The Best American Short Stories® 2011

by Geraldine Brooks

  Which was true. She'd been running, and she'd fallen. Daddy shouting behind her, swiping with his fists—not meaning to hit her. But he'd been pissed. And all the things that Daddy had said afterward were what she'd wanted to hear; they'd made her cry, she'd wanted so badly to hear them.

  "And your father? How recently did you see your father, Lisette?"

  In the cruiser, the male cop drove. Molina sat in the passenger seat, swiveled to face Lisette. Her cherry-red lips were bright in her face, like something sparkly on a billboard that was otherwise weatherworn. Her sleek black hair shone like a seal's coat, her dark eyes shone with a strange unspeakable knowledge. It was an expression that Lisette saw often on the faces of women—usually women older than her mother—when they looked at her not in disapproval but with sudden sympathy, seeing her.

  Lisette was uneasy with the expression. She'd seen it on Nowicki's face too. Better was the look of disgust, dismay.

  Must've been two, three times that Molina explained to Lisette where they were taking her—to the hospital for the ID. But the words hadn't come together in a way that was comprehensible.

  Eiii-dee. Eiii-dee.

  "We will stay as long you wish. Or not long at all—it's up to you. Maybe it will be over in a minute."

  Molina spoke to Lisette in this way, which was meant to soothe but did not make sense. No matter the words, there was a meaning beneath them that Lisette could not grasp. Sometimes adults were uncomfortable with Lisette because they thought she was smirking, but it was just the skin around her left eye, the eye socket that had been shattered and repaired, and the frozen look of that part of her face because some of the nerve muscles were dead. "Such a freak accident," her mother had said. "Told her and told her not to—not to run—on the stairs. You know how kids are!" And half pleading with the surgeon, though she already knew the answer to the question, "Will they heal ever? The broken nerves?"

  Not broken but dead.

  At the hospital they parked at the rear of the building. In a lowered voice Molina conferred with the male cop. Lisette couldn't hear what they were saying. She had no wish to hear. But she wanted to believe that the Hispanic woman was her friend and could be trusted. It was like that with Hispanic women, the mothers of her classmates—mostly they were nice, they were kind. Molina was a kind woman, you could see how she'd be with children and possibly grandchildren. Weird that she was a cop and carried a gun— packed heat, it was said.

  Lisette's mother knew some cops—she'd gone out with a cop. She'd said that the life of a cop was so fucking boring; once in a while, something happened and happened fast and you could be shot down in that second or two, but mostly it was very, very boring, like dealing blackjack cards to assholes who think they can win against the house. You never win against the house.

  They were standing just inside the hospital, on the first floor by the elevators. People moved around them, past them, like blurs in the background of a photograph. It seemed urgent now to listen to what Molina was telling her as she gripped Lisette's arm again. Did Molina think that Lisette was going to try to escape? The male cop held himself a little apart, frowning.

  What Molina was saying did not seem relevant to the situation, but later Lisette would see that, yes, everything that the policewoman had said was relevant: asking Lisette about Christmas, which was maybe two or three weeks earlier, and New Year's—and what had Lisette and her mother done over the holidays, anything special?

  Lisette tried to think. Holidays wasn't a word that she or Momma would use. "Just saw some people. Nothing special."

  "You didn't see your father?"

  "No."

  "When was the last time you saw him?"

  Lisette tried to think: he'd been gone by the time of the face surgery and the eye surgery. She'd been out of school. Must have been the summer. Like, around July Fourth.

  "Not more recently than that?"

  Lisette swiped at her eye. Wondering, was this some kind of trick like you saw on TV cop shows?

  "On New Year's Eve, did your mother go out?"

  Yes. Sure. Momma always went out, New Year's Eve.

  "Do you know who she went out with?"

  "No."

  "He didn't come to the house to pick her up?"

  Lisette tried to think. If whoever it was had come to the house, for sure Lisette had hid from him, just like she hid from Momma's women friends, and why? No reason, just wanted to.

  Lisette, how big you're getting!

  Lisette, taller than your mom, eh?

  They took the elevator down. Down to the floor marked "Morgue."

