“And one was at the hands of a person who was supposed to protect her! What, you think if you live next door to them, they’ll treat you different?”
“Why does it always have to be about race with you?” Uncle Carlos asks. “Other races aren’t killing us nearly as much as we’re killing ourselves.”
“Ne-gro, please. If I kill Tyrone, I’m going to prison. If a cop kills me, he’s getting put on leave. Maybe.”
“You know what? There’s no point having this conversation with you,” Uncle Carlos says. “Will you at least consider letting Starr speak to the detectives handling the case?”
“We should probably get her an attorney first, Carlos,” Momma says.
“That’s not necessary right now,” he says.
“And it wasn’t necessary for that cop to pull the trigger,” says Daddy. “You really think we gon’ let them talk to our daughter and twist her words around because she doesn’t have a lawyer?”
“Nobody’s going to twist her words around! I told you, we want the truth to come out too.”
“Oh, we know the truth, that’s not what we want,” says Daddy. “We want justice.”
Uncle Carlos sighs. “Lisa, the sooner she talks to the detectives, the better. It will be a simple process. All she has to do is answer some questions. That’s it. No need to spend money to get an attorney just yet.”
“Frankly, Carlos, we don’t want anyone to know Starr was there,” Momma says. “She’s scared. I am too. Who knows what’s gonna happen?”
“I get that, but I assure you she’ll be protected. If you don’t trust the system, can you at least trust me?”
“I don’t know,” says Daddy. “Can we?”
“You know what, Maverick? I’ve just about had it with you—”
“You can get out my house then.”
“It wouldn’t even be your house if it wasn’t for me and my mom!”
“Y’all stop!” Momma says.
I shift my weight, and goddamn if the floor doesn’t creak, which is like sounding an alarm. Momma glances around the kitchen doorway and down the hall, straight at me. “Starr baby, what you doing up?”
Now I have no choice but to go to the kitchen. The three of them are sitting around the table, my parents in their pajamas and Uncle Carlos in some sweats and a hoodie.
“Hey, baby girl,” he says. “We didn’t wake you up, did we?”
“No,” I say, sitting next to Momma. “I was already awake. Nightmares.”
All of them look sympathetic even though I didn’t say it for sympathy. I kinda hate sympathy.
“What are you doing here?” I ask Uncle Carlos.
“Sekani has a stomach bug and begged me to bring him home.”
“And your uncle was just getting ready to leave,” Daddy adds.
Uncle Carlos’s jaw twitches. His face has gotten rounder since he made detective. He has Momma’s “high yella” complexion, as Nana calls it, and when he gets mad, his face turns deep red, like it is now.
“I’m sorry about Khalil, baby girl,” he says. “I was just telling your parents how the detectives would like for you to come in and answer a few questions.”
“But you don’t have to do it if you don’t wanna,” Daddy says.
“You know what—” Uncle Carlos begins.
“Stop. Please?” says Momma. She looks at me. “Munch, do you wanna talk to the cops?”
I swallow. I wish I could say yes, but I don’t know. On one hand, it’s the cops. It’s not like I’ll be telling just anybody.
On the other hand, it’s the cops. One of them killed Khalil.
But Uncle Carlos is a cop, and he wouldn’t ask me to do something that would hurt me.
“Will it help Khalil get justice?” I ask.
Uncle Carlos nods. “It will.”
“Will One-Fifteen be there?”
“Who?”
“The officer, that’s his badge number,” I say. “I remember it.”
“Oh. No, he won’t be there. I promise. It’ll be okay.”
Uncle Carlos’s promises are guarantees, sometimes even more than my parents’. He never uses that word unless he absolutely means it.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll do it.”
“Thank you.” Uncle Carlos comes over and gives me two kisses to my forehead, the way he’s done since he used to tuck me in. “Lisa, just bring her after school on Monday. It shouldn’t take too long.”
Momma gets up and hugs him. “Thank you.” She walks him down the hall, toward the front door. “Be safe, okay? And text me when you get home.”
“Yes, ma’am. Sounding like our momma,” he teases.
“Whatever. You just better text me—”
“Okay, okay. Good night.”
Momma comes back to the kitchen, pulling her robe together. “Munch, your father and I are visiting Ms. Rosalie in the morning instead of going to church. You’re welcome to come if you want.”
“Yeah,” Daddy says. “And ain’t no uncle pressuring you to go.”
Momma cuts him a quick glare, then turns to me. “So, you think you’re up for it, Starr?”
Talking to Ms. Rosalie may be harder than talking to the cops, honestly. But I owe it to Khalil to pay his grandmother a visit. She may not even know I was a witness to the shooting. If she somehow does and wants to know what happened, more than anybody she has the right to ask.
“Yeah. I’ll go.”
“We better find her an attorney before she talks to the detectives,” Daddy says.
“Maverick.” Momma sighs. “If Carlos doesn’t think it’s necessary just yet, I trust his judgment. Plus I’ll be with her the entire time.”
“Good thing somebody trusts his judgment,” says Daddy. “And you really been thinking again ’bout moving? We discussed this already.”
“Maverick, I’m not going there with you tonight.”
“How we gon’ change anything around here if we—”
“Mav-rick!” she says through gritted teeth. Whenever Momma breaks a name down like that, you better hope it’s not yours. “I said I’m not going there tonight.” She side-eyes him, waiting for the comeback. There isn’t one. “Try and get some sleep, baby,” she tells me, and kisses my cheek before going to their room.
Daddy goes to the refrigerator. “You want some grapes?”
“Yeah. How come you and Uncle Carlos always fighting?”
“’Cause he a buster.” He joins me at the table with a bowl of white grapes. “But for real, he ain’t never liked me. Thought I was a bad influence on your momma. Lisa was wild when I met her though, like all them other Catholic school girls.”
“I bet he was more protective of Momma than Seven is with me, huh?”
“Oh, yeah,” he says. “Carlos acted like he was Lisa’s daddy. When I got locked up, he moved y’all in with him and blocked my calls. Even took her to a divorce attorney.” He grins. “Still couldn’t get rid of me.”
I was three when Daddy went in prison, six when he got out. A lot of my memories include him, but a lot of my firsts don’t. First day of school, the first time I lost a tooth, the first time I rode a bike without training wheels. In those memories, Uncle Carlos’s face is where Daddy’s should’ve been. I think that’s the real reason they’re always fighting.
Daddy drums the mahogany surface of the dining table, making a thump-thump-thump beat. “The nightmares will go away after a while,” he says. “They’re always the worst right after.”
That’s how it was with Natasha. “How many people have you seen die?”
“Enough. Worst one was my cousin Andre.” His finger seems to instinctively trace the tattoo on his forearm—an A with a crown over it. “A drug deal turned into a robbery, and he got shot in the head twice. Right in front of me. A few months before you were born, in fact. That’s why I named you Starr.” He gives me a small smile. “My light during all that darkness.”
Daddy chomps on some grapes. “Don’t be scared ’bout Monday. Tell the cops the truth, and don’t let them put words in your mouth. God gave you a brain. You don’t need theirs. And remember that you didn’t do nothing wrong—the cop did. Don’t let them make you think otherwise.”