LEWISTON, Maine — For the first time in days, people in Lewiston's shell-shocked community were able to gather in familiar spaces without the fear of encountering a mass shooter on the loose.
One of those places was Fran’s Restaurant, a popular breakfast spot that opened Saturday for the first time in three days. Manager Linda Tucker welcomed regulars the morning after Robert Card, the suspect in the two mass shootings that claimed 18 lives Wednesday, had been found dead.
"We weren’t sure if we were going to open when they lifted this shelter-in-place order. When he was found we just said we had to open," Tucker told NEWS CENTER Maine.
Her relief is tempered by concern for those who lost loved ones, and the surreal notion that the unthinkable could happen here.
"It’s a relief. But then also you think it isn’t going to happen here. It still puts you on guard to know that something like that could happen in a small little town like this."
Local resident Marc Mailhot met a group of friends at Fran’s because he thought it was important for them to decompress after days of lockdown and emotional trauma.
"I think what Maine is going to need, and what the community is going to need, is time," Mailhot remarked.
"Families are going to need the time and the respect and the anonymity to be what they need to be in their homes, for as long as they need it."
The lockdown, and the manhunt for the presumed shooter, had put people here on edge for days. A family seated in a different corner at Fran’s said they had spent the past few days glued to their phones wondering what would happen next.
"It was like a thunderstorm without the thunder. We were waiting for something to happen, and we just kept waiting and kept waiting and everyone was living in fear," Josianna Spearman told NEWS CENTER Maine.