  Here the hospital was a different place. The air was cooler and smelled of something like chemicals. There were no visitors. There were very few hospital staff people. A female attendant in white pants, a white shirt, and a cardigan sweater told them that the assistant coroner would be with them soon.

  They were seated. Lisette was between the two cops. Feeling weak in the knees, sick—like she'd been arrested, she was in custody, and this was a trick to expose her. Casually—for she'd been talking of something else—Molina began to ask Lisette about a motel on the south edge of the city, the Blue Moon Motel, on Atlantic. Had Lisette heard of the Blue Moon Motel? Lisette said no, she had never heard of the Blue Moon Motel. There were motels all over Atlantic City, some of them sleazy places, and she did not think—as Molina seemed to be saying—that her mother had worked at any of these motels, ever. If Yvette Mulvey had worked at the Blue Moon Motel, she'd have heard of it. She had not. Lisette said that her mother was not a motel maid or a cocktail waitress but a blackjack dealer, and you had to be trained for that.

  Lisette said, like she was groping for a light switch, "Is Momma in—some kind of trouble?"

  A twisty little knot of rage in her heart against Momma. All this was Momma's fault.

  Molina said that they weren't sure. That was what the ID might clear up.

  "We need your cooperation, Lisette. We are hoping that you can provide ... identification."

  Weird how back at school she'd heard eiii-dee, not ID. It was like static was interfering, to confuse her. Like after she'd fallen on the stairs and hit her face and her head and she hadn't been able to walk without leaning against a wall, she'd been so dizzy, and she'd forgotten things. Some short circuit in her brain.

  "Can you identify these? Do these look familiar, Lisette?"

  A morgue attendant had brought Molina a box containing items, of which two were a woman's handbag and a woman's wallet. Molina lifted them carefully from the box, with gloved hands.

  Lisette stared at the handbag and the wallet. What were these? Were they supposed to belong to her mother? Lisette wasn't sure if she had ever seen them before. She stared at the brown leather handbag with some ornamentation on it, like a brass buckle, and straps, and the black wallet, shabby-looking, like something you'd see on a sidewalk or by a Dumpster and not even bother to pick up to see if there was money inside.

  Molina was saying that these "items" had been "retrieved" from a drainage ditch behind the Blue Moon Motel.

  Also behind the drainage ditch was a woman's body—a "badly damaged" woman's body, for which they had no identification yet.

  Carefully Molina spoke. Her hand lay lightly on Lisette's arm, which had the effect of restraining Lisette from swiping and poking at her left eye, as she'd been doing.

  "The purse has been emptied out and the lining is ripped. In the wallet was a New Jersey driver's license issued to Yvette Mulvey, but no credit cards or money, no other ID. There was a slip of paper with a name and a number to be called in case of emergency, but that number has been disconnected. It belonged to a relative of your mother's who lives, or lived, in Edison, New Jersey? Iris Pedersen?"

  Lisette shook her head. This was all too much—just too much for her to absorb. She didn't recognize the handbag and she didn't recognize the wallet—she was sure. She resented being asked.

  These items were so grungy-looking it was an insult
to think that they might belong to her mother.

  Close up she saw that Molina's eyes were beautiful and dark-thick-lashed, the way Lisette's mother tried to make hers, with a mascara brush. The skin beneath Molina's eyes was soft and bruised-looking, and on her throat were tiny dark moles. It did not seem right that a woman like Molina, who you could tell was a mother—her body was a mother's body for sure, wide hips and heavy breasts straining at the front of her jacket—could be a cop; it did not seem right that this person was carrying a gun, in a holster attached to a leather belt, and that she could use it, if she wanted to. Anytime she wanted to. Lisette went into a dream thinking that if she struck at Molina, if she kicked, spat, or bit, Molina might shoot her.

  The male cop you'd expect to have a gun. You'd expect he would use it.

  Daddy had showed them his guns, the ones he'd brought back from Iraq. These were not army-issue but personal guns, a pistol with a carved wood handle and a heavier handgun, a revolver. He'd won these in a card game, Daddy said.

