There was a rustle in the room; Mr. Ahmeti’s lawyer handed the DA two yellow cards. The DA read them but did not ask the witness whatever questions were written there. Mr. Ahmeti’s attorney scribbled wildly, trying to get another card to the DA, but before he was finished, the DA had accepted the man’s testimony and motioned for him to sit back down.
Corey Stout was called back to the stand. The affair had had the opposite impact on him. Whereas Nate had gotten larger and stronger over the last month, Corey looked thin. And sad. His sadness was the most palpable thing about him. I don’t even remember what he said, how he explained what the witness had overheard, because the sadness that emanated from him dampened everything in the room: the anger, the self-righteousness, the desperation, the fear. Every other emotion there paled by comparison to Corey Stout’s sadness.
I had the thought that he would not be a policeman next year.
When it was over, when the jury had deliberated less than an hour and had given its verdict to the judge, when the judge had read the verdict, when the news reporters and the cameramen had started to make the room hum with their questions and their talking and their requests for information, Lauren and Jim and Rodney and I left. We waited in an atrium downstairs until finally Nate arrived, waving away reporters with his hand. The first thing he did was lean over and hug Rodney. They held each other a long time: the burly blond soldier and the shrunken uncle in his wheelchair. I had loved each of them from the moment they were born.
When Nate stood up, I hugged him and felt the flutter of his heart, beating rapidly, beneath his broad chest. I thought of the little boy with the football, running on bare tiptoes into his father’s arms.
ALONE THAT NIGHT, I RAN
the hearing over and over again in my mind. I couldn’t stop seeing the trembling back of Sadik Ahmeti, the way his lawyer kept scribbling questions, faster and faster, the way the DA seemed to ignore one question after the other.
I did not want my son to go to jail. I did not want my son to be convicted of murder. But if LVPD had a case, if LVPD believed that Nate was justified, then why did today feel like a charade?
THE PHONE RANG JUST AFTER
nine at night. The phone in my new house didn’t ring often. Most people called my cell. I am not even sure why I hooked up the landline.
I hit my hip on the corner of a desk as I raced to get the call. I wasn’t used to where things were. It was the first time I had lived in a new place in almost thirty years. It took me a while to remember that bump when I saw the blackish mark turning green a few days later. “How’d I do that?” I thought. “Where did that come from?” For a second, I thought Nate had somehow done it.
“Hello?”
“Mom?” It was Lauren. I could hear the strain. My heart started to race, very quick, a bit ragged. Just like that.
“Hi, Lauren.” I made my voice cautious. I was afraid.
“Mom, can you come over here? I need some help.”
There was a huge bang in the background, as if someone had pushed over a bookcase or slammed a door. “Lauren! Who are you talking to? Who’s on the phone?” I heard my son’s voice, though it was not a voice I knew from anytime before this year.
“Nate? Nate, I’m calling your mom.”
“My mom? My mom?” His voice roared in the background.
“Mom, I have to hang up. I’m sorry.”
And click, the phone was dead.
I SHOULD HAVE CALLED 911,
of course. I knew that. But I hadn’t yet decided. I was still fingering the clipping, trying to get my mind around the relief that Nate would not be tried for an unjustified shooting and around the fear that he had been allowed to get away with it.
Instead, I found my sandals, grabbed my purse, and flew out the door. Nate lived in Southern Highlands, at least a twenty-minute drive away. I took Warm Springs and then the Beltway. I thought it would be the fastest, but I had forgotten about the construction at the interchange, about the lanes closing down at nine each evening. I saw the snaking line of traffic as soon as I came up the ramp. Semis trying to get to LA, and a motorcyclist speeding fearlessly between the creeping rows of cars. There was no way back and no way forward. It took an extra fifteen minutes.
There weren’t many streetlights leading to Nate’s house. Huge tracts of land, partially developed, master planned but abandoned when the real estate market crashed and everyone in construction lost their jobs. Lots of Las Vegas looked like this now. Short streets of carefully designed houses, small playgrounds with swing sets but no swings, roads paved in disconnected bits, construction equipment parked, for months, on the empty lots that were supposed to be your neighbors’ homes.
There was just one light on at Nate’s, and the house was silent.
I didn’t stop to think about why. I was parked and out of my car and ringing the doorbell before the engine gave its last dieseling cough.
Nate answered.
“Mom, we don’t want you here. It’s almost ten o’clock. We’re going to bed.”
He stood in the doorway, and I thought again how big he had become. Every time I saw him, he was larger.
He was still my son, and I was not afraid of him.
“I want to talk to Lauren. Let me come in.”
I thought he might resist, but he stepped aside, and I walked in. I still find that surprising, given what had happened.
Lauren wasn’t in the living room. I called her name.
Nate neither helped me nor stopped me. There was silence.
I walked to the kitchen, called Lauren’s name again. By this time, my heart had started to beat faster.
“Lauren?”
They must have fought in the family room. Nate had not even tried to hide it. The coffee table was pushed on its side, and the overstuffed armchairs had been shoved askew. The rug was pushed up into a wave of fabric against one of them, which made a lamp wobble and then teeter precariously when I stepped on the far edge of the rug.
“Lauren?”
I know my voice sounded frightened. Had my son killed a second woman? Pray God, I had this thought.
There was the squeak of her voice from the hall bathroom. I asked her if I could come in. And then I opened the door, gently.
I don’t know where Nate was. He had not followed me.
She was there, sitting on the closed toilet lid with a bag of frozen peas in her hand. Her nose had been bleeding, her left eye was swelling shut, there was a distinct cut at the left corner of her lip. She had been crying, so that her right eye was almost as swollen as the left. When she stood up, I saw the red marks of five fingers on her bare right shoulder. Had he held her with one hand as he punched her with the other?
Lauren was slight. Taller than me, but at least twenty pounds lighter, with fair, translucent skin. That she could take one of Nate’s punches, and stand, was surprising.
My head was reeling, and my stomach was sick, but I opened my arms, and she fell into them. I held her, stroked her hair, made a humming sort of sound in my throat. But I was just going through the motions, because my heart was beating, and in my head, everything was flashing by. Nate at seven months, Nate at seven, Nate in high school, Nate when he joined the Army, Nate when he stood in the doorway tonight, huge, and then when he let me in. How could this be happening?
“I think we should take you to an emergency room.”
“No!” Her no was so fast, so adamant, she pulled slightly away from me.
I pulled her gently back in, so I wouldn’t have to look at her while we had this conversation.
“You could have a broken bone. Or a concussion. You need to see a doctor.”
“No. Please, Mom, please. I am not ready to see a doctor. Please, just stay here with me.”
And I protested awhile, but in the end, that is what I did. Nate had disappeared by the time we left the bathroom. Maybe he
left the minute I came in. But he was not there. I did not have a chance to confront him, to attack him, to question him, to apologize to him, to . . . to what? He was not there, and he did not come back that night.
So I stayed with Lauren.
I made her tea, and a muffin with raspberry jam. I held the frozen peas on her eye, and she lay on the sofa while I did this, and we watched a Lifetime movie with the sound off. Eventually she fell asleep, and when she let me, I persuaded her to stumble into bed, and I stood there and stroked her hair until she was deeply asleep again, and then I sat on the sofa and watched television with the sound off all night long.
In the morning, Lauren told me that she was going to go to a friend’s house for a few days, that she would tell her friend something, maybe the truth, but please, let her handle it, let her decide. I stayed while she packed a case, and we left together about ten. Nate had not returned.
THAT NIGHT, THE PHONE RANG
again. Lauren had texted me in the afternoon. Said she was fine. Said she had spoken with Nate. I had replied that she could come to my house, she could stay with me. She did not respond to that text.
So the phone rang again. Even later. I was already asleep. This time, nobody spoke. I heard breathing, and something slight in the background, but nothing else.
“Lauren?”
Nothing.
“Lauren, is that you?”
The phone clicked off.
I lay awake, wondering if it was Lauren. If it was Nate. If Lauren had gone back to Nate.
I thought of Sadik Ahmeti berating his wife, and I thought of him raising two small children. I thought about an eight-year-old boy and a three-year-old girl without their mother. I thought of my son’s part in that. I thought of Emily. I thought of Rodney and me when we were kids. I thought of Nate.
WHEN NATE WAS SIX, HE
found a stray dog at the park. He carried it over to me—its legs sticking out absurdly, his arms around its belly—where I sat on a bench.
“He’s lost, Mom. He can’t find his family.”
“Have you set him down? Maybe he knows right where to go.”
“No, Mom, look. He’s thirsty and he’s scared. And there’s branches and things in his fur.”
He was right. The dog did look the worse for wear, probably was lost.
“We can’t keep him, Nate. We can take him to the pound. They might know where he lives. His owners might be looking for him.”
“No, Mom, no. Not the pound. They’ll kill him. Luke says the pound kills dogs. Please, Mom, please don’t take him to the pound.”
“Nate, we can’t have a dog. I don’t even know if he’s well. He looks pretty dirty, and he might be sick.”
“Please, Mom.”
“Nate, we’re not taking that dog home.”
“Mom, I want to be a good man. I want to help the dog.”
I want to be a good man. I still remember. Such a funny phrase from a little boy.
And we kept the dog. Years later, we buried him in the backyard. I wonder who will dig up his bones some day, who will buy our house, who will decide to plant a new tree and strike bone with her shovel. Will she be shocked when a skull appears in the dirt? Will she know that we loved the dog, that we cried when he died, that we couldn’t bear to throw him in the garbage or allow the vet to do it? Will she imagine that the dog slept on my son’s bed until he joined the Army? Will she know that he whimpered at the door for months after Nate left, that he barked when he heard Nate’s voice on the speaker, all the way from Baghdad? And will she intuit that the dog waited to die until my son was home on leave, that he dragged himself around, blind and crippled and covered with pink growths, and did not die until Nate came home and spent one last night with him, curled together on the floor because the dog was too old to jump on the bed? Will her shovel strike that skull, and will all those images waft up and into her imagination?
Nate wants to be a good man. Remember. He wanted to be a good man.
ON MONDAY I CALL LVPD
and leave a message for the chief of police that I need to meet with him, today if possible. He’s not available Monday, but his secretary makes an appointment for one thirty on Tuesday. I spend the day going through some of the boxes I moved from my house. I call Lauren, but she doesn’t answer, and I leave her a message letting her know that I’m worried. She doesn’t call back, but she sends a text and says that she’s feeling better. I don’t know what this means. So I call Nate, and he doesn’t answer, either. I leave a message asking him to call me, asking him to come over, telling him that I need to talk to him tonight. I don’t call Jim. I want to tell Jim what I’m going to do as well, but I can’t trust him not to stop me.
Nate doesn’t call, and he doesn’t come over. I leave one more message. I give him one more chance. Then I go to bed.
On Tuesday I wear a brown linen suit and a cream silk blouse. I tell the chief of police that my son has a problem and that he needs help—that he should not be using a weapon now. I tell him everything I know about his relationship with Lauren. I tell him that he hasn’t been the same since he came home from Iraq, and that there might be services available to him as a veteran. And finally, I tell him that if anything more happens, I will tell the media about our meeting.
Then I leave the chief of police’s office, and I call my son again, so that I can tell him what I have done. He’s my son, and something enormous has happened to him. But we will find a way through it. Whatever happened to Nate, however this has changed all of our lives, is. Now we go forward. We figure it out. We act with courage. We eye the felt, we size up the stickman, we call our bet, we roll our dice. Nate and I, Lauren, Jim, Rodney, Darcy, we’re still in the game. We play.
35
* * *
Bashkim
I GO TO THE hearing with Mrs. Delain. She says that children don’t always come to these, that she’s only gone once before, but that Mrs. Miller wants Tirana and me to be there.
We drive in Mrs. Delain’s van all the way to the middle of Las Vegas, where I have never been. We park inside a building, under the ground, and I do not like how heavy it feels in there. There is a sign at the elevator that says we are on the orange level. The sign says to remember this, so I do. We get in the elevator, and Mrs. Delain straightens my sweater and looks at me to see if I am clean and everything. I guess I am, because she doesn’t do anything else to me.
The elevator lets us off in a big room, the biggest room I have ever been in. It echoes, and there are so many people walking back and forth, wearing shoes that click, that I think I am inside a drum. Mrs. Delain looks at a big sign that says the names of all the courtrooms and the judges, and then she says that we will have to wait in the line at the far end of the room.
We walk over there. Tap, tap, tap. People’s voices are echoing too, so I hear people speaking who are not near me. I can’t tell what they’re saying, but I listen just in case. It is so surprising to hear voices in that way.
When we get to the front of the line, there are policemen. One says I will have to take off my sweater, and a different one opens up Mrs. Delain’s purse. My stomach starts to hurt. I take my sweater off quick, because I don’t want the policeman to talk to me again. But he just waves his arm, and Mrs. Delain and I walk through the machine, one by one. When the man behind me goes through, the machine lights up and makes a terrible sound. Mrs. Delain and I both jump. Mrs. Delain explains that it is a metal detector, and that you can’t have any metal in your pockets or it will go off. They’re looking for guns. Thinking of that makes my heart go thump thump, and I take Mrs. Delain’s hand. Today the judge will decide where I am going to live, and Tirana. I’ve been trying not to think about this, because I can’t think of anything that will be good without Nene, but nothing could be worse than what has already happened anyway.
We take another elevator, which has carpet and mirrors, and a l
ot of people are in it, and we get off on the eighth floor. Mrs. Delain says hello to someone in the elevator, and she says, “Hello, you must be Bashkim” to me, but I am feeling sick, and I don’t say anything back. I want to leave. I wish Mrs. Delain would just take me back downstairs. I would like to be in the alone closet at her house now. I try to pretend that I am in a movie and that this is happening to another kid, not me, but it doesn’t really work this time.
The courtroom is big. There are lots of rows for people to sit in, and there’s a place for the judge at the front, which is above everyone else. I think Mrs. Delain and I are early, because there is only one other person in the room when we sit down. It’s Mrs. Weiss, who writes the letter to the judge. She smiles and waves hello from her seat on the other side of the room, but seeing her makes me feel really bad, and I don’t smile back. I am worried that I am going to throw up, and I can’t breathe right, and my eyes are seeing funny too. I slide closer to Mrs. Delain, and I put my head against her arm, just for a minute, because we have already talked about how it is important for me to be brave today, and I don’t want her to think I forgot. I just really need to smell her smell right then.
Mrs. Delain puts her arm around me and squeezes me just a little bit.
“You’re okay, Bashkim. You’ve been through worse than this. Everybody here wants to help you.”
Mrs. Delain always makes me feel better. She knows all about how kids have to do hard things, and she tells us that there aren’t any tougher kids in the world than her foster children. Mrs. Delain believes that people like me and Keyshah and Daniel are going to make the world better some day. She says that nothing makes a heart bigger like experience.
I see Mrs. Miller, our caseworker, come in. She doesn’t look at me or Mrs. Delain, though. Then Baba comes. He is with that big blonde woman from the Catholic place. He’s a lot smaller than she is, and when I see him, my heart gets fluttery and I need to breathe more. Baba looks sick, and small, and scared. I try not to think about him hugging me in the living room.
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