“I’ll let them know we’re ready,” he said. “The documentary people.”
“Okay.”
I didn’t ask him then, and I haven’t asked him since.
What are you going to say?
I don’t know.
I just don’t.
The studio is on the first floor of a building with tall windows and a marble entryway. Two women greet us—one tall, one short, one all in black, the other in a red turtleneck and jeans. Our two wonderful filmmakers. Nicky and Sandra. They have been patient, diligent, professional. They’ve remained determined to tell Annie’s story from Annie’s point of view, take the focus away from the speculation, train our collective gaze back on the woman who died.
“Have a seat,” Nicky tells us. “We’re almost ready for you.”
Gabriel and I sit in a small waiting room. For some reason, there’s a TV in a corner, airing a shockingly loud rerun ofThe Jerry Springer Show.
We wait. A young man, also dressed in black, from his patent-leather combat boots to his sleeveless sweater, comes to get Gabriel, then me. Our faces are powdered, our hair slicked and sprayed.
“This way!”
Sandra waves us over to the back.
Looking like the best versions of ourselves, we make our way to the filming area.
“Why don’t you sit on the left,” Sandra tells Gabriel. Then, turning to me: “And you’ll take the right?”
We take our assigned seats.
“Okay,” Nicky says, settling behind the camera. “I’ll be filming, and Sandra is going to be asking you guys questions off-screen. If there’s anything you don’t want to answer, or if you need a break at any point, just let us know.”
Gabriel and I both say okay.
He was the one who said we should do it together. The interview. Nicky and Sandra would have preferred to speak to us separately, but Gabriel said no. We would speak together, or not at all.
I didn’t ask why that was so important to him. I just showed up.
He could do it. If he wanted to. He could tell Nicky and Sandra everything I told him in the desert.
They wouldn’t be able to resist, of course. Our responsible filmmakers. They’re pros, but they’re only human. They would air it, and it would turn into the true-crime event of the year.
A red light flashes on Nicky’s camera; Sandra perches on a stool, printed questions in hand, and I know I’m not in control. At the end of the day, at the end of the decade, I’ve left it all up to Gabriel.
If he talks, I won’t fight it. That’s been my deal with myself since I told him. If Gabriel opts not to keep my secret, I’ll play along. I’ll tell the cops. I’ll show them.
But I don’t think he’s going to do it.
It’s a feeling I have. Something like trust, but heavier. Essential. Gabriel didn’t come here to give me up.
This is who we are. People who sit together and talk. People who set fires. I pour the accelerant; he strikes the match. We leave under cover of darkness. We find homes. We start over together. Again. And again.
We learn to swim. We run into water. We hide things from each other. Between the two of us, we hold the world’s greatest truths.
We hold hands at a wedding. We watch a coffin disappear into the ground. We make it through winter, through depression, through twenty-three years. We say goodbye; we don’t see each other for an eternity; we meet again. We hold on to each other.
This is what we’ve become. What we always were.
The only thing we ever knew how to be. A family.
