by Steph Cha
Grace heard Miriam open her mouth and close it again, and Grace could tell that she’d been inside a convenience store in South Central but thought better of saying it. Probably research for an essay.
“That’s what I thought,” Grace powered on. “Just like they’ve never been in a poli-sci seminar. I don’t expect them to know shit about organic chemistry. I don’t know how you expect them to understand advanced theories in racism and justice or whatever. Mom didn’t go to college, and she went to high school in Korea—they don’t even teach MLK in Korea.”
“We’re talking about murder, Grace, not an insensitive comment.” She sighed, and Grace felt it on her back. “But you’re right, you know. I’m not so great. We all want people in our lives who if we killed someone, they’d help us bury the body. I think we all want to be that person for somebody, too, and I know that’s not who I am, not for my own mother. So I’m a worse person because of what she did. Because I was cold enough to cut her off. Sometimes I wonder if I’m less human than I used to be.”
“I don’t think anyone ever asked you to help bury a body. Why can’t you accept that she’s your mom and that she did this one bad thing?”
“What, ‘hate the sin, love the sinner’?”
“Yeah.”
“I think the only way you can pull that off is to put your head in the sand and keep it there.”
Miriam got up and Grace kept her back to her, refusing to move, sure that she couldn’t look at her sister without dissolving into tears. The lights went out, and she struggled to fall back asleep, her breath hot, her mind a muddle.
When the lights snapped back on, there was drool on her pillow, but she wasn’t sure if she’d been asleep or awake. Miriam had her phone to her ear, but she was staring at Grace.
“It’s Dad,” she said. “Mom woke up.”
Twelve
Wednesday, August 28, 2019
Shawn was working with Ulises to get a king-sized mahogany bed frame up a winding marble staircase when his phone rang in his back pocket. By the time his hands were free to check it, he had three missed calls and several pleading texts from Nisha.
Please pick up
It’s about Darryl
Call me as soon as you get this!
His first thought: Darryl was dead. Sixteen years old, tall and strong, his black boy body writhing with life. Big game for a banger, a cop, a storekeeper. Every day in danger.
He almost jumped when Ulises tapped his shoulder.
He was asking, “¿Está todo bien?”
Shawn swallowed and nodded vaguely. He pointed at his phone. “Tengo que usar el telefono. Un momento.”
He went out to the yard and sat on the empty deck. No, Darryl wasn’t dead. That would be ridiculous. There were other things Nisha might want to talk about. Shawn just couldn’t think of any on the spot. He called Nisha, ready to be relieved. She picked up instantly.
“What’s wrong?” Shawn asked.
“He’s okay,” said Nisha, and Shawn knew what she meant was “He’s alive.” “He’s not even hurt. But he got in a car accident.”
“When?”
“Just now.”
Shawn pulled the phone from his face to check the time. It was just after 1:30.
“He cut school again,” he said.
“Yup.”
He remembered their talk, Darryl nodding, seemingly chastised, as Shawn told him how important it was that he stay in school. He thought he’d gotten through to him. Maybe he had, and it didn’t stick. Maybe Darryl was just nodding to get the lecture over with. It wouldn’t have been the first time a teenager put one over on an adult.
“Who was driving?”
Nisha sighed heavily, and Shawn could tell she’d been crying. “He was.”
Darryl had gone for his license last month, the first day he was able. He was so excited about his driving test that he forgot to look both ways before making the left turn out of the parking lot. A reckless maneuver, an automatic fail. He was due to retake the exam next week. In the meantime, he was just a teenager without a license.
“The little punk,” Shawn said. “Whose car? Don’t tell me he stole it.”
“Of course he stole it. But he stole it from Ray.”
“Where’s Ray?”
“Lord knows. I can’t get in touch with him. I swear, Shawn, sometimes it’s like I got three teenagers. It’s too much.”
Ray had been gone more and more with each week he was out of prison. None of them could pin him down—not with love or guilt or anything in between. Sometimes it felt like he was still in Lompoc, living his own life out of sight, letting spare parenting chores fall to Shawn by default. Nisha was patient with him, but Shawn wondered how long that could last. The kids pretended it was no big deal, but Shawn knew it hurt them. They’d been so happy when Ray came back, and he was barely around. And now this. Darryl getting in trouble; his father off the radar.
