Mom doesn’t look back as she’s led away. I’m helped out of the car next. My legs don’t give out on me even though I’m sure they will. I stare at the back of Mom’s head, not wanting to see who is steering me inside, when it occurs to me, suddenly, that it could be Greg. My stomach lurches and I quickly look over.
It isn’t him.
I’m sure I’ll see him though. I’m sure he’ll look at me and see who I am, who I really am, and the strange thing between us will turn into something I know. It will become nothing but a look like the ones I’m getting from everyone we pass.
Inside the station I see stairs, which I’m not taken up, and a hallway, which I’m led down. I don’t see Mom anymore.
“You asked for a lawyer?” a man says as soon as I’m led into a room, his voice loud and fast and disbelieving. When I don’t respond he moves in closer, so close all I see are his bloodshot eyes. “You asked for a lawyer? First thing? You sure about that?”
I take a step back and shake my head. The man talking to me is pissed off, red-faced to match his eyes. His voice is even louder when he speaks again.
“So is that a yes? A no?”
“Yes. I’m sure.”
More staring, some muttering, and then the start of what I can tell is a frequently given “warning” about “wet-behind-the-ears” public defenders. The cop who brought Mom in comes by and says something. Not to me, of course, but the man stops his speech midsentence and I’m led into another room.
Mom once told me that being arrested was a lot like waiting in line. I thought that was a strange thing to say but she’s right. Getting arrested is—past the initial part, the part where I stood and watched that cop lift up the bag and felt everything inside me shatter—boring.
First, I’m searched by a female cop who says nothing except, “The duffel that came in with you—that’s yours, right? You want me to add it to the list of your possessions?”
How stupid does she think I am?
The kind of stupid that tosses a bag loaded with silver into the back of a car, I guess. But still, that’s the kind of question I knew not to answer from the time I was old enough to talk. I pretend to be fascinated by my shoes. Eventually she realizes I’m not going to answer and I’m led back out into the hallway.
Next is forms and fingerprinting and then more forms and photos. There’s a lot of waiting around during each of these things, a lot of time where nothing much seems to happen and whoever I’m with looks at me like I’m supposed to say something. The questions I know I can answer I do, and the others I ignore.
Finally, after being asked, “Is there anything you want to say? You sure? Nothing you want to talk about?” about a million times, I’m taken into a room. It’s awful: no windows, industrial green walls, and the only furniture is a battered table and chairs. It also smells terrible, like sweat, and it’s hot. I’m told to sit down and then I’m left alone.
There’s no clock, so I have no idea what time it is or how long I sit for. Sweat gathers under the armpits of my polyester nightmare yellow dress, behind the backs of my knees. Eventually it gathers behind my shoulder blades and drips down my back. I shift in the chair. It makes a sad groaning noise. Eventually another cop comes in and offers me a sandwich and something to drink “if I want.”
I shake my head no and am left alone again.
The sandwich-offering cop comes back after I’ve counted the number of scratches on the table four times. (Two hundred and twelve. Two hundred and thirteen if you count the one that branches off as two.) He’s carrying a coffee mug. I can smell the coffee in it, see it slosh against the rim when he sits down across from me.
“So…” A pause, and I press my hands together, waiting. “I guess you know this isn’t the first time your mother has been arrested.”
I nod.
“And your father? Heard from him recently?”
I’m silent, force myself to sit perfectly still, to not show any reaction at all.
“Right,” the cop says, after taking a sip from his mug. “Sorry about that. Guess it’s just you two then. You like it around here?”
I shrug, and the cop leans toward me. I can smell the coffee on his breath. “Here’s the thing. You’re eighteen now and—”
“And since I am I can be charged as an adult, but guess what? If I know something, you could help me out.”
“You’re young. You got caught up in something you had no control over. You don’t owe your mother anything—”
I laugh, watch the cop’s coffee mug pause midway to his mouth. “I owe her everything.”
“You misunderstand me,” the cop says, and puts the mug down, leaning in toward me again. “No one’s blaming you here. No one’s saying you were a part of anything. Your mother—well, she’s a very persuasive woman and…”
I stare at him, silent. A frown creases his forehead and he leans back in his chair. We look at each other for a moment and then he smiles at me.
“I guess you also know your mother recently had all her assets placed under your name, right? And since she’s done that, now that you’re an adult, should anything illegal or improper ever show up—”
I try really hard not to look surprised but know I fail. I knew Mom had some stuff set aside in case of an emergency, but why would she put it in my name?
“Think about it,” the cop says. “She decides to put everything in your name and now you’re here? Maybe—”
“Maybe what?”
The cop shrugs.
“She loves me. She would never hurt me.”
“What do you call this?” The cop gestures around the room, at himself and then at me. “You think this is what people who love their kids want for them? You think getting caught with—” There’s a knock on the door and the cop breaks off.
“Look, if you want to talk about what happened earlier—” Another knock on the door and he throws up his hands and leaves, biting off, “Think about what I said,” before he goes.
After he’s gone I count the scratches on the table again. I know for a fact Mom doesn’t believe in love. But she’s kept me with her, kept me even when Dad decided I was old enough to be on my own, that I was a burden he didn’t want—not even for a little while—anymore.
