Just Like Home(26)

Thankfully it’s only a few seconds before her mother notices her. “Vera! Thank goodness you’re home.” Then Daphne spreads her arms wide, the twisted-up dish towel swinging loose from one hand.

Vera knows her cue. The police officers part so she can race up the steps to where Daphne’s open arms are waiting. She hugs Daphne tight, breathes in that dishsoap and hairspray smell that means rules and disapproval and safety.

Her mother’s hands rest lightly on her shoulders.

After a few seconds, Vera allows her mother to push her away. She looks up and sees warm satisfaction in the pressed-thin line of Daphne’s mouth. Vera has accomplished the necessary task of showing strangers that she is loved, that she is cared for, that everything at home is just fine.

Her mother’s approval settles over her like a jacket that’s just a little too thin for the weather.

“What’s going on?” Vera asks softly, hoping that her mother will hear the question she isn’t asking.

But it isn’t her mother who answers. It is the short white fat police officer. He speaks to her in a slow voice, the kind of voice that is the preferred mode of communication for adults who think that kids are innocent and inattentive as a rule. “We were just in the neighborhood,” he says. “We’re asking everyone if they’ve seen this man.”

As he talks, the tall Black police officer crouches in front of Vera. He’s holding a photograph. Vera can feel the cool pressure of her mother’s hand between her shoulderblades, urging her steadily forward. Vera takes an obedient step toward the police officer and his photograph.

“Have you seen him anywhere?” The tall Black police officer has a high, nasal voice.

The man in the photo is an adult. He’s got brown hair and a brown moustache and he’s wearing a striped shirt in the photo. He looks like someone’s dad, or maybe someone’s math teacher.

Vera stares at the policeman, uncomprehending. She feels that she’s probably seen the man in the photo before, but the truth is that he looks like so many of the adult men she’s met in her life. He could be almost anyone. “I don’t think so?” Vera says, and the policeman’s face doesn’t tell her whether this was the right answer or the wrong one.

It doesn’t matter, because before the policeman can say anything else, Vera’s father is running up the front steps, his heavy boots landing hard enough to shake the porch. “Vera? Daphne? What’s the matter? What happened?” He’s breathless, sweating hard, his eyes wide, his hands running frantically through his brown curls. He touches Vera’s face right away, checking to be sure that she’s okay.

Daphne does not touch her own hair, because bothering a perm will make it limp, if she’s told Vera once she’s told her a hundred times.

“Nothing happened, Francis. Calm down.” Daphne’s eyes rest on Francis’s hand, on the place where it’s cupping Vera’s jaw. Her voice is tight with restrained impatience, the way it usually is before she sends Vera to bed early so that she and Vera’s father can have a ‘conversation’ in the living room. “Leave Vera alone. You’ll upset her.”

Vera doesn’t like this at all. She doesn’t like the police on her front porch, and she doesn’t like how her mother is looking at her father—like she wishes the police were holding a photo of him, instead of this other man.

Vera makes eye contact with her father to try to let him know that of course she isn’t upset at him for caring about her, that she can’t see why she would ever be upset about that. He gives her the tiny don’t-worry half-smile that he saves just for her, for the times when ice starts forming around the edge of her mother’s words.

She collapses into him then, finally dropping her math book, almost knocking her father over. But his arms are strong and he wraps her up tight, and she lets all her fear bleed out through the porch at her feet. “It’s okay, Vee,” he whispers into her hair. “Everything’s all right.” He does not push her away; he rests his hand on the top of her head and lets her cling to him like a younger version of herself would.

“There’s a man missing.” Vera’s mother replies to her father’s unvoiced question at a normal volume. The ice in her voice is thicker now. “These officers are—”

The short white policeman interrupts. “You’re Francis Crowder, is that right?”

Vera, who is still wrapped up tight in her father’s arms, feels him go very still. “That’s right,” he says softly. He gives Vera a squeeze, then straightens up, keeping his hands on her shoulders even after she turns around to face the police.

She leans back against him, the sure weight of him reminding her that nothing can go too wrong. Nothing very bad can happen. Not as long as he’s there.

“You work at Alan & Sons, don’t you?” The tall Black policeman stoops to pick up Vera’s dropped math textbook as he asks the question.

Vera’s father’s fingers twitch on her shoulders. “That’s right,” he says. “Cutting lumber.”

“Do you work with this man?” The photo emerges from behind the math book.

Vera’s father doesn’t hesitate. “Of course,” he says. “That’s Laurence Adamowicz, he works the register at the store. Why?” He pauses, and his fingers twitch on Vera’s shoulders again. “He in some kind of trouble?”