Your House Will Pay

by Steph Cha

Jules laughed. “None taken.”

  “I told Dad we were coming here, and he said him and his friends got in a fight in the parking lot once,” said Darryl. He turned to Shawn. “Were you there?”

  “Doesn’t ring a bell,” said Shawn.

  “He said they were picking up food, and some guys jumped them when they came out. Dad and his crew won, but when the other guys ran off, they saw one of their friends was missing.” Darryl grinned like he was getting to the good part of a favorite joke. “Turned out the poo butt ran away carrying the food bag. Said he had to protect the chicken.”

  Shawn recognized the story, but it was so distorted it might as well have been made up entirely. It had been at a McDonald’s, not Roscoe’s, and it wasn’t some mischievous tussle. One of Ray’s friends got shot in the arm, and that poo butt—Shawn had never heard Darryl use that phrase before; he must’ve picked it up from Ray—caught a beatdown so bad he had to go to the hospital.

  “That’s not a nice story,” said Aunt Sheila, giving Darryl a stern look.

  He shrugged with one shoulder. “I thought it was funny.”

  “Has your daddy been filling your head with this nonsense?”

  “It’s not nonsense, Grandma. I like hearing about how he grew up, that’s all.” He looked down, grumbling, and Shawn felt for the boy. He knew the kids were thrilled to have Ray back in their lives; he knew, too, that it wasn’t all they’d hoped for, that there was an uncomfortable gap between the father they’d imagined and the father they had. It wasn’t that Ray was neglectful, though he spent less time with the kids than Shawn expected. It was that the time they did spend together was subtly strained, plagued by an invisible sense of distance. The years away had worn on them all.

  They ordered fried chicken livers, an Obama Special, and a Herb’s Special with gravy and onions. Shawn had been hungry, and he was glad enough to keep his mouth full of chicken and waffles while the others talked around him.

  “I ran into your aunt earlier in the summer,” Searcey told Shawn, when there was a lull in the chatter. He glanced at Aunt Sheila, and Shawn swallowed, his guard pulled all the way up. He wiped his lips with a napkin and set it down, knowing this dinner was a setup.

  Jules Searcey and Sheila Holloway didn’t “run into” each other. Twenty-eight years after they first met, they lived in two different cities, with only a handful of acquaintances in common. They pretended at friendship—Shawn could even concede there was genuine affection between them—but what kind of friendship could there be between a man and his goose with the golden eggs? Searcey had been a junior reporter in 1991, fresh out of school, tireless and passionate, nothing to his name. He was looking for the story that would make his career. He found it in the death of a bright young black girl named Ava Matthews.

  Searcey lived in Venice, last Shawn checked. “Did you meet up at the beach?” he asked.

  “There was a rally for that poor boy, Alfonso Curiel, remember?” said Aunt Sheila. “Brother Vincent asked me to say a few words.”

  “She was amazing,” cut in Dasha. “I didn’t know Grandma could talk like that. She brought the house down.”

  “Oh, stop.” Aunt Sheila waved away the compliment, looking mighty pleased.

  Shawn looked at his sweet, cheerful, undamaged little niece. She had on the Black Lives Matter T-shirt she’d taken to wearing, and her face was fierce with pride. Shawn wondered if she understood what Aunt Sheila had lived through, what she had suffered and survived so she could “bring the house down.” The kids knew the family history, but they hadn’t been there when Ava died, when Aunt Sheila learned that she could trade their pain for attention, which at times felt almost like justice while being nothing like it at all. Darryl and Dasha were angry, sure, but their anger was inherited, abstract and bearable. They could indulge it without getting burned.

  No one had told Shawn about any rally, and it was just as well. He loved his aunt, but he didn’t need any part of her agitating, her relentless attempts to take Ava’s death and put it to work. That was her right, and if it made her useful to Brother Vincent and Jules Searcey and all the others who could count on her to show her face and sing her song—well, it wasn’t Shawn’s place to take that away. He’d be damned, though, before he played along.

  “I actually read Farewell Waltz,” said Dasha, blushing a little as she looked at Searcey.

  Shawn felt the chewed mash of meat and batter and gravy turn to a hot gluey knot in his stomach.

