A little while later, Harriet came out of the room, looking a bit downcast. “You two go ahead and eat without me. Something’s come up, and I might not be back in time.”
Evan helped her into her coat and reminded her to come home early.
She nodded and left quickly.
None of us knew it would be the last time I ever saw her.
When we got the call from the police, Evan’s face was filled with disbelief.
“What are you talking about? Stop joking around,” he said, his eyes reddening as he clutched the officer’s sleeve. “Harriet can’t be dead! She can’t be!”
The officer gently pressed him into a chair and sighed. “I understand this is hard to accept, but we’ve apprehended the thug responsible. We’ll do our best to get justice for your wife.”
My sister Harriet had been violated by some thug the previous night.
After he had satisfied his twisted desires, Harriet, unable to bear the disgrace, ended her life in a hotel room.
The next day, when the hotel’s cleaning staff came in, they found her lying in a pool of blood, her wrists slashed. Terrified, they called the police.
Evan cried so hard that his voice gave out. On his finger was the ring they had saved up for months to buy, a ring they had worn for less than a month. It seemed unbearably bright now.
I wiped away my tears and helped him to his feet. “Evan, let’s go see Harriet.”
He was so overwhelmed with grief that he collapsed as soon as he stood up, falling into unconsciousness.
…
On the day of her burial, our parents didn’t show up.
To them, Harriet was a failure, a worthless daughter who couldn’t even make something of herself.
Evan spent all his savings to buy her a burial plot in the city center.
That day, it rained heavily. Evan sat alone by the tombstone, drinking bottle after bottle until he vomited blood.
The rain fell harder, and he shivered uncontrollably.
When he finally sobered up a bit, he saw that I was still standing there. He took off his coat and draped it over my shoulders.
“Erin, Harriet’s death wasn’t just some simple accident,” he said with a voice filled with anger. “Why was it that her agent called her, and yet she ended up at that hotel? Why is it that the blame is only being placed on those thugs, without anyone looking deeper into what really happened?
“Someone orchestrated this. I’m going to make them pay.”
It wasn’t long before Evan dropped out of school.