“A list…” Brielle said. Her face became a little more … awake. She picked up her pen, turned back toward the front.
Her wrist moves as she looks up at the clock, around the walls, out the window, her words curling into columns.
SPRING
Prompt: Look back.
My eyes sting.
The courthouse on Alakea doesn’t look different now. It doesn’t look different from most of the other buildings in Honolulu—a big gray box with tinted windows, banyan trees outside. It could be a bank, or offices, or even a department at UH. But it’s the criminal courthouse. Murderers and robbers and ice heads are inside.
The room is brown. Brown walls, brown desks, brown benches where people wait like they’re in church for their sins to be confessed.
I sneak in and sit in the very back. If I see it for myself, then I’ll know the truth. People can say whatever they’ll say, but I won’t wonder what’s real.
A reporter from KHON2 has a yellow notepad.
Dad sits near the front behind Koa’s parents. Last night Mom’s arms were around him. They were standing by their bedroom window. “I will bring you back from this,” he said, his words on her forehead. He said he brought her back once, he’d bring her back again. I hope they don’t see him. I hope they don’t see me. Tate’s mom isn’t here. None of the surfers are here. I know Eli told them not to come. And they respected that.
Eli walks in the front. He doesn’t look at any of us. He looks at the brown floor and sits at the brown desk. He is: splotchy temples, blazer borrowed from Dad, two sizes too big, all wrong with that tie. I would’ve picked him out something teal, maybe. To balance out all this brown.
A lot of talking happens. Laws, codes, numbers, dates.
The prosecutor is: Nude flats, navy suit. She has long hair and curves, and asks a lot of questions, but she isn’t mean. She doesn’t hate him. She acts like it’s normal Eli killed two people.
And Eli answers the questions like it’s normal he killed two people, too, like he practiced or something: “Kamehameha Highway,” “45,” “1:15,” “a chicken,” “swerved,” “overcorrected,” “swerved again…”
Then Eli’s lawyer asks a lot of questions.
There’s this: “Mr. Harper, can you tell the court why you were driving Mr. Okoto’s vehicle on the night of the incident?” And Eli doesn’t answer. He hasn’t answered Dad the five thousand times Dad’s asked it. Or the time I did.
I scoot forward.
The lawyer goes on extra slow: “Mr. Harper, was there any other means available to you than driving Mr. Okoto’s vehicle?”
Eli shook his head.
“You couldn’t sleep it off in the parking lot? Call someone? Take Uber, call a cab?”
“I couldn’t think straight,” Eli says. “I was … worried.”
“You were worried about Mr. Okoto?”
“Objection,” the prosecutor says.
Koa’s lawyer clarifies, “Were you driving the vehicle because Mr. Okoto was under the influence of alcohol and methamphetamines?”
ICE?!?! Koa was an ice head? Impossible.
A whisper whips through the room.
Koa’s mom buries her head into her husband and sobs. Did they already know about it? Eli looks at Dad for a split second, before looking away again.
“Is it true, Mr. Harper,” the lawyer says, “that you were worried about the state of Mr. Okoto’s health? That he was acting confused? That he told you something was wrong with his heart?”
There’s silence.
What was wrong with Koa’s heart? Why isn’t Eli answering the questions? How does the lawyer have all this information? Why don’t I know any of this? Why didn’t Eli tell me?
“You didn’t call 9-1-1? Or go to the Sunset Beach Station right there? Or call Mr. Okoto’s parents?”
Eli takes a slow breath, closes his eyes. He answers, “Koa was out of chances.”
The lawyer walks up close to Eli. She speaks kindly, right to him. “Mr. Harper, did you drive Mr. Okoto’s vehicle the night of December 15, to avoid your friend getting into any more trouble?… Because he had told you if he ‘crossed the line’ once more, his parents would send him to military school in Virginia?”
Eli does not look at the Okotos.