  Farewell Waltz: The Life and Death of Ava Matthews. The definitive account of Ava’s murder, her killer’s trial, its impact on her community, on Los Angeles, on the ’92 riots, built from Searcey’s reporting at the Los Angeles Times. It was a bestseller, a prizewinner, widely praised as seminal and important. Shawn had read it, too, more than once, and he might’ve been on board if it were about someone else’s sister.

  “Thank you. That means a lot to me,” said Searcey. “And I have to say, I’m impressed. It’s not exactly light reading.”

  “I liked reading about my aunt,” she said. “She lived such a short life, it’s nice to know she was someone special.”

  “She was special.”

  Shawn watched Aunt Sheila close her eyes and nod. He felt nauseated.

  “I mean I know that’s not the important part,” said Dasha. “It shouldn’t matter. But I don’t know, it’s just so sad to think about what we all lost. Not that—I don’t know what I’m saying.” She bit her lip.

  “I get what you’re trying to say. I think we should celebrate her life, or she becomes nothing but a death. It’s just a fine line to walk. We know Alfonso Curiel was a good student. It doesn’t mean a bad student deserves to be killed. But it’s worth noting that systemic racism is strangely indiscriminate. Unfortunately, many people are still willing to believe that only thugs get themselves killed.”

  Darryl spoke up. “People tried to act like our aunt was a thug, too. Like, she was the victim, but it was like she was on trial.”

  Shawn looked from his niece to his nephew. Together or on their own, they’d dug into Ava’s story, deciding somehow that it was best to leave him out of it. It shouldn’t have surprised him, but it did.

  “It’s inspiring to see young people engaged in this stuff,” said Searcey. “There’s a straight line between your aunt and Alfonso Curiel, and it’s your generation that’ll make sure that one day, kids like them aren’t murdered with impunity.”

  “It’s so fucked up,” said Darryl.

  “Darryl!” warned Aunt Sheila.

  “Sorry, Grandma, but that’s what it is. We’re talking about kids my age getting killed for nothing. The same thing over and over. Been the same since before I was born.” He clenched his fist while he talked, and Shawn thought for a second that he was about to pound the table.

  “You’re absolutely right,” said Searcey.

  This seemed to calm Darryl down. “Do you know what happened to her?” he asked.

  “Who?”

  Darryl glanced around the table, diffident all of a sudden. “You know who.”

  Searcey nodded. “She’s off the grid. But as far as I know, she’s still alive.”

  Shawn wondered, not for the first time, if he was telling the whole truth. Searcey was a tireless, thorough reporter—if anyone knew where to find Ava’s killer, it was him. Shawn didn’t know if it was pride or fear that kept him from pressing the issue.

  “Jules is writing another book,” said Aunt Sheila, changing the subject. “It’s about antiblack violence in Southern California. Got a big book deal, too.”

  There was a murmur of congratulations, and Aunt Sheila beamed at him with actual pride.

  “Oh, it’s not about money, Sheila. I’m just glad I get to write it. People act like Southern California’s this egalitarian wonderland, but there’s so much violence and injustice right here that no one wants to talk about. Too many of us are getting by feeling good just because we’re not Mississippi.”

  Shawn almost
smiled. The way this man spoke, with a show of humility and magnanimity that was the gentle face of power.

  “He’s writing a whole section about Ava,” said Aunt Sheila.

  Shawn blinked. So this was why they were here.

  It wasn’t enough for him to use their family, to squeeze Ava for every last drop. He had to break bread with them. Required their blessing. Well, he wasn’t gonna get it from Shawn.

  “What’s left to write?” He heard the acid in his voice and decided to let it stand.

  Searcey’s smooth face tightened. For the first time tonight, he looked uncertain of his welcome.

  “Shawn.” Aunt Sheila’s tone would’ve put the fear in him when he was a child.

  There was an uncomfortable silence before Dasha piped up, asking Aunt Sheila if they could make fried chicken and waffles together at home. It was a clever little subject change that let them get on with their dinner. But Shawn knew Aunt Sheila was upset with him, and when Searcey excused himself to make a phone call, she made sure to tell him.

  “You’re being rude to Jules,” she said, talking fast, like she had a lot to say before Searcey came back.