  Maybe he hadn't brought them from Iraq. Maybe he'd got them at Fort Bragg, where he was stationed.

  Lisette was saying that if her mother's driver's license had been in that wallet maybe it was her mother's wallet, but definitely she didn't recognize it.

  As for Iris Pedersen—Aunt Iris—that was her mother's aunt, not hers. Aunt Iris was old enough to be Lisette's grandmother and Lisette hadn't seen her in years and did not think that her mother had either. For all they knew, the old lady was dead.

  "We tried to contact her and the Edison police tried to contact her. But—"

  An ID by someone who knew Yvette Mulvey well was necessary, Molina said, to determine if, in fact, the dead woman was Yvette Mulvey—or another woman of her approximate age. The condition of the body and the injuries to the face made it difficult to judge from the driver's license photo. Or from the photos on file at the casinos where Yvette Mulvey had worked.

  Molina went on to tell Lisette that they had tried to locate her father—Duane David Mulvey—to make the ID for them, but he was no longer a resident of Edison, or, so far as they knew, of the State of New Jersey.

  Lisette said, "My father's in the U.S. Army. My father is a sergeant in the U.S. Army. He used to be stationed at Fort Bragg but now he's in Iraq," and Molina said, "No, Lisette. I'm afraid that has changed. Your father is no longer a sergeant in the U.S. Army, and he is no longer in Iraq. The army has no record of Duane Mulvey at the present time—he's been AWOL since December twenty-sixth of last year."

  Lisette was so surprised she couldn't speak. If Molina hadn't been gripping her arm, she'd have jumped up and run away.

  She was shivering. The corduroy jacket wasn't really for winter—this nasty wet cold. Momma hadn't been there that morning, scolding her, "Dress warm! For Christ's sake, it's January."

  Another morgue attendant, an Indian-looking man—some kind of doctor—had come to speak in a low voice to the police officers. Quickly, Lisette shut her eyes, not listening. Trying to picture the classroom she'd had to leave—there was Nowicki at the board with her squeaky chalk, and there was J.C. slouched in his desk, hair in his face, and Keisha, who breathed through her mouth when she was excited or scared, and there was Lisette's own desk, empty—though now it was later, it was third period, and J.C. wasn't in Lisette's English class, but there was always the cafeteria. When the bell rang at 11:45 A.M., it would be lunchtime and she'd line up outside the doors, with the smell of greasy food, French fries, macaroni and cheese, chili on buns ... Lisette's mouth flooded with saliva.

  She smiled, seeing the purple-lipstick kiss on the Kleenex, as J.C. would see it when he unfolded it—a surprise!

  Her mother didn't want her to wear lipstick, but fuck Momma. All the girls her age did.

  Last time she'd seen Momma with Daddy, Daddy had been in his soldier's dress uniform and had looked very handsome. His hair had been cut so short.

  Not then but an earlier visit, when Daddy had returned from Iraq for the first time, Lisette's mother had covered his face in purple-lipstick kisses. Lisette had been so young she'd thought that the lipstick kisses were some kind of wound, that her daddy was hurt and bleeding.

  The times were confused. There were many times. There were many Daddys—she could not "see" them all.

  There was the time Daddy took Momma to Fort Lauderdale. They'd wanted to take Lisette but it hadn't worked out—Lisette had had to be in school at that time of year. She'd gone to stay with her mother's friend Misty, who worked at Bally's. They were planning on ten days in Florida but Lisette's mother had surprised her by returning after just a week, saying that that was it, that was the end, she'd had to call the police when he'd got drunk and beaten her, and in a restaurant he'd knocked over a chair he was so angry—that was it for her, no more.

  Yvette had had man friends she'd met in the casinos. Most of them Lisette had never met. Never wished to meet. One of them was a real estate agent in Monmouth County—Lisette could almost remember his first name. It was something unusual, like Upton, Upwell...

  The Indian man looked very young to be a doctor. Behind his wire-rimmed glasses, his eyes were soft-black, somber. His hair was black, but coarse, not silky-fine like J.C.'s hair.

