It was a complex and shameful obituary, the culmination of a scandal that had played out on the front page for over a year.  A series of investigative reports revealed how my father had built a network of charter schools, consulting companies, and shell non-profits by which he had systemically stolen hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of dollars from the Philadelphia Academy Charter School and the School District of Philadelphia. For years, he had siphoned funds earmarked for the education of children through a complex scheme of contracts, land deals, and inflated rents. The articles confirmed what I had always known in my heart but had never been able to prove: my father was a fraud. 

Whatever he was, he was also my father, so I felt for him, pitied him really, when the news broke and he became the headline, not because he was being unfairly persecuted or wrongly defamed—if anything the articles treated him fairly, always referencing his decades of service and good reputation—but because he had few interests beyond networking and reading the paper. Now he had been stripped of his title and could no longer work, and his disgrace was front-page news. There was no solace anywhere, least of all in the paper. 

In a way, it was poetic. The way justice always and never is. 

“Sources with knowledge of the investigation said that indictments were imminent… An internal report… alleged that Brien Gardiner and [his associate] Kevin O’Shea had systematically looted the school for personal gain… The report said that more than $700,000 was missing from a school account and cited ‘substantial evidence of wrongdoing’ by Gardiner, a former public-school principal, and O’Shea, a former police officer.” 

There were words of care and condolence. “Before founding the charter, Gardiner was a popular principal at Farrell Elementary School in the Northeast. He was so well-regarded that… staff members and many families followed him to Philadelphia Academy. Members of the charter-school community expressed shock and sorrow over Gardiner’s death and recalled him as a trailblazer and a pioneer in the charter community.” I was struck by this language. “Trailblazer” and “pioneer” imply conquest; the words themselves are part of a broader lexicon of colonialism and social control. 

The article went on to suggest that “through his work… Gardiner contributed to the lives of countless children” in the school system.” But, I wondered,  what did he contribute? What was his legacy? “This is a real tragedy,” the article goes on to say. “I hope people can remember the great things he did.” 

Of course, I remember. He was my father. I remember everything. 

“We are extending prayers to his family,” the article concluded. There was irony and magnanimity in this statement. I was his closest family, his eldest daughter, his favorite—and I felt certain I was not deserving of public prayer. 

At the end of the article, I made the mistake of scrolling through the comments. Amid words of disappointment and incredulity were other words like BOOM. GOOD RIDDANCE. PIECE OF TRASH. That’s when I learned: never read the comments. 

On Facebook, I received a message from a high school acquaintance, asking if I imagined that, before shooting himself, my father had thought about throwing himself onto the tracks, in front of a passing train. 

No, I hadn’t thought that. Until now. 

I blocked him, but I couldn’t block out the questions, couldn’t stop thinking about the coroner, suicide, natural death, and death ruled as an accident.

A few weeks before he pulled the trigger, my father nearly overdosed on insulin. He had been recently diagnosed with diabetes. Dad loved bagels, donuts, cookies, and ice cream and had always been heavy, but the stress of public scrutiny was too much for his system. In the wake of the media coverage and federal probe, he ate for comfort and because there was nothing else to do. Towards the end, his belly was as big as a bear’s, and his skin was thick and ash-pink. One evening, he locked himself in the bathroom for almost an hour. When he finally came out, he was stumbling and slurring his speech. My stepmother, Darlene, called 9-1-1. Hospital blood tests confirmed extreme hypoglycemia, and the doctors concluded that Dad had accidentally mixed up his dosage, but I suspected that the only accident was that he had ended up in the hospital instead of the morgue. He was hospitalized for several days before coming home, sheepish and depressed, with drug facts printed out in big letters. After that, Darlene monitored his injections, and Dad withdrew further and further into himself.

It was around this same time that my mother found the note. It had been ten years since the divorce, but Mom had never moved on, and Dad still had a key to her house. One evening—she came home from work and found an envelope on the kitchen counter. In it was a handwritten note about how sorry he was; how she deserved better; how proud he was of the children. 

I knew what it said because my mother called to read the letter to me over the phone. She said, “How many spurned women ever receive such vindication?” 

