Darkroom

by Joshua Graham

  “Resolution and hope. Do you know how hard it is for families who never recover the bodies of their loved ones? You’ve helped them; they just don’t know it yet. But they will, when I win—we win this case. When the real killer is found. And that’s something that might never happen if you’d kept silent.”

  “As far as the State of New York is concerned, they’ve found their killer. Case closed.”

  “It’s not that simple.” She hands me a tissue. “Wipe your nose.” The elevator bell dings; the doors begin to open. I’m completely unprepared for what I find when I step out.

  32

  A mass of voices crowds around me. Cameras flash, blinding video camera lights and boom mics push into my face.

  “Are you maintaining your innocence?”

  “Were you friends with Stacy?”

  “Were you lovers?”

  “How did you know where her body was?”

  Danielle shields me and presses forward until she turns and confronts the army of reporters. “Let me make something abundantly clear. Ms. Carrick is innocent. She’s been wrongfully arrested by detectives who were eager to close the case, albeit prematurely. The charges against her are fantastical. I will see to it that this miscarriage of justice is corrected.”

  A reporter comes forward. Good Lord, it’s Oscar Denton, Doug’s boss. How many times had Doug championed me from the day I first set foot into the Times? An irrational sense of shame wells up. Without much success, I avoid eye contact. Oscar averts his gaze, thank God, and turns to Danielle. “Ms. Reid, how do you explain—”

  “It will all come to light during the trial. My client will be exonerated.”

  The throng’s collective voice grows to a roar, but Danielle waves them off and we push through, down the long steps to the street level.

  Just as we reach the car, a hand blocks the way. I look up, and there’s Special Agent Kyle Matthews. He’s displaying his badge to my bewildered attorney. “I just need a moment.”

  “Get away from me!”

  “Xandra, listen. It wasn’t supposed to—”

  “You betrayed me!”

  “I know, I’m sorry. But if you’d just hear me—”

  “I’m done listening to you.” With a huff I reach for the door handle. But he grasps my wrist firmly.

  “Wait. Please. I can help.”

  “Last time you helped me, I got arrested. Now take your hand off of me before—” The altercation has caught the eyes of the buzzards. They’re swooping down the steps toward us now. Pointing, I speak in a low and threatening voice. “See that? That’s my life, my good name, going down the toilet.” Through a tearful sob: “Thanks to you!”

  “Xandra …”

  “I never want to see you again, you hear? Anything you have to say, you tell my attorney.”

  Danielle stands ready and nods.

  “And one more thing, Special Agent Matthews.” With a swift pull, I pry free. Then with the most corrosive glower I can muster, I hold his gaze. “I hate you.”

  33

  The red answering-machine light flashes indignantly. Calls from just about everyone I know, asking what is going on, if it’s true, if I’m all right.

  The Graflex sits on my kitchen table, though I’m sure it’s been handled and examined. So much for the Marbury. It would, after all, be inappropriate to award such a lofty honor to a murderer.

  A quick glance down the hall. The darkroom door has been left ajar. A chill runs through my core up my neck and to my head. Madness. This is all madness.

  According to Danielle, Dad plans on flying out to New York soon. For now, I’ll take a much-needed shower and hope that I’ll wake from this nightmare.

  The past two days wash away and swirl down the shower drain. I’m allowed to enjoy the hot mist and penetrating heat, aren’t I? After all I’ve been through, I think the universe owes me one. Or two.

  White shampoo suds swirl down the drain. In my mind, white turns crimson—blood. I’m in the shower at Rikers Island, beaten, raped, bleeding to death in a smelly, mildew-infested shower, a heavy female inmate or male correctional officer gloating over my pierced and broken body.

  I grasp the shower fixture and shake the image out. How am I going to prove my innocence? Does New York enforce the death penalty?

  With my eyes shut, they come back to me, clear as if I’m staring directly at them. The phantasmal darkroom visions. Stacy Dellafina, her body, her laptop, her blog. Then the ones that I wrote in my notebook. My notebook! What if they find it?

