Dad loves you the most
Mallory Becker sat on her bed, staring at the full-length mirror in front of her. She saw her eyes in the reflection, red and puffy. Mallory glanced to the top right corner of the mirror where her dad’s scratchy handwriting wrote, “Dad loves you the most.” He had underlined the words twice.
“I think I called him over 30 times,” Mallory said, “I needed to know for myself that it was true.”
Mallory woke up in her full-size bed on Friday, December 5, 2013, in Britt, Iowa, to the sound of her dad’s voice coming from the hallway. Her daily alarm clock.
She tossed and murmured a groan.
Mallory pulled up her skinny jeans, stepped into her combat boots, and yanked her Love Your Melon beanie down on her head.
Running late, Mallory scarfed down a bowl of Frosted Flakes before heading out the door.
Mallory, a high school junior, drove east toward Mason City with four other high school students to attend a business class at the community college.
“Remember to text your grandma happy birthday,” Jim Becker texted his daughter early that Friday morning.
Mallory followed through with her dad’s instructions.
On her way back to Britt, Mallory called her dad twice, not getting through.
At 2:00 pm, Mallory drove to grandma’s house to kill time before West Hancock’s basketball game against nearby Garner-Hayfield-Ventura High School. Mallory, one of the team’s managers, knew she would soon be hopping on the team bus along with her dad, who served as assistant coach.
Mallory heard her grandma’s phone rang. It was Mallory’s mom.
“It’s not good Mal,” Mallory’s grandma said, “Something’s wrong.”
Mallory struggled to find an answer from her grandma. She can’t even remember the exact words her grandma used.
Mallory took hold of the wheel, her grandma in the passenger seat, and drove “like a maniac,” according to her grandma. She parked the car halfway down the gravel driveway and walked the rest of the way.
Two state patrol officers stood in Mallory’s home.
“I don’t think I hugged her,” Mallory said about her mom, “She was in her own place of crazy.”
Mallory picked up her dad’s bright orange beanie that said “Oswego,” from the dining room table and started pacing back and forth. The state patrol officers watched. Silent.
“Mallory was a huge daddy’s girl,” Mallory’s cousin Erika said.
Every five minutes, Mallory’s older brother called, desperate for updates.
For the next few hours, Mallory’s phone sat somewhere with no one to answer the hundred messages pouring in. Little bandaids on a very large wound.
“Mallory knows the lowest of the lows,” Danika Hodgman, Mallory’s freshman roommate said.
Elsewhere, the West Hancock basketball team sat in a quiet locker room.
“You don’t have to play,” the coaches told the team. In response, the seniors told them that Jim would want them to play.
In a small-town gymnasium on a Friday night in Garner, Iowa, an entire crowd fell silent to honor the Becker family.
In her house, Mallory made her way upstairs to her room. Alone.
Mallory Becker sat on her bed, staring at the full-length mirror in front of her. She saw her eyes in the reflection, red and puffy. Mallory glanced to the top right corner of the mirror where her dad’s scratchy handwriting wrote, “Dad loves you the most.” He had underlined the words twice.
