Wing Jones(14)

It’s Monica, and she’s shattered.

Another pair of arms comes up and engulfs me, arms that are familiar too but in a different way, and Monica is still screaming and a nurse is running toward us and she’s saying something but it’s like someone has turned off all the sound in the room except the sound of Monica’s howls. Which are starting to take shape into words, the way clay slowly forms into cups and bowls. I don’t want to hear Monica’s words, but I can’t cover my ears because my arms are pinned to my side because I’ve got two people pressed against me like we’re trying to make a human sandwich.

The words slowly piece themselves together in my brain.

“I saw it! I saw everything! Marcus! Marcus!”

Then I see LaoLao and Granny Dee, and they look so scared and lost under the bright hospital lights and they are huddled together in a way I’ve never seen them. I manage to slowly push Monica off me. Her mascara is running down her face to her chin and she’s panting like a wounded animal.

The other arms are Aaron’s arms. He relaxes his grip on us but keeps one hand on my lower back, supporting me. It occurs to me, the thought coming from very far away, that it’s shocking I was able to support Monica when she flung herself at me, that I didn’t fall straight over, but then I realize that Aaron was there supporting both of us the whole time.

“Where is he?” I say, my voice coming out strange and harsh.

“They won’t let us see him!” Monica sobs. “But I saw. I saw. He’s dead, Wing, he’s dead and they aren’t telling us!” Her voice is getting higher and louder with every word.

“Monica! Stop that! He’s not dead!” Aaron is shouting, and an old white woman winces and steps away, scared of a young black man shouting. “Stop it!” he roars again.

LaoLao and Granny Dee have shuffled their way toward us, moving like one creature, their arms entwined. “Where’s my daughter?” says Granny Dee, and I blink, not knowing what she means.

“My daughter,” says LaoLao. “Where is she?”

“She’s my daughter too now. Winnie is mine too,” says Granny Dee, and now that they’re closer I can see that she has tears coursing down her cheeks, turning her wrinkles into rivers.

A hospital representative in scrubs comes up to us. “Could I ask y’all to follow me?”

“What is it? Is it Marcus? Do you have news?” Monica throws her questions at the woman; her eyes are wide and desperate, like a fish’s gaping mouth as it lies on a dock, drowning in the air.

The woman gives her a patient smile. “I’m not sure yet. We won’t know for a while. But … you are starting to alarm the other patients and people here. I understand this is a very hard time for your family. Why don’t you come with me into a more private room?”

“Screw that,” says Aaron, starting to back away. “I’m not going into a room. I know what those rooms are for. They’re for telling you that someone is dead. Mon, maybe you’re right.”

The woman in the scrubs smiles again, this time with a little less patience. “I understand you are frightened for your friend” – I wince at hearing Marcus referred to as Monica’s friend, as my friend, but don’t interrupt her – “but he is fighting very hard for his life right now, and we think it would be best if you all came and sat in another room. Otherwise I need to ask you to vacate the premises.”

“And if I don’t?” Aaron looms over the woman.

She doesn’t bat an eye. “Then we’ll call the police to escort you out.”

She looks at Aaron, at me, at Monica, at my clinging grandmothers. In quick succession. And back again. Trying to untangle the thread of how we relate.

I wonder how the ambulance called in Marcus. Black male, they’d have said. That’s what people see first. And then maybe they’d have squinted down at him. Mixed race. Some kind of Asian.

And before I can stop myself, I wonder if he was in any kind of shape to be identified as anything at all.

I force the thought out of my head, force it out hard and fast like yanking a plug out of a socket, shutting it down, and stare back at the woman.

“The police escorted us in,” I say, hoping this will keep her from calling them back in to escort us out. I don’t know if we should go into this room, because maybe Aaron is right and the hospital is thinking that if we’re acting like this when we don’t even know what’s wrong with Marcus, then they sure as hell aren’t going to tell us he’s dead, because who knows what we would do … but maybe we should go into the room because I really would like to sit down and there aren’t any free seats out here.

“We’ll go,” I say, and the steel in my voice surprises me.

The room looks like a crappy boardroom. Pleather chairs, worn carpet. The worst part is the smell. Disinfectant crossed with illness. We don’t speak; we don’t even make eye contact. LaoLao and Granny Dee are holding hands. Monica has her arms wrapped around herself and is rocking back and forth in her chair and Aaron is sitting slumped forward with his head in his hands. My body is getting heavier and heavier with each breath I take.

The door creaks open and my mom steps in, her face set in stone. She doesn’t look at anyone but me, and when she gets to me, she wraps her arms around me and holds me tight, like I’m trying to get away from her even though I’m hugging her right back.