What the cop just told me—Mom has a reason for it, I know it. She may not believe in love, but she’s shown it. My whole life, she’s the only one who has. And that wouldn’t end now. It won’t.
At some point—my guess is after the night shift starts—I finally say yes to the offer of a sandwich. It arrives in a crumpled bag resting in Greg’s hands. I was starving but as soon as I see him—and the look on his face—my stomach shrivels up. I look down at the table, watch the bag come to rest in front of me.
“Did anyone get you a soda?” I can’t tell anything from his voice. I am used to hearing it full of laughter or exasperation or something I could never quite name, but now it’s flattened out, gone official. I think about the day we went to Edge Island, of what I said to him, of what he said to me. He knew something was going on with me. I thought—I don’t know what I thought. I wouldn’t let myself think about it, would I? But he knew I was hiding something, and now I have to wonder if he’s been waiting for this moment.
I look at him.
He looks tired, his face and hair washed out by the shitty lighting. He looks…sad.
“I don’t need one,” I tell him. “I’m fine.”
He doesn’t say anything for a moment, just looks at me. “You sure?” he says, and the expression on his face is the one I could never quite name, except now I finally know what it is. I recognize it from how I look after I talk to Mom sometimes, a lot of times.
Worry.
Care.
I manage to nod and then I have to look back down at the table. Eventually he leaves. I open the bag and pull out the sandwich. I try to eat it. It’s hard for me to swallow. There’s a knot in my throat, in my stomach. I put the sandwich down on top of the bag.
After a
while another cop comes in and asks if I need to use the bathroom. I tell her I do and she asks if I’m finished, pointing at the sandwich. I nod, watch as she sweeps it into the bag. As we walk to the bathroom she tosses it into a trash can. She smells like coffee too. No wonder I’ve never been able to drink the stuff.
The bathroom is the same horrible green as the room I’ve been in. I go and then sit there staring at my feet, at the hem of my yellow uniform bunched up around my thighs. I can hear the cop outside talking to someone. She laughs and then the door opens. She says, “Hurry up in there.”
I say, “Okay” and stand up. The door opens and swings shut again. I guess I’m not hurrying fast enough. I sigh and flush, walk out of the stall. As I’m washing my hands I see a soda resting on the floor right by the door. Regular, not diet. I know who put it there and suddenly I am biting the inside of my cheek hard, and blinking as fast as I can, my eyes burning.
I go over and pick up the can. I open it. I close my eyes and lean against the wall. The soda is cold and sweet and when I’m done I throw the can away and spit in the sink. A trail of brownish pink snakes across it. I turn on the water and wash it away.
The cop gives me a long stare when I come out but doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t take me back to the room, just motions for me to sit down by a desk before she turns away to talk to someone. I watch people walk by and look at me. For about half a second I wonder what they’re thinking, but it’s totally obvious, and so I turn away from all the faces and look at the desk. There’s not much to see. Lots of papers, mostly.
My name is on one of the papers. I pretend to yawn, glance at the cop. She’s still talking, though her gaze does flicker to me for a second. She probably wants me to read whatever this is—I know how cops are—and so I shouldn’t, but I can’t help myself.
It’s notes of some sort, and there’s mention of time of arrival, of people present. Joan Walter, Maggie Ramone, Allison Donaldson, Shelly Stubbson…this is definitely about me. About—I look over at the cop again. She’s sitting down now, talking on the phone and snapping her fingers at someone walking by. I turn back to the paper.
Joan, Maggie, and Shelly didn’t see anything. Maggie volunteers that I always said I didn’t like my uniform. Shelly says I told her I quit and that I “dumped her cleaning bag on me! Like I need to be carrying extra weight around. Can I sit down now? My back is killing me.” Joan says, “Well, she can’t clean a toilet to save her life, but she’s an okay kid. You got any cigarettes?”
Allison says she and I talked and that she saw me leave. She didn’t see me carry anything out. I read that last sentence again.
Miss Donaldson didn’t see the suspect carrying anything when she left.
I read more.
I said, “You sure she wasn’t carrying anything? A bag, maybe?”
“No. She didn’t have anything with her.”
I can’t believe she said that. I know she saw the bag. I know she must know that I—and she didn’t say anything.
I look up and the cop is off the phone, is sitting there watching me. “You doing okay? You look a little upset.”
“I’m fine.”
“You sure?” She gets up and comes over, squats down next to me. “Look, you seem like a nice kid. I think you’ve got your mom to deal with and maybe she was anxious about something or pressuring you, and if you want to talk—”
“The last person I’d ever want to talk to is you.” I am shaking again but it’s not with fear. It’s with anger. Anger at this—where I am, what’s going on. I’m angry at being asked if I want to talk by people who only want to hear things I’ll never say. I’m angry because I talked to Allison with a bag full of silver that belongs to her family in my arms and wasn’t even nice to her, didn’t try to be the friend I wish I could be. I’m angry because I didn’t want to take anything today but I did. I pretended I didn’t have a choice but I did. I did.
