Janet

He murdered her, I guess. The evidence was overwhelming and I'm sure he was tried and convincted. It was too close to the Lacey Peterson thing for the whole country not to be one big raw nerve when another young wife went missing. It was a huge story, breaking through even the usual local Los Angeles coverage of gang wars and movie premieres.


They found her pretty fast, stuffed in a dumpster under a mattress, I think. I'm not sure he even tried to lie about it. The dead girl's mother was on Oprah within a couple of weeks. I couldn't watch. I don't know if she was bitter or angry or eerily composed. But I knew they would talk about him and I knew it wouldn't be good. He deserved whatever they said.

But his mother didn't and I was afraid my heart would break for her, for every person that thought he wasn't raised right, for everyone who wondered who could birth such a monster.


He was Janet's kid. And Janet was my friend.


She was my customer first. She looked like she'd be one of the rich, snooty ladies that often shopped with us, but she was beautiful, warm and kind. Every year she came in around Christmas and picked up expensive sweaters for her daughters and daughter-in-laws. She came in for their birthdays, too. I must have sold her a sweater that went to the daughter-in-law that died.

At first she was my favorite customer because she was sweet and always good for a sale. But then I just liked her, so I recruited her to come work for us. She was shocked because she didn't think she could do it. Deep underneath her perfect hair and make up, she lacked confidence. No way could she sell, she thought. Who would buy from her?


Turns out, everyone. She was twice the age of anyone on the floor and twice the salesperson. Better than me, even. She loved helping the customers, took genuine delight in helping them find the outfits they needed. She became their favorite, too.

I think pride in herself drove her to excel. I can do this, she would say in amazement when another happy client left. And she'd hustle even harder. She certainly didn't need the money that she got for her few shifts a week. Her husband was a pediatrician, my pediatrician's partner, in fact. A cold man, her husband, for being married to a woman so warm. I never liked him.


But Janet. . . was everything good. She had a thoughtful word for everyone and when I became a mother, struggling financially, she brought me large flats of formula samples from her husband's office to help. That was Janet, a bone deep nurturer who had sacrificed much in her life for others. Especially her kids.

I never met the son who did it, who took hs wife's life because he was afraid she would unravel the web of lies he'd spun around himself. Or maybe I did. Her kids stopped in some times. But I would know a murderer if I'd looked him in the eye, wouldn't I?

We probably all think that.

When the news broke, I panicked. I was hundreds of miles away now, no longer working with my sweet friend. I hadn't for two or three years. But I knew she was devastated, her heart breaking for the girl who died and the child who killed her. She took her kids' failures to heart when I knew her, wondering if there was something she could have done better; something more than sacrificing to support her husband through medical school, living in a modest home while they paid back loans and long after, doing without little luxuries for herself so her kids could have every music and sports lesson they wanted because she never had them as a child. Something more than love and worry about them, something more than pray for them fervently in heart, something more than have taught them the gospel.

No.

I didn't know if the people around her embraced her or shunned her, but I wanted to help, to remind her of the wonderful woman she was and not as I feared she saw herself: the mother of a monster. She was the mother of six children who each had their agency. Five exercised it wisely. She was a bright face in my day during difficult and challenging months, and a sweet and gentle spirit always.

I had no contact information for her but I knew enough to dig around and find an address. Then I wrote a letter, poured out my hope for her, and my love and gratitude and my prayers.

I mailed it. I don't know if it was lost in a shuffle of other letters, maybe some not so kind. But I hope not. I hope that she opened it and read it and knew in that moment a small but tender mercy.