“What happened?” Shawn asked.
“Just a minor accident, it sounds like—no one hurt, but there’s damage on both cars.”
“His fault?”
“Yeah. He says she’s an old lady, probably a bad driver, but he also says he turned in front of her when she was going straight. I heard her shouting ‘right of way’ in the background. Not that it matters, what with him not having a license.”
“He called you?”
“Yeah, he called me, not that he had any choice. It was either deal with me or deal with the police, and I guess I’m not that scary.”
“At least he didn’t try to run.”
“We don’t know he didn’t try it.” She laughed a little, and Shawn was glad to hear it. “But I hope I didn’t raise him that stupid.”
“How did he sound?”
“Oh, he sounded shook, Shawn. I think he was crying.” She laughed again. “Serves him right, the little liar. I don’t think I’ve ever been so mad at him.”
“What you gonna do?”
“That’s why I’m calling. I’m not off for another five hours, and even if I leave now, it’ll take me two hours to get to P-dale. I can’t get a hold of Ray. Where are you now?”
He ran through the game plan for the day’s move in his head. With all three of them working, they’d be done in three hours; with just two of them, it’d be closer to four, maybe five. Ulises had a family, a wife and three little kids. Marco was a student, enrolled part-time at CSUN, so he had time to work while he studied accounting. They had their own lives; Shawn knew that. But he made a snap decision—Ulises and Marco were his guys, but Darryl was more important.
“I’m in Calabasas, but I can leave now. It’ll take me about an hour and a half.”
“That’s fine,” said Nisha. “Let the dumb fool cool his heels for a while.”
Darryl waited for Shawn in a Burger King parking lot, right in front of the intersection where he’d had his crash. The other driver was still there when Shawn arrived, and to Darryl’s credit, she looked like someone who had no business being on the road, about a hundred years old, shrunk to four foot ten with inch-thick bifocals and a shrubby little fro of black-and-white hair. When Shawn pulled in, she climbed out of her car—a fearsome Dodge Durango—to meet him as he parked.
They converged at Ray’s Chevy Malibu, wedged between them, and Darryl slumped out of the driver’s seat, his head hung, miserably contrite.
The old lady gestured at Darryl and said, “This is your son!” It was a question, maybe, but it sounded like an accusation.
“He’s my nephew,” he said, trying to exude calm. He spoke as slowly as he thought he could get away with—lay it on any thicker, and he risked insulting the old woman, and Shawn wasn’t looking to displease her any further.
To his relief, the accident wasn’t serious. Darryl wasn’t hurt, and through some miracle—maybe the blessing of the monstrous SUV—all eighty-five pounds of old lady had come out unscathed. It had been a low-speed collision, Darryl turning in front of the Durango with what he thought was plenty of room, the wo
man hitting the brakes in time to slow down before smashing into the back wheel of Ray’s sedan.
Darryl had told her he’d left his license at home, and the lady wasn’t buying his bald-faced bullshit—said she didn’t raise three boys to get lied to by some other mother’s son. Shawn wasn’t sure if she guessed he was an unlicensed driver ditching school to ride around town in his daddy’s car, but she knew she had Darryl by the balls, and she wasn’t looking to relinquish that power—it was hers to give up, and she was enjoying it like a dog enjoys a bone.
If Shawn were a different man, he could charm her grip loose. He thought about how Ray or Duncan might work it—ask her where she was headed, did her kids live around here, where did they all go to church. But Shawn wasn’t smooth enough to talk sweet without letting on what he wanted, so he decided the best course was to come out with it and tell her. He begged her to let Darryl go—he promised he and Nisha would pay for the damage to her car and that the boy would get the whupping of his life from every adult in the family. But there was no need to call the police or involve insurance companies, who were sure to involve the police.
She took down Shawn’s contact information, examined his driver’s license, and made a show of photographing Ray’s Chevy, with Darryl loitering by the door. But finally, with a huff and a grumble and a few choice admonishments, she got in her SUV and drove off, drifting proudly between two lanes.
“I told you she was a crap driver,” said Darryl.
Shawn looked at his nephew, who glanced at him with a hopeful twitch at the corner of his mouth. Shawn did not smile, and Darryl’s expression fell back into one of solemn remorse.
They went into the Burger King to get out of the sun. It was almost empty at this hour—past three o’clock now—and when Shawn pointed at a corner table, Darryl shuffled over and sat obediently while he got fries and drinks so they could sit down for a spell.
Darryl was nine years old and all of four and a half feet tall when Shawn moved into the Holloway house, but he was canny enough that Shawn had to work to win him over. He loved Shawn, who’d been in his life since about its sixth hour, but he knew, somehow, that his dad didn’t like the situation, and he must’ve worried on some level that Ray wasn’t coming back, that Shawn was there to replace him. He was moody, that nine-year-old, and Shawn approached him with the delicacy of an earnest stepfather, giving him room, then buttering him up with irresistible attentions. He read to him out loud—A Wrinkle in Time; Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry; Where the Red Fern Grows. Books Shawn said were too scary, too sad, too advanced for six-year-old Dasha. He learned to cook the kids’ favorite foods, and once in a while—Nisha insisted this was at most a once-a-week treat—he took them out for chicken nuggets and chocolate milkshakes. They’d been to this Burger King plenty of times before.
He set a chocolate milkshake in front of Darryl, this frowning, long-limbed teenager. He nodded thanks at his uncle, an incongruously manly gesture, and helped himself to a handful of fries.
“What were you thinking?” Shawn asked.
Darryl swallowed and took a gulp of his milkshake.
“You know you’re lucky she was black. I don’t think a white woman would’ve waited around for two hours, then let you go with a scolding. She didn’t want you getting in trouble. And you could’ve been in a world of trouble.”
“I am in a world of trouble,” he muttered, grabbing for more fries.
For the first time all day, Shawn wanted to smack the boy. When he was Darryl’s age, he lived in a constant state of danger. Someone was always starting some shit, and he was always involved, running around with eyes wide open, on edge, waiting to get shot or arrested. Sure, Aunt Sheila railed at him, read him the riot act and the Bible, but trouble? That wasn’t trouble.
What a sweet thing this kid had going. Two living parents, a grandma and uncle who loved him enough to twist the ears on his beautiful stupid head.
“Oh, your mom is gonna have some words with you, but that’s not what I’m talking about. That woman could’ve called the cops on you. You could be in jail right now instead of feeling sorry for yourself at Burger King. Hell, you’re the one always talking to me about Black Lives Matter. How you gonna go to a rally for a black kid got shot for doing nothing, then steal a car and ram it into an old lady? I don’t have to tell you you could be dead.”
Darryl took a loud slurp of his milkshake and his eyes filled with tears. Shawn felt his anger soften into despair. He couldn’t think of the last time he’d seen his nephew cry, and he couldn’t help it, he remembered stroking his little shoulder as he sobbed for Old Dan and Little Ann.
“I’m not trying to make you feel bad. But you gotta understand. I am furious with you. You’re a child, ditching school, going on joy rides. But you’re plenty old enough to wreck your life and bring your whole family down with you. This is when shit gets permanent. The choices you make are gonna stick, they’re gonna follow you.”
He listened to his own voice, and it sounded strange to him, heavy and reproachful and slightly false—like he’d rehearsed this speech in front of a mirror. The despair settled into his gut; he’d said all of this before, when Darryl got caught cutting school. That was supposed to be a man-to-man, come-to-Jesus kind of talk, not something trotted out every few months because it changed nothing.
“Do you want to end up like your dad?” he asked, desperation rising to his throat.
He could tell from the stunned look on his nephew’s face that he’d tripped right over the line. He didn’t mean for it to come out that way.
“Why not?” Darryl said, with sudden force. “He’s my dad. I can’t be like him? Who am I supposed to be like, then? You?”
