The Morning Of
Page 9
“Why would you want to do that?”
“I don’t want them doing this. It isn’t necessary.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then why?”
“Connor, you did a wonderful thing yesterday!”
“No I didn’t.”
“Connor… all those kids are alive now because of you.”
“Please. I barely even know what happened there. I just reacted. I might as well have been pulling my hand away from a hot pan. Jesus, I’m not even sure I remembered that the kids were in there in the moment. I was scared for myself.”
“But you did what you needed to do.”
“Yeah,” Connor said with a roll of the eyes. “Well, what about all the times that I didn’t?”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing.” With that Connor took off out the room. He headed back to their bedroom where he flipped on the TV and shut out the world. Throughout the day, three more gift packages came. Flowers and two fruit baskets. Brandy would come up to the room and drop them off without a word. Connor read each card, all of them saying essentially the same thing as the first. He set all of them to the side and tried to wish them out of existence. Then at 1:00 came the phone call.
“Hello,” Connor answered in a groggy voice.
“Is this Connor Sullivan who works at Stanford West High School?” the male voice on the other end asked.
“Yes.”
“My name is Kyle Brennan with the Stanford Tribune. I was wondering if we might have a word.”
“About what?” Connor asked, wondering why he even bothered.
“Well, we heard about what you did during the incident yesterday.”
Connor wished he wouldn’t tiptoe around the subject with a word like incident. “And?” he offered, hoping to get this over with.
“Well, I was hoping that we might set up an interview. It’s an amazing story, and we would love to tell it in our paper. We think it’s something that our readers would really respond to.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m not interested.”
“Is there another paper that you’ve agreed to talk to? Because if this is a matter of compensation, I think we could offer you something.”
“What? No…” Connor spat out, thinking about the moral implications of profiting off the shooting. “I’m just not interested in talking about it. Besides, you’ve obviously heard about what happened, so why would you even need to talk to me.”
“We want to hear your side of it.”
“I don’t have a side to it. I’m sorry, but no.” With that Connor hung up and dropped the phone beside him. Would this be his life now? Constantly on the receiving end of adulation? If this is what happened while he held himself up in his house, what would happen when he dared to head out into the world?
Brandy came up into the room. “Were you just on the phone?” she asked.
“Yeah. It was a reporter.”
“A reporter?”
“Yeah. They want to talk to me about the ‘incident,’” Connor said with air quotes.
“Are you going to do it?”
“Of course not.”
Brandy just smiled, knowing that this would be the answer. “Do you want anything for lunch?”
“No. I’m tired. I think I might take a nap.” Brandy just looked over at him, an entire ocean between the two of them that couldn’t be crossed. She turned and left Connor alone as he laid down and buried his head in his pillow.
He slept for two hours when his phone went off again. Connor shot out his hand and answered the phone while still keeping his head buried. He muttered what amounted to a greeting as he answered.
“Is this Connor Sullivan of Stanford West High School?” a voice asked.
“Yes…” he said as though he wasn’t sure of the answer. Who the hell is this? Fucking New York Times now, he thought.
“My name is Detective Dixon with the Stanford Police Department.”
Connor, caught off guard by this, hoisted himself out of his self-made cocoon.
“As you can imagine, we are currently in the midst of the investigation concerning the shooting from yesterday. To aid us we are setting up interviews with all relevant staff and students. And it is our understanding you had a confrontation with one of the shooters. Our lead investigators, Detectives Smalls and Morgan, would like to speak with you. We’re just trying to get a full sense of what transpired.”
“Yes. Yes. Of course.”
“Would you be able to come down to the station tomorrow at 11:00?”
“Umm… yeah.” Connor felt like one of his students with these disconnected responses, but having the police call him wasn’t a typical occurrence.
“Great. Thank you for your time.” With that the line went dead.
12
Kristin lay asleep in bed at the hospital. Her mother, Diane, sat beside her, book open in her lap. She looked down at the words on the page but didn’t actually read any of them. Nothing could sustain her attention at the moment, her mind entirely occupied on her daughter as she wondered what, if anything, she could do for her.
She worked as an accountant at a law firm. Nearing sixty, she should have been looking forward to retirement, but with the death of Kristin’s father last year, she needed the extra income. She had thought that nothing could compare to the dread she felt the day that he died. Until yesterday.
She had just gotten down to work when the entire office erupted. Missy, her secretary, came running into her office almost in tears. “Wha… what…” she stuttered.
“Missy, what’s wrong?” Diane asked, feeling an ice pick go straight through her heart. Even though she hadn’t heard the news at this point, in the back of her head she already knew. A mother always knows.
“What school does Kristin work at?”
With that she could feel the ice pick dig in deeper. “West. Why?” she asked, hoping that her instincts had betrayed her.
“There’s been a shooting.”
