The organ held its final chord, and then went silent.
Sniffling and quiet sobs were all that filled the silence. The noises came from the dozens of sad people who filled the pews of the old stone church. Everyone sat and cried.
Father Conley O’Toole, an old priest in black attire with a white collar and wisps of white hair, sat in the front row, next to the mourning family, his head bowed. He looked up toward the pulpit and then turned his somber face to the mother who was wracked with sobs. He set a comforting hand on her shoulder, knowing that given the circumstances, it was the best he could do. He removed his hand and stood up. He walked to the podium, a black leather Bible in his hand.
He got to the podium and set down his Bible. He looked out over the crowd with blue eyes from behind circle-framed glasses. He looked up and down the rows, at every attendant, not finding a single dry eye.
He began speaking in a warm and steady voice. “Family and friends of miss Amanda Marie Dalstra, it is indeed a mournful time for us all. The tragic and untimely passing of this sixteen-year-old girl has left this world a little darker, a little less bright. It may feel like there has been a whole opened up in all of our hearts, like there is now a void, which cannot be filled.
“The tragic circumstances of her passing, too, are dreadful. It is hard to fathom that such a person could do something so deplorable, something so vile to another human being. It would be easy to hate them, but hate is a self-destructive emotion, one that tears away at someone from the inside out. It easily consumes and spoils all that it touches, rendering the hater helpless to its needs and desires. Once one begins down that dark path, healing becomes all but impossible.
“Do not hate the person who did this, but pray for their discovery and capture. Pray that they will come to justice. Pray that they will someday repent of their heinous act and ask God for forgiveness.”
Fuck forgiveness, thought Keith.
Keith sat in the second row, behind Amanda’s family. He continued to watch the old priest through tear-filled eyes, but no longer paid any attention to the words.
My girlfriend is dead, he thought. Murdered. And this guy wants the killer to be forgiven? Never.
Keith thought back to those moments from the past few days, the moments that changed everything…
The first moment occurred in his bedroom. He was sitting at his desk late that night, studying for a test in his world religions class he had the next day. He was busy reading over Vodun, when his cell phone started playing “Cherry Pie” by Warrant. An embarrassingly inappropriate song for the circumstance, he thought bitterly.
Keith looked at the display; the call was coming from Amanda’s house phone. He hit the button and answered, “Hello?”
“Hello, Keith. This is Beth,” answered Amanda’s mom.
“Yes. Hello, Mrs. Dalstra. How are you?”
“Is Amanda over there with you?” Her words came rushing out in an angry force. She continued on without giving Keith time to answer. “It’s getting rather late and she knows she was supposed to be home an hour ago. And she’s been ignoring my calls all afternoon. She is in big trouble,” she said, emphasizing the last two words. “Now put her on, I need to yell at her.”
Keith flinched at her tone. Mrs. Dalstra wasn’t a bad mother or anything, but he knew that she had a temper and was capable of creating a nasty situation real quick. He told her, “Amanda isn’t here. I haven’t seen or spoken to her since I said good-bye to her after school.”
“Don’t lie to me, you little prick,” she snapped. “I know she’s over there spreading her legs for you right now.”
Keith flinched once again at her words. He and Amanda had previously talked about having sex, but they both decided that they wanted their first time of making love to be something special. But Amanda’s mother thought that just because most teenagers were having sex, that her daughter must be too.
“No, Mrs. Dalstra,” he said, trying to calm her down. “Amanda really isn’t here. I’ve been busy studying all night.”
“Don’t force me to come over there to speak to my daughter. I have the capability to make both of your lives unpleasant.”
Keith was beginning to lose his patience. “You can come on over here all you want, but that isn’t going to make her magically appear.” It came out more forcefully than he had intended. He was probably going to have to deal with the backlash later, but for now he didn’t much care.
The was a pause on the other end of the line for a couple of moments before she finally said, much more calmly, “Is Amanda really not over there?”
“She’s not,” he sighed.
“Do you know where else she might be?” she asked, finally relenting.
“Have you tried getting ahold of either Samantha or Lorie?”
“Not yet,” she admitted. “I was sure that she was over there with you.”
“She’s probably with them, watching a movie or something,” he told her.
“Okay,” she said. “Thank you, Keith. And I’m sorry for the way I spoke to you.”
Keith closed his eyes and took a deep breath while he rubbed at his temples. He couldn’t stand the way that Amanda’s mother treated other people, but he lied to her to get her off the phone. “It’s okay, Mrs. Dalstra.”
“Okay. Good-bye, Keith.” And she hung up.
Keith let out an exasperated sigh and dropped his phone onto the desk. Normally, he and Amanda would hang out for a few hours after school. But she always gave him the space he needed to study on nights before a big test. So it wasn’t completely uncommon for them not to even speak to each other on those nights. But now that he was no longer dealing with Amanda’s lunatic of a mother, he was beginning to grow a little concerned.
He picked up his phone and dialed Amanda’s number. It rang a few times before it went to voice mail. He left her a quick message asking her to call him back whenever she could, it didn’t matter what time it was.
He put his phone back down and went back to the book to resume studying, but he was unable to keep himself from glancing at his phone every few minutes.
The next moment occurred while at school the next day. Before the bell ring for the beginning of the first class, Keith waited for Amanda by her locker in the hallway, a daily tradition for them.
He grew anxious as people passed by; mostly people he didn’t know, some he did. The people he did know who walked by made sure to smile, wave, or quietly nod while they were on their way. But none of them were Amanda.
