My Name

By: Trish Nicole Mance

"My mom says I was named after two very strong women. She didn't tell me more than that."

I looked over the sloppy, first grade writing, which had been stuffed into the portfolio marked Trish-Grade 1 in Dad's writing. The paper didn't seem too significant, but then again, this folder was compiled by the man who spent the first five years of my life with a video camera in hand. I smiled, slipping the paper gently back into the folder, reaching for another—

"Trish!" I jumped, startled by my mom's voice, home early from work.

"Mom!"

"Wanna come downstairs?" A command wrapped in a question.

"Sure." I shoved the papers down into the portfolio and left my corner of sunlight, unfolding the collapsible stairs, which landed with an audible THUNK!

"Trish?" My mom asked as I rounded the corner into the kitchen, "Were you in the attic again?'

"No." I answered simply, reaching for an M&M from the glass bowl kept on the island. She turned around, dark hair—same shade as mine—swishing and black eyes piercing.

"Well, when I say no I mean—"

"Doll," she used my pet name, coined by my dad for my doll-like appearance as a child, "I'm glad you like to remember the past, but could you do it downstairs?" She wrapped me in a hug, "Its just dusty and disgusting and if you get sick, I'm the one home taking care of you." She sighed, but the hug kept going, longer, longer, this was weird.

"Mom, the pot's boiling over." She let go and ran over to the stove,

"Shit." She muttered, before extending an index finger at me, a smile playing across her lips, "You didn't hear that."

I played along, "What? I didn't hear anything." Our laughs were interrupted by the phone playing Pop Goes The Weasel over and over…

"One day I'll figure out how to change that tone!" I checked the caller ID, CORDER, SAMUEL. I picked up immediately,

"Hey Lynn!"

Lynn had been my best friend since fourth grade, when we both found we harbored a secret passion for the true crime genre.

"Hola Trish! What's up?"

"The sky. You?"

"Just found our next book club book." The "book club" consisted of the two of us.

"Dish."

"Ok, It's in that Prolific Killer series, its called Harper's Island, A Massacre. Its about this island like, sixteen years ago, where this guy went berserk and killed practically an entire wedding party." The back door knob turned, my dad was home.

"Sounds cool. Meet at the hill after dinner?"

"Will do." I docked the phone before turning to my father, giving him a big hug. He works for himself, his own construction business, Shane & Co. which keeps him away most hours during the week.

"Hey Doll."

"Hey Dad."

Then he moved over to the stove to greet my mom. How do I know my parents love each other? Well its all in the way they greet each other, they entwine fingers, he touches her cheek, she kisses him. They seem to be truly grateful to have their marriage, like they almost lost each other or something. Whatever.

"After dinner can I go to Lynn's?"

"As long as you're back at a decent time, we've gotta get going tomorrow." My dad smiles, every summer of my fifteen years at least twice we go on a fishing trip and bring back the catches for dinner. Well, we bring back my dad's catches, I let mine go.

As usual on nights when I meet Lynn, I scarfed down dinner before heading to the pantry for a mini-pack of Oreos.

"Can I go now?"

Dad sat back in his chair,

"Hmm."

"C'mon Dad!"

"Hmm."

"Ugh!"

"What do you think Mrs. Mance?" he turned to Mom, who was smiling.

"Go ahead." She waved me away. I ran out the back door, barely hearing Dad yell about being home at a decent time. I headed up to The Hill, Lynn and my special place. No one knew we came here; it was peaceful reprieve from the real world. She was already sitting in the haze of the setting sun reading out of a thick hardcover book, her slightly pudgy figure curved like a harp.

"Hey there." I slumped down next to her against the tree trunk, depositing the Oreos between us.

"Hey." She replied, engrossed in the book.

"Is that the new book club book?" She snapped back to reality,

"Yeah, it is, read a bit." She opened the Oreos.

I looked at the front cover first, a wedding photo spattered with blood. Then perused the front flap, over twenty bodies, more than twenty murder weapons, Less than fifteen survivors, how two men masterminded the Harper's Island Massacre.

"You know what the crazy part is?" Lynn garbled with a mouth full of Oreo, "Your parents are in it."

"What?" I asked, pretty confused.

"Look," she dusted the Oreo crumbs on her jeans and leafed through the pages before landing on page 794, Abby Mills and Jimmy Mance, the lucky survivors of Harper's Island, tend to avoid the massacres, preferring to settle down in an undisclosed location and move on.

"That doesn't mean anything." I sneered.

"Really, because according to page 580 your dad was a suspect." Lynn shoved the book in my face. Fellow refugees vilified Jimmy Mance, who had been a suspect in the murder of a Tacoma man a few years before, in the last days of Harper's Island.

This was crazy, my dad was a big teddy bear, incapable of hurting anything (besides fish, but we won't go into that…).

"The book even hints your mom had relations," She spat the word, "with her half-brother."

"No she didn't! My parents would have told me about all this, they trust me…"

"Are you sure? They like to keep you away from that attic."

I threw the book at Lynn's face,

"SHUT UP!" and I ran, all the way home alone in the dark, anger pulsing through every part of my body. I slammed through the screen door, flung myself up the stairs and yanked on the cord to the attic. The stairs came crashing down and I threw myself up them, flicking on the light switch and locating the corner where my parents' old stuff lay.

"Trish," I could hear Mom's voice in my head, "Some people prefer to leave the past alone, ask you father and me before you go through our stuff." Every time I asked, the answer was no.

I ripped open the box with fervor, pulling out an old scrapbook, filled with pictures, a smiling girl with icy blue eyes and a skinny physique, four college boys laughing, a blond man and woman wrapped in an embrace, and news articles, OVER TWENTY DEAD IN HARPER'S ISLAND MASSACRE, PROMINENT LONDON DOCTOR MURDERED, WELLINGTON FAMILY TRADGEDY… they went on and on, the more I read the more I cried, I didn't even feel Mom's hands on my shoulders, or hear Dad whisper,

"Abby, we have some explaining to do."