“Mom, we don’t need him.”
Erin does not meet her mother’s eyes, but she doesn’t have to. Mom studies the surprising stillness of her daughter’s face, her own face a mix of alarm and confusion and fierce, unnamable love, as if she doesn’t recognize the young woman standing in front of her, like she is seeing her, hearing her, for the first time.
“We don’t need him,” Erin says again.
Erin looks up and studies the tense shock on her mother’s face, then the gradual softening as Mom seems to realize what Erin’s saying, as maybe she lets a little of it in, as she tastes the tiniest hint of something that could turn into freedom.
Meanwhile, in front of Rosina’s house, the lights of the police car are spinning, painting the block in colors that almost seem festive. A handful of people from the neighborhood mill around, waiting for something to happen.
“Jesus,” Rosina says. “I should charge admission.”
“Are you going to be okay?” Grace asks.
“I don’t know.” All Rosina knows is, she can’t spend the rest of her life avoiding her mother’s phone calls. She can’t keep running away from the inevitable. She can’t stop time. Whatever ends up happening may not be fair. It may not be right, or just, or the way things should be, but it is reality. It is Rosina’s reality. It will be her reality until she figures out how to change it. But one thing Rosina knows for sure is that running away is not change. She steps out of the car and braces for whatever is about to come.
When Grace gets home, a policewoman is sitting on the couch with her parents with a cup of coffee in her hand. “Gracie!” Mom says as Grace enters, but no one says more than that as she drops her schoolbag by the door and comes in to sit with them.
“Hi,” Grace says to the policewoman.
“Grace, do you know why I’m here?”
“Yes.”
“We’d like you to come into the station for questioning. You’ve been accused of some very serious crimes.”
“Oh my lord,” Mom says. Dad puts his arm around her. Grace cannot look at them, cannot risk seeing the heartbreak in their eyes.
“May I ask whom I’ve been accused by?” Grace asks. “And what the accusations are?”
The officer looks at the notes on her clipboard and reads without looking up. “A complaint has been filed by Regina Slatterly on behalf of the Prescott City School District. It says here theft, theft of proprietary information, cybertheft, hacking, harassment, conspiracy, contributing to the delinquency of a minor—golly, this is quite a list.”
What is that strange feeling bubbling up inside of Grace? Why is she so calm? Why is she smiling?
“Does Grace need to ride with you in the police car?” Dad asks.
“No, sir,” the officer says. “She’s not being charged with anything yet. She can ride with you.”
“But if she’s not being charged with anything,” Dad says, “then technically she doesn’t have to come in, right? She can stay here. I think maybe I should call a lawyer. I don’t know if I’m comfortable with my daughter—”
“Dad,” Grace says. “It’s okay. I’m ready to talk to them.” Finally she looks up, looks each of her parents in the eye. “I have nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Honey,” Mom says as soon as they’re all buckled in the car, Grace alone in the backseat. “What is going on?” Grace can hear the fear in her voice.
“This isn’t you,” Dad says. “You don’t get in trouble with the law. I don’t understand how this is possible.”
“I can explain,” Grace says. She pauses for a moment, closes her eyes, searches inside herself for the solid part of her, the place her true voice comes from. “I am one of the founders of the Nowhere Girls. It was me and my friends Rosina and Erin. We started it because we wanted to help Lucy, the girl who got raped last year. We wanted to help all the girls. The group took on a life of its own as it got bigger.”
Mom turns to face her, but Grace cannot see her eyes in the darkness. But she can somehow feel the love radiating from them.
“We may have broken a few rules, small rules, but we haven’t hurt anyone,” Grace says. “We’ve helped people. We have helped so many people.” Her voice cracks. “Mom,” Grace says. “This is the best thing I’ve ever done.”
Grace hears Mom sigh, sees her parents look at each other the way they do when she knows they’re reading each other’s minds. No one speaks for the rest of the way to the station, but something has been decided. Some kind of peace has been silently declared. They trust her. They have always trusted her.
Rosina’s mom’s car is equally quiet, but the silence is charged, dense, as if it is on the verge of combusting at any moment, as if the car is a moving bomb. Rosina thinks she must have missed Mami’s angry stage, because all she’s seen since she got home is something much worse, something beyond angry—Mami is terrified. She has said virtually nothing, not a word to shame Rosina or even to intimidate the police officer in her living room. She sat there almost demurely as he explained that he’d like her to drive Rosina to the police station. “Yes, sir,” was all she said. And now she drives with white knuckles, staring straight ahead, the tears on her cheeks reflecting the fleeting glow of streetlights.
Rosina is dying to get out of the car, but neither of them moves when they pull into the police station parking lot. Something must be said. They could wait forever for the other to say it.
Rosina looks out the window and sees Erin walking tall into the police station, her mother following close behind, holding her purse to her chest. Despite the oppressive air of the car, Rosina can’t help but smile at the sight of her friend—such a small, tidy movement of the lips to express something so huge inside, such a tiny gesture to reveal this bursting of love and pride.
“You scare me, hija,” Mami finally says. Rosina turns and is surprised to see a middle-aged woman with smeared mascara and fried graying hair. She never quite thought of her mother as beautiful, but she definitely never thought of her as old.
“You’re always fighting,” Mami says, her pleading eyes burning into Rosina’s. “You want to fight everything.”
“That’s not true,” Rosina says, but softly, without conviction.
“Someday you’re going to lose,” Mami says. “You’re going to get hurt.”
“Maybe,” Rosina says. “But when that happens, do you want to be the one hurting me?”
Something happens in the silence that follows Rosina’s question. Weight on either side of the car seems to even out, become equal. Fear and rage dissipate and all that’s left are two women, half lit by streetlights.
“I’ve only ever wanted to protect you,” Mami whispers.
“I know,” Rosina says, because, suddenly, she does.
After a few moments Rosina says, “We should go in.”
“Are you scared?” Mami says. Not accusing, not judging. Just asking. Just wanting to know what her daughter is feeling.