  “No, I’m not,” countered Shawn. He heard a juvenile whine creep into his voice that he couldn’t control with Aunt Sheila, no matter how old he got. He hoped the kids didn’t notice. “You couldn’t just talk to him another time? Why’d I have to be here for this?”

  “It’s my fault,” said Dasha. “I wanted to talk to him.”

  Aunt Sheila looked at her granddaughter and sighed. Shawn suspected she might’ve offered the kids up as an excuse if they weren’t sweet enough to volunteer. “He wanted to ask me some questions about Ava, about her legacy. I thought you might want to talk to him, too,” she said. “You are Ava’s brother.”

  “No. I’m not gonna do that.”

  “And why not?”

  He took a deep breath and kept his voice low. “Because he didn’t know Ava, and he’s never been interested in who she was. Not ever.”

  Darryl’s and Dasha’s eyes widened in sync, and they glanced back and forth between their uncle and grandmother.

  Aunt Sheila scoffed. “What a stupid thing to say, Shawn. He wrote the book on her.”

  Searcey had never met Ava, but with Aunt Sheila’s help, he built up her lasting public image, first in his articles, then in Farewell Waltz, which came out two years after Ava’s death. Most of the book was about the murder and its aftermath, but there was a thirty-page chapter about her brief, lamented life. Half of it was devoted to her musical genius, proven by her victory in a youth Chopin competition, where she played a nocturne and the Waltz in A-flat major, op. 69, no. 1, better known as the Farewell Waltz.

  There was widespread agreement that piano was Ava’s ticket to college, that it was her way of transcending whatever it was she was meant to transcend. Even in death, it made her extraordinary. Not just any tragic black girl, but one who was smart and talented, full of promise.

  Shawn believed in his sister, and he’d spent plenty of time fantasizing about the life she might have had if she’d lived past sixteen. But the piano, even that unforgettable day of triumph—it wasn’t what made Ava Ava, and it sure as hell wasn’t what made her worth mourning.

  Searcey buried the real Ava, and no one but Shawn even seemed to notice. They liked him, all of them. They were willing to let him in. What would he take from them this time?

  “That book.” Shawn held his head. “That goddamn book.”

  “That book is the only reason people ever cared about Ava,” snapped Aunt Sheila.

  He forced himself to remember: this was the woman who spent years phoning lawyers and politicians and reporters, anyone with power who would pretend to listen, people who must have seen her as a nuisance, the wailing black woman with the dead niece who didn’t understand her unimportance, who refused to move on and leave them be.

  “White people,” he said softly.

  “What?”

  “It’s the only reason white people cared about Ava.”

  Aunt Sheila snorted. “And who do you think runs the news? Who do you think runs the courts?”

  “And what happened in the courts?”

  Her nostrils flared in anger, at Shawn or at history or both. She took a long, simmering breath and glossed over his question. “Shawn, honey. It’s been twenty-eight years. People are forgetting her. I don’t want them to forget her. I want them to remember her and honor her. Jules let everyone know Ava’s name, so I really don’t care what you think of him. We can’t let Ava be forgotten.”

  “I haven’t forgotten her. But if you think Searcey honors her, maybe you have.”

  For a second, he thought she would reach across the table and smack him, and he winced in anticipation. When she didn’t move, he felt the unfairness of his accusation, hanging there, unretractable, brazen and unpunished.

  “I didn’t mean that,” he said gently. When he moved to touch her arm, she stiffened, and he withdrew. “You do what you want, Auntie. But I want to be left alone.”

  Five

  Friday, August 23, 2019

  Yvonne called over to Grace from the register. “Uncle Joseph’s coming in tomorrow, isn’t he?” She must have been finished with her accounting—they didn’t chat much when there was still work to do.

  “Yeah,” said Grace, scanning a pill bottle to make sure its contents matched the script and the label.

  “So you can relax and enjoy your date tonight.”

  There was a cloying solicitous hope in her mother’s voice. This was something new, and it irritated Grace. Yvonne had spent an enormous amount of energy keeping her daughters sheltered and homebound growing up, away from boys and bad influences, to the point where Grace longed to go to church and SAT school just to be with people her own age on weekends. Grace had once heard Miriam describe her high school self as a “cloistered Korean freak show,” and she knew that’s how her sister still saw her, probably not all unfairly. Sure, she wasn’t the most outgoing, but it annoyed her that Yvonne of all people worried about her social life now, just because she was suddenly too old to be single.