“It’s a death note, Mom,” I said.

“Of course not,” she said. “How can you say such a thing?”

I couldn’t choke out a response, so I swallowed the truth, what I’d been saying to anyone who would listen for over a year: He’ll kill himself before he goes to prison. 

Since the news first broke the year prior, my family had spoken very little about what was going on in the press and the courts. We were a broken Irish Catholic family; repression, guilt, and denial were part of the heritage. We lived a code of silence, following a complex set of arcane and unspoken rules, as my father simultaneously tried to maintain control of the narrative and put his affairs in order.  

Now he was dead, and the family speaking—not about what had happened—but about what would happen next. We were in constant contact, but the conversation amounted to a terse exchange of information about travel plans and funeral arrangements. My father’s body, which had not yet been released from the coroner, would be cremated. The funeral mass was arranged. We were all on autopilot, operating by instinct. I wrote short, formal emails to notify my professors, my supervisor, and the department chair that my father had committed suicide; I was going to Philadelphia and would submit my end-of-term work remotely.

I felt everything—anxious, vindicated, empty—and nothing. My friends took turns watching over me.  They traveled great distances to stay with me day and night, helping me clean, pack, and ready the apartment for sublet. They were sympathetic and wholly present. My friend Marream sat beside me while I went through my closet and sorted my clothes. She held my hand and told me it was safe to cry, but my affect was glacial. I felt vast, cold, and sublime. I was very calm, but not entirely rational, and I insisted that she take home armloads of clothes she would never wear—including a sea green, crushed velvet dress that I had worn to my junior prom. 

She cleaned out the refrigerator. I scrubbed the tub. Together we emptied the dresser drawers and carried boxes to the storage closet in the laundry room. 

I kept checking the internet for news. I was grateful for the clear, factual account of what had happened—and noted small inaccuracies in the reporting, tiny tears in the narrative fabric of reality. It’s interesting what the mind latches onto. A subsequent article stated, “Gardiner’s body was not far from his black Mercedes Benz,” but my stepsister Stephanie told me that Dad had driven the Volvo to the train station that day, and I believed her. To the end, he was still calculating costs, and he wouldn’t have done anything to diminish the resale value of the Mercedes. The news reported, “Gardiner lived with his wife and children, including a two-year-old son.” This statement was mostly true. He did live with his second wife and her children, whom he had adopted—but the baby was a fifteen-month-old girl—my half-sister, Leah.

The calls and messages kept coming. I spoke to my family and closest friends. The rest of the time, I answered the phone and refused to answer the phone as I liked. 

I didn’t even tell my boyfriend Burkan what had happened until he called to check in and started chatting casually about his laboratory experiments.

“My dad died,” I said bluntly.

“What do you mean?”

“He killed himself.” There was an edge of cruelty in my voice. Part of me wanted to punish him for not knowing, for not calling until now, for living so far away, for not reading my mind. 

“Are you kidding me right now, CG?”

“No,” I said. “He shot himself.” 

“Oh my God,” he said. “What can I do? What do you need me to do?” 

“My mom is calling on the other line,” I said. Another part of me wanted to protect him from what I knew and the darkness that consumed me. “I have to go.”

It was easier to take the next action step than it was to slow down, to think, to see the big picture. So I kept my head down and I did what needed to be done: make sure the bills were paid, scrub the kitchen sink, vacuum assiduously, leave a key and detailed notes for the subletter, fill the gas tank, check the air pressure in the tires, drive to the airport to pick up Ashley, hit the road.

Ashley sat beside me in the passenger seat, adjusting the music as I navigated the plains of Kansas. I was in the throes of catastrophe, and I was so focused on where I was going and how I could get there that I couldn’t see anything else. In Missouri, Ashley reminded me that we needed to eat, so we stopped at an Arby’s, where I forced down some waffle fries and ginger ale. Then we were back on the road. Night fell. I remember an endless dark tunnel of highway over which my mind projected my father’s last moments. I imagined him driving to the train station and parking close to the tracks. I could almost see his thick red wrist as he reached for the gun. 