Shawn heard the contempt in his nephew’s voice and knew it was something he’d held hidden, that now he could never take back. It hurt, as Darryl had meant it to hurt, and Shawn had to push it down deep to keep his calm. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he said. He looked at Darryl with all the fear and love he had for him. There was so much he almost shook with it. “I don’t want you to be like me either. I want your life to be better than both of ours.”
The boy put his face in his hands and cried. For all his swagger, his pose of hardened dignity, he was still a child. Shawn reached across the table, light-headed with relief, and set both arms on Darryl’s quaking shoulders.
They left Ray’s car in the parking lot—Nisha and Ray would pick it up later, she said—and Shawn drove his nephew home, where Aunt Sheila and Dasha were waiting. Darryl was exhausted, and Shawn texted Nisha an update and decided to let her run the interrogation. She was his mother, after all; he was content to sit with the kids until she got home while Aunt Sheila went around the kitchen fixing dinner.
So they were all together, watching Shark Tank, when Nisha called him on his cell. Shawn excused himself to give her the full report, and Darryl looked doggedly at the television as his uncle rose from the sofa.
“Hey,” said Shawn, picking up. “Everything’s fine here. You on your way home?”
“Not quite,” said Nisha. “Shawn, they arrested Ray.”
Thirteen
Thursday, August 29, 2019
Yvonne looked terrible. Her hair was unwashed, her skin waxy, her cheeks sunken and gray. She looked almost worse now that she was out of the coma, a body awakened undead. The room smelled ripe. Human smells, and flowers browning in soiled water. Grace wondered who else had visited, who had bought bouquets in the depressing shop in the hospital lobby. It seemed there should be more of them—she was suddenly aware of the bareness of the room, and knew that if she were unconscious for a week, she’d want to wake up to a jungle, a sign of her many well-wishers, the people in her life who cared about her and wanted her to pull through. That seemed like the only upside to getting shot—it was a way to fulfill the fantasy of viewing your own funeral. How devastating to return from the verge of death and be disappointed.
Grace hadn’t visited in two days; she’d felt so sorry for herse
lf, she could hardly move, and now her heart pounded, fearful of an accounting. Even Miriam had managed to come every day and sit with their father. Paul, solemnly dutiful, had spent the whole week on the hospital grounds, leaving only to sleep. Grace wondered how he was coping, tried to picture him alone in their empty house. Did he sleep in his bed? Did he wish Grace were home? He said nothing, and she felt spared by his silence.
It was morning, the start of visiting hours, and Yvonne was waking up again, now from a less perilous sleep. She gazed weakly at her family gathered around her, and Grace found herself staring at the pillow behind her mother’s head. She was terrified, suddenly, of being alone with Yvonne, of what they would and wouldn’t say.
Miriam spoke first. “Umma,” she said. Her voice broke on the word—it was her first time addressing their mother in two years.
Yvonne’s mouth opened. Her lips made a parched sound as they parted. She swallowed, and when she spoke, her voice was faint and tremulous. She looked at her prodigal daughter, beautiful and beloved, and said, “You came.”
How many times had Grace prayed for this reunion? For two years, their rift had been her primary source of anxiety and grief. It was easy to imagine that their reconciliation would make her life whole, that things would go back to normal, the wound closed up, the scar faint and easily forgotten.
But it was all wrong now. Her mother, whose known totality she’d taken for granted, was a murderer who’d nearly been murdered by some wild avenger. Grace had made a fool of herself before an unsympathetic world. And these three, her own family. These past two years, Grace had seen herself as their cornerstone, the only one caring and brave enough to keep them together; and the whole time, they’d been lying to her, each one of them in on it, protecting the lie. She was the outsider, the ignorant stranger who knew none of the rules.
Yvonne was alive. Fifty-four years old, and she’d beat an attempt on her life. How different things would be if Ava Matthews had been so lucky. Grace was relieved—whoever Yvonne might have been to anyone else, Grace wasn’t prepared to lose her mother. And she knew—even Miriam knew—that this was a time for gentleness, for letting Yvonne settle into her recovery and deal with her trauma as the victim of a violent crime. But as she waited for her mother to turn from Miriam and acknowledge her, all she could think about was rushing the hospital bed and screaming.