by M. O. McLeod
The streets were full due to the weekend’s extra traffic flow. As the party of three left the movie theater and joined the crowd, they felt a sense of unity.
“Too bad Kurma didn’t wanna come out with us,” said Fae, Kurma's mom, Fae. “Either she wants to be with Santino again, or she thinks I’m an embarrassment to her.”
Fae was five foot seven with long, wavy hair dyed burnt orange. She kept her hair long and thick because she got more attention with it that way and Fae was all about attention. Her eyebrows were pencil thin, and she always kept her lips painted a bright red. She had semi-dark chocolate-colored eyes and long, full lashes.
When Fae was young she’d had a strict upbringing, and now she had the opportunity to be who she wanted to be. Kurma didn’t like this, and often tried to drift away from the family while on outings. In contrast, Fae loved Kurma for who she was, and never felt embarrassed when Kurma had her fits of depression or OCD, so she didn’t see why Kurma couldn’t accept her the way she was. Yes, Fae was a little flamboyant; she wore tight clothes and chain-smoked with the best of them, but she was still a good mother, or so she thought.
“Which one is it, boys?” asked Fae.
The twins peered at their mom with a guilty look. They didn’t want to give up Kurma’s secret. She had told them she was planning a special night for Santino. Inis, the older twin, had bet that meant she was going to let him get to third base. Inis thought Kurma was a control freak and a prude, but she was slowly letting herself be happy and normal. Allie, the younger twin and the one who was closer to Kurma, bet she was going all the way with Santino. He knew Kurma liked this new life she was leading as the popular girl in her senior year with the most popular guy on her arm. And, Allie knew once Kurma made her mind up about something, it was as good as hers.
However, the twins couldn’t let that secret slip. They were the younger brothers, and Kurma had trained them to go by the brother-sister code: thou shalt not snitch on one another, and she who punishes my brother or sister is my enemy. The twins and their sister had always lived by these two rules.
“Mami, you know that right now she’s up there lying next to Santino, all hugged up. It’s nothing to do with you. Trust me,” said Allie. “You know how you females do when you get a boyfriend. The saying missing in action aint got nothing on the Rosales women.”
Fae laughed at her boys. They were always bringing up her and their father’s relationship. For a time Fae had given up a lot to make it work with their dad; he, on the other hand, had taken a lot and more, and still left Fae with nothing. All she could do was laugh at the pain.
“Rosales women my butt. I just hope she doesn’t make the same mistake I did.”
“Hey, I know you’re not calling us a mistake,” Inis joked. “All this goodness? You must not know. They don’t call us the Latin Wonders at school for nothing!”
Fae laughed out loud at her son. “In your dreams.”
Inis said, “If you were my age, you would try to get with this, don’t deny it.”
Fae laughed again and said, “Eeeww, you’re creeping me out. I’m your mother, not some little groupie!”
“Yeah, and don’t you forget it, Mami. Next time we go out, you’d better act like it and put on some bigger clothes.” Allie played around with his mother, poking her in the ribs with his finger, tickling her neck and back.
“Whatever you say, Papi,” replied Fae. She knew her kids didn’t like her fashion choices, but she was grown and the one in charge, even if all of them were bigger than she was.
The three crossed the X-crosswalk into their apartment complex and were shocked to see red sirens, police k-9 units, and detectives. Yellow tape was everywhere, sectioning off parts of the streets and the sidewalk. Fae’s neighbors were all outside, and the nearby vendors crowded around the complex’s entrance.
“I’m telling you, Ma, we gonna have to move up out of this neighborhood,” Inis said. “Too much stuff is happening around here.”
“You don’t even know what happened, though,” said Allie. He was the more easygoing one. Inis tended to be hot-headed, impulsive, way too quick to jump. Sometimes Allie wanted to tell his brother to relax, but in the long run Inis tended to be right. It must’ve been an older brother thing.
“Man, I don’t gotta know what happened to see that something happened,” said Inis.
“You not lying there,” Fae chimed in.
Fae listened to her boys as she quietly tried to shimmy around the yellow tape to enter the building.
“Hold on, ma’am. Are you a resident of this building?” a short police officer asked as he cut Fae off with a stubby hand to her face.
“Yes, I live in this apartment building. Excuse me!” She couldn’t stand cops, much less fat, rude ones who ate doughnuts all day inside their cars while crime happened all around them outside. “I live in apartment 153.”
The cop radioed someone on his walkie-talkie in a serious manner and kept his hand in Fae’s face.
“Is that really necessary, sir?” asked Allie. “Why you gotta put your hand in my mom’s face like that?”
“Pig,” snorted Inis, trying to cover the word up with a cough.
Fae eyed her boys sternly. “Is there a problem, officer?” she asked.
“Ma’am, you’re going to have to come with me,” the cop said.
“For what?” asked Allie in a shocked tone.
“What have you boys done?” Fae asked her twins.
“Nothing,” they said in unison.
Fae looked at them with doubt in her eyes.
“I swear, Mami, no lies,” Allie said. Inis nodded his head in agreement.