  The notebook is superfluous now because the images won’t leave me. I can’t seem to forget them—they’re clearer than normal memories. Is this what Dad’s photographic memory is like? Eyes open or shut, I can see them, feel them. There’s a dissonant quality to them—tension longing for resolution. These images described in my notebook feel like the penultimate chord of a Beethoven symphony, a knock-knock joke without the answer to that crucial question: who’s there?

  Dammit, who’s there?

  First, the face of Senator Colson. It’s black and white, like one of his campaign posters. He’s smiling heroically. But I feel uneasy about it. Can’t say why. But I still like him. Does a murder suspect still retain the right to vote?

  Another image, that of a soldier, lingers as well. This one’s in color. Faded like some of Dad’s old photos from the seventies. It’s a Time magazine picture with a caption: Corporal Hank Jennings. The rest of the article is faded into a blur over the picture I took of the abandoned village in the hills of Bình Sơn.

  And the last one comes up blank. I had actually turned the lights on in the darkroom before that vision came up. Never got to write it down because just as it emerged, that morbid feeling began to fill the room like thick smoke. Which the steam in my bathroom resembles, now that I’ve opened my eyes. Note to self: find the notebook because memory fails when you need it most.

  The full-length mirror on the door is fogged. Though my body reflects ethereally, the outline of my figure is clear. I’ve been remiss in the way of exercise recently. Hailey says I’m crazy, but I still wish my waist was a bit thinner, my legs a little bit longer, and the twins a little fuller, maybe. Not bad, though a supermodel I’ll never be. Who’d want to be a walking Q-Tip with eyes, anyway? Five-six is a reasonably decent height. I can thank Dad for that, and Mom for my mysterious eyes and uncommonly opulent hair.

  Eat your heart out, Kyle Matthews.

  Yet, the gloating rings hollow. I’m not as angry with him as I appear. Hurt? Yes. But he didn’t deserve that degree of my wrath, which is all too easy to unleash when I know—when I feel I’ve been wronged.

  Admit it. He was nice.

  Yes, and while you’re at it, why not say cute too? “Be quiet.”

  With my palm, I wipe clear a spot in the fogged mirror. Before I look, that morbid sensation returns along with the head-to-toe tingling. I’m not even in the darkroom. I glance at the mirror from the corner of my eye.

  Shadows behind my reflection. I know what’s there. Sure, I’ll see it if I wipe off the entire mirror. But I can’t. I’m trembling with fear.

  With a towel wrapped around me, my hair still wet, I bolt out of the bathroom. I slam the door shut, holding the corners of my towel with one hand.

  Breathing heavily, I pad down the hall and pass the darkroom. Slam that door shut too, then turn toward my bedroom. Why I’m tiptoeing, I don’t quite understand.

  Someone knocks on my door. I nearly jump out of my towel. With perturbed steps, I trudge over. “What now?”

  “Xandra?”

  Oh great. It’s Kyle. “Get lost!”

  “Look, would you please just—”

  “I am not opening the door. Now please, go away!”

  The knocking doesn’t stop. I’ve got to end this now. With the security chain still attached, I open the door.

  “Xandra, if you’d just give me a chance to—whoa!” He turns his head slightly.

  In my distress, I’ve forgotte
n my current state of disattire. “You’ve got a lot of nerve showing up here, mister. After all you’ve done, after all you’ve put me through.” I’m still running down my list of grievances …

  And there’s my towel at my ankles.

  I shut the door again. “Do I need to get a restraining order?”

  No answer. Only the fading sound of footsteps going down the hall. He deserved every bit of it.

  On the other hand, something’s nagging me. Like a pebble in my shoe. I start back for my bedroom and ponder this. Then, as I sit on the chaise and stretch out my legs, I recognize what that feeling is.

  Regret.

  34

  GRACE TH’AM AI LE

  Saigon: April 27, 1975

  I was dreaming of my new life in America as Mrs. Grace Carrick. In this dream, I wore a short white dress with pink and blue polka dots, walked a white, curly-haired dog on a leash, and sipped Coca-Cola from a bottle with a straw.

