Not a Happy Family

Audrey tells Ellen the secret she has kept for years. When her brother Fred was just 13, he killed their father, an “ugly, angry” man with an alcohol addiction, who could not keep a job and was verbally and physically abusive to his wife and children (214). Growing up on his father’s family farm in Vermont, Fred at the time was charming, charismatic, an exceptional student, and a promising athlete. Fred understood a simple reality: If their father was dead, the family could move to New York to be with their mother’s sister and enjoy a normal life.

One summer day, Audrey caught Fred coming out of the barn looking flushed, his clothes rumpled. He told Audrey, “I think our problem is solved” (217). He took her into the barn and showed her their father, who was hanging from a center beam in the barn. Though she was only 11, Audrey knew what her brother had done. He easily painted the lie for her: “You can find him. And then call the police. They won’t suspect anything” (218). When Audrey attempted to ask how he could have done such a thing, Fred misunderstood and replied, “Once I got him in the barn, I strung him up.