by Nan Higgins
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay here?”
“I’ll be fine. It’s better that I’m the one here. I…I can’t be away from him, and you can’t be near him, at least not tonight. Go home and rest, eat a good breakfast in the morning, and come back and try again.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“I know.”
“I’ll get Jasmine home safe, and when I come back tomorrow I’ll bring you clean clothes and shampoo and stuff.”
“We’re going to get through this, and Tate is gonna be okay.”
Grant nodded. “Will you send Jasmine out?”
“I’m here.” Jasmine walked over to them, and the three embraced each other, each supported by the other two.
“I’ll see you guys tomorrow.” She went back into the room with Tate. The clock said it was nearly midnight. Where had the last several hours gone, and how long had she been standing next to Tate, holding his hand? She clicked the buttons behind him so all the lights were off except for a dim one just above his head.
Patricia had made the bed, and after pushing the hospital curtain as close to the wall as she could so she had a full view of Tate, she crawled in the bed and pulled the blankets up to her chin. She lay on her right side, watching Tate and listening to the suction sound of the machine that breathed for him. She stared into the dim night at her best friend, thinking there was no way she’d be able to sleep tonight. Not long after that, she did.
* * *
Just as London awoke the following morning, two strangers entered the room. One man and one woman, both in dark business suits with grave expressions. Cops.
“Ms. Craft?” the woman asked, and London nodded. “I’m Detective Harper, and this is Detective O’Connor. We’re investigating the assault against your…” She pulled a small notebook from her pocket and paged through it. “Your brother, is it?”
“He’s my best friend, and we grew up together. We’re family.” She made that last statement a little louder than she meant to.
“Understood,” said Detective Harper. “What can you tell us about Mr. Morgan’s whereabouts yesterday?”
“He was going on a Tinder date, a group thing.” She saw their look of surprise. “Not like that, nothing salacious,” she said hurriedly. “He was talking to a girl on Tinder, and she invited him to go hiking with some of her friends.”
“Do you know the woman’s name?”
“I don’t remember, but…wait.” She went to her purse and dug around in it. “Here it is.” She pulled Tate’s phone out. “He showed me her picture.” London pulled up the app, staring at the circling dots as it opened. “There.” She pointed at the messages between Tate and a woman named Amanda making plans to go hiking. “That’s her.”
“May I?” Detective O’Connor stepped forward and took the phone. He scribbled some notes, and when he was finished, passed it to Detective Harper, who did the same. When Harper returned the phone, O’Connor turned back to London. “Was there anything unusual about the date? Can you remember any other details?”
“Not about the date, no. He’d been talking to her for a week or so and had been flirting with a few other women from the site as well. She was the first one he went out with, though.”
“But nothing stuck out about her or about their plans?”
London shook her head. “I’ve told you everything I know about it. But…are you the same officers who were here yesterday?”
“Yes, we are,” Harper said.
“Did the doctors or nurses tell you that Tate is a trans man?”
“No.” Harper looked surprised. “No, they didn’t.”
“He is, and this was his first time dating since he transitioned.”
“Did this Amanda know he’s transgender?” O’Connor asked.
“Not before he went on the date, at least, not as far as I knew. He planned to tell her; he was just trying to figure out when.”
The detectives exchanged glances. “Thank you for letting us know,” Harper said. “That does change things a little.”
“It was a hate crime,” London said. It was a statement, not a question. The words tasted foul coming out of her mouth. She’d been sure Tate had been a victim of a hate crime since she first learned he was hurt, but saying it out loud shocked her system. She clenched her trembling hands around Tate’s phone.
“We don’t know that yet,” O’Connor said. His gravelly voice softened.
“I know it. I’ve known it since I got the call to come to the hospital.”
“I’m very sorry this happened to your friend. To your brother,” Harper said. “We’re going to do everything we can to catch the people who did this.”
“Yes,” said O’Connor, “and you’ve been very helpful. May we take the phone?”
“Will it help you catch the bastards who did this?”
“It might.”
London handed them the phone.
“Thank you,” said Harper. “Write your phone number down here for me, and we’ll be in touch.”
After they left, London sat by Tate and used the remote to turn on the TV. “Let’s see what we can find to watch. The only good thing about being sick is all the bad TV you get to see.” She flipped past some morning news programs, past an infomercial for Rogaine, and past an evangelical pastor talking to his congregation about loose women. “They should really get Netflix in this place. Oh! Golden Girls reruns. Score.”
London set the remote down and rested her hand beside Tate’s, watching one of their favorite shows together. “I still say you’re a Blanche, and I’m a Dorothy.” She continued an argument they’d been having for years. “No question.” She glanced at him and willed him to wake up and argue with her. Bickering had always been part of the foundation of their friendship, and she knew if he regained his ability to tell her she was wrong, everything would be okay. He remained silent and still. She’d been fighting overwhelming uneasiness since Grant and Jasmine left last night, and it pulsated through her now. She turned back to the TV and tried to focus on the women on the screen.
“London?” Grant said from behind her. “I brought visitors.” She turned. Reggie, Thomas, Betty, and Herb all stood in the doorway.