Once she heard those words, the entire world began to tilt and then turn upside down. Diane slipped out of her chair and collapsed onto the ground. Bile shot out of her mouth. Missy ran over to her and tried pulling her up from the ground, but she may as well have been lifting an anvil.
When she did finally lift herself, she gathered her things and ran to her car crying about how she had to be with Kristin. Missy insisted on driving her, worried that she was too hysterical to drive anywhere. Diane wouldn’t even be able to argue had she wanted to. She hopped into Missy’s car, the world still spinning the entire time. She had her phone out and called Kristin over and over again, but after a few rings it kept going to voicemail. If she wasn’t answering her phone it could only mean one thing… that she’d been killed. That, and only that, ran through her mind the entire ride to the school.
A mass of people had already gathered there. Pushing through them felt like swimming through mud. She reached the front and would have jumped the sawhorses if a cop hadn’t been there to stop her. “Please! Please! My daughter works here. I need to see if she’s okay,” she said through sobs.
“Okay, okay,” the cop responded as he threw up his hands in a calming gesture. “Give me her name, and I’ll see if we can find her.”
“Kristin. Kristin Benson,” she cried, feeling like she may vomit again.
He took off, leaving someone else in his stead. He had been gone for about ten minutes, and they were the longest ten minutes of Diane’s life. When she saw him heading back she had to restrain herself from running towards him, not wanting to wait another second to hear the news. She studied his face, looking for an upward turn of his lips into a smile to indicate good news. But she couldn’t make out anything, which, of course, could only be bad news.
“I just talked to the medics we have here,” the cop began once he came up to her.
Oh no. The medics? She’s been shot, hasn’t she?
“She wasn’t injured at all, but she was taken to the emergency room.”
“I’m sorry. That’s all the information I have.”
“But she is alive?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you,” she cried through a mass of tears. At this point she couldn’t even tell if they were due to happiness at this news or devastation from the whole ordeal. Probably both.
After plowing her way through the crowd once again, Missy took her to the emergency room. It took a while for her to actually get brought back, but eventually she got to see her daughter. She charged into the room where a doctor hovered over Kristin, jotting something down on a chart.
“Can I help you?” the doctor asked, his head springing up.
“Tha… that’s my daughter. What’s wrong? What happened? Is she hurt? Is she going to be okay? Why is she here? What is she doing?” Diane’s string of questions had been interrupted when she looked over at Kristin to see her staring ahead blankly and moving her lips ever so slightly. A subdued whisper emitted from her.
“I’m Dr. Christensen. You said you’re Ms. Benson’s mother?”
Diane just nodded her head, not taking her eyes off of Kristin for a second. The small bit of relief that she felt when she heard that Kristin hadn’t been killed vanished when she saw her lying in bed like this. She barely recognized this girl in front of her as her daughter.
“Physically she appears to be fine,” the doctor continued. “However, she is in shock.”
“In shock? What happened?”
“Not really sure. We haven’t gotten the story yet.”
“What is she doing with her lips?”
“She appears to be saying something over and over again.”
“Saying what?”
The doctor leaned in close to Kristin’s mouth. “I believe she’s saying, ‘I’ll be behind you.’”
“What does that mean?”
“Again, I don’t know.”
“Well, is she going to be okay or what?”
“We’re going to give her some fluids and something to calm her down and let her sleep. Hopefully once she wakes up after getting some rest, she’ll be back with us.”
“Can I stay with her?”
“Of course. Take a seat.” And so she did. She would only move to go to the bathroom. Other than that her eyes didn’t leave her daughter. At 7:00 that night, Kristin had finally stirred.
“Mom?” she croaked. “Where am I?”
“You’re in the hospital, sweetie,” Diane replied as she reached forward and took Kristin’s hand. “Do you remember what happened?”
“Something happened at school, didn’t it? Oh God, the kids!” Kristin screamed as she began to rise from the bed.
Diane reached forward and pushed her back down. “It’s okay. Just relax. Can you tell me what happened?”
She didn’t reply. She just turned away and began to weep into her pillow. The only time she would look up was when the doctor came back in to check on her. Soon after, she fell back to sleep and didn’t rouse once during the night.
She still slept when Diane’s phone began ringing the next morning. She didn’t recognize the number but went ahead and answered.
“Is this Diane Benson?” the voice on the other end asked.
“Yes,” she uttered with hesitation.
“Are you the mother of Kristin Benson who works at Stanford West High School?”
“If this is a reporter, my daughter has zero interest in speaking with you.” She kept waiting for one of those scavengers to come for her.
“No. This is Detective Dixon with the Stanford Police Department. We understand that your daughter had an interaction with the shooters during the lockdown yesterday.”
What was this interaction? Did this cop know more about what happened with her daughter than she did? “Yes, I believe so.”
“Well, our lead investigators, Detectives Smalls and Morgan would like to schedule an interview with her to discuss what transpired. We’ve attempted contacting her directly, but there hasn’t been an answer; so we contacted you. Could you please connect us with your daughter?”
