We Are Not Like Them(32)

It’s not enough though, this piddly washcloth. I would do anything—walk through fire, give any organ or my last dollar—if it would help. But nothing will. Yesterday the doctors told us she’s too weak to continue on dialysis, which wasn’t really working anyway. Her blood is essentially poisoning her day by day. They hinted to us that she only has weeks, rather than months. We’re all desperately hoping for time: one more Christmas. Just give us one more Christmas. Please, God, one more.

This early in the morning, it’s blissfully peaceful in the small hospital room. The TV perched in the corner is muted. I look up and catch my face on the screen. Yet another thirty-second promo for my live interview tonight with Tamara Dwyer, set to air at the top of the five-o’clock broadcast. The banner on the bottom of the screen reads: A MOTHER’S ANGUISH. The station’s been teasing the segment hard, and each time I see the ad, my jangly nerves ratchet one level higher because I’m still not even sure it’s going to happen now. I change the channel to CNN. The news about Justin’s death has been making the rounds of the cable networks. #JusticeForJustin began trending this morning on Twitter.

Beyond Gigi’s soft snores, I can hear laughter from the nurses’ station. Their trivial conversations waft down the hall to fill the rooms of those watching their loved ones waste away. This morning they’re twittering on about a new royal baby.

Yesterday, I overheard one of the nurses complain about the overflow of flowers in this room, as if that was really something to be irritated about. Granted, the bouquets from Gigi’s church friends are taking over the place, covering every available surface, their sickly sweet scent strong enough to stick to your clothes, but no one has the heart to throw them away. Even if Gigi doesn’t care much for flowers.

“They should be in a field somewhere, not in a vase,” she’s grumbled more than once.

I close the door a few inches to block out the noise. With the blinds drawn, it’s dark in her room, a liminal space. Hospitals are like casinos that way, free of the constraints of climate or time. There is only here and now. I try to embrace the calm, but it’s hard when Justin’s face appears on the screen. The headline reads: UNARMED TEENAGER SHOT BY POLICE IN PHILADELPHIA DIES. I watch the anchor’s lips move, the sad nod she exchanges with her coanchor, a Black man who just landed his own show on the network focused on race and politics. They’re probably trotting out the same grim statistics I’ve been researching: Philadelphia ranks fifth in the nation in Black homicide. Black kids are ten times more likely to die from gun violence than white kids. The police fatally shoot an average of one thousand people per year nationwide. And now another one: Justin, an innocent fourteen-year-old.

I’d just gotten home from work last night when I heard. Arriving within seconds of each other: a text from Scotty—Kid didn’t make it—and one from my source at the hospital who’d been sending me confidential updates. I slumped on the couch, precariously close to crying, as if Justin were my own brother. Maybe because it could have so easily been my own brother bleeding out on the ground.

My phone pinged with another text from Scotty not ten minutes after his first:

I hope the interview is still on. Find out. Make it happen.

It was obnoxious to intrude on the Dwyers at a time like this, but I needed to know if the interview was still happening, as crass as that was, which meant reaching out to Justin’s uncle, Tamara’s brother. Wes was serving as the family’s de facto media liaison, a role he was thrust into and clearly found overwhelming judging from his anxious tone whenever we spoke about the interview. I was trying to come up with the right words to text to Wes when my phone buzzed yet again. I assumed it was Scotty, but it was Wes’s number that came up, and the first words I saw as I frantically scanned were, I’m sorry. I was already strategizing as I read the entire message.

I’m sorry. I don’t think Tamara’s gonna be able to do the interview. She wants to—she’s just overwhelmed. You understand.

No, no, no… was all I could think as I fumbled to come up with a response that was polite and thoughtful and not overly desperate. If I could meet Wes face-to-face, I might be able to persuade him of how important this was. I remembered a time in Joplin when I’d convinced grieving parents to go on air hours after their daughter was murdered by her boyfriend. I was all of twenty-four years old, barely older than their daughter, and I felt dirty even as I pleaded my case. But they did it. And that interview led to a Kickstarter that raised $50k for domestic violence charities in the county. As I texted Wes, I reminded myself that as intrusive as it might seem, what I do can make a difference.

I do understand and I’m so sorry for your loss. The entire team at KYX is thinking of you. Is there a chance we could meet tomorrow morning to talk? Anywhere that works for you?

After pressing send, I checked my phone every thirty seconds for a response. I told myself that my agitation and eagerness were entirely noble, not self-serving at all. The interview was important for Tamara, and for the community, even if the exclusive would also be huge for my career and might help get me one step closer to the anchor chair.

When my phone buzzed an hour later, I almost pulled a muscle lunging for it.

Okay. Can you meet me at the funeral home, Morgan & Sons, on Girard? I have to be there at 11, so maybe right before… 10:30?

There’s an opening, a window, a crack I could squeeze through. I knew the reason they agreed to the interview in the first place was because of Pastor Price. The first time I spoke with Tamara, her voice was so soft I could barely hear her over the machines beeping and whirring in the background, the ones keeping Justin alive… at least until they didn’t anymore. I could picture her, one hand on her cell phone, the other holding on to her unconscious son.