The wall in Steven's old bedroom is covered with photographs of him, a copy of his birth certificate, and dozens of sympathy cards sent by friends and neighbors. The outpouring of support has made a difference, but Howard still thinks about selling her home and moving somewhere new. One neighbor, she says, had been openly hostile to the arrival of her family at Sunny Acres. "One of my other sons overheard him saying, 'It's bad enough they let the niggers in. Next they'll let in animals or apes or something.'" Then, shortly after Steven's death, the same neighbor taunted her. "He said, 'Where's your son now, lady?' My other boy wanted to break him in half and I said, 'No, no, he'll get his eventually.'"
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After taking time off to tend to the funeral and burial details, Howard had returned to work, but she found it difficult to concentrate. Then one morning she awoke and emptied her mailbox. It was filled with unhappy reminders of her loss. A notice that Steven's medical insurance was canceled. A letter from the Social Security Administration. But the worst, she says, was the death certificate. "I just wasn't prepared to read that. It said he'd died of multiple blows to the head, and the words just made me think that he must have suffered gravely." As Howard headed off to work, she suddenly found herself unable to continue. If she hadn't been working two jobs, she thought, maybe she could have kept a closer eye on Steven. Howard couldn't stop thinking about her son's final, desperate run. Was he in pain? Did he know he was dying? Could he have been saved? Did he knock on a door or window for help only to be ignored?
She pulled the minivan over to the side of the road, then called a girlfriend on her cell phone, who recommended she see a grief counselor. "She got worried, and says, 'Where are you? Where are you?' and I just said, 'I'm not anywhere.'" Howard hung up, reached into her purse, and swallowed a handful of sleeping pills and diabetes medication.
Alarmed, the friend decided to drive to Howard's workplace. On the way, she spotted a minivan on the side of the highway. Howard was taken to a nearby hospital emergency room. She spent two days in the hospital before checking herself out and seeking out a grief counselor. "The psychiatrist wanted to stick me in a loony bin," she half-jokes now.
Sitting on her couch and picking halfheartedly at her tuna salad, Howard says she is sleeping better these days. Her grief still comes in waves, but she looks for relief in religion and family. She is girding herself for trips to the Dakota County Government Center in Hastings, and she hopes justice will be done. The first of nine separate trials, involving alleged bat wielder Andy Smith, is scheduled to begin on January 17. For the time being, though, she just hopes to make it through the holidays.
"We're Southern people. These are the days we do our cooking, the days we sit together and talk and go back over what has happened over the past year," she says, shifting in her chair. "You know, Thanksgiving started out a really good day, but it ended with everyone in the house sobbing, just crying. That presence just wasn't there. And I said, 'Lord, I don't even want to know what Christmas is gonna be like.'"
