Chapter 7 - WHAT TYLER HAD BEEN DOING WHEN I WASN’T HOME
Kristen had not told me everything about Tyler.
Neither had my mother.
Six months earlier, Tyler started entering our bedroom when Kristen was alone.
Never for long.
He'd knock, ask a question, then linger.
At first Kristen dismissed it.
Then he started commenting on her clothes.
Her weight.
Our sex life.
Whether pregnancy had made her “less fun.”
I felt sick listening.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“I did.”
I remembered exactly one conversation.
Kristen said Tyler made inappropriate jokes.
I told her:
He's an idiot. Ignore him.
I had reduced a warning to a personality trait.
Again.
After Kristen became pregnant, Tyler's behavior grew more hostile.
He resented the baby's future bedroom replacing the gaming room he used.
He told Mom the baby would “push everyone else out.”
Diane agreed.
Then Kristen found Tyler inside our bedroom while she was showering.
He claimed he was looking for a phone charger.
She told him never to enter again.
He laughed.
Kristen told me that too.
I remembered saying I'd talk to him.
I never did.
Work became busy.
Then Denver came up.
Then Kristen had the threatened miscarriage.
I kept postponing the confrontation because Tyler wasn't “actually dangerous.”
That phrase became difficult to live with.
Wednesday night in the shed, Tyler wasn't only there to make Kristen apologize.
He told her she had ruined the house.
He said Ethan had become boring since marrying her.
He said once the baby came, Mom would be treated like a guest.
Kristen replied:
“This isn't your house.”
That sentence enraged him.
He grabbed her necklace.
She pushed him.
He grabbed her neck.
She scratched his hands.
Then he let go.
For a moment.
Tyler staggered.
The sleeping medication and alcohol were beginning to affect him.
Kristen thought he might pass out.
Instead, he became angrier.
He stumbled toward her again.
Kristen had managed earlier to loosen one end of the chain by pulling the floor anchor repeatedly.
It gave her maybe four feet of movement.
She grabbed the only object within reach.
A wooden handle broken from an old garden tool.
She held it between them.
“Did you hit him?”
I asked.
“Yes.”
Her eyes filled.
“Once.”
“Where?”
“His shoulder.”
That injury appeared in the autopsy.
A bruise consistent with a cylindrical object.
Kristen said Tyler fell to one knee.
Then he stood again.
“He wasn't supposed to get back up.”
Those words made my stomach tighten.
Not because she had planned his death.
Because that was the moment in her memory where panic took over.
Tyler lunged.
Kristen shoved him with both hands.
His heel caught on the base of the shelving unit.
He fell backward.
His head struck steel.
Then everything stopped.
Kristen crawled toward him as far as the chain allowed.
She called his name.
No response.
She screamed for Mom.
For nearly an hour.
Nobody came.
That timeline matched the neighbor's later statement that she'd heard repeated screaming around midnight but assumed it was television or an argument inside the house.
“What happened the next morning?”
I asked.
Kristen stared at the floor.
“Your mother opened the door.”
My skin went cold.
“She saw Tyler?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
May you like
Kristen's voice became almost inaudible.
“She closed it again.”
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