Ashley Fairleigh sat on her couch in the Sunday morning light, scrolling through the headlines on her phone.
National news. State news. Story after story slid past her thumb.
Suddenly, she froze. Her stomach lurched.
It was March 1. Around 2 a.m. that morning, Fairleigh read, a shooter drove to Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden and fired into the crowds. Two people died at the scene. More than a dozen were injured. Police killed the suspected shooter.
Fairleigh’s eyes brimmed with tears for the victims and their families. Seven months ago, she and her teen daughter escaped a deadly shooting at an Austin Target.
This is life everywhere now. Uvalde. El Paso. Santa Fe. Allen.
Long after the gunshots stop, violence remains imprinted in the body. It lurks in the nervous system, sometimes locking survivors in a state of fight or flight. Fragmented memories puncture ordinary moments. Sounds, smells and sights trigger adrenaline surges. The shooting haunts their dreams, interrupts daily life and strains relationships.
Deadly shootings ripple through communities and across time. For each person directly involved, another 10 people outside the incident can be affected, said Deborah Vinall, a California therapist whose specialities include trauma caused by mass shootings.
For the survivors at Buford’s, the long-term impact has only begun.
For the Fairleighs, it started last summer with a plastic fan and a pair of sneakers.
Inside the Target when gunfire erupted
Fairleigh and her daughter, Audrey, walked toward Target on 8601 Research Blvd., crossing the parking lot in the 100-degree heat with a clear mission: get in, get out.
It was Aug. 11. Fairleigh, a 51-year-old speech language pathologist, was in a rush. She had an appointment with a patient at their home.
The pair returned a plastic fan. But then her 13-year-old daughter remembered she needed dance shoes for an upcoming pep rally at her middle school. They browsed for a bit, before Fairleigh checked the time: 2:11 p.m.
Hey we have to head out, she said. I have a 3 o’clock patient.
A nearby stranger chimed in. You must be in home health care.
Despite the rush, they chatted for less than a minute, then walked toward the check out register closest to the front door.
They scanned the shoebox.
Beep.
BANG.
The loud crack came from outside, echoing through the store. Three things flashed through Fairleigh’s mind.
Something fell.
No, those are gunshots. Why?
Her brain searched for a logical explanation. But when danger appears, logic disappears just as quickly. The amygdala takes control. Fight or flight kicks in. Adrenaline surges.
It all happens in an instant.
A man’s voice boomed across the store.
The Fairleighs still don’t remember who yelled or what he said.
That’s not uncommon, Vinall said. Extreme fear can hijack the part of the brain that processes language.
Mother and daughter don’t remember the words.
But they remember the message: Run.
Fairleigh and Audrey darted toward the back of the store, weaving around clothing racks, past sports bras and through the men’s department.
Audrey’s years of active shooter training at school told her to hide. Fairleigh’s years of motherhood told her to protect her child.
She stayed behind Audrey as she ran, taking long strides, arms above her head, never letting her child out of sight.
Audrey, shoebox tucked tightly under her right arm, kept looking over her left shoulder to find her mother.
Where’s mom? she thought. Where are we going?
When Fairleigh looked at her daughter, she could only see the whites of her daughter’s eyes.
Fear does that.
When humans are scared, their pupils dilate to capture as much information as possible. Muscles activate and the eyes widen, exposing more of the sclera.
The pair raced toward an employee holding open a door. Scores of people poured toward it from every direction. Electronics. Clothing. School supplies.
They burst outside, ready to keep running. Instead, they were trapped.
Straight ahead, a chain link fence and drainage ditch with stagnant water blocked the way. Left and right led to the parking lot, where they feared the shooter lurked.
Every direction forced them into the open. So they pressed against the back wall of the building and waited. People cried. Some prayed. Others tried to keep their children quiet.
Fairleigh switched fully into protector mode.
If the shooter comes around the building to your left, fall right, she told Audrey. If he comes from the right, fall left.
She kept the rest to herself: You can have a prosthetic arm or foot. We can’t get you another brain.
Their hearts pounded. Breathing sped up. Muscles tightened. Fear floods the body before the brain has time to process it. Norepinephrine, a hormone that sharpens focus and heightens arousal, surged through their bodies.
Then something strange happened.
Fairleigh remembered her appointment. Even while her body remained on high alert, her brain tried to lean into normalcy.
At 2:29 p.m. — 14 minutes after the shooting — she emailed her patient.
Hello! I am at Target and there is an active shooter and we are sitting outside back. I am not going to make today’s 3 o’clock session and will need to cancel. I’m really frazzled.
