Two days after Thanksgiving, around 5 a.m., someone from the Sheriff’s Department called to say I needed to get to my dad’s house right away due to an emergency. When I arrived, the place was surrounded by cop cars. My youngest sister, Christy (once a tenured professor at William & Mary, now an early-onset Alzheimer’s patient), had suffered a breakdown and was attacking our other sister, who had been working hard to care for Christy for years. Now, Christy was attacking her.
Our sister had a rarely-used pistol by her bed, and when Christy broke through the door again, she tried to fire a warning shot to frighten Christy off. The bullet went into Christy’s chest instead. Our sister, who had tried so hard to care for Christy, was taken in for questioning and later arrested for MURDER.
We’re still waiting to see how this all plays out, but our sister did arrange to donate Christy’s brain to the Alzheimer’s Association. Today for unrelated reasons, I’m staying here at my father’s house, which feels more than a little “off.”