The lawyer turns to the audience. “Can you confirm, Mr. Harper, that Mr. Okoto was terrified of going to military school? That he was terrified to leave O‘ahu, the ocean, his school, his friends? He had a future, correct, as a semiprofessional surfer? And he had a girlfriend?”
“Mr. Harper…” The lawyer turns back to Eli. “Please tell the court your motivation for driving Mr. Okoto’s vehicle at one a.m. on December 15 from Ehukai Beach Park down Kamehameha Highway.”
Eli’s eyes narrow. His head shakes slightly. He won’t say, I know he won’t. He won’t give the reason he was driving Koa’s Jeep, I think. He hasn’t yet, and he never will. What went down went down, but it happened in the surfing world, so the rest of us will never know.
“Mr. Harper?” the lawyer prods.
My god, my god, my god, my god.
Eli.
The lawyer walks over to Eli, but he turns and faces the rest of us.
“Is it because, Mr. Harper, on the night of December 15 you didn’t want to hurt your friend? Instead, you were trying to protect him?”
It was like the Hopper situation that night at dinner.
Eli the superhero. Strong, superhuman, defender of the weak. He would never tell why he was driving Koa’s Jeep.
For the first time in the trial, Eli looks at me. Eli the manslaughter defendant in Hawaii criminal court. His jaw sags like his jacket. His shoulders sag. All his bones turn to sand.
And then Eli presses his palms into the sockets of his eyes, and the tips of his fingers dig into his scalp. And he stays just like that.
What’s he doing? He’s never done that before. Is he hiding from us? From himself?
I want to run up there and pull his hands off his face. I want to punch him and scream.
But also, though, I want to hug him, to hold on to him.
I don’t.
I don’t do anything. I’m stuck on the brown bench, wondering why. Why is Eli doing that with his hands on his face?
And after some seconds or minutes or maybe hours, Eli is charged with second degree negligent homicide and sentenced to prison for three years, probation for two more, and Dad lets out a cry like a hurt animal in the darkest part of night. It’s a gasp for air and a cry of pain all at once.
But Eli’s palms stay pressed to his sockets till the Five-0 take him by each of his arms and lead him to a side room, and he starts his time away from us, from his friends, from school, from his future, from the water.
Me, I am sentenced to Our Lady of “Redemption” for four more years, two months, and eleven days. I sit in language arts with this notebook, writing it down, trying to get it, why it’s wrecked me, Eli doing that with his hands.
Because I’ve never seen him do that before?
Because I didn’t know why? Or what it meant?
Because he hates himself? Because he’s not perfect? Because he screwed up?
No one is perfect. People screw up.
It is part of being human.
Eli’s no crusader, but he’s not a killer, either. He’s a person, a brother, a son, a friend.
I know I will miss him. My life won’t be the same. Mom’s and Dad’s lives won’t be the same. Eli’s life won’t be the same.
But he is still here.
He is here.
Is it possible for me to be sad and mixed up and miss Koa and Tate, and at the same time be so glad about that?
SPRING
Prompt: On my mind is …
My hands scoop through the deep blue that’s warmer than I thought it’d be, my thighs flat against the old Quintara. I’ll see what this is all about.
The waves at Waikiki are always ankle biters. By now, almost summer again, they’ve
died down to mush.
Koa would be laughing—low shorts, hair in his eyes.
“Get it, Grom!” Eli’d be laughing with him. They’d laugh and laugh into the sky.
Eli always wanted me to try.
It turns out he didn’t want me to watch him do fancy drops from big waves. He wanted me to do it, to share it, to feel what he felt about the water. He wanted me to know.
I’ll tell him. When I visit.
I’m bringing the note Tate’s mom gave me to give to him. It says, “Eli, honey, Tate would want you to know it’ll be okay.”
She could forgive him. And if she could forgive him, maybe some of the rest of us could someday, too.
Me, I’ll tell him I found it—the lucky cat bank I got from Chinatown. Right in the freezer, where he stuck it before he went away again.