  I barely heard the knocking on my door.

  But the knocking became more urgent. “Grace, wake up!”

  Wrapped in my blanket, I got out of bed and ran to the door. The sun had not yet risen, and it was too dark to see the clock. I opened the door, and Peter came right in. “Pack your things, we have to go.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Hurry. I’ll help you.”

  For a moment I thought this was the Western idea of eloping. But from the gravity of his tone, it could not be. “What is happening?”

  He found the lights and switched them on. “Do you have a suitcase?”

  “Under the bed.”

  Outside, in the quiet of the predawn city, a distant storm rumbled. But the thunderclaps seemed too frequent. He found my suitcase, opened it, and filled it with clothing from my drawer.

  “Peter, what are you doing?”

  “We’ve got to get you somewhere safe.”

  “Why?”

  “Could you please get dressed? Wear comfortable shoes, something you can run in.” He was trying to keep me from becoming anxious. It had the opposite effect. I grabbed a pair of dungarees and a sweatshirt and turned away from him to put them on. “Will you please tell me?”

  He pointed to the pile on my desk. “Do you want these books?”

  “Will I be coming back soon?”

  “No.”

  “Then pack only the black one.” It was my father’s leather-bound Bible, given to him by the Jesuit priest. “Peter, what is it?”

  At last, he took a moment to catch his breath. He went to the window and pulled open the shades. Up in the charcoal sky, white flashes lit the outskirts of the city; thunderous blasts resounded. To the east, the sun began its ascent. Peter pointed to the flashing sky. “The NLF’s been spotted. They’re closing in.”

  So it had finally come to this. The entire city would soon be overrun by the Communists. Without time to ponder this, I gathered my most important belongings and squeezed them into my suitcase.

  By the time we exited the building, the sun had risen. We didn’t realize the full extent of the horror this new dawn would bring.

  Peter carried my bag and tried hard to find a taxi, or anyone who would take us. But none of the few vehicles that passed by paid us any heed.

  “Let’s go.” He took my hand.

  We crossed through Lam Son Square, and I heard what at first sounded like an airplane flying close to the ground. Peter stopped and looked up. “Oh no.”

  The explosion that followed shook my bones, though it seemed quite far from us. In that very moment, I felt a twinge on that scar where I had been shot back in Bình Sơn. “What was that?”

  “Rocket fire.”

  I turned my head. Smoke and flames billowed from the middle of Cholon. The houses in the Chinese quarter were so densely packed, it would surely spread like a wildfire.

  Screams of terror rose up with the smoke into the morning air. I wanted to run back to my dormitory, but Peter said because of its size, it was a greater target. We had to go around Cholon or pass through it. Another cry went out. “Help us!” a woman pleaded. “My baby! Someone, please help!”

  Peter turned to me. “Find cover, I have to go in.”

  “I am coming with you.” My chances of survival were the same as his. He took my hand, and we rushed into the smoldering neighborhood.

  Like a plow, the rocket had cut a wide furrow through the rows of houses. All that remained of the homes were shards of corrugated iron. Motionless, survivors stared at the vastness of the destruction, even as flames leaped into the air.

  “Someone, please help us!” A young woman still in her nightgown came running in our direction. She grabbed my arm and spoke in Vietnamese at such a rapid pace, I had difficulty understanding.

  “My husband and my baby are still inside!” She pointed to her house, the entire face of which had been ripped away. The roof fell over the new opening, and from the tiny crevices, fire and black smoke billowed out.

  We dashed across the street, nearly tripping on broken glass. The fire burned so hot I had to turn my face. The mother shook Peter’s arm. “I heard my baby crying inside!”

  Shielding his eyes from the morning sunlight, he ran around the front of the house, looking for an entry point. “There’s no way in!”

  The mother fell on her knees and began to wail.

  He touched her shoulder and shook his head. “I’m sorry, ma’am.”