The two boys whispered among themselves as the police officer led them and Fae into the apartment complex. Police officers were everywhere, Fae noticed. Running to and fro were men in white coats, and women with jackets that read ‘FORENSICS’.
“Sir, are you going to tell me what this is all about?” Fae asked the officer. “You haven’t even identified yourself.”
The cop turned his face to her and gave her a sarcastic smirk. “You’ll see when you get to your apartment. Detectives there will go into details about everything you need to know.” He emphasized the word details as if it meant something.
“Allie, call Kurma right now,” screamed Fae. “Right now!” She hadn’t even thought to call her daughter when the police had stopped her downstairs.
“Mom, I’m on it, don’t worry,” said Allie. He quickly found Kurma’s number in his contacts. He was worried, but tried to play it cool. The phone rang and rang as the family stepped into the apartment. Music was coming from Kurma’s room.
“Where is she?” screamed Fae. She grabbed the nearest police officer and pulled his shirt in a death grip. The front room erupted as everyone tried to pry her hands away.
“Lady, take it easy, take it easy,” said one of the cops.
Fae’s living room was trashed. It was already small, and with everyone standing in it, including her twin-tower sons, she felt claustrophobic. All the lights were on, and men and women were walking in and out of her apartment as if on separate unknown missions.
Inis grabbed his mother in an embrace and tried to calm her down. He was worried, but as the oldest boy he sometimes felt like he couldn’t show weakness; he felt like it was his responsibility to step in and be the man of the house.
A detective came over and introduced himself. “I’m Detective Carrboro. A couple of hours ago, there was an incident where three men were brutally killed.”
Fae interrupted him. “Where is my daughter? Why are you in my house?”
“It seems as if the man who murdered the innocent bystanders outside fell from this window,” Carrboro continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “When we took a closer look, we found signs that this was not his apartment. However, from m
ore research, we now know that your daughter, a resident of this dwelling, was here recently, and that there was a struggle between the man and her. As you can see, your place is a little wrecked.” He smiled as if he saw humor in the whole situation. “We need to bring your daughter in to question her. See if she’s alright, and see if she would be willing to cooperate with us by bringing in the man to face justice.”
Allie and Inis looked at each other in confusion. All around them things clicked and rustled; feet pattered, and objects were pushed and prodded. It seemed as if the twins and their mother were the only things not in on the loop.
“If Kurma isn’t here then where is she?” asked Inis.
Carrboro said, “I was hoping you could tell us. We need her for questioning.”
“You already said that,” Fae said in an annoyed voice.
“Ma’am, do you think maybe she’s run away? Afraid that whoever attacked her will come back?” Carrboro asked. He had his pen notepad out, waiting for any clues. Even though he was oblivious at times to people’s circumstances—Fae’s family, for example—he was the kind of man who stuck to facts and details.
Fae sat down on her green, plush couch and massaged her knees, an old habit when she couldn’t smoke. Her mind rambled on as she thought of what had happened in her house while she was gone. Kurma had been with Santino that afternoon. Was it Santino the detective was talking about?
“Mom, what do you want us to do? We could go out and look for her maybe,” said Allie.
“Or maybe call around and ask her friends,” said Inis.
“She doesn’t have any friends, dummy,” whispered Allie.
Fae went right on thinking, and ignored her boys completely. Carrboro had said the man had fallen out of the window and killed three men. ‘Had his falling on the men killed them, or had the man, possibly Santino, gotten up from the fall and killed them after?’ Fae wondered.
Carrboro tried to guide the twin boys away from their mother to question them separately. He found this method always returned results—divide and conquer. Plus it gave them less time to hatch a lie together.
Fae could hear the detective trying to lower his voice. He was keeping secrets or planting lies. She didn’t trust him; she never trusted cops. He didn’t even have the audacity to tell her about the supposed struggle that had taken place between her daughter and the wanted man. What kind of cop would keep this information from the mother of the victim?
Fae hoped it wasn’t Santino who had fallen out her window. She hoped that wherever her daughter was, she was okay and would return home. Even though at times they were at odd with each other, Fae had only one daughter and wouldn’t change that fact. She had to find Kurma, but where was she to look in a city as big and as crowded as Alexandria?
Then again, sitting around waiting for Kurma to show up was not an option. Maybe she should tell the detective that Santino must have been the man in her apartment; then the cops could begin to look for him, which could lead to Kurma.
Fae looked ahead as she sat on her love seat, and saw the family’s portrait on top of the small fireplace mantle. Fae was in the middle next to her ex-husband; her twin boys were standing behind them; and Kurma lay at the foot of the couple. Quiet and shy, Kurma was the reclusive one in the family. With her thick, long hair, sparkling eyes, and radiant skin, she had always been beautiful, even though at times she tried to hide it. Fae remembered she used to brush Kurma’s hair at night until the girl fell asleep in her arms. Kurma’s smile could light up a room back then, before the divorce.
Fae stood up and walked over to the picture. She smeared dust from its frame and saw a clearer image of her family. That unity—she missed that. A tear dropped from her eye onto the portrait, warm and thick. “Don’t let this be real,” she whispered. She gripped the picture tightly as she walked back to her twins and Carrboro.
8.
It’s always the first-born