Notes on an Execution(57)
*
Hazel stacked the plates as quietly as she could, then kicked the door open, depositing the detritus of their meal onto the floor of the hall. The air smelled different, outside that stifling room. Sterile and new. Hazel exhaled, a great relief flooding—she wedged a towel into the doorframe, let it creak heavily shut behind her.
It had never been more obvious or more embarrassing: Hazel was sheltered, privileged, ignorant by default. Luis often poked fun at her for it. You white girls always have it good. It seemed impossible that a concept as violent as that word—homicide—had latched on to Jenny, her own sister. Things like this did not happen in Burlington. Hazel had always felt confident in her vision of right and wrong, good versus evil. She had voted for Obama. She believed she would have been the kind of German to hide a family of Jews in her attic (though of course this theory had never been tested). For the first time, Hazel felt close to something that scared her. She wanted to be brave.
Hazel slid to the scratchy carpet in the musty dim hall, her head pounding fogged. She peered down the corridor of endless identical rooms, then pulled her cell phone from her pocket. The hotel’s Wi-Fi was slow—she waited anxious as the search engine buffered.
Saffron Singh appeared right away. A search for Saffron police New York produced an article from the Adirondack Daily Enterprise: ny state investigator promoted to bci captain. It was accompanied by a photo of a woman, standing rigid on a stage in a military-style cap. She looked competent, capable, her face delicate and angular. Hazel navigated to the state police website, where Saffron Singh’s office information appeared immediately, a phone number blinking beneath an email address.
She dialed.
The first ring felt like a dunk in a frigid pool—shocking, harsh. Hazel pulled the phone from her cheek, nearly hurling it in surprise at her own nerve, as a tinny whoosh of static came through the other end. A breath.
“Captain Singh.”
The adrenaline rushed as Hazel’s own idiocy pulsed, taunting.
“Hello?” the voice said. “Is anyone there?”
Hazel smashed her thumb down, ending the call. The silence that followed was interrupted only by her panting, jagged breath. She sat with the shock, praying that Saffron Singh would not look up her number or try to call her back. She was reacting to the gravity of the question Jenny had refused to pose—Hazel knew it would sit in her gut, a niggling suspicion she would not be able to answer or expel. She couldn’t consider it, in any complex way. It was too heinous, too unfathomable. And, most obviously, unprovable.
So she navigated back to her phone’s home screen, fingers quaking. She counted four breaths in, all cleaning supplies and vacuumed carpet. Luis answered after three rings—he’d been asleep. His voice was low, creaky. Hazel cried at the very soft of it.
*
The airport was fluttering busy. Jenny had dressed up for the flight—she’d coated her lashes in a careful layer of mascara, pulled on a pair of low-heeled boots. Back in the hotel room, Hazel had braced for an explosion, an acknowledgment of those ugly vulnerable truths, but Jenny had only hummed idly as she ran a brush through her tangled hair. Hazel hadn’t slept all night, Jenny’s light snores mingling with her accusation in the dank pit of Hazel’s mind.
They walked together to security.
“I guess this is it,” Jenny said, stopped in front of a store that sold luxury backpacks.
People flooded around, jostling.
“Don’t cry, Hazel.” Jenny rolled her eyes. “You’re starting to look like Mom.”
They hugged, and Hazel swayed. You are the strong sister, she wanted to say. You are the brave. But all that came out was a whisper, muffled into Jenny’s hair. I’m sorry. As they broke apart, a snag caught on Hazel’s sweater. A long moment as they both looked at it, the gem tangled in a loose thread: the ring.
“I guess that’s a sign.” Jenny laughed.
She twisted the ring from her finger, placed it in Hazel’s open palm.
“You don’t want to take it?” Hazel asked.
“Hang on to it for me, will you? It’s time to start new. I don’t need to carry any reminders.”
The ring was heavy, morose, sliding into Hazel’s pocket. She wondered how Jenny had worn it all those years, dragging such weight.
“Okay,” Jenny said. “See you on the other side.”
Hazel watched Jenny’s bobbing head disappear into the crowd—she had never, in her entire life, felt further from her sister. On the airplane, Jenny would order a Sprite with a wedge of lime, she’d flip through a tabloid magazine, folding down the corner of the horoscope page. Hazel would always know these things about Jenny—the details, the habits, the tiny gravitations. But details did not make a person. And in the days and weeks and months to follow, Jenny’s details would change. She’d live in a city Hazel had never seen, feel a southern sun that had never scalded Hazel’s skin. Jenny would create a new iteration of her half of the whole, shaping herself intentionally into something fresh. All the while, Hazel would be here. Here Hazel was, paralyzed in the shiny terminal, all linoleum floors and rushing bodies. Here Hazel was, burning with the familiar urge to follow, to keep up, and, eventually, to surpass. Here Hazel was, always the same.
The parking garage was midnight dark. In the concrete dim, Hazel examined the ring—an object from a different universe. Amethyst and brass. It did not belong here. Before starting for home, Hazel opened the glove compartment and let the ring drop unceremoniously in. A clink, a tumble. She would let it sit there, forgotten, until it was like it had never existed at all.