London stood and Reggie half ran to her, folding her in a tight hug that felt as if everything was going to be okay. “I’m so glad you’re here,” London said.
“I couldn’t stay away, once I heard.” Reggie turned to Tate. “Oh, baby doll, what did they do to you?” She rested her palm over his heart. “How could someone do this?”
Grant and Thomas joined them at the end of the bed, and Reggie’s parents stood on either side of London. “I hope it’s okay that we’re here,” said Herb. “We just had to come.”
London leaned her head on his shoulder. “It’s a relief to have you here. You’re like…you two are kind of like surrogate parents for all of us.”
“That’s a lovely thing to say,” Betty said. “We couldn’t love any of you more if you were our own babies. And we couldn’t let you go through this alone.”
London’s voice shook. “Thank you. You don’t know what that means.”
After a few moments, Grant spoke. “I brought you some clothes and stuff from home. If you want to shower and change, we can hang out in here.”
London looked down at Tate, stroking his hand as she had last night when she first got here.
“Go on now,” Betty said. “We’ll watch over him for you.”
London washed the grime from the last few days away and got lost in the warm water pouring over her. She couldn’t get the image of Tate’s bruised and battered body out of her head, and hot tears began to mix with the soothing drops running down her face. She indulged herself for a few minutes before she scrubbed her face and body and twisted the nozzle off. When she was all clean and dressed, she stepped out of the bathroom. Reggie pulled her into the hallway.
“What do you need right now?” Reggie asked. “What can I do to help you?”
“Can I have another one of those hugs?”
Reggie wrapped her arms around London and buried her head in London’s still-damp hair. They stood like that for a long time. It was the first small sense of peace she’d had since this horrible nightmare began.
“Even with us spending time apart,” London said, “you still rush to be with me every time things fall to pieces.”
“I love you. That hasn’t changed.”
“I love you too.”
An alarm sounded from Tate’s room, and four people in scrubs rushed down the hall, clamoring through his doorway. London and Reggie followed, and although they couldn’t see Tate for all the medical workers, they saw the very frightened faces of everyone else in the room.
Grant slowly backed away from the end of Tate’s bed. “What’s happening?”
“He’s crashing,” someone yelled.
“Okay, everybody, stand back,” said a man in a white coat. “We need you all to get out so we can work on him the way we need to. Who the hell let this many people in here?”
They exited and stood anxiously in a semicircle around the doorway. Hours seemed to go by as they listened to the frantic chatter and movement behind the closed door. Thomas went to the alcove at the end of the hall and dragged two chairs back so Herb and Betty could sit. The rest of them stood motionless, except for Grant, who paced between Tate’s room and the nurse’s desk, back and forth.
Despite her hot shower, London was cold. It felt as if her blood was on ice, bringing freezing temperatures to all her extremities. She wondered if it was her body’s way of trying to numb her to all the worry and fear. She rubbed her hands and put all her energy into focusing on the friction. Anything to keep her mind off what might be happening on the other side of that door.
Finally, the man in the white coat appeared before them. He rested his hand on London’s shoulder when he spoke. “The trauma Mr. Morgan endured over the last two days caused unforeseeable damage. He just experienced a seizure as a result of that damage, which induced a stroke. We did everything we could, but I’m afraid we couldn’t save him.”
London lost the last shreds of control. She opened her mouth to scream and instead began keening, the mournful sounds coming out of her endlessly, with barely a second to take a breath before her grief song started again. Grant and Reggie reached out to her, but she backed away. She didn’t want to be touched. She needed to undo this, needed it to not be real. She turned toward Tate’s room, intending to rush in and take him in her arms and tell him he was the only family she had, and he couldn’t leave her alone. Instead, she crumpled to the floor, legs tucked under her and bent at the waist, and wailed. She didn’t cry; there were no tears. Just that terrible, uncontrollable sound. Finally, a nurse came and injected her with something, and everything wavered around her and faded to gray.
London dreamed of the time she and Grant had watched a show on Animal Planet in which a mother bird whose baby was taken by a predator began keening out of grief. The heartbreaking song went on for a few moments, and Grant had turned to London and said, “That’s what sheer sadness sounds like.”
She awakened to bright sunlight streaming across her face and tried to wipe the sleep and grogginess from her eyes. Something was missing or wrong. What was it? She blinked the last of the blurriness away and looked at a room that wasn’t hers. White walls adorned with abstract pastel paintings surrounded her, and she was in a twin bed covered in a thin blanket.
“You’re awake.” Grant and Reggie appeared above her, their faces were twisted with concern.
“Did I dream it?”
“No, baby.” Reggie stroked her hair. “You didn’t dream it. He’s gone.”
“I want to go home.”
“Okay,” Grant said. “Let’s get you home.”
* * *
Planning Tate’s funeral was not easy, but it was simple. He’d been terrified when he’d had his surgeries to transition, half convinced he wouldn’t survive, and made all the arrangements in the event of his death. London had to sign a few papers agreeing to go forward with the plans already in place, and that was that. She checked with Thomas, who’d taken on the wills and estates for everyone in the group, to make sure there was enough money to cover the funeral. He assured her there was plenty and that he’d get the bills paid.
