115. Interview with Catherine D’Amico: Part 19

28 June 2011

– When I left the police station I spent the car ride back to my apartment trying to forget about my visit there. Forget about everything actually, except just convincing myself it was over.

– Kept telling myself the whole way home, he’s dead, Cathy. Dead. Gone, for good. I repeated it to myself over and over the whole way, told myself I would never see him again, that I’d be raising this baby by myself, that it didn’t matter how he died or who did it, he was dead. No coming back. I told myself to admit it, deep down, and everything would be okay in the long run. I just had to repeat it, understand it, embrace it.

– When I got home, I searched my apartment for anything and everything that had any connection to him. A sweatshirt I’d taken from his place, a couple of t-shirts he’d left at mine when he spent the night. A box of pictures, the few times he let me take some of him. And that was about it. And that’s when it all hit me, everything I’d been feeling as far as the mysteriousness of Tony for our entire relationship.

– I remembered what Detective Fletcher had just told me—come back when you have something concrete. And I thought about how I never really had anything concrete when it came to Tony. I never really knew him at all, actually.

– Searching for signs of him around my apartment, all I came up with were a couple of memories and a seed in my stomach. And, I thought it would be hard, to admit to myself that this man I barely knew had barged into my life, stomped around, then left just as swiftly. And it was hard. But it was doable. I cried when I lay in bed that night, but for the first time in over a year it wasn’t for Tony. It was for me.

– It felt good. As good as it could at that moment, at least. Which was something.

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