Audrey stayed vigilant. She fidgeted with the necklace her parents gave her for Christmas, a gold cross covered in silver rhinestones.
Soon they heard sirens, then the roar of a police helicopter.
They were safe, but still trapped. The police needed to talk to them.
The sun beat down on concrete. The stagnant water reeked. To Fairleigh, it felt like wet heat.
Audrey fixated on the fact they had not purchased the black and white sneakers she had been clutching since running to safety.
I didn’t pay for these, she kept saying.
Finally, a female Target employee put her hand on Audrey’s shoulder.
Honey, honey, she said. We are not worried about the shoes.
Three hours later, the Fairleighs were free to leave.
Living with the Aftermath
That night, the family went to a Mexican restaurant.
At the time, it seemed reasonable. They were hungry. No one could settle on what to do. Maybe they should act normal?
I need a frozen Margarita, no salt, Fairleigh decided.
But normal was impossible.
At their table, a speaker directly over Audrey’s head blared Tejano music. Fairleigh refused to sit with her back to the door. The restaurant was too close to the Target they had just fled. Audrey knew the shooter wasn’t in the area — but what if he was?
The outing, Fairleigh decided later, was a mistake.
Vinall isn’t sure about that. Sometimes it’s better to get back on the horse, she said. Some people get so stuck in the trauma, they won’t even leave their homes.
Fairleigh soon learned that Ethan Nieneker, 32, had been charged in the Target deaths. Police called it a random attack.
Friends, family and strangers rallied around the pair, offering support, comfort, whatever they needed. Fairleigh needed answers. She fixated on Nieneker, learning from news articles he had a criminal record, a history of violence and possible mental health issues. How could this happen? She wanted to know more about him: his childhood, his friendships, his struggles.
It was a typical response to an atypical situation, Vinall said. In the absence of information, many survivors go digging for answers.
Fairleigh doubts she’ll ever get them.
A return to ‘normal’
In the months after the shooting, life took on a familiar rhythm. Audrey, now 14, returned to school as an eighth grader. She seemed to be the same girl she always was: Girl Scout, dancer, animal-lover. A Sephora fan with a heart of gold who wants to be in everything but the spotlight, her mother says.
Fairleigh continued running her own speech therapy business while working at Dell Children’s Medical Center in a cochlear implant clinic and raising her two daughters with her husband.
But the shooting still lives in them.
It doesn’t matter that they never saw the killings or that the shooter never entered the Target. Their brains have stored fragmented memories, the sights, smells and sounds of that day. Their nervous systems are still releasing emotion and tension.
Fairleigh jumps at loud noises. The smell of wet heat brings her right back to the scene. She cries a lot now. She thinks about that minute-long conversation with the stranger at Target about being a home health care worker. She’s convinced that minute saved their lives.
She hasn’t been able to walk into a Target since the shooting but recently tried curbside service. That night, she had a traumatic dream about Audrey and hurried out of bed to check on her.
Audrey thinks about the shooting now and then. She gets anxious about little things. She’s more aware of her surroundings now, but she rarely talks about it and gets irritated when people bring it up.
That’s typical for teenage trauma survivors, Vinall says. The prefrontal cortex doesn’t finish developing until their mid-20s. They don’t usually have the emotional capacity to handle the trauma.
But gun violence remains a threat. Recently, Audrey’s middle school went on lockdown as they checked out a potential threat.
Nothing happened. But Audrey knew it could.
Finding meaning after trauma
In time it became clear that Target hadn’t just left trauma in its wake. It brought growth.
Fairleigh lost 25 pounds. She set more boundaries. She takes walks, enjoys her zinnias and cares for the family chickens.
She talks about the shooting. When the Buford’s attack happened, she posted online about resources for crime victims.
Audrey started helping Dell Children’s emBark! service dog program and is working with them to relocate the program away from the campus helipad into a safer, more shaded area.
It’s called post-traumatic growth. People pour themselves into new projects, new volunteer opportunities, new hobbies, Vinall said. Through healing, they find new passions in life.
Some people don’t experience that. They have nightmares and flashbacks. They isolate themselves. That’s when survivors need to reach out for help, Vinall says.
Audrey, who doesn’t have social media, knows about the Buford’s shooting. Her mom gave her a few details.
OK, Audrey said. She said little else.
She still has the cross necklace she held during the shooting.
But she can’t wear it.
One day, she stuffed it in her school backpack and when she pulled it out, the chain had tangled itself into a knot.
Now it sits on her bedside table.
Every so often, she picks it up and tries to untangle it.