“My daughter is in the hospital right now. And she’s sleeping.”
“Well, do you think it would be acceptable if our detectives came by to speak with her?”
Diane wanted to say no, afraid of how Kristin might deal with this, but knew that it was something that would need to happen. “Yes. I suppose.”
“Would 12:00 on Friday be okay?”
“Sure.”
“Thank you for your time.” With that, the voice on the other end was gone and Diane sat alone in silence once again.
13
Julie and Brian had both taken the day off today, not wanting to leave Terry alone. From the moment they had gotten home yesterday, Terry had collapsed into bed and only woke up long enough to eat dinner. From there he shut himself off in his room again. The time neared 11:00 and Julie kept checking the time, wondering when her son would emerge into the world of the living.
“You need to calm down, honey,” Brian said, looking up from the newspaper.
“How can he be sleeping so much?” she asked, looking towards the stairs, hoping she’d see Terry descend any minute.
“After yesterday, can you blame him for being exhausted?”
“No. It’s just…”
“What?”
“I already feel like he’s been drifting as of late. He doesn’t talk to us much anymore to begin with. I’m worried he’s going to keep all of this to himself. Won’t let us help him.” This had been shuffling around in the back of her mind for the past couple years. When Terry had been younger, they had been so close. She could remember when he had been about five years old, and she couldn’t even leave the room without him running right behind her. She knew better than to expect that to continue as he got older. But even as recently as a couple years ago she still felt like they had a closer relationship than most parents had with their teenage kids. When he’d first started high school he would still come home every day and give her a recap of all that had happened. He still came to her for help on homework and even more amazingly, for advice with girls, but not as of late. Any time she asked about his day it would be a miracle if he gave a verbal reply. When he went out with his friends, he would be cagey about what he’d be doing. More than that, though, there would be times when it seemed that he could be borderline hostile towards her. Not that he would cop an attitude with her, but the glances that he would throw her way seemed to be filled with something akin to scorn. Any time she would raise her concerns to Brian, he would brush it off saying that it was to be expected. That she was paranoid to think that Terry could be upset with her about something.
“Jesus Christ! Is this true?” Brian suddenly cried out from behind the paper.
“What’s that?” Julie asked, being shaken out of her obsessive stupor.
“I’m reading about that protest from yesterday.” Typically, the story would have been front page, but now it had been pushed back to page three.
“Yeah…” Julie offered, waiting for him to get to the point.
“Did some woman make a threat against the schools?” he asked, getting to Liman’s now infamous quote.
“Oh Jesus. I had nearly forgotten about that.”
“So it’s true?”
“Well, I don’t know that it was a threat against the schools exactly. She did say something about the privileged needing to know what it was like for their kids to be killed.”
“Who said that?” a voice from the living room said.
Julie looked behind her to see that Terry had finally emerged. “You’re up. How are you feeling?” she asked, ignoring his question.
“Fine. Who said that about kids being killed?” he asked, getting back to his earlier question.
“A woman from the protes
t yesterday. She’s with that Stanford Society something.”
“The SSPA?”
“Uh-huh,” Julie uttered, a bit concerned about how he knew about them.
“So… are they thinking that they’re behind what happened?”
“I have no idea. Are you hungry? Can I make you anything?” Julie asked, desperate to change the subject.
“No. I’m fine. I think I might hang out with Johnny in a little bit.”
Julie tried to hide her dissatisfaction at this. She hadn’t admitted it to Brian, much less Terry, but she did not really care for Johnny. Terry had started hanging out with him late in his freshmen year, and his detachment soon followed. More than that, she didn’t think Johnny a wonderful influence. She’d seen him sitting around the police station a couple times. Typically for things like trespassing or vandalism, but no matter why, she didn’t like the idea of her son hanging around someone with a record.
“No, no, no. Come on and have something to eat before you go anywhere. We want to talk to you,” Julie insisted.
“Mom. I told you I’m fine. I don’t think I even knew anyone who died yesterday.”
“But still. To have been in the midst of it. There’s nothing wrong with being upset. With needing to talk to someone or…” The sound of the house phone ringing cut her off. Julie stood up and went over to answer. “Just please don’t go anywhere right now,” she told Terry as she picked up the phone. “Hello?” she said, answering it.
“Officer Lipton?” a familiar voice said.
“Yes?”
“This is Detective Dixon from Homicide.” Julie knew the man but hadn’t had much interaction with him.
“Yes?”
“Your son Terrance is a student at West High School?”
“Yes.”
“Could I speak with him, please?”
“What is this concerning?”
“We’re just setting up interviews with a number of students and staff from the school as part of our investigation.”
“I understand. He’s right here. I’ll put us on speaker.” She knew she didn’t need to be worried, but she wanted to be a part of any conversation that Terry had with the police. She flipped on the speaker as she explained to Terry what was happening.