The Removed(3)

Fifteen years earlier, on September 6, our son Ray-Ray rode his motorcycle to a mall where he evidently got into an altercation with two other guys. Someone fired a gun, and Ray-Ray was shot in the chest by a police officer. The police officer heard a gunshot and instinctively fired at the Indian kid. Afterward, when the police officer gave his statement to the press, he swore he thought Ray-Ray had been the one who shot the gun, but it had been a white kid. The officer was temporarily placed on administrative leave. After months of investigation, the police department declared that the officer’s behavior was justified in the shooting, so it never went to trial.

Everything changed in me after that.

How do you lose a child to gun violence and expect to return to a normal way of life? This was the question I struggled with the most. My son was a victim. The officer who shot him—now retired—lived in our town, and there were many sleepless nights when I wanted to drive to his house and kill him myself. I wanted to hit him as hard as I could, so that he could feel pain. Yes, yes, I have always known grief is difficult and that forgiveness takes many years. I still haven’t learned to completely forgive. I could only put it in the will of the Great Spirit. Ernest handled it better than me; he was able to get himself together and go back to work at the railroad after a month or so. A doctor prescribed Xanax for me, and then for a long time all I did was sleep. Every day I sat in a chair by the window.

My sister Irene came and stayed with us to help out, especially with Sonja and Edgar. In the midst of my depression, Irene dragged me to a Methodist church service one Sunday, where I heard the Doxology for the first time. After that I kept hearing the phrase in my head: “Praise God from whom all blessings flow,” over and over. When I got home, I wrote it down in my notebook. My therapist encouraged me to journal as much as possible. I once wrote, I no longer am afraid of dying. If I die in my sleep, I am fine with that. Another time I wrote, I feel so guilty for wanting to die when I have Sonja and Edgar who so desperately need me. I feel like a terrible person. But the Doxology kept returning to me. Thinking about it was so comforting, I found my journaling didn’t return to such a dark place.

Ernest kept his mind busy by focusing on Sonja and Edgar, being a good father. He took them out to movies, to parks, anything he could do to get them out of the house while I stayed in my chair, depressed. Only in the past few years have we finally started acknowledging the anniversary of Ray-Ray’s death. Now, every September 6 we build a small bonfire, and each of us shares a memory. Ernest and I decided it would be a good way to get the family together, because we were never all together anymore.

*

Around six in the evening, I heated up a leftover casserole for supper. Ernest and I ate on trays in front of the TV, watching a show on unsolved crimes. Ernest kept pointing the remote and adjusting the volume up and down.

“Maybe the foster kid can fix the TV,” he said.

“Well, there’s nothing wrong with the TV.”

“I think it’s the volume.”

“The volume is fine.”

“What do we do? Sit here and take it?”

I saw the frustration in his face, looking at the remote. He was obsessed with the colored buttons and their functions, the menus on the screen. The remote made him nervous. I thought of the years in the past when we had sat in the same chairs in front of the TV, eating supper contentedly. How different he looked now, giving such a confused gaze, a confirmation that things were declining quickly. While he continued to stare intently at the remote, I heard Sonja come in through the front door. She lived just down the road in a small house and had been coming over more often now that Ernest was getting worse.

He looked up at her when she stepped into the room, and for a moment I wondered whether he even recognized her. She walked over to him and put her hand along his back, rubbing in a light circular motion.

“How are you, Papa?”

“I don’t know. Goddamn remote.”

Her face grew solemn, as if she realized the severity of his illness. We were all speechless for a moment while I stared at her. Sonja, at thirty-one, strongly resembled my sister Irene when she was younger, though they were nothing alike. My sister had always been demure, reserved, conservative. Sonja stayed out late nights. I worried about her and the younger men she dated, some of whom attended the college in Quah. I wanted her to settle down; Ernest and I both did, but the more we brought it up, the more she withdrew from us.

“There’s a guy I want to meet,” she finally said.

“A new guy?” I said. “What does he do?”

“He’s a musician,” she said. “I’m going to see him play tonight at a bar near campus. Tonight I’m going to talk to him. I’m finally going to meet him. I’ve thought about it for weeks.”

“A musician? What’s his real job?”

“I haven’t even met him yet.”

“Well, how old is he?”

“I don’t know. Twenty-three?”

I didn’t say anything. I got up, and Sonja followed me, helping me take the dishes into the kitchen. I turned on the water in the sink and rinsed the plates, then handed them to Sonja to put in the dishwasher.

“Did you talk to Edgar about Ray-Ray’s anniversary next week?” she asked.

“I was busy helping Irene at the powwow all weekend, but yesterday I tried calling him, and he hasn’t called me back.”