I tried to summon the tears, but they would not come. 

At midnight, Ashley insisted we stop and sleep somewhere. We stayed in a motor hotel off the highway and left the next morning at dawn. I drank coffee and watched the miles tick away as I drew closer and closer to Philadelphia, to the place I was from, to the place I was ashamed to return. My anxiety mounted as the landmarks and signposts grew increasingly familiar. Mile by mile, turn by turn, I drew closer and closer until I pulled into my mother’s driveway, and I was home—back at the scene of the crime.

Those first days home were a blur; when I look back the only scene in clear focus is the afternoon I went to pay my respects to my stepfamily, who lived across town in a Tudor-style house with four bedrooms and an in-law suite, just over the Philadelphia line.

My stepsister Stephanie met me at the door with tears in her eyes, and the sweet, aging black lab pressed against my legs. The grandfather clock loomed in the foyer. Darlene and her sisters were gathered at the kitchen table. My stepbrother Nathaniel—who was sixteen—stared blankly into the computer screen, and Christian—who was seventeen—was anxiously pacing the yard. The baby was sleeping upstairs. 

Stephanie led me into the dining room, where she had arranged photographs of my father into a series of poster board collages. 

“He looks so happy,” she said. 

My eyes glazed over as I looked at the pictures. Yes, in the pictures, my father was smiling, but he didn’t look happy to me. He looked red in the face, bloated, gloating, grimacing, self-important, self-sabotaging, big, small, gangster, pretending. My father. The complexity of his face stunned me. 

In the kitchen, Darlene and I exchanged a brusque embrace. Her features were drawn tight with worry, but even in her grief, Darlene was an unusually beautiful woman. The diamond heart she wore on a gold chain that flashed at her throat. She offered me a cup of tea and turned away to put a mug of water in the microwave. “Do you want milk in your tea?”

“No thank you,” I said. 

Darlene handed me a pale yellow mug filled with weak tea, and we sat around the table like a bereaved family.

“I can’t believe it,” someone said.

“He was under a lot of pressure,” someone else said. “But I thought he was holding it together”

“Did he leave a note?” I asked.

“No,” Steph said tearfully. “He didn’t say goodbye.”

“He called me that morning,” I said. “He told me he was going into the city to meet with his lawyer, but he must have been on his way to the train station.” I didn’t mention the note he left for my mother; to do so seemed inexplicably cruel. 

There was a long silence. 

“Where did he get a gun?” My voice, barely a whisper, cut through the room.

Eventually, Darlene said, “He bought it last week.”

“There were receipts,” Stephanie said “He bought it the day before he died.” The tone in the room suggested that the time for questions was over, and I had better move on. 

Upstairs, the baby started to cry, and Darlene disappeared into the foyer. 

The family sat quietly at the table, and I looked blankly around the room. Dad’s slippers were on the floor in the living room, next to his big leather chair, imprinted with the shape and weight of his body. His picture was on the bookshelf by the hearth. My father was everywhere but he wasn’t there.

Darlene reappeared holding the baby. Leah was red in the face and still whimpering. 

“She doesn’t understand what’s happening,” Darlene said, stroking her hair.

Everyone said the baby resembled my father, but I knew better. With her red-blonde curls and blue eyes, Leah looked just like me. 

I excused myself to the bathroom. My hands were shaking so violently that I struggled to close the door behind me. I looked in the mirror. My eyes were bloodshot, and my face was flushed. I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out. My whole body was wracked with something between terror and grief, but it was as if someone had cut out my voice. I kept trying to scream, but there was no release, just a high-pitched hiss of air.  Then I was on my hands and knees, heaving. Drool hung from my mouth and pooled on the floor.  I sobbed like that for a long time—ugly, isolated, and inconsolable—until the grief recoiled like a snake within me, and I was able to stand. I washed my face, inspected myself in the mirror, and steadied my gaze until my eyes were as placid as a mask. 

Then I went back into the kitchen and sat with the stepfamily at the table. For another half hour, we made small talk, but no one mentioned the latest headline: