'Round Midnight

by Laura McBride

  “Why didn’t you read my letter, Honorata? Why didn’t you give me a chance?”

  He sounded sad, and resigned. Engracia wondered if he would kill himself there in front of her, and, for a moment, she closed her eyes, not wanting to see.

  Ms. Navarro made a startled noise. Engracia opened her eyes, and Jimbo looked up.

  “Is it Malaya?” he asked. “Is she here?”

  Ms. Navarro glanced out the window, to the street. Engracia wondered if she could see the police car; if she knew what the red glow meant.

  “Is she outside?”

  The man stood up, peering toward the window. “I just want to see her once. Please.”

  Ms. Navarro said nothing. She pulled her hand away from Engracia’s, sat up straighter on the couch, perched, alert and waiting and without speaking.

  “I could have seen her, you know. She wanted to meet. I came here today to tell you I knew; to tell you we would be meeting. I didn’t want to go behind your back.”

  Honorata stared at him then, her face a mask.

  “I don’t know why I have this gun. I don’t know why I came in this way. I got so worked up. Waiting. I was so mad.”

  His voice trailed off, the enormity of the error he had made—of the consequences it would bring—becoming clearer.

  “Did you call the police?”

  “Yes,” said Engracia.

  “You were right. Of course. You should’ve called the police.”

  The man sounded sad more than anything else, and his fingers reached inside his jacket. He touched the handle of the gun, reassuring himself it was there, or wondering if it was, or deciding, perhaps, what he should do now.

  The phone rang again.

  31

  Coral grabbed her phone and her keys, and raced out the door. She heard someone yell, “Hey, lady. Stop!” But she did not stop. She ran straight for Tom Darling, her eye on the school bus, and the girl who was just now getting off it.

  “Tom, it’s me, Coral.”

  “Coral?”

  “This is my street. I live here.”

  “Well, this isn’t a good time. If you just go back inside, everything will be fine.”

  “No, Tom. The girl over there. She lives in that house. She’s coming home from school.”

  “Shit.”

  Tom radioed to a patrolman at the end of the street.

  “That girl. Hang on to her. She can’t come up this street.”

  Coral saw the police officer look around, spot Malaya, and head toward her. She saw the girl see the officers, then the patrol cars, then look behind her toward the spot where the school bus had just idled. She would be afraid.

  “I know her, Tom. Can I go to her?”

  Tom looked around. Saw the girl’s startled stance, saw Coral’s concerned face.

  “Yes. But don’t say anything.”

  “I don’t know anything.”

  “Get her off the street. Your house is too close. Ask the officer where to take her.”

  Coral turned and walked toward Malaya, who was talking to one of the policemen and had her backpack half off her shoulder, as if she were about to drop it and flee.

  “Rick,” Tom said into his radio, “my friend Coral is coming at you. She lives on this street. Knows the girl. Take them somewhere together. Keep her close by. And get the girl’s cell phone. Make sure you have her phone.”

  Coral could hear Tom’s voice on the officer’s radio as she approached, and when Malaya looked at her, Coral tried for a reassuring smile. The girl simply stared, her eyes darting to her house, to Coral, to the officer. The backpack slid farther down her arm. Coral knew she wanted to run, was calculating which way to go, if she could get away. They wouldn’t shoot a girl—they wouldn’t—but Coral wished Malaya looked less wild. She had pulled her hair all to one side to reveal the shaved scalp above her ear and the tongue of the tattooed snake that twisted toward her neck.

  Malaya had been such a beautiful little girl. Honorata used to dress her in elaborate dresses on Sundays, with a bow tied in her silky brown hair, and during the week, Malaya would walk to the school bus in a plaid skirt and a crisp white blouse. Even then, she was a funny child, knocking on Coral’s door and selling Girl Scout cookies while carrying a small stuffed deer whose name was Horns. “Horns likes the shortbread cookies the best. That’s the one Horns eats.” Trey had adored her. Called her Malaysia, which had made Malaya angry the first time he said it. “Don’t call me that . . . Fatboy,” she had said at eight years old, her feet wide apart.

  Fatboy! Trey had laughed and laughed. “Okay, Malaya, I won’t call you that. But I meant it as a compliment. Malaysia is a very beautiful country.” As if Trey knew anything about Malaysia. Or even where to find it on a map. He was always quick, though.

  “Well, it’s not my name,” Malaya had said, much more amenably.

  “Oh, I know that. I won’t get it wrong again.” But the next time Trey had seen her, he called out, “Hey, Malaysia! How are you today?” And he had given her his big Trey grin—he towered over her, fifteen and already six foot three—and Coral had been sure Malaya would be angry, or worse, cry. But instead, she laughed and said, “Hi, Fatboy!”

  And that was that: the little girl and the almost man were friends that year. Trey introduced her to his high school friends as if she were a peer, and Malaya brought him drawings she had made at school, or things she found in the patch of undeveloped desert behind their cul-de-sac. Even now, on the rare occasion that Trey came by and Malaya happened to be out, they greeted each other fondly. He still called her Malaysia, and she called him Trey; she allowed him to gently tease her about the black clothes, the laced-up boots, the zany hair, and the gold chain hanging from her belt loop.

  “Malaysia, you’re scaring little kids. Why do you wear that stuff?”

  “You scared of me, Trey?”

  “Of course I’m scared of you. You’re covered in black and chains, and you got that freaky tattoo. How’d you get your mother to say yes to that? You’re too young.”

  “Well, I got friends. They think I look twenty-one, not just eighteen.”

  “Yeah, well, take it from me, baby girl. Those might not be the friends you need.”

  “Come on. You gonna get all over me too? I got a mom for that.”

  “Nah, I’m not saying nothing. You always beautiful to me, Malaysia.”

  In the house, Trey would ask Coral what was going on, why Malaya looked so wild, but Coral didn’t have an answer. Malaya almost never came by this year, and Coral worried about her. She walked with her head down and a hunch in her shoulders that had not been there before.

  “You think she’s gonna be okay?”

  “Oh, I hope so Trey. High school can be tough, right?”

  “Yeah. Her mom should get her away from those friends.”

  Coral smiled at this.

  “I love that kid,” he added. “She makes me laugh.”

  “I know you do.”

  Coral nodded to the police officer and set her hand on Malaya’s arm.

  “Come with me. I’m not sure what’s going on here, but these guys are good. We just have to lay low a bit and let them take care of this.”

  “Why are they here? Where’s my mom?” The girl was panicking. Who wouldn’t be?

  “I don’t know. But I know that man. He’s a good guy. It’s going to be okay.”

  “Is this about my dad?”

  “Your dad?”

  “My dad. I have a dad. He said he was going to visit me. Is this about him? I want to see him.”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t have time to ask about anything. I don’t know if it’s about your dad.”

  Of course it was about her dad. If anything would bring a SWAT team onto a neighborhood street, it was a domestic issue. They wouldn’t take a problem with a dad lightly.

  Malaya had never said anything about a dad.

  All those years ago, when Honorata had asked for help changing Malaya’s name, and Darry
l had thought she was a sex worker, Coral had just assumed Malaya’s father could have been anyone. But obviously that wasn’t true. Malaya knew who her dad was.

  Where had Honorata gotten the money for those houses? Who was Malaya’s father?

  One of the patrolmen led Coral and Malaya to the far end of the cul-de-sac, where another officer was setting up a shade canopy, like the ones Althea used to put up for Keisha’s soccer games. They were getting ready for a long stretch; no one would be hurrying this.

  “Honey, you hungry? I can ask someone to get us food.”

  “No.”

  The girl didn’t say anything else, and Coral stood there, wondering how bad this might get.

  The officer pulled out two lawn chairs and motioned for Coral and Malaya to sit down. Malaya was nervous, popping up and down on the balls of her feet, and Coral placed her arm around the girl to encourage her to be still. She didn’t want the officer to think Malaya was on something—her appearance was incriminating enough. And it wouldn’t help Malaya to get worked up before she even knew what was happening. They sat down in the chairs; the girl let Coral take her hand, but turned and stared off toward where the bus had been.

  An image of Malaya a year or so earlier, standing in Coral’s kitchen with a plate of biko that her grandmother had made, came to mind. Coral was talking with Malaya when Isa came running in the door, shouting, “Mom! Something bad happened!”

  Coral’s heart beat faster. Her youngest son held something in his hand, his eyes teary.

  “What is it?”

  “A toad. Do you think it’s Ichiro?”

  Gus had found a toad in the parking lot at school and brought him home in his shirt. He’d lived in the backyard for months, and Koji could do a pretty good imitation of his low bwrrracking call, but nobody had seen or heard him for a while. Now Isa held out the slightly rotting body of a toad that had been run over by a car.

  “Isa, put that down. It’s not clean.”

  Isa set it on the kitchen table and ran to put his arms around Coral. Gus walked in, dropping his backpack next to the toad.

  “Mom, I told him to leave it in his glove.”

  “It’s okay, Gus.”

  “Do you think it’s Ichiro?”

  “No. I don’t.”

  “How do you know?” Isa choked out.

  “Well, Ichiro’s bigger.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he’d be even bigger if he were smashed like that, right, Mom?”

  “Gus.”

  “Can we bury him?”

  Malaya said she would help, and Gus found a Mickey Mouse T-shirt that was too small for either boy. Her sons wrapped the toad carefully in it before digging a hole near the plum tree and burying him.

  “Can we sing a song?”

  “How about ‘Froggy Went A-Courtin’?”

  Coral gave Gus the warning eye, but Isa said, “That’s a good song.” And so the four of them sang it. When they finished, Isa said, “Bye, Ichiro’s friend. We liked you.” And Malaya took the little boy’s hand and told him that he had done a really nice thing for the toad. Gus said he had helped too—he had done most of the digging—and then they all went inside to try the sweet rice cakes that Malaya had brought over.

  Was that the day they had the conversation about physics? Malaya had surprised Coral, talking to the boys about her high school class.

  Gus had started it.

  “My teacher said that because of quantum physics, being happy isn’t just good for the person who’s happy, it’s good for everyone else. For the whole universe.”

  “Because of quantum physics?” Coral was pleased to think this had caught Gus’s attention.

  “Yeah. Everything affects everything else.”

  “So being sad makes everyone else sad?” Isa asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “We talked about that in my physics class.” Malaya flipped her long hair to one side. “It has to do with the forces that connect elementary particles, like electrons.”

  Gus looked at Malaya, pleased that the older girl knew what he was talking about.

  “Yeah, it’s physics. That’s what my teacher said too.”

  “I don’t know what physics are,” said Isa.

  “It’s a science. It’s the study of atoms and things.”

  “Oh.”

  “Somebody in my class asked if one sad person made everyone else sadder”—Gus jumped up and sat on the kitchen counter as he spoke—“and we had a whole conversation about how something good might make the whole universe better, and something bad, like war or murder, would make the whole universe worse.”

  “I feel sorry for the sad people,” said Isa.

  “That’s just what I thought,” said Malaya. “Like it’s not bad enough that they’re already sad, but somehow they make everything worse too?”

  Gus frowned. “I don’t think that’s what my teacher said. She just said the thing about happiness.”

  Now Malaya wound her hair on top of her head, and stuck in a pencil to hold it in place. “Well, I thought about it a lot—and I decided that it’s really about love. And hate. I think that loving something makes the universe better, and hating something makes it worse. So if someone is sad because they love someone, then they are still making the universe better, because it’s really about love.”

  Coral remembered the way Gus had scrunched up his face and shifted in his seat when the older girl said the word love. And she remembered the way her own eyes had filled, and how she’d wanted to say something—something that told Malaya what a lovely thought it was, something that made Gus more comfortable—but she was afraid to try to speak right away, so it was Isa who had replied:

  “Then our toad helped everyone, because he made me feel sad, and I love him.”

  Malaya laughed and lifted Isa high in the air.

  “That’s right, Isa monster!”

  And Isa had laughed and said, “Put me down,” and they had all taken another piece of biko.

  Now Malaya stood up from the rickety folding chair, nearly banging into the police officer behind her.

  “I don’t want to sit here.”

  “We have to stay here. They might not tell us anything for a while. But it seems really calm. That’s a good sign.”

  Malaya looked at her, and Coral waited to see if she would say something, but the girl just sat back down.

  They stayed there, quiet, until Tom came over.

  “Hi. Malaya Begtang? Is that right?”

  Malaya looked at Tom and nodded yes.

  “Listen, I know this must be scary for you. Things are going fine, though. We just want to go real slow, make sure there’s nothing happening. We don’t have any indication that anything is, and I’m sorry to scare you like this.”

  Malaya’s lip quivered. Instantly, Coral saw her as she had been at four, at seven. She looked tough, but of course she wasn’t.

  “This doesn’t look routine, but it is routine in some situations. And we’re always happy when we’ve overreacted. Okay?”

  The girl nodded, but did not say anything.

  “Just sit tight with Coral here. You couldn’t be in better hands right now.”

  Malaya looked at Coral doubtfully, but Coral smiled, and the girl tried to smile in return. She was trembling now, and getting close to tears, so Coral waved Tom away and looked right into Malaya’s eyes.

  “It’s going to be okay. I’m right here with you.”

  “Do you think my dad’s there?”

  “I don’t know, honey. Why do you think he might be?”

  “Because I found him. And because he said he would visit me. And I told him where I lived.”

  There was a pretty good chance that this was about her dad.

  “I really don’t know anything at all. I just saw the police cars, and I came out because I know Tom. And then I saw you.”

  “He didn’t seem like a bad man. My dad, I mean.”
/>   “Well, we don’t know anything. Let’s just stay right here, with what we do know.”

  “I just wanted to meet my father.”

  “I understand that.”

  Coral’s voice caught, and she batted back tears that rose in her eyes. Incredible. That she could still feel this pain, after all these years.

  “I know how you feel.”

  Malaya looked directly at her; she’d caught the change in Coral’s voice. She waited.

  “I don’t know who my mother is. I mean, I had a mother, she raised me, but she isn’t my biological mother. And nobody knows who that was. You’re only about the fifth person in the world to know this about me.”

  Malaya did not seem exactly surprised.

  “Does it bother you? I mean, do you want to know her?”

  “Yes. I’ve spent my whole life wanting to know who she was. But there isn’t any way to find her. I’ve tried. Or I did try, for a long time.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  I’m sorry. It made Coral want to cry.

  “Thank you.”

  Coral didn’t speak for a while then, and Malaya held her hand, squeezing her fingers ever so gently, and Coral struggled with the lump rising in her throat. She was supposed to be the one helping Malaya.

  “I found him on the Internet,” the girl said.

  “Yeah,” Coral managed to reply. “That makes sense . . . How did you know where to look?”

  “I didn’t. I just looked up my mom, and there was a thing about how she changed my name when I was little. I used to be Malaya Navarro, but now my name is Begtang.”

  “I knew that.”

  “You did? Well, I thought my dad must be named Begtang all the time, but the notice was for my father, to tell him my mom was changing my name. So that made me think she was trying to hide me.”

  “Hmmm. Okay. Then what?”

  “Well, it was kind of an accident. I was looking in these old newspapers, and I couldn’t find anything about my mom, so I was just looking for anything about someone from the Philippines. Which was sort of stupid. But there was an article about a woman who had won all this money. She won it at a casino, and she had only been in this country for like ten months. So it was a big story. And I just read it, because it was kind of interesting, even though it was too old. It was before I was born.”