by Andie Anderson

Created on: June 09, 2008   Last Updated: January 29, 2011

Amy-Lynn wasn't always like that. No sir, she was the epitome of goodness and solidarity. I remember when she used to bake loaves of bread to donate to the church. Sometimes I'll walk by a bakery and a flood of memories comes back, like those loaves of bread being baked so long ago. That's when I found out the truth of what goodness and strength really is. Sometimes the truth is almost too painful to know, and that was my pain, forever.

I came from a single parent family, I was an only child, Mom worked as a librarian at Suffolk Central Junior High. Dad died when I was four. Mom said he had some rare blood clotting ailment. It was hard for Mom to support us, in those days there wasn't anything to help single parents, no food stamps, no government checks, nothing. We ate good though, Mom made the best pot roast and mashed potatoes, which we had every Sunday after church, that's where I met Amy-Lynn, at church.

It was in June during vacation bible school. Mom had to stick me somewheres for a couple of weeks until the next camp started, so she would get everything lined up for the summer for me. School was out but Mom had to work another job until school started up in the fall. She would then work at the department store as a clerk in the women's section of Sears. She never thought I appreciated her but I did for a kid of twelve, I just never told her until years later when I was grown. Kids are funny like that, we think a lot but we don't tell people our true thoughts.

There was stuff going on at the farm that Amy-Lynn lived at, bad stuff, cops were always going up there to find out what the complaint was this time around. One time a neighbor heard screams late at night but when the cops went up there without their lights and siren going, nothing. Everything was 'normal'.

Amy-Lynn's dad was sleeping and didn't know what the cops were talking about. "There's nuthing going on here, what are you waking me up at this hour for? I should file a complaint". Days after the complaint someone would find a 'floater' down the Tunkaneska River. It was really weird. The last body they found was found by a six year old kid fishing with his dad, that had to have been creepy. I don't know what a dead body looks like, but I think I smelled one once. It was the kind of smell that made road kill look like it was nothing. We had alot of vultures hanging around too, that's something I noticed from a twelve year old's point of view. I hardly saw vultures but those days there were lots

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