Monica answers. “Our friend Roddy, who was driving the car that I was in, went back to the house to call 911. And to tell everyone else what had happened.” I think about what that must have been like for Roddy, to be the messenger. Bursting back into the party, turning off the music, and announcing what had happened.
“And I asked him to drive me here.” Aaron’s face is grave, like he’s giving testimony in court.
“I stayed on the scene until the ambulance got there and then went with Marcus.” Monica is twisting her ring round and round her finger.
I stayed on the scene. I wonder how long she sat there, alone in the dark, on the side of the road, with nothing but dead and broken bodies for company.
“I’m going to need to talk to you some more,” the officer says to Monica.
A dark, cold feeling is spreading through me like frost on a windshield on a winter morning.
“Sir,” says my mother. “It’s very late. We’ve all had a very, very hard day. Can it wait?”
“I’d like to get her statement while it’s fresh,” says the officer.
“Her statement?” My mom frowns, her forehead creasing.
“Yes, her statement. Marcus Jones is potentially being charged with underage drinking, possession of false identification, driving while under the influence of alcohol, and possibly vehicular manslaughter.”
“Oh my sweet Jesus,” whispers Granny Dee.
There is a thump behind me and my LaoLao cries out. I turn, expecting to see my Granny Dee on the floor. Instead, I see Monica lying in a heap, her eyes rolling back in her head.
Turns out that a hospital is a good place to faint. As soon as Monica collapses, the police officer opens the door and shouts for a nurse. When the nurse comes bustling in, my mom hurries over and speaks in hushed, hurried tones, pointing at the officer. All I hear is “interrogating,” “exhausted,” “intimidating,” “collapse,” “breakdown,” “witnessed.”
I’m starting to feel faint myself. I don’t know what time it is. I hope I remembered to turn off the oven.
I wish my daddy were here.
I wish Marcus were here.
The officer’s words play over and over in my head like a song you hear on the radio that you can’t stop humming. In my addled and exhausted brain the words run together, but I try to focus on the charges.
Possession of false identification: This I can believe. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Marcus’s fake ID. This one can’t be so bad. Everyone has got a fake ID.
Underage drinking: What’s the point of a fake ID if you aren’t going to use it to drink? These two seem like they should be the same charge.
Driving under the influence: This is the one that shocks me. It sends tentacles of doubt through me, uncurling like octopus arms. I can’t believe Marcus would be so stupid.
Vehicular manslaughter: Two people died. What I want to know is how come the police are blaming Marcus? What about this other driver?
It isn’t like anyone can ask her, though. Since she’s dead.
CHAPTER 9
The house feels strange without Marcus in it. Not a home but a house. A container, holding us in it, trying and failing to protect us from the outside world.
I don’t remember leaving that room, how we got home. Who drove. Who said what. If anyone said anything.
My mother goes straight upstairs and into her room and closes the door, the click of the lock ringing loud in our empty, empty house.
How can a place feel so empty with four people in it? I breathe in my grandmothers more than hear them. Tonight they have disappeared into the shadows; they will sink into their small twin beds, deeper and deeper, until all that is left is an imprint of them and the lingering scent of flour and spice. Without Marcus there is no one in the house.
As the door to their room closes behind them, they do not even turn to me. Doors are closing all around me, leaving me alone in our corridor. I look down the hall. It seems infinitely long, and the door to Marcus’s room at the end looms large, and the emptiness behind it is like a black hole that will expand and eat our whole house and suck everything into its emptiness. My brother’s room with his trophies lining the bookshelves, pictures of him and our daddy, cards from Monica, letters from colleges, newspaper clippings of games he won. It was sacrosanct before – Marcus needs his sleep, he needs to get his rest, he needs a place that is his alone, away from all the women in this house – and now, now I know it will be even more so, it will be a shrine. No one will sleep in there. I wonder if anyone will ever go in it. I find myself walking toward it, the emptiness calling to me, and I know I shouldn’t go in but I can’t stop.
I put my hand on the doorknob and suddenly it feels like opening this door will unlock all the others in the house and my mother and my grandmothers will stumble out and run at me like zombies, saying stop stop stop, don’t go in there. Don’t open the door to all that emptiness, don’t disrupt his room, he’ll come home soon, and he is the only one who can stop the emptiness…