Worry had set in a while ago; he had become worried when he had gotten off the phone with Amanda’s mother. What began to creep in now was fear. He was becoming afraid at all of the terrible possibilities that may have befallen his ladylove. Was she sick? Did she get into an accident?
Then reason began to set in and he came up with less troublesome scenarios. She probably got back home really late last night and didn’t call me back because she didn’t want to wake me up, he thought. And if she got back so late, then she probably slept in. She’ll be here later in the day.
The bell ringing pulled him out from his stupor. He shook his head and tried to convince himself that everything was all right. Class was beginning, and now there was nothing for it but to go to class and wait.
Keith and Amanda didn’t have any classes together, they were on a different lunch schedule, and they never passed each other in the hall during the day. Typically, they never got to see each other until school had finished. But despite Keith trying to curb his anxiety, he became impatient. Whenever he would see one of their mutual friends, he would ask if they had seen Amanda at all that day. Nobody that he asked had seen her.
After his last class, he had sought out Amanda’s best friends, Samantha and Lorie.
It had always been odd to Keith whenever he saw the three of them together. Samantha had long wavy blonde hair, her makeup was always done in perfection, her clothes were all of the latest fashions. She was one of the more popular kids in school. Lorie was on the opposite end of the spectrum; her hair was always died an assortment of neon colors, her dark clothing typically contained fishnets, safety pins, or aesthetic rips or tears, knee-high combat boots. Amanda didn’t choose to go to either extreme and stayed more in the middle. She never adorned herself with anything too flashy, just fine-toned muscles that came from her athletic activities. But they had all been friends since kindergarten, and not even their different choices in style would have changed that.
Keith had found the two of them speaking to each other quietly in front of Amanda’s locker. They both looked up at him when they noticed him approaching.
“Hey ladies,” he said, slightly out of breath from maneuvering around groups of people in the halls. “Have either of you seen Amanda today?”
Samantha answered, “We were just about to ask you the same thing.”
Keith’s full-on worry was beginning to creep back in. “I haven’t seen her since right after school yesterday. And she never returned my phone call. Did her mother ever call either of you last night?”
“Yeah,” Lorie said, whose hair today was a bright-green Mohawk. “She asked if Amanda was with me, but I hadn’t seen her since the end of school yesterday.”
“Me too,” Samantha said.
“Same,” said Keith. He took a silent moment to ponder out the different possibilities. “Does anyone know what she was doing after school yesterday?”
Samantha shook her head and said, “All I know is that she went home.”
“Yeah, I’m not sure,” said Lorie.
Keith let out a big sigh and ran a hand through his hair. “Well, this sucks.”
Both Samantha and Lorie agreed.
They continued talking for a few minutes, trying to hash out the solution. All three decided to head to Amanda’s house and see if she was there.
They all piled into Samantha’s silver Dodge Stratus and she drove them to Amanda’s house, which was usually a short distance, but on that day, the police had blocked off all of the routes through the nearby park. So Samantha had to navigate the streets around the park, making the trip significantly longer.
They arrived at Amanda’s place and Samantha had to park on the street in front of the house, because the driveway already held Mrs. Dalstra’s dark-blue SUV and a green Ford that none of them recognized.
Which brought Keith to the next moment.
The three of them got out of the car and walked up the short path to the front door. Lorie knocked and waited a moment for the door to be opened.
Who answered was neither Amanda’s mother or father. In fact, it wasn’t even anybody that they knew from the Dalstra family. He was a very tall man in a brown suit. His black hair was cut short and he was clean-shaven.
“May I help you?” he asked.
“Who are you?” Lorie snapped.
From behind the tall stranger, Amanda’s father appeared, and peaked from around the man’s shoulder to look at the three of them. Mr. Dalstra did not look well. His face was blotchy, his eyes were red, and his hair was mussed. He looked up at the tall man and quietly said, “Amanda’s friends.” He then turned and went back inside the house.
The tall man looked at them and said, “My name is Detective Henry Dekker.” He turned to the side and held out his arm inside the house. “Please, come in.”
The three of them stood there silently, staring at him. “What’s happened,” Keith asked shakily.
“Just come inside, have a seat,” he said. “We’ll discuss it.”
They walked inside and sat down in the living room with Amanda’s parents. Mrs. Dalstra was sitting on the love seat, face in her hands and weeping uncontrollably, Mr. Dalstra was sitting with her, arm around her hunched shoulders, and gently rubbing.
Even though it had happened mere days before, Keith couldn’t remember the details. When he saw Amanda’s parents in that state, he knew that something terribly awful had happened.
His eyes filled with tears as the detective explained to them that they had found Amanda’s body in the park; that she had been murdered. The detective kept asking them questions about Amanda; the last time they saw her, who she may have been with, other friends that may know something more.
The three of them sat together on that couch trying to console each other, weeping and crying out in rage and pain.
The memories brought tears to Keith’s eyes once again, as they had been, ever since that last moment.
He came out of his reverie and continued watching the pulpit. The father was finishing up his sermon about hope and meeting Amanda once again, in Heaven. Then he asked for the pallbearers to approach.
The organ started up again with a somber “Amazing Grace” as Keith rose with the other pallbearers: Amanda’s father, godfather, two older brothers, and a cousin.
Before the lid of the casket was lowered, Keith gave Amanda one last kiss on the forehead. Her skin was cold on his lips, colder than he thought that anyone could ever be.
The lid was closed and the casket was lifted up. The six of them went down the center aisle with their charge, tears in their eyes and sorrow in their hearts.
I shall see you again, my love, thought Keith. Soon.
Essential Doctor Who 