A month earlier, she hadn’t been a part of any planning for her mother’s funeral, didn’t know anything about the circumstances of her death until the last moment, and had basically been treated like a begrudging afterthought. Tears had been sparse and hard to come by, and it’d been extremely difficult for her to access any real feelings about it, with the exception of her therapy sessions.
Tate’s death had been so very different. She was involved in every painstaking detail, and the urge to make sure his funeral honored him perfectly was so strong that she stayed up most nights checking and double checking his notes and the arrangements. She was either crying or near tears in all her waking moments and woke up sobbing on the rare occasions she actually slept.
The day before Tate’s funeral, London woke up early and went to the alcove that was still serving as Grant’s bedroom. She sat on the edge of his bed, and after a few moments, he opened his eyes and sat up.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “What time is it?”
“It’s almost seven. Take a road trip with me.”
“What? Honey, what are you—”
“We need to pay a visit to Tate’s mother. We can be there and back long before dark if we leave soon.”
“London…are you sure you want to do this?”
“I need to do this. I owe it to Tate, and he would do it for me.” Nurse Patricia had attempted to reach Tate’s parents when he arrived at the hospital but couldn’t get through. London had tried as well, but their landline had been disconnected, and Tate didn’t have any other phone numbers for them in his contacts. As much as she disliked Marsha’s treatment of her son, London didn’t feel she could send the woman an email telling her he’d died. Something so impersonal wouldn’t do justice to Tate’s memory. Everything else was set for his funeral. The last thing she had to do was help him connect with his parents one last time, and as much as she dreaded it, she was determined to give it everything she had.
Grant nodded. “Okay. Give me a few minutes to get dressed.”
* * *
London was painfully aware that the last time she made this journey, less than a month ago, she’d been with Tate. The closer they got to Keys Crossing and the familiar roads where she and Tate had first ridden their bikes and later learned to drive, the more she felt the loss of him. They passed the spot where she’d wiped out on her bike shortly after getting her training wheels taken off and Tate had taken off one of his socks to make a bandage for her. They passed the Dairy Bar ice cream stand—now closed for the fall and winter months—where they’d gathered all the change in their pockets to get one ice cream cone to share. Tate was gone. Tate was everywhere.
Grant pulled into the gravel driveway of the familiar colonial house of Tate’s childhood. It looked the same, although the paint was a little chipped, and a few of the plants on the front porch were in bad shape, something that never would have happened when London and Tate were children. Tate’s mother always kept immaculate care of the place. Or rather, she demanded that Tate’s father keep immaculate care of it.
“You ready?” Grant had given up trying to make conversation shortly after they were out of Columbus and had turned on a political podcast to listen to while London was alone with her thoughts.
“As much as I can be.”
They walked up to the house, and as they began to climb the steps to the porch, Tate’s mother opened the inner door and peered at them through the screen. “What do you want?” she asked.
“I need to speak to you and your husband, Marsha,” London said. “It’s important.”
She jutted her chin in the air. She was a fairly short woman, but it gave her the impression of looki
ng down at everyone. “I had to put Tatum’s father into a nursing home six months back. Early onset dementia.”
London’s first thought was that Tate didn’t tell her, and she realized he must not have known. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“What do you want?”
“Can we come in? Please, this isn’t the kind of thing we should talk about in the doorway.”
“No.” Mrs. Morgan paused and stepped out onto the porch. “You can tell me whatever you want to say right here.”
When Tate had his surgeries, London had made fruitless calls, trying to get Mr. and Mrs. Morgan to come to Columbus and support him during his process. She remembered the last attempt she’d made.
“Tell my daughter she has broken my heart,” Mrs. Morgan had said. “Tell her she can lose our phone number and forget our address because she won’t set foot here again.”
London took a deep breath and felt Grant’s steadying hand on her back. She was nervous and shaky, but she needed to do this for Tate. “Mrs. Morgan, Tate died a few days ago. He was brutally beaten and left for dead on a hiking trail outside of Columbus. Some hikers found him, and he was taken to the hospital. They operated on him, but the damage was too bad.” She swallowed hard. “He stayed in a coma until the next day when he had a seizure and a stroke.”
Mrs. Morgan’s olive skin had gone very white, but aside from that, she made no acknowledgment of London’s words. She didn’t move or look away or even blink.
London looked at Grant, her eyebrows furrowed, and Grant stepped out from behind her to speak. “Tate wanted to be cremated, so we had that done. His wake is tomorrow at two, and the funeral will be at four,” he said in a soothing tone. “I can come get you tomorrow for the funeral if you like and drive you back after.”
This surprised London, and she squeezed his arm as a way of saying thank you. She turned back to Mrs. Morgan. “I would’ve let you know sooner, but I couldn’t reach you by phone.”
Tate’s mother remained perfectly still, pale and staring. London had never seen anyone in a hypnotic trance, but she imagined this is what it would look like.