“Have it your way,” the cop says, a scowl darkening her face, and then I’m hauled back to the little green room and left there.
26
The cop from before, the one who led me to the bathroom, comes back after I don’t know how long has passed and opens the door, flicks two fingers at me in a “come on, hurry up” gesture. I get up and walk out of the room, wait for her to tell me where I’m going now.
“They’re waiting for you down there,” she says with a frown, and points to the left before walking off. I can see the sun, just barely rising, out of a far window, which means I’ve been here all night.
I take a deep breath and head off in the direction the cop told me to go. I pass one room with no cops, then another, and now I’m in a hallway lined with offices. I don’t look in any of them, just keep walking. So far, so good. I’m not kidding myself—I’m sure I’m not going anywhere, figure this is something to rattle me—but at least for a second I can pretend I’m leaving.
“Dani?”
I turn around. Greg walks out of an office I just passed, heading toward me.
I open my mouth and then close it because I have no idea what to say. I want to thank him for the soda. I want to ask him why he looked at me the way he did when he gave me the sandwich. I want to go back to when we were just two people standing in a grocery store, all the way back to the beginning. I don’t know why I want that. I don’t know what I would have done differently. I still want it anyway.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I have to say something. Anything. “I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
Yes. That’s all I have to say. But I’m just standing there, silent, because I’m not sure. In fact, if there’s one thing I am sure of, it’s that everything isn’t fine. That I’m not fine.
“Hey,” he says, and moves closer. “Dani, look, if you want to talk…”
If I want to talk. How many times have I heard that today? How many times have I heard that my whole life, always from people who wanted to take Mom away from me? Something hot and painful pinches behind my eyes, in my throat, but it’s easy for me to speak now.
“If I wanted to talk I’m sure you’d be willing to listen. In fact, I bet that you and everyone here would love to listen. But you know what? I don’t want to talk. Especially not to you.” I walk off down the hall, not even looking where I’m going.
I can’t believe Greg turned out to be just like everyone else and I’m so stupid for being surprised by it, for being hurt by it.
Someone touches my arm, stopping me. Another cop. “You can’t be wandering around back here,” he says, and points at a door behind me. “Go in there, take a right down the first hall you see, and then another right.”
I can’t quite bring myself to say thank you—especially because I still don’t know where I’m going, but I nod at him and start walking.
“Hey,” he calls out.
I knew it. I stop, wait.
“Look,” he says, and pulls out a business card. “If you remember something or maybe want to talk…” He pushes the card toward me.
Unbelievable. I wonder what he would say if I told him how many cops have said this to me already. He snaps his fingers in front of my face, impatient.
“Hey,” he says, voice rising a little. “Look, I’m offering you a chance to do the right thing, so the least you can do is—”
“This,” I say, and walk away.
Mom and a lawyer are waiting for me at the end of the hall. I recognize the lawyer right away. It’s Dennis, who I remember from a trip Mom and I made to New York when I was twelve. He starts talking—Dennis is very good at talking, I remember that too—and after a moment I realize he’s saying that Mom and I can leave. In fact, we are leaving, the three of us heading outside and walking toward Dennis’s car.
We aren’t being charged with anything. I start to ask why but Mom shoots me a look and I fall silent, stare down at the ground so I won’t have to see everyone walking by staring at us.
Dennis takes us to breakfast. Or at least he says
he is, but I bet the whole meal will end up being billed to us. Mom doesn’t seem very worried about it. In fact, she and Dennis are both in very good moods, Mom saying, “I always knew you were brilliant, Dennis, but tell us what happened again, will you? I want Danielle to hear this. Baby, listen.”
It turns out the cops didn’t have a warrant when they searched the trunk. And while cops can search a car if they think there’s cause, they can’t search a trunk without a warrant or permission. The cop who arrested us didn’t know about the silver at all. He pulled us over because someone has been selling coke in Heaven and he’d seen Mom earlier, driving around waiting for me, and decided she was carrying drugs. When he stopped us, he figured we’d rat on each other as soon as he found anything, and so he went ahead and looked in the trunk.
Mom smiles. “He was such a nice man. So very…determined. I suppose he won’t get that promotion he said he was hoping for.”
“I doubt it,” Dennis says, and they both laugh. I take a bite of eggs I don’t remember ordering and chew and chew and chew. I can’t seem to swallow though, finally have to take a big sip of water and let the food wash down my throat. They’re still laughing. I don’t see what’s so funny.
“Baby,” Mom says. “You were worried, weren’t you?”
“I—a little. I mean, people saw me leaving the house and then the silver was there in the trunk—”
“But you didn’t take it,” Dennis says. “The bag that held it didn’t have your or your mother’s fingerprints on it. Neither did the silver. There’s simply no way you’re responsible for what someone else did when you were at work and your mother left the car unattended to walk on the beach. I know if either of you had seen whoever it was that put the silver in your trunk or if you had opened it and found it, you would have notified the police right away. But you didn’t see anything, you left the only black duffel bag you were known to possess with one of your fellow employees when you quit your job, and you certainly didn’t know what had happened. So you can’t be blamed for anything. Understand?”