" 'I never thought there was any problem,' she admitted. 'I didn't know Peter was upset. I didn't know he wanted to kill himself. I didn't know any of those things.' She began to cry. 'All those families out there, I don't know what to say to them. I wish I could tell them that I lost someone, too. I just lost him a long time ago.' Selena folded her arms around the smaller woman. 'It's not your fault,' she said, words she knew Lacy Houghton needed to hear" (176).
This quote demonstrates the author's attempt to gain sympathy from the reader for Lacy Houghton, Peter's mom. Lacy was as surprised as anyone else that her son committed such a heinous crime, and she is struggling and grieving just as much as the mothers who lost children in the shooting. To realize you don't know your own child anymore is terrifying. Lacy can't help but try to pinpoint the place where she went wrong--that one defining mistake she made in raising him that caused her son to turn into a killer. She blames herself for this tragedy. She is simply a caring, generous woman and mother who is faced with an unbearable situation. I feel terrible for Lacy, especially because so many of the victim's parents blame her for their children's deaths. She doesn't deserve the blame, as she was not the one holding the gun that day.
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