We Are Not Like Them(15)

I remember my phone buzzed right before I answered the door. A text. From Kevin.

Meet me at our spot after work. It’s bad.

My nerves are so frayed, like guitar strings pulled too tight, it’s hard to get my fingers to cooperate. I finally type three words: I’ll be there.



* * *




With reporters practically barricading our street, I have to sneak out the back-patio door and trek through Mrs. J’s yard, where I step in a mound of fossilized poop on my way to meet an Uber three streets over. I gulp air from a crack in the window to escape the noxious mix of strawberry air freshener and dank weed in the car. The cold wind in my face does nothing to help the nausea or the nerves. I’m a mess by the time the guy drops me on Kelly Drive.

I trudge to “our spot”—a little azalea garden sandwiched in between the Victorian dollhouses of Boathouse Row and the looming burnt-orange columns of the art museum. In the summer, hot-pink flowers burst from every bush like confetti. Today the branches are bare, gray, and gnarled like an old woman’s hands. A flock of bored Canada geese that forgot it was time to migrate gnaw on bits of trash at the river’s edge.

Kevin chose to meet here so we could be alone, and sure enough, it’s empty—the temperature nosedived into the low forties this morning and it’s drizzling. As I walk along the river, I’m taunted by the happy memories we’ve had here. Like when Kevin dropped down on both knees to propose.

“I think you’re only supposed to be on one knee.” I laughed.

“I’m begging,” he’d replied, grinning like a fool.

Kevin didn’t notice there was a split second I hesitated, faltered before I gave him my hand. The proposal wasn’t a complete surprise, but the sudden panic that came with it was. This was the moment when everything in my life would change, and it was more terrifying than I thought it would be, the permanence, the “ever after,” all the other doors closing. I wasn’t used to getting what I wanted, and when it finally happened, this momentous thing, I didn’t know how to feel anything else other than confused fear. I never told anyone about that moment, not even Riley. And when I remember back to how we got engaged or when I retell the story, I gloss right over the part where I didn’t answer right away. In fact, I never answered at all. I just thrust out my hand for Kevin to slip on the delicate diamond ring and assumed he would think it was shaking from excitement and not from nerves. I falter again now, for a different reason this time, as I spot Kevin’s broad figure hunched over on the bench. I worked myself up on the way here, imagining what I’ll say. A child, Kevin. You killed a child. You shot a child. He was a boy, a kid.

But when I see his face, ashen and vacant, I can’t say any of those things. I can’t break down, can’t attack him. I have no choice except to be the strong one.

“Tell me everything,” I say as I ease myself down beside him.

Predictably, he doesn’t answer right away. I wait as patiently as I can, rubbing his back in a slow figure eight.

“Cameron and I are on indefinite administrative leave while they investigate.”

“Okay.” I’m not surprised. There has to be an investigation. But what else? I brace myself.

“The union rep told me this was going to be bad, Jen. Like they were going to make an example out of us. He said they had my back and blah, blah, blah, but he just ‘wanted to prepare me.’ And we have to get ready to ‘fight like hell.’ Fuck, Jen. This is not on me. This is on Cameron! He shouldn’t have shot. I mean, the kid didn’t match the description at all! And he just… he just fired on him. He kept saying, ‘The shot was good, the shot was good, right, Kevin?’?” Kevin slumps back on the hard bench.

After a few minutes, he starts talking again, and this time he’s grabbed my hand but still isn’t looking at me: he stares out at the fast-moving current.

“They said to prep you too—it’s all going to start soon: the protests, the media hounding us….”

I don’t have the heart to tell him about the reporters banging down our door. It’s already started.

“They’re even sending over a media rep to talk to us. I can’t believe this is happening.”

When Kevin speaks again, his voice is barely above a whisper. “Am I a monster, Jenny? Do you think I’m a monster?”

“Kevin, look at me.” When he turns to me, finally, he has such intense torment across his face, I summon every ounce of my conviction and speak clearly and slowly so that he knows I mean every single word.

“Kevin Murphy. You are not a monster. It sounds like this was an awful mistake. But you are not a monster. And I am going to be here with you every step of the way, and we are going to figure this out. Do you hear me? It’s all going to be okay.”

I’m saying it as much to myself as I am to him. But I’m not sure either of us believes it.





Chapter Three RILEY




If there’s a sound more magical than the Ebenezer AME church choir, I’ve never heard it. They’re opening with an exuberant medley of gospel, funk, and some Broadway-style riffs that feels more like a stadium concert than a church service. A sea of golden robes sways like flags in a brisk wind as the notes of the organ bounce off the stained-glass windows and course through me. The choir calls everyone to their feet, and I rise, limbs loose, eager to abandon myself to the invigorating rhythm. It’s a packed house today, with some three hundred people filling the cavernous space, the energy palpable. There’s nodding and swaying, spontaneous shouts and murmurs. You don’t need an invitation to hug a neighbor, burst into tears, or sing along as loudly and proudly as Mahalia Jackson herself.