Nothing but the Truth

My older sister Miranda committed suicide when she was thirteen and I was eight. Nowadays, killing yourself has become some kind of joke or plot device, it seems. A lot of books, television shows, and movies have characters who oh-so-tragically kicked their own buckets, spilling out their lifeblood on someone’s fancy carpet. I hated that romanticized crap. It seemed that no one knew the truth, not about suicide in general, and not really about Miranda’s suicide.

Of course, our small town of Humboldt Beach, Mississippi knew how she killed herself, and many speculated as to why, which made Mom move away within six months, taking me with her. Her best friends and our family knew the contents of the suicide note she’d written, though, short, sweet, and explaining that Daddy raped her.

But my older, haunted sister had left the real secrets of why she shot herself with her baby sister. Trust me, if Miranda could’ve helped it, she wouldn’t have. She was always so secretive, a born teenager, always an enigma. Yet every suicide, and every enigma, really, leaves behind scattered truths in unlikely places. No one ever expected the eight-year-old to pick up on anything. Which is probably why that bitch made sure I did.