called her friend's mom, woke her best friend, etc. My mom had called Jessica to see if she knew where she was, then told her to call me, to see if I'd heard anything, or if I would look on her facebook and see if there were plan with friends, a party, anything informative visible. Unlikely possibilities, but we were looking for anything that would make sense of her sneaking out of our parents' house. I said to my sister, after learning these details and briefly checking Tori's facebook, that my parents needed to call the cops. They wouldn't have to press charges, but we need to mobilize more people to find her, I said. I said, before she hurts herself or someone else. I hung up with my sister, and relayed to my husband what was going on. We exchanged phrases like: "teenage joy ride," and "she is being so rebellious lately," and "I wish I was sleeping right now."
My little sister didn't even have her license; she had her permit, though. Jessica and I would sometimes let her drive our cars, illicitly and unbeknownst to our parents. Once, Jess let her drive her car while I sat in the backseat and tried to suppress a chuckle as Tori experimented choppily with braking and accelerating on a turn. There was something thrilling about her learning to do something I'd grown numb to. She stirred up reflections of my own first uncertain turns of the steering wheel, the clumsy switching of the foot from brake to accelerator. I think she reacted to my tiny chuckle in good humor and said something like, "I'm still learning!" But she was still so insecure, as though she was expected to be master from the moment foot touched pedal. After we finished, Jessica and I had both told her she did a good job. She had.
Around 5:30, I called Jessica again. At first, I thought our phones were on a bad connection. Something sounded loud and muffled, wind-like, and I thought there must have been some technological glitch; our connection was sometimes bad. I don't know why I didn't hang up when I came to this thought, though. Maybe right as I was about to, I recognized the sound as a human one, and then: that something was terribly wrong and Jessica was crying, hysterically, in response to it. I could hear the effort it took her to gather her breath. And then to say, "Go to Mom and Kevin's." I said, "Why? Tell me." She repeated herself, adding "Just" to the front of the command this time. I steeled myself, repeated more firmly, "Tell me."
And then a wave of grief unlike any I'd ever known. And the new obsession with Tori's first steps. And the words I'll never forget, the ones that brought me to my knees, to which the only response I could muster was "Oh god please let that not be true," the ones that marked the end of something for our family and the beginning of an awful new something else.
My sister said, in one long cry, "Tori stepped in front of a train."
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