  “You won’t be late?” It was past seven o’clock.

  “We’re not meeting until nine,” she said. “It’s just for a drink, Umma.”

  Grace had made the mistake of telling her mother about this Coffee Meets Bagel date with a Korean American anesthesiologist. Yvonne was more excited for it than she was. Grace was exhausted, looking forward to her two-day weekend, and she’d spent the latter part of the day wondering how rude it would be to cancel. Too rude, she knew, when she was just feeling tired. And Yvonne would jansori her to death.

  “What will you eat?” she asked.

  “We have leftover kimchi jjigae, right?”

  “Omona,” said Yvonne, with genuine dismay. “You can’t have kimchi jjigae before a date. I’ll pick up some kimbap. You can eat it in the car.”

  Grace wrapped up at Woori while her mother went to the market. It was part of their routine, Yvonne shopping and feeding Paul and Grace dinner even after full days at the store. Radishes were on sale this week, and Yvonne was going to make a big batch of kkakdugi—that was the entirety of her weekend plans.

  She came back just as Grace was getting ready to lock up. Grace noted that her mother had done her shopping in record time, probably worried about making her daughter late.

  “Ready?” Yvonne asked.

  Grace locked the door and relieved Yvonne of some of the grocery bags. When she looked up, her mother was staring at her. “What?” asked Grace.

  “Aish.” Yvonne shook her head. “You should do something about your hair.”

  The sun was low in the sky as they left the market and walked toward their car. It was quiet now, the parking lot less than half full. A car pulled out of its spot, and Grace watched idly as the driver lowered his window. He had a dark cap on, hiding his eyes, but he seemed to be looking in their direction. They were an awkward distance from the
car—if he wanted to ask them a question, they’d have to get closer. There was something odd about his face, she thought. The color was off. The texture.

  He was wearing a mask.

  Yvonne shouted and shoved Grace so hard, she staggered and nearly fell down four feet away.

  She never saw the gun, it happened that fast. One shot, cracking the world apart.

  Her mother dropped to her knees and crumpled on the ground, her face white. She folded forward, holding her stomach, and Grace saw the blood there, dark and vital, dripping on the asphalt.

  Grace was on the ground, holding her mother in her arms.

  “Ga,” Yvonne pleaded. Go. And Grace knew that even now, her mother was thinking of her.

  But the shooter was gone. Grace hadn’t even seen him drive away.

  How much time had passed? Ten seconds? A minute, max? Just a few blinks ago, her mother was standing at this same spot, lugging groceries. The bags were on the ground now, their contents spilled on either side of her. Kimbap and tofu and sesame oil. Blue-skinned grapes and death-white radishes. Her body had been healthy and whole, all her blood hidden away. It was all over the place now. Grace felt it seeping into her shoes.

  She saw herself holding her gutshot mother, crying and waiting for help, or for whatever was left to come. She heard the crash of an abandoned shopping cart, someone running in their direction. All at once, it seemed, they were surrounded by people, asking questions and offering things. Their faces were familiar but she knew none of their names. They were like a cast of minor actors, populating the background. And this was a scene in a movie—that’s where it belonged, a slick suspense thriller, where people lived dangerously and violence was the rule.

  Because how could this happen here? In this strip mall parking lot, in front of the place they went to work, where they rented their dramas and bought their groceries? This wasn’t a war zone or some ghetto back alley. It was an ordinary place, too boring to belong anywhere but real life.

  And people didn’t get shot in real life. Not people like her mother.

  Someone must have called 911, because the ambulance came, and Grace watched as the EMTs piled out, like so many extras with their rubber gloves, their monochrome jumpsuits. Yvonne was hanging on to consciousness, her eyelids fluttering, a whimper on her lips. Their arms came down, and they took her from Grace’s lap, strapped her to a stretcher, and loaded her into the back of the ambulance. When Grace tried to climb in after her, they all but slammed the doors in her face. They were taking Yvonne to the Northridge Hospital Medical Center. Grace could meet them there, they said. They warned her not to try to tail the ambulance, then sped off, lights and sirens running.