  She kept calling out the names of her baby and husband as she buried her face in her hands. At that very moment, I thought I heard the voice of a child. “Mama!”

  An image entered my mind. It seemed like a memory, as if I had been inside this house before. At that very moment, I knew what I must do. But in order to do it, I would have to run past the fire and in between the house and its neighbor.

  “It is over! My son, my husband. Oh, they are gone now!”

  Before I could reason with my instincts, I ran straight toward the house. Peter did not realize what I had done. When he did, he called out, “Grace, stop! Come back!”

  For some reason, I believed that this tiny space between the houses, about a meter wide, would be safe. Sure enough, when I ran right through the thin blanket of fire at the mouth of this tiny chasm, there was a pocket of air. But it was heating up quickly.

  I kept low to the ground and looked up the wall. There must be a window or some sort of opening. There was, about two meters ahead, at waist level. I crawled over, tensing as the searing air rushed into the gap. Quickly, I stood and pushed up on the window with all my might.

  But it would not move. Locked! Inside, a little boy no more than a year old, ran over stretching up his hands, as little ones do when they want to be held or carried. He was too small to reach the lock. Over to the side, his father lay unconscious.

  The heat on my back and hands was unbearable.

  A hoarse scream in the distance made me stop. What was I doing? “GRACE!” my fiancé called out in a panicked voice. “What are you doing? Get out of there!”

  The little boy was wiping his eyes and crying. I could see the smoke pouring into the room. If I ran now, I might be able to save myself. But how could I leave them?

  With my elbow, I smashed the glass, cut and burned my fingers disengaging the brass lock, then opened the window and climbed in. Right away, the boy ran into my arms. But no matter how much I shouted, the father would not awaken.

  The air became so hot and filled with smoke, I began to cough violently. I found a pitcher of water on the night stand and splashed it on the father’s face. I did not expect it to work, but I thought I must at least try. Imagine my surprise when the boy’s father blinked, shook his head, and sat up. “What—”

  “The window, quickly!”

  He got up, staggering slightly, and took the boy as I climbed out. Then he handed the boy to me through the window as he, too, climbed out. “Down on the ground, we must crawl. Follow me!”

  The father held his son to his chest and crawled forth. Behind us
, a heavy beam fell, sending sparks and embers into our safe corridor.

  By the time we reached the end, the wall of flames had grown.

  “We’re trapped!” the boy’s father said. The flames from the fallen beam had also erupted and now raged hotter on our backs than before.

  “This is the only way out,” I said.

  “We cannot go through!”

  I could not have come here with this providential knowledge only to die from indecision. “We must. We’ll die if we wait in here. Follow me.”

  “How can I know for certain you are right?”

  “You cannot. You can only believe.”

  For a while he didn’t answer. Then finally, “Take my boy with you.”

  I took him in my arms, wrapped him in my sweater with my arms around him. Then before I could convince myself that I was crazy for running headlong into a path of fire, I ran.

  The heat and smoke forced my eyes shut, but I knew I must not stop. Finally, a rush of cool air filled my lungs. I opened my eyes and fell to my knees.

  The little boy ran into his crying mother’s arms. “Mama, Mama!”

  Peter rushed over to me and checked to see if any of my clothes were on fire. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Lanh!” The woman stood, clutching her son to her bosom, shouting for her husband.

  Right away, I turned and called out to him. “We’re all right! Your son is fine. Don’t look at the fire. Think of your wife and child, then run!”

  A wall collapsed into the chasm. Even more flames rushed out.

  “Lanh!” his wife cried. “Oh please, Lanh! Hurry!

  Emboldened, Peter got up and rushed toward the fire. I grasped his arm. “No. It’s too late.”

  “But I might be able to—”

  “I saw it. There’s no way to get in now.”

  The mother must have heard me because she began to sob. “No, no! Lanh, no!”

  Was this what Huynh Tho’s final moments were like? But he had no family around to call for him, no one to run in after him. Holding his cross, which I now wore around my neck, I could do nothing but pray.