* * *
The tiny waves plink against the bottom of the board, and I listen, let the water roll softly under me, raising me up and letting me down. I breathe in the sun, the salt, the sea, the wax.
Left hand then right, I paddle out again.
I’m not the next Carissa Moore.
I’m just a girl scooping through the water, my bag and the rest of the world farther and farther behind me.
Leash around my ankle, tying me to the board, I paddle out toward the sun.
I scoop with my left hand, then my right, then I scoop with both. My arms burn, so for a second, I stretch them out behind me. And I rest like that, the waves rocking me forward and back, my cheek on the board, eyes closed, fingertips dragging along in the water.
Tears are words
Waiting to be written.
On my mind is …
Keep writing!
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Many of us, like Taylor, struggle with depression, hopelessness, loneliness, loss, and pain. We don’t know how long the darkness will last, what might happen next, or how we’ll make it through. It’s a lot.
But we aren’t alone. If you don’t think you can make it through, please talk to someone. People might surprise you. They may be kinder than you’d think. They might truly understand.
And if you can’t or don’t want to talk to someone you know, friends like my brother Mac—a crisis line responder—are waiting to listen, to help you see another sunrise.
Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255 for English and foreign language interpreters). Hearing impaired (1-800-799-4889). Spanish speakers (1-888-628-9454). Chat online at SuicidePreventionLifeline.org. Service is confidential, free, and available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
Text Safe Place at 4HELP (44357). Text the word “safe” and your current address, city, and state to 4HELP (44357) twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
Text Crisis Text Line at 741741. Text the word “talk” to 741741 (Canada: 686868; United Kingdom: 85258) to speak with a live, trained crisis counselor. Service is confidential and free. Or use Facebook Messenger: facebook.com/crisistextline twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
Even if you don’t need help now, save these contacts in your pocket, your locker, or your phone. They’ll be there for you (or someone you know).
And write. A blank page is an invitation to healing.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Me ka mahalo nui (With deep gratitude)
To the National Endowment for the Humanities, the East-West Center in Honolulu, and the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.
To the people of O‘ahu.
To Rhoda Belleza, a dream and a memory.*
To Imprint editors Erin Stein, Weslie Turner, and Nicole Otto for at once challenging and accepting me.
To designers Natalie C. Sousa and Carolyn Bull, managing editor Dawn Ryan, production editors Melinda Ackell and Elizabeth Baer, production manager Raymond Ernesto Colón, the Macmillan team, and cover artist Rachel Suggs.
To Holly Root at Root Literary, for strength and grace and savvy.
To my dad, Ken Englund, who gave me the heart of a warrior.
And to my mom, Joanne Englund, who’s been reading with the angels for what seems like a long, long time.
To Amy, Matt, Erika, Daniel, Steven, Brigit, and Mac, for the greatest loyalty/adventure/conspiracy/stories a sister could ever hope for.
To Dominic, Daney, and Rees, who hold my heart in their hands.
And to Dave—my very breath of life.
*Borrowed and adapted from Empress of a Thousand Skies, Rhoda Belleza, 2016
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jennie Englund began Taylor Before and After during her time as a National Endowment for the Humanities fellow in Hawaii. She lives in Oregon, where she works as a teacher. Taylor Before and After is her first book. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Begin Reading
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
TAYLOR BEFORE AND AFTER. Copyright © 2020 by Jennie Englund
A part of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC
120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271
mackids.com
All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
Our books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact your local bookseller or the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at (800) 221-7945 ext. 5442 or by email at [email protected].
Book design by Carolyn Bull
Imprint logo designed by Amanda Spielman
First hardcover edition, 2020
eBook edition, February 2020
Unzipped pants.
Slouchy socks.
Shirt buttons that pop off at random.
Scratched sunglasses.
The perpetually missing other shoe.
These (and other) wardrobe malfunctions are caused by poor treatment of this book.
eISBN: 9781250171887
Taylor Before and After Page 20