  He was leading the cops and Lisette into a refrigerated room. Molina had a firm hold on Lisette's hand. "We will make it as easy for you as we can, Lisette. All you have to do is squeeze my hand—that will mean yes."

  Yes? Yes what? Desperately Lisette was picturing the school cafeteria, the long table in the corner where the coolest guys sat—J.C. and his friends, and sometimes certain girls were invited to sit with them. Today maybe J.C. would call Lisette over to sit with them—Lisette! Hey Liz-zette!—because he'd liked the purple-lipstick kiss, and what it promised.

  "Take your time, Lisette. I'll be right beside you."

  Then—so quick—it was over!

  The female body she was meant to ID was not anyone she knew, let alone her mother.

  This one had hair that was darker than Yvette's, with brown roots showing, and it was all matted like a cheap wig, and the forehead was so bruised and swollen, and the eyes—you could hardly see the eyes—and the mouth was, like, broken. You couldn't make sense of the face, almost. It was a face that needed to be straightened out, like with pliers.

  "No. Not Momma." Lisette spoke sharply, decisively. Molina was holding her hand—she was tugging to get free.

  This was the morgue; this was a corpse.

  This was not a woman but a thing—you could not really believe that it had ever been a woman.

  Only the head and the face were exposed. The rest of the body was covered by a white sheet but you could see the shape of it, the size, and it was not Lisette's mother—obviously. Older than Momma, and something had happened to the body to make it small—smaller. Some sad, pathetic, broken female, like debris washed up on the shore.

  It was lucky the sheet was drawn up over the chest. The breasts. And the belly, and the pubic hair—the fat-raddled thighs of a woman of this age, you would not want to look at. Guys were quick to laugh, to show their contempt. Any girl or woman who was not good-looking, who was flat-chested or a little heavy—she had to walk fast to avoid their eyes.

  "This is not Momma. This is no one I know."

  Molina was close beside Lisette, instructing her to take her time. It was very important, Molina was saying, to make an eiii-dee of the woman, to help the police find who had done these terrible things to her.

  Lisette pulled free of Molina. "I told you—this is not Momma! It is not!"

  Something hot and acid came up into her mouth—she swallowed it down. She gagged again, and swallowed, and her teeth chattered like dice being shaken. She wanted to run from this nasty room, which was cold like a refrigerator but smelled of something sweet, sickish—like talcum powder and sweat—but Molina detained her.

  They were showing her some clothes now, from the box. Dirty, bloodstained clothes, like rags. And a coat—a coat th
at resembled her mother's red suede coat but was filthy and torn. It was not the stylish coat that Momma had bought a year ago, in the January sales at the mall.

  Lisette said that she'd never seen any of these things before. She had not. She was breathing funny, like her friend Keisha, who had asthma, and Molina was holding her hand and saying things to comfort her, bullshit things, telling her to be calm, it was all right. If she did not think that this woman was her mother, it was all right: there were other ways to identify the victim.

  Victim. This was a new word. Like corpse, drainage ditch.

  Molina led her to a restroom. Lisette had to use the toilet, fast. Her insides had turned to liquid fire and had to come out. At the sink she was going to vomit but could not. Washed and washed her hands. In the mirror a face hovered—a girl's face—in purple-tinted glasses, her lips a dark grape color. The scarring around the left eye wasn't so visible if she didn't look closely, and she had no wish to look closely. There had been three surgeries and after each surgery Momma had promised, "You'll be fine! You'll look better than new."

  They wanted to take her somewhere—to Family Services. She said that she wanted to go back to school. She said that she had a right to go back to school. She began to cry. She was resentful and agitated and she wanted to go back to school, and so they said, "All right, all right for now, Lisette," and they drove her to school. The bell had just rung for lunch, so she went directly to the cafeteria—not waiting in line but into the cafeteria without a tray and still in her jacket, and, in a roaring sort of haze, she was aware of her girlfriends at a nearby table. There was Keisha, looking concerned, calling, "Lisette, hey—what was it? You okay?" and Lisette said, laughing into the bright buzzing blur, "Sure I'm okay. Hell, why not?"

  To the Measures Fall

  Richard Powers