The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir

by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich

There is no way to know, now, as Lanelle passes back the bills to the truckers, and Pearl wipes down the counters at the Fuel Stop, and Ricky hoists his laundry bag over his shoulder to carry to his folks’, that in three months, after Jeremy’s body has been found in the closet, after Ricky has been handcuffed and locked up in the parish jail, after the front pages of newspapers all over the state have run the same black-and-white photograph of the bogeyman sex offender who’s murdered a little boy, and after the Lawson home has become command central for the police, who have taped the closet and Ricky’s bedroom in yellow tape, and, after all of Ricky’s belongings from the room have been placed in sealed plastic bags marked EVIDENCE and Jeremy’s body has been sealed up and carried off to the morgue, that Terry Lawson—Pearl’s husband, Joey and June’s father—will take his son, Joey, out for an afternoon motorcycle ride.

is this seriously ONE sentence?